“The thing for me going into this project was that we were recreating real people that are real in this world and that are still around today. But during that time, they were very much in front of the camera,” says costume designer Kameron Lennox about the responsibility inherent in crafting the wardrobe for Hulu’s limited series “Pam and Tommy.” We talked to Lennox as part of our “Meet the Experts” costume designers panel. Watch our exclusive video interview about the “Pam and Tommy” costumes above.
“Pam and Tommy” tells the story of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee (played by Lily James and Sebastian Stan), who were married in the 1990s and exposed to the world when a sex tape they had recorded was stolen and released to the public without their consent. But the series isn’t just about their public appearances, it’s about their private lives too, and recreating that entailed “watching a lot of the interviews with them, reading their books. I watched ‘Baywatch,’ I watched ‘Barb Wire,’ and I watched a lot of the MTV interviews with Tommy Lee. And then I also just scoured the internet for photos of them.”
Lennox admits to being “a bit of a purist” when it comes to period costumes. “For me, it’s a challenge, but it’s also the most fun, you know, trying to find these things and sourcing them.” But there were “a lot of things that we recreated and built.” Most famous among those was Anderson’s red “Baywatch” bathing suit. “That one is probably the one I lost the most sleep over because it is the most iconic piece that she wears,” she explains.
And that’s on top of the physical prosthetics James wore to transform her figure into Anderson’s. “That was the hugest challenge,” Lennox remembers. “I feel like it taught me a lot about working collaboratively with other departments. I think this is the first time where I was on a constant call or text or email with a hair and makeup.” But the results speak for themselves.
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