How Costume Designer Signe Sejlund Embraced Color and History for Showtime’s ‘The First Lady’

Even though the “clothes make the man,” the women married to the President of the United States always get more attention for their wardrobes. Most modern first ladies, like Jackie Kennedy. Michelle Obama, and even Jill Biden, get notice any time they step out of the house, but what about behind closed doors? For Showtime’s The First Lady, costume designer Signe Sejlund not only recreated famous looks for three prominent first ladies, but she enhanced their personal lives with their clothes.

The First Lady spans over 120 years. That’s enough to spook any designer, but Sejlund knew that she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work with Susanne Bier on such a mammoth project.

“This is a monster. Sometimes it might be a good thing that you don’t exactly know what you are saying yes to until you are in the middle of it. If I had know, I might’ve been too terrified. Susanne Bier sent me the script and wanted to know what I thought. I couldn’t say no to this. I had to say yes no matter what. With Susanne Bier, it explodes. I can’t remember a show that covers even a fifth of the periods that we do with The First Lady. When you get further into the episodes, it becomes quite political, and jumping back and forth to make sure that everything was consistently beautiful. We could be 80s then the 50s and it was hard to think it all through. It is a eye candy. It all needs to look beautiful but make sense.”

A lot of designers could recreate the fit or shape of a famous garment, but Sejlund needed to imagine the lives of Michelle Obama, Betty Ford, and Eleanor Roosevelt as they discuss problems with their spouses or friends. I imagine that Obama might change into different clothes when she is spending time with her family while Ford might elect to stay in her work clothes all day. What Sejlund goes beyond recreation, because she is not just mimicking what these women wore. She is completing the circle for the audience.

“Eleanor Roosevelt was tricky, because it was such a different period. With Michelle and Barack Obama, they kept their private life private, so I could play around more with them in their home when they are not in the public eye. With Eleanor’s sexuality, it was super interesting to me. There is a beautiful scene between Eleanor and Hick where they are out camping. They are truly embracing each other, and you see Eleanor with a headscarf. It’s a different look, and it felt very intimate. We do have pictures of Eleanor wearing something similar, so that is what we jumped to. We wanted to make sure we had that in the series.”

Michelle Pfeiffer’s Betty Ford has the most enviable color palette. She wasn’t afraid to wear patterns (“She loved polka dots,” Sejlund confidently told me) or grass greens and an ultra-feminine shape. She didn’t stick with one color or style.

“Betty Ford was my favorite. Remember this is all a time when polyester was everywhere. It was a gorgeous range of color when we get into the 60s, 70s, and 80s. There were different color palettes, and she loved polka dots. She loved bright colors. With so much research, there was such a line of color and pattern with Betty’s clothes. There was oftentimes a scarf. Betty Ford was so cool.”

Sejlund reveals that she felt like she got to know these women intimately because she spent so much time researching the different time periods. By staring at so many photographs and films, she was able to pick up on small details that would help enhance all of the costuming.

“There are so many photographs of these women, so we had to pick the right things to narrow it all down. We had to find their style. When you look at pictures of people who did exist or do exist, you feel like you’re stalking them. There’s so much to look at. You might notice that one wears a brooch all the time. Eleanor would wear those with maybe a necklace. You start to notice these little things when you look at these people over and over and over again.”

While I could see myself traipsing around a lot of the costumes in The First Lady (Ford’s caftan era!), I was very drawn to a brown suit that Rhys Wakefield’s Dick Cheney wears early in the series. What would Sejlund take for herself? It was an easy choice for the first-time nominee.

“Betty Ford wears a dress for her first dinner at the White House. It’s the white dress with the feathers. I know I would like that. I could wear it to the Emmys!”

The First Lady is streaming now.