In Ginny & Georgia Season 3, the only thing our so-called Mayoress Murderess is guilty of serving is a look.
Well, that’s at least according to the legions of in-world TikTokers following along with Georgia’s (Brianne Howey) murder trial throughout the season.
They’re not far off: showing up to court in fierce, fashion-forward ensembles is all part of her courtroom strategy. It is Georgia, after all — a person who leaves no stone unturned when it comes to how she’s perceived.
“As we know, Georgia loves wearing masks. She loves playing the part,” Howey tells Tudum from the Toronto set of the series, speaking on the final day of filming the trial scenes. “The clothes are telling their own story, which has been really fun.”
Creator Sarah Lampert and showrunner Sarah Glinski took inspiration from a few key figures for Georgia’s showstopping (and intentionally distracting) numbers: Paige DeSorbo from the Bravo reality series Summer House, Instagrammer Courtney Vucekovich (“She’s a little fashion plate” says Lampert), and Anna Delvey, of course. “Like, God bless. She looked great,” says the creator.
Georgia truly is a chameleon, someone who adapts to survive, so it’s natural that Glinski describes the character’s wardrobe, especially in court, as her camouflage armor. The clothes are an armor to help her feel confident — and get people talking, basically changing the narrative. “So they’re talking about her and how great she looks, versus the actual trial,” says Glinski.
Early on, Georgia’s lawyer instructs her to dress as a relatable everywoman. But Georgia is certainly not an everywoman. Nor is that the strategy that’s going to win her the trial. “So she’s going to do it her way, and right from the beginning, that’s a big part of her plan,” says the showrunner.
Below, we outline Georgia’s signature courtroom looks, which costume designer Shelley Mansall, hair department head Stacie Merriman, and makeup department head Leslie Sebert carefully mapped to correspond to the highs and lows of her trial.
Georgia was arrested on her wedding night, so why not play the part of the innocent bride? She refuses to wear the conservative outfit her husband, Paul (Scott Porter), brings for her first day in court — during which the judge will decide if she’s allowed to go home on house arrest. “No, she’s going to show up in her wedding dress, that was brilliant,” says Mansell. “That is such a display of Georgia’s character and always being one step ahead.” Howey puts it this way: Georgia enters the courtroom “pretending to be very obviously innocent, demure, cutesy. And we wanted the clothes to read as strong, innocent, mom, wife, Wellsbury.” Mission accomplished.
But in order to complete the look, Georgia puts her survival skills to the test and works with what she’s got on hand in jail. She grabs a toilet paper roll to curl her hair and give it some volume. A red candy and a pencil from a clerk’s desk serve to tint her lips and line her eyes. “She’s such a genius,” says Merriman. “I watched videos, and it’s a thing, women do do this [with the toilet paper roll].” But, Merriman adds, you’d have to leave the roll in overnight in real life. (A bit of movie magic here.) But it’s all worth it because “the next time she shows up, it's like, boom, yes, Georgia’s back,” says the hair designer.
While filming, Sebert put gloss on the candy to make it stick to Howey’s lips, and put some eye makeup pencil on the actor’s finger to substitute for a real pencil. “Don’t do it at home with [a real] pencil,” the makeup designer advises. “We don’t want to put that on our eyes.” She embellished everything to make it fabulous for a TV show, but “it was really fun and worked perfectly.” And it was successful, because Georgia got to go home! Ankle monitor and all.
Georgia knows how to work a room — and she knows that she needs to make an impression on the jurors who will decide her fate. So she shows up in a conservative black-and-white dress, with statement red accents on her thick headband and lips. Her look is so striking that one of the jurors actually shows up with a similar red headband once the trial begins. “I love that part,” says Howey. “It shows the effect that Georgia has on these people.”
The team originally had three different headband options, but they went with the one that allowed Georgia’s hair to look straight and classic with a bit of a teased bump behind the headband. “Like classic ’60s Jackie O,” says Merriman. Georgia’s especially bold eyeliner is also a throwback to the former First Lady and fashion icon. “She has that black liner in most of her looks, but for this one it’s a little bit stronger and more defined,” adds Sebert.
For the first day of her trial, “Georgia enters confident, with a bang,” says Mansell. Wearing a hot pink Generation Love suit, Georgia is tailored from head to toe. With strong shoulders, a nipped-in waist, long pants, matching shoes, and an elegant black bow to tie her hair — and overall look — together, Georgia is ready to fight.
Mansell wanted to show an arc of color with Georgia’s looks, and pink was definitely a significant weapon in her arsenal. Especially in this first suit, “she is a column of strong color,” says Mansell, “and it was a power move — no question about that.” Howey echoes that “there’s a lot of pink when we’re public-facing.”
In Georgia’s next court appearance, she wears a bold red dress with a black bow on the front — a nod to the black bow that previously tied her hair back. Georgia puts her own twist on conservative style, with shorter hemlines and open necklines. “There’s just this sexiness in her dressing, and she’s always used that to her power,” says Mansell.
Midway through the season, Georgia is at rock bottom. Social workers have taken away her children, Ginny (Antonia Gentry) and Austin (Diesel La Torraca), her husband has left her, and she’s even called a therapist for immediate support. To put it bluntly, she’s feeling blue. “Everyone has abandoned Georgia, and she’s now alone,” says Howey. “She can’t pull it together in quite the same way.”
At home and in jail this season, Georgia enters her blue period, as a color story and otherwise. “We see Georgia in a really, really dark place, with baggy dark clothing, no makeup — she’s given up,” says Mansell. “You definitely see a journey and the clothing reflects what’s going on, whether it be in the courtroom or at home.”
So it’s significant that after Episode 5, we see Georgia leaning into the demure in court. We see her in a soft pink dress with bell sleeves and less pronounced color, echoing the dip in her energy and independence. “She’s leaning into gaining sympathy,” says Mansell. She then wears a telling navy blue polka dot dress. It’s a similar silhouette to her previous dresses, but, Mansell explains, “We’re going into a bit more of a somber vibe.” This isn’t the Georgia we the viewers are used to.
Once Georgia convinces Paul to come back to court, and she feels like she’s on the up-and-up again, she returns to her punchy personality and pink comfort color in a Balmain dress. “This was an opportunity to shift the tone of the trial,” says Mansell. It’s a little softer than the bold pink suit, a brighter pink than the blush dress, and is still a little conservative with the bouclé and the buttons. “It made her very appealing to the jury.”
By Georgia’s final day in court, everything’s at stake. As her son Austin takes the stand, she’s resigned to the reality that she has nowhere left to run and that she’s (likely) going to prison. So, taking accountability, she shows up as her authentic self, wearing a stunning salmon pink suit by Veronica Beard, over a Zara knit tank with gold piping. “We wanted to tie it all up in a bow, so to speak,” says Mansell.
The statement suit, with its long line of color, has a luxe texture, with a bit more sheen than the looks that came before. “We didn’t want her to come across as too cocky, too confident, too anything, so it was a happy medium,” says the costume designer.
To Georgia’s surprise, her children manipulated the trial so she’d go free. But she leaves the trial a changed woman, ready to go to therapy and prevent her kids from recreating her actions. “By the end of this,” says Howey, “we are authentic Barbie.”
Relive Georgia’s courtroom wardrobe in Ginny & Georgia Season 3, now streaming on Netflix.
