Few television characters have become as visually recognizable as Wednesday Addams. Long before she delivers a deadpan line or begins investigating another mystery, audiences know exactly who she is from the silhouette alone. In an era when television costumes are often discussed only after an awards nomination arrives, “Wednesday” created a visual identity so distinctive that it became part of the show’s cultural footprint almost immediately.
That visual identity helped turn Netflix’s “Wednesday” into one of the streamer’s biggest successes when it debuted in 2022. Created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar and executive produced and directed in part by Tim Burton, the series introduced a new generation to the Addams Family through the eyes of Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday. Set within the gothic halls of Nevermore Academy, the series blends mystery, horror, comedy, and coming-of-age storytelling while following Wednesday as she navigates friendships, rivalries, supernatural threats, and the complicated legacy of her family. Alongside Ortega, the ensemble cast includes Emma Myers, Joy Sunday, Hunter Doohan, Isaac Ordonez, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzmán, and a growing roster of students, teachers, and outcasts who help populate Nevermore’s increasingly expansive world.
While Ortega’s performance helped make Wednesday a phenomenon, the show’s visual identity has become just as recognizable. Whether it’s Wednesday’s black-and-white wardrobe, Enid Sinclair’s explosion of color, or the carefully crafted looks assigned to Nevermore’s various werewolves, vampires, sirens, and other outcasts, costume design has become one of the defining creative pillars of the series.
Helping shape that identity are costume designers Colleen Atwood and Mark Sutherland. Atwood is one of the most celebrated costume designers working today, with Academy Awards for “Chicago,” “Memoirs of a Geisha,” “Alice in Wonderland,” and “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.” Her collaborations with Burton stretch back decades and include “Edward Scissorhands,” “Sleepy Hollow,” “Big Fish,” “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” and “Dark Shadows.” Sutherland, a longtime collaborator and accomplished designer in his own right, has worked alongside Atwood on numerous productions, helping translate ambitious worlds into costumes that feel both cinematic and grounded.
The series has also become something of a showcase for below-the-line artistry. Since its debut, “Wednesday” has earned recognition across numerous craft categories, with costume design, production design, visual effects, cinematography, hair and makeup, and music all contributing to the immersive world that audiences have embraced. Few shows on television require quite the same balancing act between fantasy and reality. Nevermore Academy may be filled with monsters and outcasts, but the characters still need to feel relatable and authentic enough for viewers to invest in them.
That challenge only grows in Season 2. Returning characters are older, more confident, and increasingly defined by the experiences of the first season. Yet Atwood and Sutherland understood that audiences were not looking for reinvention. As Atwood explained, “It’s about operating within the parameters of the Addams Family.” For the costume team, the goal was to evolve beloved characters without losing the visual language that made them iconic in the first place.
Awards Focus recently spoke with Atwood and Sutherland about designing Season 2, evolving Wednesday and Enid’s looks, creating distinct identities for Nevermore’s supernatural factions, and the enormous amount of craftsmanship hidden within even the smallest costume details. From hand-screened stripes and custom-woven fabrics to one of the season’s largest gala sequences, the conversation offers a fascinating look at how two veteran designers continue to build one of television’s most recognizable worlds.
Awards Focus: Moving into a second season, were there any early conversations about how the costumes should evolve as the characters themselves matured?
Colleen Atwood: Not really. We got the scripts and talked to Jenna and the girls, and they came back a little older already. It’s always weird when you’re working with kids because they come back and they’ve changed. It sort of helps enable the progress that we make with the costumes. And then what Jenna has evolved into is this investigative kind of character. We were influenced by classic detective coats and things like that. Then there was the stealthy nightwear for investigating and snooping around, which got us more into sportswear than we probably were in the first season where they were in the dorm a lot more.
AF: Can you talk a little about your collaboration and how the two of you divide responsibilities on a production of this scale?
Atwood: We do it together. We go shopping together. We do fittings together. Mark is on the ground way more than me because I go off and do other stuff a lot while I’m doing it. If something comes up and something changes, then we discuss it and Mark enables it and does a lot of stuff, probably more with the boys than I do. I think I’m more focused on the girls.
Mark Sutherland: When we start the show, we do a lot of prep together. We set the show up, go through different characters, and try to do as much as possible in fittings with everybody. We get a base look for everyone. We talk every day. More than we do to anyone else.
Atwood: More than we do to anyone else.
Sutherland: We have a really good working relationship. When we start a new block, we set it up together and then carry it on. Having really good communication is the best thing.
Atwood: The fittings are a big part of it too. When we get the actors at the beginning of the season and we know the trajectory of the characters, even if we don’t have all the scripts yet, we start building outfits. We don’t know exactly where we’re going to plug them in, but we’ll create thirty, forty, even fifty outfits for some people. Then when the scripts come in, we start looking at what works where, who they’re in scenes with, and what the action is. We sort of build a grid system from there.
AF: A lot of the actors are returning not only for a second season, but at a different stage of their lives and careers. How collaborative are they when it comes to shaping their characters’ wardrobes, and how much input do they typically have during the fitting process?
Atwood: They’re a very collaborative group. They’re not demanding. They’re a really nice group of actors, young and old alike. Everybody is in the game. We get new people thrown into the mix and they’re all so excited to be here. Even Emma and Jenna and the original Pugsley. We’ve watched Pugsley turn into a man. It’s funny to watch them all become very accomplished actors and such professionals considering how young they all are.
We listen to them. You can tell when they put something on whether they like it or not. We try to make them happy within the parameters of their characters. They usually enjoy it and have fun with it. Hair and makeup are part of those conversations too. We talk about how the hair is going to work, so it becomes a collaboration rather than somebody feeling like they just have to wear something.
Sutherland: We already had a good working relationship with the actors from Season 1. We’ve been on that journey with them. It’s nice to get into the next season and evolve the character. You want them to grow up, but you don’t want to lose the essence of the character. We do have a good working relationship with the actors, which is great.
AF: Wednesday Addams has one of the most recognizable silhouettes in television. At this point, is designing for Wednesday more about restraint than reinvention? How do you balance evolving the character while preserving such an iconic visual identity?
Atwood: I think it’s about operating within the parameters of the Addams Family. Keeping it character driven.
Sutherland: That’s the same for everybody, especially the Addams Family. You want to keep it in the world of Charles Addams and not suddenly have her become something else. Jenna could wear clothes like nobody’s business, but you want to keep the character alive as the person she’s become in the story.
AF: On the other end of the spectrum is Enid, who serves as such a strong visual counterpoint to Wednesday. How did you approach evolving her color palette and energy in Season 2?
Atwood: She’s been interesting because her story evolves and deepens. In the beginning, the enthusiasm for color is huge and fuzzy. As we go along, it’s becoming a little more urban in feeling. There’s more Asian influence in her palette and design than before. It’s a little edgier because she’s becoming more of a wolf person now that that reality has happened. It becomes more silhouette driven and less teddy bear-like, less cozy. There’s a little bit of an edge to it. It’s less approachable in some ways, but still has the same enthusiasm for color. It’s more graphic now, which balances Wednesday’s black-and-white graphic quality.
Sutherland: We wanted to keep Enid colorful, but in Season 1 she was very sugar candy-coated. Now we’ve moved toward deeper tones. There’s still a lot of color, but it’s deeper. We looked at a lot of Japanese street fashion as an influence for her edgier look.
AF: The world of Nevermore is filled with vampires, sirens, werewolves, and other outcasts. How much thought goes into connecting a character’s wardrobe to their supernatural identity, both in subtle ways and in more obvious ones?
Sutherland: Quite a lot. With Bianca and the sirens, there was always an aquatic tone to the costumes.
Atwood: A lot of it comes through color. The vampires were more black and purple. The sirens were more water-inspired. The werewolves had more earthy colors.
Sutherland: We also used texture.
Atwood: Texture, bits of fur, elements of earth. Things that hinted at being a werewolf without being obvious.
Sutherland: Big furry hands on them and things like that.
AF: Fabric and material sourcing seem especially important in a world like “Wednesday.” Can you talk about your approach to custom textiles and how often you’re creating something specifically for the show rather than sourcing it off the rack?
Atwood: We have books and books of fabric from all kinds of vendors because we never know what we’re going to need. We go to fabric stores, but because we often need such huge quantities for multiples and things like that, we tend to order directly from manufacturers. Especially in today’s world with imports, exports, taxes, and duties, it’s often easier.
Sutherland: We contact a lot of mills and get fabric woven. If we can’t find it, we go right to the source. We’ll pick our yarns and design the fabric from scratch.
Atwood: We also have textile artists who work with us. Sometimes we’ll get a plain fabric and put our own pattern or print on it. That’s a fun thing to do.
For instance, Wednesday’s stripes are hand-screened onto the fabric. They’re not woven that way. We actually print them ourselves.
AF: “Wednesday” exists in a heightened reality, but it never feels overly theatrical or costume-driven. Is there a guiding philosophy that helps you avoid pushing the designs too far and losing that sense of authenticity?
Atwood: Because we’re grounded in the story and we try to keep it real. You have to believe it’s a real story about real kids in a school. We really try to keep it looking like that. You can push things visually, but the basis of it has to be something people can associate with. It can’t be total escapism. It has to be grounded in reality.
AF: Nevermore Academy is built around uniforms, yet every student still feels distinct. What are some of the details that make the biggest difference in defining individual characters within the same costume framework?
Atwood: With Enid’s costume, we stitched a fine yarn of wool and angora into the stripe. There are little hairs that come through the blazer stripes. Wednesday’s stripes are hand-screened. The badges were designed and woven specifically for the show. Even the linings were custom. We hand-picked silks from Italy for them. There are so many details inside and outside the costumes that people may never notice, but we know they’re there.
Sutherland: I think attitude is part of it too. How each person embraces a uniform. Some people wear their jackets big and sloppy. Others are more neat. Some roll up their sleeves. Some push the skirt lengths a little. That’s what makes uniforms fun.
Atwood: You can take the same jacket and put it on ten people in ten different ways, and it becomes ten different costumes.
AF: Who ultimately makes those decisions? Are those character-specific choices emerging naturally from the actors, or are they largely established by the costume department during fittings?
Sutherland: We pre-fit everybody.
Atwood: It happens in the fitting room, both with the actors and with the background performers.
Sutherland: We go through the background performers and stylize the uniforms based on the characters they’re playing, whether they’re vampires, werewolves, or something else.
Atwood: You can often tell just by looking at somebody. You think, they’re going to wear a bigger blazer because they’re a little sloppier, or they’re going to be very buttoned up. You take what that person naturally brings and turn it into something that works for the story.
AF: Looking back now that you’ve seen the season come together, are there particular looks, episodes, or sequences that landed especially well for you?
Sutherland: The gala was probably the biggest one for us. We must have made about 200 costumes. Everybody was individualized, from the principals to the crowd. To see all of that on camera was a great sense of achievement.
Atwood: The gala was definitely our ultimate design episode. I also think Wednesday’s progression into detective mode was a big one for us. When the season opens and you see her in that coat, she’s suddenly on a mission. The coat can hide all of her little detective devices. It was a journey figuring out how to evolve the character, make her older and more purposeful, and still keep her feeling completely like Wednesday.