Tuesday, November 10, 2020
Maya Rudolph's White Kamala Harris Pantsuit on SNL
POPSUGAR Fashion: Kamala Harris walked on stage in Wilmington, DE, to address the nation as vice president-elect around 8:30 p.m. ET. In that moment, the Saturday Night Live cast and crew had just began dress rehearsal for the show, which starts promptly at 11:30 p.m. ET. The mood? Intense, especially for the costume department, which includes producer and costume designer Tom Broecker and wardrobe supervisor Dale Richards, who was in charge of making the outfit actor Maya Rudolph would wear as Harris for the cold open.
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I find it quite interesting how the Saturday Night Live team wanted to get the exact look of Kamala Harris for their skit. I did not think it was that necessary to go down into that much detail. I have always understood that in comedy, the clothing isn’t always necessary to imitate someone, it just had to sound like them and you had to mimic all the funny things they said. I would be curious to know why they wanted to put this level of detail into her costume. This seems almost unnecessary for a show like Saturday Night Live. Maybe they wanted to be as ‘realistic as possible’ but if they wanted realism then most of the Saturday Night Live sketches about politics would not be as good as they are. I do find their process very commendable and I am amazed at how quickly they can put together a costume of that quality with only the materials in their workshop.
The dedication of the Saturday Night Live team never fails to amaze me. Watching this speech live and then SNL a little over an hour later was actually a really surreal moment seeing Maya Rudolph wearing the exact same outfit the Kamala Harris had on earlier that evening. I was honestly convinced that someone on the Biden Harris team had sent them a picture earlier to give them a head start, but the fact that they just started on it as soon as she took the stage is so much better. I loved seeing Harris in her suffragette white suit, and honestly the SNL skit that followed would not have been effective at all without it. Harris’ look is always on point and to do an impression of her justice, you have to get it exactly right, and that is what the SNL wardrobe team did. I wonder how much pre planning went into this skit to begin with, because even the dialogue seemed to be written in between the time Biden and Harris took the stage and SNL started. It is really impressive that their whole team has the confidence and the skill to wait until 85 minutes before they go on to start working on their cold open.
I've had the pleasure of seeing SNL in person before and it truly is an extraordinary feat that they pull off on a weekly basis. The director of SNL's daughter also goes to CMU and on the day of the election, I was in a car with her and i turned around and asked her if they would change the skit the day of to fit the moment. To that she responded that they would change the skit ten minutes before the show airs if need be- its whatever Lorne wants. Once I watched the amazing speech that Kamala and Joe gave, i knew that they were going to find some way to convey that onto SNL. I think that the pantsuit is something that they're able to recreate quickly, I thought that her wearing the color of a suffragette wasn't completely a surprise and they were probably able to find it pretty quickly. On another note, I think that this is a new age for SNL- I really looked to it for comedy during the trump era and I wonder how that will shift now.
Okay, I was reading stuff ALL OVER my twitter about this pantsuit. I have never really been a huge SNL fan, so I was not following what was going on with all this hype at the time, but holy moly they re-created an entire pantsuit in less than two hours???? The dedication of this costume team is like, next level. There are so many shortcuts they could have taken, but they had a goal to make a near identical look and they stuck to it. They must have some very skilled tailors and wardrobe staff working, because I could not imagine doing such a major task in so little time. I think this speaks to the relevancy of SNL for modern culture and politics, and how fluid the show is in terms of staying caught up. It clearly takes a lot of people to keep the gears moving at the level of expectation they have for their production, and boy do they deliver.
When I watched the SNL Cold Open and Maya Rudolph looked like she was wearing the exact suit that Kamala Harris had on, I was in complete awe. In the moment I did not know how the wardrobe team executed this impressive costuming, but I knew no matter what that it had relied on hard work from a very dedicated wardrobe team. After reading this article it is even more impressive that the wardrobe team made Rudolph’s costume from scratch in less than an hour and a half. I had seen a lot about this on Twitter so it was really cool to actually read about the process. I had definitely assumed that SNL had someone in Harris’s camp inform them beforehand about what she would be wearing, but it is wildly impressive that that was not the case. Good on SNL’s wardrobe team for a job really well done.
This sketch shows that when designers are supported and funded, they can do anything. The triangle of time=money=quality means that with less than 2 hours and a goal of high quality, the cost must have been pretty high. Putting three people on one costume means they really did want to dedicate a lot of resources to get this look right. Dang did they do a good job with that.
The quality on SNL is usually top notch and the turn around time on the whole process is impressive enough. I hope they continue to knock it out of the park going forward.
I saw pictures of this on social media this week and was absolutely astounded at the level of detail they were able to recreate for SNL- and in 2 hours?? Insane. I can’t even begin to imagine the thrill of pulling that off. And the environment and process to make it? Unmatched in my opinion. There are so many constraints; stores are closed, time is limited. But they did pull it off. The irony of the suit being originally bought for a skit with Melania Trump is funny to me, even though they never actually used the suit for that skit. I think the clothes and costumes, especially for SNL, are so important and beautifully done. There is something spectacular about seeing the details of someone’s outfits done right- I think it adds to the realistic-ness of the whole thing. I loved seeing this costume, and can’t wait to see what SNL continues to make in the costume department.
I remember hearing the election updates flying left and right last week and actually wondering how the SNL writers were doing, because any content they created before Saturday itself would end up being wildly out of date due to the fast pace of events and the average American being much more closely tuned in to the news than normal. I think this article kind of encapsulates that issue, and the impressive way they managed to parody an event from less than two hours before. I don’t watch SNL regularly, but they’ve been brought up on this page many times for the insane speed they manage to construct elements for their performances each week, both scenic and now costumes. The fact that this outfit was essentially hand-made in a little over an hour is a little terrifying and very impressive, and demonstrates the dedication to accuracy in parody that SNL is famous for.
I love it when the muggles get a glimpse of the world behind the curtain on Saturday Night Live. The job that the costume team at SNL did that night of Biden and Harris’ acceptance speech was spot on. It really sounds like they had a gameplan to recreate Kamala’s outfit in record time for the show to go live that night. While this is not a scenario that every theatre has to go through in their life, however, nobody in the live theatre industry is a stranger to working fast and trying to pull off the seemingly impossible. Saturday Night Live also has the benefit of being a highly produced network television show, which also means that their costume storage is most likely quite extensive. Initially, I thought they had just pulled the white suit jacket and blouse what I did not realize was that this jacket and blouse were significantly altered prior to the show. That just shows off the (unsurprising) sheer amount of dedication and talent the costume department at SNL possesses.
This is so impressive! I can’t imagine how stressful the 8:30 to 11:30 time constraint must have been. It’s even more insane that they could only work with their stock because all the stores were closed. What was their plan if nothing really worked? Would they settle for something that looked similar or go with a completely different look so it wouldn’t be compared? Oh how I would’ve loved to witness the chaos and artistry that was backstage.I totally get the point about how a costume can define a character. Broecker is right, the small touches make her into a real person rather than someone playing a politician. I also think it was amazing for them to spend so much attention to detail because this is the sketch that introduces the country to the first woman of color vice president elect. This is a huge moment for the country and I’m sure that it’s a piece of media that people will look back on.
This is real theatre at its most intense and most rewarding. There is no where else you can work and no other industry you can work that can pull something like this off. The live start time with live recording, and all being done moments after a first-time live event. It is very impressive and shows great dedication to the craft and the art. I am impressed that they managed to pull of a total costume creation that fit amazingly in 80 minutes. I am even more impressed that after all that exhaustive work, they remembered just in time that small detail and rushed to get that on. I think it is often overlooked how important those small details are. Everything is so vital to what is being done that a small pin is something worth putting that rush of energy into and especially so for a show with commentary on such an important historical event. This is also often what we let get to us. Often, we think while we create something that a small detail will go overlooked by the audience and so it doesn’t matter. The reality is that the audience wont consciously notice something like that but they will subconsciously notice an error or that pin missing and it will feel off. It must be exactly right in order for it to come across the way it is intended because we do notice. Today people may not even realize for a few days or weeks but eventually you will see that SNL messed up her costume on social media because someone will notice it while watching it again and comment on it. It is important.
After seeing Kamala Harris in person, in the flesh, this past week: I can confirm she is not only poised, elegant, and well spoken: she is stunning and extremely well dressed. I made sure to pay close attention to her outfit, which was a pantsuit and dazzling statement necklace, paired with her signature side parted blowout hairstyle. I think Maya Rudolph makes a perfect Kamala in SNL. It was interesting learning that Maya’s suit was actually completely constructed by the Saturday Night Live team, rather than purchasing something new to replicate Kamala’s suit look. “All these minor details are extremely important to Broecker and his team, who confirmed that Harris's small touches with her clothing, like her meaningful jewelry or her Converse, define her as a real person.” It is true: the details are everything. I would love to see what a day in the life of an SNL costumer looks like!
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