In even the most outrageous comedies, it’s the grounding in realism that makes the laughs hit harder. For HBO’s new workplace satire “The Chair Company”, co-creators Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin bring their signature absurdist wit to suburban Ohio, capturing the idiosyncrasies and frustrations of office life. Costume designer Nicky Smith was tasked with visually balancing that fine line between the mundane and the ridiculous.
“[Tim and Zach] didn’t want to give away any of the jokes, any of the hi-jinks, and what the characters who came into the world would do,” shares Smith. “So, it was like, how do we dress them as normal as possible?”
That question became the creative heartbeat of “The Chair Company”, which follows William Ronald Trosper (Tim Robinson), who begins investigating a vast and elaborate conspiracy after an embarrassing workplace incident, spiraling into a surreal exploration of paranoia, pride, and bureaucracy.
Smith, known for her work on contemporary, character-driven series like “Ramy”, approached the wardrobe design with an anthropologist’s eye for authenticity. “The challenge was dressing corporate America while still showing the generational divide and each character’s personality,” she explains. “It’s about who these people are when they’re at work—and who they become when they’re not.”
Unlike most office comedies, “The Chair Company,” which also stars Lake Bell, Sophia Lillis, and Joseph Tudisco, ventures far beyond cubicles and conference rooms, giving Smith the opportunity to contrast the rigid, uniform world of the office with the looser, more expressive styles of the characters’ home lives.
Sustainability was another key component of Smith’s process. “How can we support all these different body types with thrifted clothes?” she explains. “Sometimes, fittings were 20 minutes, others they were an hour, because it’s finding the character, the clothes, and making sure it fits the way it needs to fit for the character.”
Nicky Smith spoke to Awards Focus about her thoughtful approach to costume design, the value of LinkedIn profile pictures, dressing corporate America with functionality, and how far she was able to take costuming representing suburban Ohio.
AF: I’m so excited to talk to you because the show is crazy, in the best way.
Nicky Smith: It’s a wild show. It’s totally wild.
AF: This past episode that aired, episode five…
Smith: My favorite episode.
AF: My jaw was on the floor at the final few seconds when we see Scrooge.
Smith: When I read the script, I was like, “Wait, do I have to provide this? Like, what are we doing here, guys?”
AF: Did you have to provide it?
Smith: [laughs] No. There’s actually a company that makes that kind of content. That was guided by our producer, making sure that it, you know, was up to a certain… standard. I had no part of it.
AF: How familiar were you with Tim Robinson’s and Zach Kanin’s brand of humor before joining the project?
Smith: I knew Tim because I also worked in the NBC comedy world for a little bit. Our paths didn’t cross, but I knew of him because a lot of my friends were on SNL at the time he was there. I knew “Detroiters” and I was intrigued by the title, “The Chair Company”, because it’s a Tim Robinson world, and I have no idea what I’m walking into.
AF: There are outrageous characters and brutally sustained awkward moments, but it’s also so grounded. When you were having those initial conversations with Tim and Zach, what were you talking about in terms of the look of the clothing?
Smith: The through line really was that the whole world needs to be based in reality. They didn’t want to give away any of the jokes, any of the hijinks, or what the characters who came into the world would do. So, it was like, how do we dress them as normally as possible? Really homing in on the suburbia aspect of it, that even in suburbia, these mass conspiracies exist. A lot of the clothes were thrifted. We shopped at stores that were on brand for the character’s socioeconomic status. So, some of the characters you see in later episodes, it’s really simple clothes that just look used and worn because that’s all it needed to be. And for me, my role is to make sure that the clothing is an extension of the character, not a distraction from the character. So, it really was, how do we just enhance the believability that this person does exist in this world, and this storyline is plausible?
AF: There’s a running joke through the series about how, after Tim Robinson’s character falls off the broken chair, he accidentally looks up a colleague’s dress as he’s lying down and she stands over him. What considerations went into balancing the accidental moment and her reactions through the choice of dress?
Smith: We ended up doing a pleated skirt just because there’s fullness in the pleats. So, I wanted to make sure that our camera Op and our DP had room to put a camera like at least up through her legs. Not all the way up the skirt, but just to get something under there that wouldn’t cast a shadow and wouldn’t restrict the light that they needed for the shaft. And then on top of it, I think a pleated skirt on a woman that’s that petite kind of gives you an idea of who this character is, fresh off the bat.
Then, for the underwear, we did some Grannie panties, high-waisted, unfortunate polyester, maybe a late eighties, early nineties special that our grandma would wear. But it felt like that’s the last thing you think you’re going to see when you look up someone’s skirt.
AF: What kind of research were you doing in Ohio to find what would be consistent with that workplace environment and the people who work there?
Smith: It was a lot of LinkedIn, a lot of Reddit, a lot of Instagram searching local municipal offices. They always do their holiday photos. It was a lot of that, like looking at Ohio businesses, like furniture companies, and run-of-the-mill Ohio professional attire. There’s not that formality that we tend to think of office attire, even for a lot of the higher-ups, a lot of the higher-ups weren’t wearing ties. It was just like a suit, a shirt, and a comfortable shoe. That was the idea for Jeff, like he’s so cool, he’s not wearing a tie, maybe a pocket square, but he’s everyone’s friendly boss.
AF: Tim’s character is so outrageous, but the rest of the family is grounded. So what was it like finding their personalities through their clothing?
Smith: I had a wonderful collaboration between me and the actors who played the family; it was just so fun and so easy.
For example, the actor who plays Seth, Will Price, is from Ohio. So, he came in with his own ideas of what the clothes should be. With Sophia, who plays Natalie, because she’s so small in proportion, we wanted to make sure that the clothes didn’t overwhelm her. That she still looked like an adult and didn’t look like a kid playing an adult. And then for Lake Bell, Lake is one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. So, making her not look stunning and gorgeous in every scene was like, “Okay, girl, this looks too good on you. Let’s find something that is less flattering or less beauty-focused and more on this mom trying to do a job.”
One of the things that we found really helped ground her character was these atrocious pair of Clark Flats. They’re like a copper color. They must be from the 90s because they don’t exist anywhere on the internet anymore. It was finding those little pieces of clothing that kind of helped the actor find the character.
AF: I always find it fascinating what people wear to bed. How did you decide what kind of sleepwear the family would wear?
Smith: I think we all agreed that nothing sexy at all. Nothing that alludes to a sexual life. It’s just like bedtime is for sleeping, and that’s all it’s there for. One of the things that Tim brought to Ron was that Ron always wears socks. So, you’d never see his feet, like even in the morning, bright and early, it’s white socks with his dad’s shoes.
One of the things that we did just as a costume wardrobe team was that whatever we brought, especially because the nightwear tends to be brand new clothes, we would wash it in Cascade three times to break it down, just so it looked a little pilled and worn. Then we would dry it, but not steam it, so that it would have those wrinkles. We were really big on how to make the clothes look believable and make sure that there’s no allusion to sexiness at all. It’s like the antithesis of sexy, it’s long, wide sleeves and cotton pants for Tim. For Lake, it was a matching set. She loved a matching set in pink or purple, and that became her wheelhouse.
AF: How did the functionality come into the suit that Tim wears?
Smith: For us, it was giving him room to play. The shirts that we got were big in the body, so he could do all the weirdness that he wanted to do with his body. But we just made sure the neck and the sleeves fit again with the pants. The pants were like three times his size, which we took in at the waist, so he would have room in the legs to pull his knees up to his chest. It was the same thing with the jackets, but they weren’t tailored in the way that a lot of stylists and costume designers normally tailor suits, in that they really fit the chest or the waist. It was kind of blocky that allowed him to look sloppy and kind of sad, and then have the freedom of movement.
AF: What kind of challenges did you face in finding the suburban Ohio clothing that would be worn on a night out?
Smith: In the pilot, that Mike Santini shirt, they labeled it as a party shirt. To me, a party shirt is like a Versace, you know, a wild shirt. Tim and Zach were like, No, it’s a nineties party shirt. So, it’s understanding that language. Once I realized everything is based in reality, everything should feel normal. And then the surprise is the action and the storyline. We just started to flow into a rhythm of me presenting images for characters, them picking what they like, and then expanding on the theme.
AF: The party in the final episode showed a contrast between what Tim Robinson’s wearing and what Lake Bell was wearing. How far could you take Barb’s look for the investors?
Smith: We wanted to make it look like this is Barb’s big coming-out party. She’s like fully committed. She’s super excited. And then we kind of wanted Tim to feel like he’s there, putting in the effort, but his focus is elsewhere. It was simple things like the ties wrinkled, like clearly wrinkled from the seatbelt from sitting in the car, and he wouldn’t even think to put his tie over the seatbelt.
For her, we really wanted to make sure she had her statement jewelry. There’s a gold bag that matches the gold shoes, and there’s a lot of that high-end, but still suburban Ohio, throughout the other characters that you see in that scene. People are going to Dillard’s, we know that already. They’re going to Kohl’s, so let’s make sure that the clothes feel like that’s where it was purchased.
AF: You mentioned Mike Santini’s shirt, and we meet the storekeeper..
Smith: That’s his actual store. They did very little set dressing. He is the actual owner of that store. And we did very little set dressing. It was really like the store exists, it’s perfect. Jared’s perfect. He wore his own wardrobe. Of course, we collaborated on which shirt to wear with the jacket, but again, it’s like sometimes the answer is already in someone’s closet. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. It’s how we present it in the frame of the world that tells the story.
AF: Is that something that contributes to the various ways you were able to be sustainable?
Smith: I try to shy away from buying fast fashion first purchase. If it’s like on its third life and it comes across us, then it’s totally different. It’s just the idea that there’s so much that already exists out there. The show needs to have the feeling of everything being worn and used, and nothing brand new. So why not just go to that source to find it?