For ‘Poker Face,’ Natasha Lyonne Embraced a Stevie Nicks-Inspired Wardrobe

What would a casino worker on the run (who is also an  uncanny human lie detector) wear? Answering this question for Poker Face, a murder-of-the-week series on Peacock, was a fun challenge for costume designer Trayce Gigi Field and actor Natasha Lyonne. Together, the two fleshed out the wardrobe of Lyonne’s freewheeling character Charlie Cale, who is the beating heart of the show, created by Rian Johnson. The critically-acclaimed program combines Law and Order-style episodic storytelling with high antics and a packed cast of guest stars, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who plays a white collar criminal on house arrest), Chloë Sevigny (a has-been rock star), Stephanie Hsu (a kleptomaniac), and others. 

, A retro, Southwestern aesthetic pulses throughout the first season, as Charlie travels from state-to-state and crisis-to-crisis. To achieve the throwback vibe (which makes sense for a show heavily inspired by the ’70s hit Columbo), Lyonne dresses in what Field describes as  “Stevie Nicks from the late ’70s” garb. Field then rounded things out with “clothes that [Charlie] could’ve gotten at a thrift store wherever she’s living at the time,” she says. 

Field, whose past credits include The Comeback Kid, 2 Broke Girls, and Dead to Me, says she became involved with the breakthrough hit after previously working with Lyonne on a Netflilx special. She was asked to showcase a moodboard to Johnson and other key members of the show’s production. What Field presented was both remarkably fleshed out and exactly what Johnson wanted. “That brown YSL jacket that Charlie wears throughout the series?” Field recalls. “That was on my original moodboard.” Field justified such a knockout piece of luxury wear for a cash-strapped and unpretentious character like Charlie with tidbits from her backstory: “The reason she got in trouble in the first place was she was out there grifting [at casinos]. I figured she took some of the money she made and bought some awesome staples, and the YSL jacket was one of those pieces.” 

Another challenge came through the show’s ever-changing locales and characters—each episode features, essentially, a fresh slate of actors. “I had to basically think of them as ten mini movies,” Field says of the unique experience. “It was not easy. But I want to rise to the challenge. I didn’t sleep a lot!”