Do you and your girlfriends enjoy screaming over "Scandal" shockers? Y'all are likely swooning over Lyn Paolo's handiwork, too.
The hit drama, which airs at 10 p.m. Thursdays on Channel 2 WSB-TV, stars Kerry Washington as Capitol Hill fixer Olivia Pope, the "gladiator in a suit" who handles problems with panache. Paolo, the show's Emmy Award-winning costume designer, is the gladiator behind all those suits. She appeared recently at an event hosted by SCAD-Atlanta and talked with us for a few minutes beforehand.
“I wanted to create a new vision of women in business,” Paolo said. “I loved the idea of having a woman be the main character. Who would know it would have been such a huge hit?”
It was a challenge to strike just the right blend of fierce and feminine when coming up with Olivia’s look, Paolo said.
“I talk about Olivia with Kerry. She’s real to us,” Paolo said. “There’s nothing wrong with being a woman. We’re not men. There’s power in that.”
Indeed. Washington topped People magazine’s “World’s Best Dressed Woman” list for 2013, although she revealed in a statement to the magazine that she’s not personally much into Pope-like pantsuits.
“I’m very excited,” Paolo said of the sartorial honor. Her long and varied list of screen credits includes “ER,” “The West Wing” “L.A. Confidential” and “The Company Men.” Her least favorite look for women includes the shoulder-pad years.
“The ’80s were tragic for women,” she said.
She advises actors (and anyone, really) to pull themselves together at all times but to stay true to what looks best.
“When I speak to an actor after an audition, the first thing I ask is, ‘What did you wear?’” she said. “Know yourself. I’d love to be able to wear giant palazzo pants, but I’m 5-foot-3.”
On the job, Paolo favors the sort of ensembles she crafts for some of her characters.
“I always wear skirts,” she said. “If I wear pants, they’re little pedal pushers with kitten heels. I always wear Prada.”
Off hours are a different story.
“I’m a mom,” she said. “When I’m home, I’m in my yoga pants.”
So what can we expect now that Washington is expecting? The star and her husband, Nnamdi Asomugha, revealed that they have a baby on the way after we talked with Paolo, so we didn't have a chance to inquire about possible maternity-gladiator couture. Stay tuned.
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