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COSTUME CONFESSIONAL
04.14.23


HOW BEEF’S COSTUME DESIGNER CREATED AN AUTHENTICALLY ASIAN L.A. WARDROBE

by Maxine Wally


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Courtesy of Netflix

From the moment costume designer Helen Huang got her hands on the script for
Beef, the new Netflix and A24 series that’s become something of a cultural
phenomenon, she felt she knew one of the lead characters, Danny (Steven Yeun)
intimately.

“He was like my stepbrothers, growing up in the San Gabriel Valley,” Huang tells
me over Zoom from her office in New York City. “I was friends with guys like him
in high school. I knew the identity, and knew that someone like him had never
been put on screen before.”



Huang set out on a mission to create a wardrobe that authentically captured the
spirit and lifestyle of Asian Americans living in the Los Angeles area. That was
an end goal shared by Beef creator Lee Sung Jin, whom Huang refers to by his
English name, Sonny. The result: an organic and genuine depiction of Asian
American, Southern California culture in Beef, which is being hailed as one of
the best new shows on TV, especially for the way each Asian character is a fully
formed individual rather than the sidekick comic relief or a bit player. “You
never see that on TV,” Huang adds. “Asian men’s likes and dislikes, their
preferences, let alone a backstory, are never shown. It’s pretty insane how
shallow they’re written sometimes.”

In the case of Beef, Lee assembled a nearly all-Asian cast, with members of the
Asian diaspora working on the show behind the scenes, to infuse characters like
Danny, his brother Paul (Young Mazino), Amy (Ali Wong), and her husband George
(Joseph Lee) with complex character traits. That’s especially true when it comes
to the plot for the show, which centers Danny and Amy, who become entangled in a
road rage incident that ends up tearing their personal lives to shreds.

“They’re layered individuals,” Huang adds. “I like the fact that, even though
Danny and Amy get embroiled in this stuff and do terrible things, you can
sympathize with them.” Below, the costume designer—who previously worked on
American Horror Story, Station Eleven, The Shrink Next Door, and many more
projects over the course of her 25-year career—breaks down each of Beef’s
characters’ looks, from Amy’s signature wire-rimmed glasses to the importance of
getting Danny’s house slippers just right.


DANNY

Courtesy of Netflix



Danny is a character consumed by bitter rage and regret, feelings of inadequacy
and guilt over not being able to provide a better life for his parents in Korea.
He’s also a character stuck in the aughts, style-wise. “I was talking to Steven
about it, and Danny is one of those guys who stopped buying clothes when he was
25,” Huang says with a laugh. When Danny goes out to a club in K-town, he wears
a DKNY outfit (replete with a belt from the Express apparel brand Structure,
donated by Lee from his personal closet)—for church, a cornflower blue
button-down from JC Penney.

But “Danny does understand what he’s presenting to the world, since he took a
lot of care with how he presents himself at work,” Huang adds. Still, the
clothing he wears at home is standard West Side L.A. fare: loose basketball
shorts, white t-shirts and tank tops, and a pair of house shoes very specific to
Asian men. “We had to do a lot of costume hunting because slippers don’t come
like that anymore,” Huang adds. “We did try extra hard to thrift those things so
they felt more authentic.” In a nutshell, Danny is a bit of a scrub—and Huang
wanted to show that side of him through “free t-shirts.” “In one of the scenes,
we actually reprinted a Sprint shirt for him,” she says. “Steven and I thought
he might have gotten it from a job fair or something.”

Courtesy of Netflix



AMY

Courtesy of Netflix



Ali Wong’s character, Amy, is Calabasas art mom personified: her closet is
populated by minimal, muted, oversize, and comfortable clothing that could be
purchased at any COS location. “You could say Ali’s character is more stylish,
has more taste. But for me, the bigger idea is exploring whether these
characters are aware of the niche they’re part of,” Huang explains. “It’s more
to dial into their worlds and make everyone see how caged they are in those
individual worlds. That’s what the style is supposed to do.”

Courtesy of Netflix


As for Amy’s signature outsize, octagonal glasses, Huang says she wanted to
“divorce her” from the actress Wong, who typically wears cat-eye glasses during
her stand-up specials. And Amy’s woven hat, which she has on in the very first
scene of the first episode during the road rage incident, is an “exclamation
point for her clothing,” according to Huang. “For the first half of the episode,
she’s in her car, and you don’t see the rest of her outfit. What could tell you
that this woman is very curated from just one glance?”

Courtesy of Netflix




PAUL

Courtesy of Netflix


Paul, played by Young Mazino, is Danny’s younger brother—who appears to mooch
off his older sibling and is tenuously employed. But more importantly, he is a
product of his environment, Huang says. “Growing up Asian, your hometown really
defines your style and your outlook,” she adds. “When Asian men are younger,
because of how ostracized they can feel, they tend to latch onto subcultures.”
As such, Paul is a gamer with a hint of mall-skater—he rocks a thick gold chain
that’s quintessentially Asian and is still stuck on joggers. “We wanted to make
his jeans super mall,” she says. “He wears a lot of Champion, a lot of flannel,
skinny jeans. To me, that was just enough to show geographically where he’s at.”

Courtesy of Netflix




ISAAC

Courtesy of Netflix


David Choe’s Isaac is “an aggressive character—with a temper and a rap sheet,”
Huang says. “I knew as soon as they cast David, who’s such an artistic person,
that was a great opportunity to do whatever I wanted.” But the costume designer
was mindful of reducing Isaac to simply being “the Asian villain.” She imagined
his interests included “crystals and astrology,” and his idiosyncratic
“import-export” business as a way to feed his passion for tchotchkes. “Isaac is
this guy who goes all around the world and comes back, like ‘Look at this rock I
bought for a thousand dollars! It’s a dinosaur rock!’” Huang says. “He values
things other than gold and silver.”

Isaac was also the only character whose entire wardrobe was sourced from costume
houses: beaded necklaces, old-head hip-hop garments like throwback Sean John
jerseys. “It lends itself very well to his character: he’s not a part of Amy’s
world, he’s not a part of Danny’s world,” Huang says. “He’s very much himself.
And even a guy who’s supposed to be a villain can be creative.”

Courtesy of Netflix




GEORGE

Courtesy of Netflix


Ah, George: sweet, not-so-innocent, a little lost puppy. Amy’s husband, an
artist hell-bent on selling his turd-like sculptures, is blissfully unaware of
his wife’s unhappiness—either that, or he’s choosing to ignore it. But he is
always one thing: stylish. Played by Joseph Lee, George’s hair is well-coiffed,
his comfortable, relaxed clothing coming from the likes of Nanamica, Needles, or
Dries Van Noten. “Asian men like dressing up—that’s another point I wanted to
get across on the show,” Huang says. George presented an opportunity to
illustrate how “Asian men care about the way they look, and they can look so
many different ways—and they’re fun to dress up and to look at.”



“George’s dad was an artist,” Huang adds. “I did want him to look a little bit
more international. He needs to match Amy in the type of aesthetic in their
house, because that’s a big element of them. They only go to certain stores,
they only buy certain potteries for their house, they only buy certain chairs
and they’re very aesthetically curated people. A friend text me the other day
and said ‘George looks specific bougie.’ You’re on a certain economic level if
you’re dressing like that, but still keeping it casual. He’s definitely a
fashionista.”

George with his daughter and stylish mother, Fumi, played by Patti Yasutake.

Courtesy of Netflix




JORDAN

Courtesy of Netflix


Jordan (Maria Bello) is one of the only white characters in the series—and that
detail is made very clear by her interest in foreign cultures and peoples (“You
have this serene, Zen Buddhist thing,” she tells Amy.) “We were thinking—what
does Jordan value? And how could we show that she is really rich?” Huang says.
“We decided we could show that with the things she curates from all around the
world.” Jordan is a wealthy art collector whose gigantic, cavernous home is
filled with global artifacts. “She’s the kind of person who is supporting
textiles in India or something, and it’s a very heartfelt interest, but she
doesn’t see that at the level she’s collecting, she’s collecting cultures, and
that’s appropriation.”

Courtesy of Netflix


In addition to rare crowns, Jordan also collects people—including Amy and the
character Naomi, played by Ashley Park. “Jordan has a slight element of
bohemian,” Huang adds. “She’s not really pleasant, but there is a sincerity
about her that sometimes makes you uncomfortable. She’s very firm and believing
in her world. And so she does display all these things that she has
collected—and she wears ‘em.”

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