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You can tell a lot about a person by their shoes. In Pain Hustlers, Emily Blunt’s Liza Drake undergoes a style transformation when she lands a job at a struggling pharmaceutical start-up to pay her daughter’s steep medical bills. Almost overnight, she trades in her white sneakers and jeans for classic heels and jewel-toned dresses as Zanna Therapeutics’ most gifted pharma sales rep. As the company’s fortunes rise, so do Liza’s; but when she becomes entangled in a dangerous racketeering scheme, she comes to see that the American dream comes at a price — and it’s one she may not be willing to pay.

Pain Hustlers may offer a window into the excess in an unregulated pharmaceutical industry, but at its core, it’s a human story about a woman forging a new path for herself, her mother, and her daughter. “First and foremost, it’s a story of three generations of smart women struggling to make a better life for themselves,” producer Lawrence Grey told Netflix. 

In the film, that struggle is illustrated through Liza’s wardrobe, which tracks her evolution from living in her sister’s garage into a boardroom exec. But even as her clothing changes, Liza’s motivations for moving up in the pharma world remain consistent: You’ll never see her without her gold “Phoebe” nameplate necklace, as she works to ensure her daughter’s future. “I always thought this movie was ultimately a kind of parable of the American dream and what happens when it goes badly wrong,” director David Yates told Netflix. 

Now, let’s take a walk through Liza’s closet. 

Brian Douglas/Netflix

Liza’s working class roots   

When you first meet Liza, she’s living out of her sister’s garage and working as a dancer to support her daughter. During this stage, we see her wearing a mix of more simple — yet colorful — attire, like her pink sweatshirt and shimmery eye makeup. When she goes to Zanna in search of a job, she arrives at her interview in a yellow dress with ruffled sleeves. Liza also sports a lot of jeans and T-shirts in this era, often paired with white sneakers. In fact, she makes her first sale as a Zanna rep in a similarly casual ensemble when she overhears a patient speaking to Dr. Lydell (Brian d’Arcy James) about the negative side effects of his current medication. Seeing an opportunity, Liza makes her move, asking Lydell within the patient’s earshot, “Why is nobody willing to prescribe a better drug?” And just like that, she lands her first client.

“My methodology was I bought a lot of used clothes,” costume designer Colleen Atwood told Netflix. “For my first fitting with Emily in New York, I took what I had and then I went to, essentially, the equivalent of a T.J. Maxx or a Ross Dress for Less, where you could get clothes that were new but really affordable.” The four-time Academy Award winner said that she then aged each item by rinsing it through, “so it looks kind of grubby, like it had been washed a hundred times.” 

Business attire, but make it quirky

As Liza slowly gains some success as a Zanna rep, her wardrobe begins to evolve, but she maintains her splash of color and sparkle — case in point: that bejeweled white blazer. In her early days trying to find clients, Liza leans toward nicer dresses and pantsuits, though always with a pop of color, sometimes green, red, or yellow. 

“It’s definitely not sophisticated dressing, but well-dressed with her quirky taste in the middle of it,” said Atwood. “When she got into the world and she noticed the people in pharma around her wearing suits — I call it TV presenter clothes — then she gravitated in that direction, but still with her color sense.” Atwood added that even as Liza’s style develops, certain elements remained consistent. “She would still gravitate toward the same things and she likes the same kind of fashion, just maybe the dress that came from the nicer store, as opposed to the one from the discount store.” 

Brian Douglas/Netflix

Brian Douglas/Netflix

Owning the market — and the runway

Liza goes on to build a salesforce of reps, giving opportunities to people that society may have overlooked — including her own mother. The goal? To make Lonafen the next big drug on the market. Liza leads the team to success, and Zanna “owns” the market for cancer pain. She becomes the company’s vice president of marketing, and her wardrobe reflects her newfound status. Liza is now wearing more form-fitting dresses and pantsuits, as well as pencil skirts and tweed jackets. She’s also pulling her hair back in sleek ponytails. “As we got into that world, the edges, which were pretty soft before, got harder, more geometric, almost like the clothes became a kind of armor for her, much more structured,” said Atwood. “More like menswear, less women’s — more covered up, and wanting to present as a COO as opposed to a salesperson.”

Brian Douglas/Netflix

Liza on trial 

It doesn’t take long for Zanna’s illegal sales practices to catch the eye of law enforcement, and a medical emergency for Phoebe (Chloe Coleman) pushes Liza to go to the authorities. When she first confesses to lawyers about her part in Zanna’s corrupt speaker program, she’s dressed in all black with her hair in a tight, sleek bun. She’s not wearing any jewelry besides her “Phoebe” necklace. Later, when she’s on trial, she appears in sophisticated attire, wearing a white collared blouse with a black vest and black pants. “Certainly in a business or a formal atmosphere like a courtroom, I really wanted her to look like she’d taken control of her life and she owned what she wore, and it was where she was going but not where she’d been before. She was moving forward,” said Atwood. At this stage, Liza has both fully embraced and become more established in her new lifestyle. 

New beginnings

After Liza serves her 15 months in prison, she comes full circle, starting a business with her mother called Drake Natural Skincare. Along with Phoebe and some of the former Zanna reps, the pair sell their products at a local farmer’s market. In this new life, Liza is back to a colorful and more simple wardrobe. At the end of the film, you’ll see Liza in a green dress with ruffled sleeves and her white sneakers. And of course, she’s still wearing her “Phoebe” necklace. Some things really never change.

You can check out Liza’s style transformation in the supercut above.