Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Netflix’s I Am Not Okay With This had the rare challenge of taking the hyper-specific look of graphic novelist Charles Forsman’s artistic style and translating it for the screen. The show eschews Forsman’s black & white cartoon-y vibe from the book in favor of a hip, washed out, rust belt aesthetic defines by blues and browns. It also sets up an ironic style icon: Wyatt Oleff‘s Stanley is supposed to be something of an outcast, but his hipster outfits and bonkers energy make him a true fashion plate for 2020.
“Stan is very…he doesn’t care what other people think. He’s so uncool that he is cool, and I think that’s just what makes him so great. He just doesn’t care. That’s obviously seen through his clothing, the way he acts, and just his interactions with other people. And that’s what I love about the character,” Oleff told a roundtable of reporters at a set visit in 2019.
Costume Designer Bex Crofton-Atkins told the press that she had essentially scoured “every thrift store in Pennsylvania” to outfit the cast of I Am Not Okay With This. It wasn’t just a matter of style or budget, but to find older garments that would give the series that “timeless” look creator and director Jonathan Entwistle was going after. Decider walked past dozens of racks of “vintage” prom wear and piles of wholly original football kits that were designed specifically for the series.
“Yeah, it’s very thrift store, a little over-sized,” Oleff said. “I love the clothes on here. They’re very nice to just be in because I’m comfortable. But they’re really wacky and weird.”
One piece that drew a lot of comments from the press? Stanley’s homecoming suit. It’s a fun powder blue two-piece suit anchored by a graphic Enya tee. Crofton-Atkins shared that the piece took far more work than just digging through the “Orinoco Flow” singer’s old concert swag.
“It had to be a band t-shirt but that’s always a costume designer’s hardest thing. ‘Cause high school, you want to have kids wear graphic t-shirts, but you can’t really show them,” she said. “That was a really funny conversation. So you can’t use [band logos], so we had to create our own graphics. So we made that t-shirt. And we were all sitting in a room quite a long while ago all shouting names out of different bands, and that was the producer’s idea. I’ll give him credit. I just thought I’d make him happy. It’s a sort of inside joke.”
Oleff was also laughing about it. “I mean, I used to fall asleep to Enya music every night and now I’m wearing a t-shirt with Enya on it?” he said, chuckling. “I mean it works out. Yeah, I love the costuming. It’s what sets this show apart.”
Even though Crofton-Atkins had to design a lot of her own branded shirts and graphic tees, there was one area where the production team didn’t want to cut corners. I Am Not Okay With This is set in Brownsville, a real life suburb of Pittsburgh, and for the sake of authenticity, the ubiquitous sports jerseys of Pittsburgh’s favorite teams were included in the costume design.
“We were actually able to use all of that because Netflix are fabulous and they let us have a little more freedom with some of that stuff,” Crofton-Atkins said. “We’ve got a few Pittsburgh things in there.”
Again, Stanley’s own personal style demanded a slight swerve in this department. When Decider was on set, we also saw Oleff wearing — gasp — a vintage Philadelphia Eagles tee. Naturally we had to ask if it was Oleff’s own loyalties showing or something else entirely.
“No, I’m not an Eagles fan. I’m not a sports fan at all,” Oleff shared. “It is the costume. I’ve had them in a couple different costumes.”
If Stanley is able to sport a Philadelphia Eagles shirt in Steelers’ country, then you know he truly doesn’t care what people think about him.
I Am Not Okay With This premieres on Netflix on Wednesday, February 26.
