Costume designer Anna Terrazas knows how to go old school. Having dressed the characters for movies like SPECTRE, Life of Crime, and the Amazon series The Bridge, she’s headed back in time to the rough-and-tumble streets of New York circa 1971, for HBO’s new drama The Deuce — premiering on September 10th, (though you can check out the pilot on HBO Now). Created by David Simon and George Pelecanos, who worked together on HBO’s The Wire and Treme, The Deuce features a sprawling cast of characters from all walks of life. As the story progresses, their stories start to intersect with one another, all against the backdrop of the booming pornography industry.
We got the chance to sit down with Terrazas about her grounded approach to to ’70s-era streetwear, how she dressed James Franco’s two characters, twin brothers Vincent and Frankie Martino, and her love of clothing from that definitive era in American fashion.
What was it that led you to working on The Deuce?
I actually read [that] they were doing the show, and I was just really trying to get the job. I did this amazing research, you know [for] the pimps, just trying to make it look real. I didn’t want to end up in the typical cliché of like what’s a pimp and what’s a prostitute or that sort of thing. We were just trying to show the reality of these girls and make everything worn, because these girls don’t have money. In order to do that with Michelle MacLaren, the director of the pilot, we really got into tiny details. Sometimes, I was just like, “Oh maybe we just rip a tiny bit of this dress for her.” Even though it doesn’t even show, for the characters and the actors, that would help a lot.
So, it was just trying to show the reality of New York in that time. I got really self-inspired from this film The Panic In Needle Park. It’s a dirty thing even with the pimps, [who] always have to look like… power.
How did you acquire all of these garments?
Actually, we designed a lot of this stuff. We got a lot of stuff from the street and different vintage stores, but at the same time we got tons of fabrics and just designed. Most of the suits were designed just for these guys. For the girls we did a lot of coats, and also was a little bit hard because the show goes from summer into winter, but we were shooting in the middle in the middle of summer, so it was like, “Oh, I’m so sorry you have to wear this coat.”
Was it difficult to keep the look of these characters true to the time, and not like a ’70s-themed costume party?
It was. At the beginning, when you do the research of the pimps, sometimes it looks very clownish, and I was afraid that it was just going to look like a costume thing, so we really tried to get away from that. But at the end, when you see the whole picture, and this guy is dressed up like that, it doesn’t look like a costume anymore. It just… it kind of blends in, you know?
David Simon and George Pelecanos spoke to us recently about how some of the real-life stories that the show’s based on, and it seemed like the pimps in particular really leaned into their stereotypes. Did you ever worry about keeping things grounded in the reality you’re creating?
If you see the reality of these guys, they’re cartoonish. There’s an amazing documentary that’s more ’80s, where pimps dressed up in greens and huge platforms. We just didn’t want to go that way. It was sort of like these guys obviously have to dress up at night because, for me, they’re like these “animals of the night,” you know? They come out, drink with the girls, so they sort of need to be well-dressed, but not necessarily just like clowns.
How did you approach dressing the secondary characters? The ones that aren’t really in ‘the game,’ but just run-of-the-mill people.
I think that’s one of the hardest jobs we had. Obviously, we put all of our attention to our main characters, but at the same time put the same attention to the background because I just feel like that’s telling you where you are. Sometimes you see NYU students, but then you see what’s happening in the night in New York. You have so many different characters, and we brought all that in, just grab the essence of every type of group.
How did you go about designing the looks for James Franco’s two characters, Vincent and Frankie? There are some obvious differences in their style, but there’s also a lot of overlap. Was that a challenge at all?
No, not really because, as you said, it’s Vincent and Frankie, so we’re trying to really get these two characters to be different, but at the same time there’s always something that makes you think “Oh, wait is it Frankie? Is it Vincent?” But then, with Vincent, it just felt normal to put him in a t-shirt and make him more simple. It blends in with other people in the background, so, he doesn’t have to stand out all the time. And even with the girls we use a lot of repeat clothing most of the shorts or the jackets. Because sometimes you see a show and it’s just like a catwalk of different outfits going on.
There was a moment midway through the season where Abby (Margarita Levieva) has a conversation with her friend about wearing an Army jacket, who says something along the lines of ‘everyone’s wearing them now, it’s ironic.’ How do you tackle dressing a character for such a specific reference?
Actually, it was in the script, and we wanted to touch a little bit on what was happening at that time in the world, you know? So, we did a lot of research and which army jacket was big in ’71, but that was a George thing that he really wanted to put it there.
Wrapping it up, when you were putting all this together and swimming in ’70s fashion, did anything ever stick out to you that made you think ‘This is a look that should come back?’
I mean the ’70s, I think, people should wear that all the time! I mean, when I was just looking at the whole ’70s stuff it’s like… our bodies have changed so much, you know? Like, you find things that have the tiny waist, and that make me feel a little bit weird, because we bought all these jeans and nobody could fit in them. So, sometimes it was just awkward, like, “Aw, I’m fat,” and I’m like, “No, it’s not that!”
So, I wanted to change that a bit and just make the actor feel a little bit more comfortable, but I think the ’70s should be back all the time. Not the ’80s, though. ’70s.