Adam Rowe On the Different Palettes for the Magical World of ‘Glamorous’

Atmosphere is everything for a show like Netflix’s Glamorous. We have been taken into the fashion world many times, but not a lot of series have been set in the realm of makeup. With so much product out there, you can truly design a new persona for yourself, and Glamorous does not shy away from color or drama. Production designer Adam Rowe has created a workplace so unique and stylish that you may never look at the makeup aisles the same way every again.

Glamorous‘ first season centers on Marco, a young man working at the makeup counter by day and trying to create a brand for himself at night. Glamorous by Madolyn is a legacy makeup brand founded by Kim Cattrall’s Madolyn Addison, and the first meeting between this icon and fan is a memorable one. When Marco begins a job as Madolyn’s second assistant, it’s like he is seeing color for the first time, and Rowe knew that establishing such a voluptuous world of beauty was important from the very start.

“There are certain design languages or elements going into it–the energy of the workers,” Rowe says. “I wanted to make it a place that people at home would want to work. With Chad and Venetia’s ambitions, they would want to work in a place that looks cool, but it also needed to be a place where Marco would feel like a fish out of water. There’s an element that he’s a little of Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, and that’s kind of why Madolyn’s entrance is so dramatic. It’s “Beauty School Dropout.” The whole show is fantasy, but I didn’t want to go too fantastical to remove the audience from believing what was happening to the characters. I pulled cards where I could, and I pushed to be gayer where I could. I wanted to take the audience for a ride.”

The first image of the first episode is Marco speaking into his camera in his bedroom, and those moments become dependable landmarks as Marco navigates his new job. Rowe knew that Marco’s room was important, because he probably discovered Glamorous by Madolyn in that very space. Everything Marco excitedly pinned to his walls is something he is proud of.

“There’s a lot to say about Marco’s room, but what I was up against as a designer was going for authenticity in a show that isn’t reflecting reality,” he says. “There’s an element to the show that is truly outrageous. There are expectations that come from the audience, and if I were to be sparser, people wouldn’t believe that. Or it wouldn’t be as fun to look at. TikTok lowers everyone’s expectations when it comes to an acceptable setting, so knowing that Marco wanted to be an influencer, I wanted to turn that up. Especially because it’s his only private space, and, for all we know, he’s been in that bedroom since he was about twelve years old. In moments of the show, you were looking at someone with a fantastical imagination and was youthful, so that really influenced the palette and the color choices and the things that went on the walls. There were a lot of posters that excited the showrunner and represented Marco, but we don’t get to zoom in on the tickets on the walls. They are all there to really establish a lot for Marco.”

If Glamorous by Madolyn is a universe unto itself, then Madolyn’s office is the bright, shining sun. Rowe knew that it had to be a large space because a lot of activity happens there–sometimes with a lot of cast members. We see Madolyn’s taste in that room, so if we don’t think it’s as grand as Madolyn thinks it is, we aren’t going to reach for her makeup palette.

There are so many gorgeous details like the huge picture of Cattrall hung in a large, thick silver frame. There is a lot of warmth, especially around her desk with hues of pinks and blushes. And, of course, that dark green, sculpted couch is something many viewers would risk stealing from the office. Madolyn’s office is, simply, one of the most important spaces in the entire show.

“I call that couch ‘the bathtub’ because it looks like you could just fall into it,” Rowe says with a smile. “I wanted a fainting couch, but our set decorator, Rosalie Board, wonderfully talked me out of that. I wanted to give Madolyn this status like Cleopatra, and Rosalie found that amazing sofa. This emerald green thing is something that we got to design around since it was one of the first things that we found.

I knew that I wanted this fictitious place to be in Hudson Yards in New York City. L’Oréal is there as well as other major headquarters for fashion and beauty. I could make it the crushed, small version of New York, or I could go big, ostentatious, and deep. Madolyn doesn’t care how much this office is costing her since it’s the biggest, most fabulous place in the world to her. I knew the audience needed to know her history. When I was designing this office, I didn’t know that Kim [Cattrall] was joining us yet, but I knew it was going to be a tall order for the office to tell a heritage story. Anna Wintour was an inspiration, but when you look at her office, she does it but not in an overt way. I knew the audience needed to know that this woman had history as a runway model since that is how this company came to be. I also knew that Marco was going to have a quiet moment in that office first. Jordon [Nardino] then told me that the inspiration for the character’s name came from the series Moonlighting with Bruce Willis, so I dove into that as much as I could on YouTube. When I worked with Kim, I think I worked up enough trust with her to set the scene for the audience. I knew that they show the image of her a bunch in the final edit, and I knew that picture had to be large. Madolyn was clearly a person who love makeup and skin so I wanted it to be big, and then I asked the set decorator to find the chunkiest, ’80s style frame we could find.

I knew that the office space was going to be very saturated, and if you line up all the magazine covers that Kim has been on, you will see that she looks great in white. She’s often against white. As a production designer, I have a duty to make the actors look as best as I can. We used colors of makeup eyeshadow palettes to pepper in with the ice cream tones. We are very controlled in her office, but once you step outside of it, it’s more like confetti. When you sit down as a client in her office, you will feel relaxed. There’s a table in the back with these beautiful, emerald-green, donut-backed chairs that didn’t get used a whole bunch, but I loved how Kim would move around the space. She wanted to be surrounded by makeup so much that we edited out some of the fashion nods. We had beautiful, designer high heels and necklaces on busts to show that this person had that career, but it didn’t seem as important as the season progresses. You will see that she gets more and more makeup gondolas as it progresses.”

There are bold color choices all over Glamorous by Madolyn’s offices. Even the gender-neutral restroom (the first since Ally McBeal?) was a place that I wanted to spend a lot of time. To my utter delight, Rowe revealed a Spielbergian inspiration.

“That blue breakroom is modeled after a yellow breakroom that I pulled from,” he reveals. “There are references like that all through the show. People would ask me why I was making the restroom so insane. First of all, that’s where all the secrets are told, so that’s why it’s oppressive and dark. I went after a Jurassic Park feeling because I wanted the palm tree leaves and the cheetahs on the wall. When the characters go into that room, I wanted the audience to be like, ‘Ohh…what are they going to say…what’s going on…'”

When Marco enters the world of Glamorous by Madolyn, one of the first people we see is Zane Phillips’ Chad. While he is a distraction (working out shirtless at work), you can’t help but notice, as the season progresses, how different his personal space is. It’s littered with workout equipment, and Rowe wanted to play up the comedy of the space by giving Phillips as many different things to do while he is working.

“I wanted to give an audience at home a space where it looks like someone is actually working,” he says with a laugh. “There isn’t a whole lot of work sometimes in this world, but it also establishes the sort of work “class” between someone like Chad versus Marco and Venetia versus Ben. Or even Madolyn. Chad has no windows, and I designed it to line up with the bull pen and then line up with Marco. Chad could be working out in the glass and he can then be seen by different characters at any point. I don’t know how a director is doing a scene, so I needed to make sure I could give them an opportunity to play around with looks or reactions from other characters. When I first met with the producers, I thought that he should definitely have a treadmill or a workout bike so his desk could go up and down. I thought that if we saw him working out ten times in his office, why don’t we give him a different ‘of the week’ workout? I knew guys that would do CrossFit but then Orange Theory would pop in for a half-second and then they would flip tractor tires. I wanted to think of a way to incorporate that but keep in mind that an actor would have to do this all on camera. Zane was up for anything. One of my favorite moments is when he gives a wink to the camera after introducing the slightly different knobs on the gondolas. He’s so good at being charming, cunning, and charismatic. The jersey came later in the process, and I left the cityscape artwork up. I look for signature clues in a show to remind us where we are, because you can watch a show and never know where we are. It can dislodge out comfort without stepping on the scene.”

Marco spends a lot of time with his boyfriend, Parker (Graham Parkhurst) in his apartment as their hooking up turns towards a relationship. The darker palette reminds us of those guys who like to show off how well they are doing. There’s a sleekness to it. Everything in that space is something that Marco (and we) should want. Full disclosure: the long, thing, dark blue tile in the kitchen needs to be mine.

“I want to make a choice to entice an audience to allow them to be engaged,” he says. “We never find out about Parker’s job–we never see it. I was curious about his economic status, because they wanted him in a posh-ish place. That’s why I made the ceilings low, because I wanted it to feel achievable. Jordon told me early on–around week three and four–that this was a Parker and Chad story, but Chad was going to learn something while Parker is not. When I was looking for visual clues with those character, I never wanted to make Parker a villain but I wanted him to look like someone who is trying really hard. It should give you clues to remind you of someone who is desperate to have the “right sofa” or the “right artwork” on the walls. When Marco leaves him, you want to wonder if he will leave that lesson behind. We are so easily seduced by people like Parker, and knowing what was the color palette was in the office, I went for something different. I didn’t want to assault people with so much color all the time.”

Glamorous is streaming now on Netflix.