‘Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ Season 2: Emmy-Nominated Costume Designer Teases Midge’s ‘Playfulness’

“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” impressed viewers with its quick wit and genuine laughs, but it’s hard to discuss the 1950s-set dramedy without praising the costumes. Emmy-nominated costume designer Donna Zakowska told International Business Times that Midge’s look will continue to evolve in Season 2.

“Well, I think she is this sort of working person, so that’s really what began in Season 1,” Zakowska told IBT at the Paley Center for Media last month. “So we will see her in that mode again. But we’re also going to see her in a much lighter moment when she goes to the Catskills. When she’s there, there’s going to be a lot of playfulness.”

The Catskills were also known as “the Borscht Belt,” an area where many Jewish families vacationed in upstate New York. Several big names in comedy, like Joan Rivers, Billy Crystal, Jerry Lewis and Rodney Dangerfield, performed there from the 1940s through the 1970s. Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) and Suzie (Alex Borstein) will visit at the height of its popularity.

However, Midge isn’t just a comic performing at a resort. She’ll still be balancing her new comedy career with her identities as a mother, daughter and (possibly) wife. “In a way, [she is] coming to terms with who she was before, who she was as a child, who she was with her parents,” the costume designer added. “There’s a lot of that going on. So there’ll be a lot of playfulness but also a sort of contrast with her still doing the comedy. So it’s much clearer contrast going on, versus Season 1, which had more direct momentum.”

Zakowska is hard at work on Season 2, and that means building costumes from scratch. The designer told IBT that most of the “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” wardrobe is custom made.

“Well, Midge’s wardrobe is 90 percent custom made, and most of actually the principal characters, even the men and their suits, the key principals, are designed and built costumes,” she explained. “So obviously, with our extras, that’s where we tend to use more vintage.”

“We also get vintage for inspiration. I sort of heightened it a little bit for Midge and for some of those characters. So it begins with the period research, but then it sort of passes through a little bit of a contemporary viewpoint and then high fashion of the period, basically.”

Her hard work shows and has been recognized by the Television Academy. Last week, Zakowska — along with her team of assistant costume designer Marina Reti and costume supervisors Ginnie Patton and Sheila Grover — was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding period costumes. She’ll find out if she won at the Creative Arts Emmys on Sept. 8 and 9.

The show is nominated for 14 Emmys overall, but “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” will have to wait until the Primetime Emmys on Sept. 15 to find out if they won the high-profile categories like best comedy or best lead actress in a comedy.

Amazon Prime has not revealed a release date for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Season 2.