The ‘Hacks’ Costumes Aren’t Clowning Around — Unless, Of Course, They Are

Costume designer Kathleen Felix-Hager tells IndieWire about designing some amazing "Amazing Race" clown suits and bringing Deborah (Jean Smart) and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) to the next phase of their careers.

[Editor’s Note: This story contains spoilers for Episodes 4 and 5 of “Hacks” Season 5.] 

“Hacks” may be barreling towards its series finale faster than a wheel of cheese rolling down a hill in an Amazing Race” challenge. But that doesn’t mean the HBO Max series isn’t still stretching new visual comedy muscles. Costume designer Kathleen Felix-Hager has been with the show since its first season, during the height of COVID shooting. Now, in Season 5, she’s helping the cast travel across the world and even back in time. 

For someone with a gag order that prevents her from performing in public, Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) has a lot going on. In Episode 5, the advent (finally) of a Celebrity Amazing Race prompts her daughter, DJ (Kaitlin Olsen), to strongarm Deborah into participating in the reality show. They are eliminated almost immediately, and in the most brutal fashion that the writers on “Hacks” can devise: an extended failed attempt to perform a clown dance in full makeup and getup. 

“Our director [on that episode], who’s also one of our first ADs and producers, Jeff Rosenberg, is a complete and avid ‘Amazing Race’ aficionado. So to get it right for him was really important,” Felix-Hager told IndieWire. “We had a lot of research about how to make it look like the real show and a lot of support. The actual crew that follows the contestants was the actual people who film it, but that episode kept getting punted. It took months and months to film.” 

Such is the way when a show cross-boards and needs to shoot multiple episodes at once. But it also allowed Felix-Hager to perfect Smart’s and Olsen’s clown costumes. “We had so many clown costumes. Those were complete originals,” Felix-Hager said. “I have the original sketch, and that was vintage fabric, but we needed more of it, so we ended up having the fabric printed. Hargate Costumes physically constructed them for me.” 

While “The Amazing Race” challenges allowed Felix-Hager to have fun with heightened absurdity, she also worked hard to make the original costumes for Deborah’s sitcom, “Who’s Making Dinner?,” as grounded as possible. In Episode 4, we finally get to see this large piece of Deborah lore, both in flashbacks to that set with her then-husband Frank (George Kareman) and as museum pieces honored in a Paley Center exhibit on the show. 

“It was a very involved process,” Felix-Hager said. “It was very fun to explore all those things with the characters — Deborah’s character is in drag, she’s got this jumpsuit and an apron.  I was able to really celebrate the costumes and really speak to the era of ‘70s, but not make a jokey ‘70s.”  

The costume department was committed to as immersive a visual look for Deborah’s memories of “Who’s Making Dinner” as possible. “There was a tiny little shot where we see Frank win his Emmy, from the perspective of Deborah looking at the stage. But because we try to make the whole world complete, we dressed like 50 extras in period formal wear. You only saw the back of their heads, but we spent a lot of time with each person to try to make that feel like it was the Emmys in 1975,” Felix-Hager said. 

The thorough worldbuilding through costume also really helped the set team stage for the “Who’s Making Dinner?” exhibit. “ Those blown-up photographs that you see at the Paley Center are also something I’m really proud of. They just look really authentic and very true to the time. So all the departments worked really hard to make that look as specific to the time as possible,” Felix-Hager said. 

Still, one of the joys of “Hacks” for Felix-Hager isn’t a specific moment in time but getting to slowly progress the characters’ styles as they grow and change, particularly Ava (Hannah Einbinder). Especially compared with where the writer started in Season 1, Ava’s style has transformed into something confident, lightly influenced by Deborah, and professional. 

“I’ve been going through my old photos, looking at older episodes, and her wardrobe is so very young and a little juvenile in Season 1. She had all these printed t-shirts and little bomber jackets, these jerseys. She’s really gotten a more sophisticated wardrobe by the time we meet her in Season 5,” Felix-Hager said. “ We see her wear these ties with her shirts, this leather jacket. The way she’s put together, it’s this very strong, confident look that I feel really speaks to who she’s become for us.” 

According to Felix-Hager, who Ava has become in her style and sensibility, isn’t that far off from the real female showrunners of “Hacks” — Jen Statsky and Lucia Aniello (last spotted playing the casino realtor who hits on Marcus [Carl Clemons-Hopkins] in Episode 3), who co-created the series with Paul W. Downs. 

“I’ve always modeled Ava on our two women showrunners, Lucia and Jen, [and] every season, Ava’s grown up a little bit more. She’s had more money, so she’s able to augment and add pieces to her wardrobe. And it was really important, to me and to Hannah, to represent an authentic version of what she felt.” 

“Hacks” Season 5 is now streaming on HBO Max.