Costume Designer Jenn Rogien on Dressing Female Inmates for Netflix's Orange Is the New Black
Netflix's latest original series Orange is the New Black debuted yesterday with its entire first season and if you haven't already seen it, we recommend setting some time aside for a marathon this weekend--it's good (and even got picked up for a second season before it actually aired). Created by Jenji Kohan (of Weeds) and based on a memoir of the same name, it's a dramedy that follows Piper Chapman (played by Taylor Schilling) on her challenging transition from living a comfortable life with her fiancé in New York to being an inmate at a women's prison with a colorful cast of characters (including Natasha Lyonne and Taryn Manning). For the most part, however, their outfits are a not-so-colorful khaki--except for newbies like Chapman, who wear the bright orange referenced in the show's title. This is something we learned while chatting with costume designer Jenn Rogien, who had a lot of fascinating research to do re: prison dress codes while prepping for this project--a far cry from her work on Girls.