Clothes to Like Ike In

THE SERIES: “I’ll Fly Away”(Tuesday nights at 8, NBC).

THE SCRIPT: Lilly Harper (Regina Taylor, pictured) is a young black woman who keeps house for an upper-class white attorney, Forrest Bedford (Sam Waterston, pictured), and his brood of three: John Morgan (John Aaron Bennett), Nathanial (Jeremy London) and Francie (Ashlee Levitch). The location is somewhere in the South, the period is sometime in the late ‘50s, and the atmosphere is rife with social change that will come into the lives of blacks and whites throughout the country.

THE LOOK: Classic postwar Americana. Of all the nostalgia series on television, this one most successfully captures the look and feel of a bygone era without making the characters, at least in this era, look as if they stepped out of a sock hop. Costume designer Tom McKinley proves it’s possible to suggest a period look without restating every irritating fashion cliche. There’s not a single Peter Pan collar, three-quarter-length women’s dress sleeve or kid’s rolled-up pedal pusher in sight. Just the same, men do wear tie clips, women do like short-sleeved cashmere sweater sets and young girls do dress in kilts and cotton blouses.

As McKinley puts it, the costumes are a “sense memory” more than anything else, which he and the producers believe makes the series “less distancing” to the audience than a literal costume drama. McKinley achieves this by adroitly mixing an equal amount of contemporary clothing with vintage purchases.

It seems impossible, but Kathryn Harrold’s defense attorney character, Christina LeKatzis, primarily wears new suits by Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Dior, Albert Nipon and Jaeger, all typically single-breasted with interesting collar and cuff detailing. After buying the suits, McKinley nips and tucks.

Lilly, by contrast, wears predominantly vintage dresses--the rayon, cotton and nylon print short-sleeved housedresses that everyone’s mother used to wear (instead of leggings and T-shirts), all topped off with kitchen-cozy aprons.

THE SOURCES: All Forrest Bedford’s suits (and those of the other male characters) are contemporary Brooks Brothers standard, three-button sack suits worn with white shirts and quiet-patterned silk ties from Brooks Brothers, Hugo Boss and Ralph Lauren. The children’s clothes are culled from Brooks Brothers and Banana Republic, with many trips to vintage shops.

THE PAYOFF: By fashion sleight-of-hand, the costumes warmly recall the ‘50s without turning into “Happy Days.”