1.Paul Rudd, an alumnus of the University of Kansas, got permission from the Clueless director to wear his own KU baseball cap in a scene.
Rudd was asked to give the cap to the costume department so that he wouldn't lose it during filming. Tragically, he said that that was the "last [he] ever saw of it."
2.In the final episode of The Mandalorian Season 1, you can spot members of the fan group the 501st Legion in the background, dressed in the armor they custom-made themselves. One member describes the 501st in Disney Gallery: Star Wars: The Mandalorian as "the world's largest fan-based costuming group."
Some of the expert cosplayers who showed up to set had no idea they were about to help make a real-life Star Wars production. Series creator Jon Favreau said of the 501st, "They know exactly how to act like a Stormtrooper. ... We got so much energy from them. And they could not have been better, more professional, cooler."
3.Director Greta Gerwig told Vanity Fair that Laurie and Jo swapped vests throughout Little Women because they're each other's "androgynous other half."
Costume designer Jacqueline Durran told Harper's Bazaar, "What we were trying to achieve was to emphasize a back and forth of fluidity between the two of them in a way that they were just best friends, and they identified with each other, and they wanted to be the other person, and they shared clothes."
4.Game of Thrones costume designer Michele Clapton told Vox that the first time Sansa Stark wears her iconic needle necklace marks an important turning point for the character's perspective about herself.
Clapton said, "She’s always used a needle to explain what’s going on. Sansa has an epiphany when she wears the black crow dress. From that point onward, although she’s still a victim in many ways, in her head she’s not a victim anymore."
Sansa uses embroidery to communicate her alliances throughout the series. The most famous example is perhaps the gown she wears to her coronation as the Queen of the North, which is chock-full of details that nod to the different members of her family. For instance, the scales embroidered on the sleeves represent her mother's family, House Tully, which has a fish in its sigil.
5.In Bend It Like Beckham, Jess's jersey number is 7. Her hero, David Beckham, wore the same number while he played for Manchester United.
Meanwhile, Jess's best friend, Jules, wears a 9, just like her idol, American player Mia Hamm.
6.The luxurious costumes from The Devil Wears Prada were auctioned off for charity at star Meryl Streep's suggestion. One of the organizations that benefited from the auction was Dress for Success.
Anne Hathaway's boyfriend purchased one of her favorite items, a vintage green coat, for her. Hathaway told the Associated Press, "I was like, 'Okay, you're off the hook for my birthday.'"
7.Gabriele Binder, the costume designer behind The Queen's Gambit, told BuzzFeed that she dressed one of the elderly Russian men that Beth Harmon plays chess with in the final moments of the series in a cardigan worn by her original mentor, orphanage handyperson Mr. Shaibel.
Binder said, "So I don't think anybody will ever really see this, but I thought it was enough to have this emotional moment where Mr. Shaibel is there and maybe somebody will recognize it. ... We want to make this a full circle. When she is now sitting down with the old men and, for the first time after a very long time, starts playing chess not for competition but for fun. So, just playing chess, not for competition, just for the fun of it, we need Mr. Shaibel to come back in some way."
8.Matthew Gray Gubler told BuzzFeed that "something strange always happens" when he wears matching socks, so he tries to mismatch them as much as possible. Gubler shares this superstition with his Criminal Minds character, Spencer Reid.
Gubler told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Reid doesn't match his socks, and added, "Some directors have tried to get it in there, but it's been unsuccessful so far."
9.After Clare comes out as gay in the Season 1 finale of Derry Girls, her friends wear rainbow pins to support her throughout the second season. They even go to the trouble of swapping the pins between their school uniforms and their everyday clothes.
10.The luxurious emerald ring that Nick Young uses to propose to his girlfriend Rachel Chu in Crazy Rich Asians, as well as signal to her that his mother, Eleanor, approves of their relationship, is from the personal jewelry collection of Michelle Yeoh, who played Eleanor.
Costume designer Mary E. Vogt told the Knot that the ring was originally modeled off of the one John F. Kennedy used to propose to Jacqueline Bouvier. Director John M. Chu told Vulture, "We had a ring designed already, and our mock-up looked so shitty that Michelle was like, 'That cannot be the ring I wear.' I’m like, 'I know, I know. I’m so embarrassed by it, but we don’t have the money.' She’s like, 'I have a better ring than that.'" Yeoh described the significance of the emerald ring to the Knot, saying, "It was very important for it to be real. And Eleanor was a character who knew what she wore had to be flawless."
Yeoh wore the instantly iconic ring to the 2019 Golden Globes.
11.Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner, the Oscar-winning costume designers behind drag classic The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, wanted to dress one of the leads in a dress made out of credit cards. But according to the Canberra Times, "All the usual sources of credit cards — American Express, major banks, even BP service stations — didn't want a bar of it." So they pivoted and made the dress out of flip-flops instead, for a grand total of about 7 bucks.
Naturally, when Gardiner attended the Oscars ceremony where she and Chappel won the top prize, she wore a dress constructed from 254 golden American Express cards, "cards that the company was suddenly only too willing to dole out for the occasion."
12.Normal People costume designer Lorna Marie Mugan told Refinery29 that Marianne's and Connell's costumes in their final scene together were meant to evoke the gray school uniforms they wore when their relationship began.
Mugan said, "We came full circle. When we shot the last scene, we wanted to be really conscious of the very beginning when we first saw Marianne and Connell together. ... That was the key: to bring it back to the beginning."
13.Donna Zakowska, the costume designer behind The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, told Parade that she dresses Midge in pink to reflect the character's optimistic outlook.
Zakowska said, "The first costume I designed for the show was Midge’s pink coat in the pilot episode. It became her signature shade because, to me, it referred to the rose-colored glasses through which Midge sees the world."
14.And finally: The palettes of T’Challa, Okoye, and Nakia's costumes in Black Panther reflect the colors present on the Pan-African flag.
The Pan-African flag was adopted by the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1920 under the direction of its leader, Marcus Garvey. Historian Robert Hill told NPR, "Everybody immediately seeing that flag would recognize that this is a manifestation of Black aspirations, Black resistance to oppression."
