Debra McGuire

Debra McGuire (0:01)

It's a two-dimensional surface. You know, what we're looking at is a television set, and it's like a painting. So what makes a painting interesting? Well, it's color, form, shape, light. And I thought, okay, I am going to give every character their own color field, their own palette.

SPEAKER_2 (0:24)

From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman.

On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on. On this episode, a conversation with Debra McGuire about her surprising career and about when art collides with business.

Debra McGuire (0:49)

I knew I was running a business when I couldn't collect money and I was like, oh.

Debbie Millman (0:58)

Debra McGuire has spent her life moving between worlds, painting, jewelry, fashion, business, film and television, following an instinct for character, color, material and story wherever it has taken her. Her work as a costume designer includes all 10 seasons of Friends, Freaks and Geeks, New Girl and The Morning Show, as well as films including Anchorman and one of my all-time favorites, Idiocracy.

Along the way, she has built companies, created some of the most recognizable costumes in popular culture, and developed enduring creative relationships across decades of work. Her new book, Dressing the Story, looks back at that remarkable journey through a series of conversations about creativity, collaboration, reinvention, and the art of helping a character become visible. Debra McGuire, welcome to Design Matters.

Debra McGuire (1:58)

Thank you. So happy to be here.

Debbie Millman (2:00)

Debra, is it true that when you were four years old, your mother found you propped up on a bathroom sink trying to give yourself a perm?

Debra McGuire (2:08)

It's true.

Debbie Millman (2:10)

So tell us, tell us this, Gary, please.

Debra McGuire (2:13)

Well, I think I've always been interested in transformation.

I don't know. I don't know how I even knew that it was in the bathroom and what it did. I don't remember. I just remember being in the sink and trying to put these curlers and the smell was so intense that it kind of freaked me out. And my mom walked in and screamed and she was like, afterwards, she was like, you know, she did a pretty good job. So I think she finished the job for me. But I always have been precocious and trying to do things that have to do with physicality and beauty and things like that.

Debbie Millman (3:03)

Your new book, Dressing the Story, exists partly because Jim Stark, a dear friend you met when you were 13, began asking you questions. And at the time, you had already spent nine months writing another book, 100 stories about creativity and synchronicity, when Jim suggested turning the costume design material into a conversation. Once someone who had known you for more than 60 years began interviewing you, what did you discover about your own life that had not surfaced in the previous manuscript?

Debra McGuire (3:37)

You know, it's so interesting whenever somebody else comes in, in a relationship, and it's not just you and your ideas, you're forced to think about things in ways that you have never really thought about them before, which was certainly the case with Jim.

And we had an interesting thing happen a couple years ago, because Jim's films are not Hollywood films, they're independent films that are very successful all over the world. He's won Academy Awards in different countries.

But they're lower budget, they have less background. And I was about to go to do a film, May Day, which is out right now, which was a $200 million movie. And it was huge. And when I was in Budapest, and I was going to be shooting these scenes where we had 3,000 background in 1987 period costumes, and 1,200 Russian soldiers that we built all the uniforms for in Spain. And I kept thinking, oh, Jim would really love this. And it was Kenneth Branagh and Ryan Reynolds. And I thought this would be great for him to see since his films only have like 40 background at the most. And he jumped on a plane and came and found it fascinating. And I think it just started stimulating questions about, because it certainly in terms of the wardrobe, I don't know how much he really thought about it in terms of his films. So it kind of opened up a new world for him of questions and ideas that he hadn't thought about before. And then in doing the process, I learned so much more about my own process by having to verbalize it.