Dressing for Laughs

The Movie: “She Devil.”

The look: A contemporary tale of two women in need of an image consultant. When we first meet them, Meryl Streep as Mary Fisher is a romance writer with a a corner on pink taffeta iced in ruffles, while Barr’s housewife character is pure polyester tent dresses.

The costume designer: Academy-Award winning designer (‘All That Jazz”) Albert Wolsky. His credits are impressive: “Sophie’s Choice,” “Manhattan,” as well as the current release, “Enemies, A Love Story.”

The conflict: Both characters evolve drastically during the course of the comedy, so the fashion story had to underline their respective personal developments.

The plan: To take both characters on what Wolsky calls a “voyage of clothes.” In the beginning, Streep’s Fisher (shown here) dresses in variations on the flowery style of British romance novelist, Barbara Cartland. “That was the germ of the idea,” Wolsky explains. He has Fisher floating in cloud-soft silk charmeuse, taffeta, crepe and chiffon. She wears pink and “face powder” colors such as beige, ecru, silver gray and lavender. By contrast, Barr’s Patchett epitomizes a woman with a big waist line, bad taste and no time to shop. Wolsky has her schlepping around in sweats, jeans, jumpers and tasteless polyester floral print dresses.

The program: Ultimately, when Streep’s Fisher attempts to become a serious writer, her clothes evolve from light to dark, from silk to wool, from flowing to fitted. As Wolsky puts it, it’s a look you might expect from a contemporary woman writer. Patchett’s fashion emancipation begins when she starts her own employment agency. At her most stylish--and liberated--she wears white and beige trouser suits with long matching coats.

The sources: Wolsky says he designed about half of each character’s wardrobes, and bought the rest at New York stores. For Barr’s dowdy period, he did some shopping at large-size stores in suburban malls, and bought her navy business suits at Macy’s. He overhauled almost everything he bought, adding or removing details, until each item was unrecognizable. He avoided head-to-toe designer looks. “I don’t think people dress that way,” he says.

The payoff: For large women, the stylish Barr can be a fashion role model. By wearing clean lines, and not hiding under tents, she looks thinner and has a certain flair. As for Streep, her character somehow looks foolish to the end, even in her black-chic stage. After all, this is a comedy.