History Class

How GH’s wardrobe department created the looks for the special holiday episode

- Mara Levinsky

When GH Wardrobe Director Shawn Reeves got word that the show was undertaking the Christmas Carol-themed episode that aired on December 23, “I was stunned and excited and scared because I know what goes into a big period show like that,” he says. “Once I started reading the cast list and breaking the script down, I realized, ‘Wow, I need a lot of costumes!’ I took a whole wall in the hallway outside of my office and we basically created a giant inspiration mood board with each character and all of these different research pictures around each character’s name. We started resourcing to all the different rental houses, and I started reaching out to theater companies all over the country. I was nervous because we’re so used to seeing DOWNTON ABBEY and all of these period shows and everybody is like, ‘Oh, that should be so easy!’ But most of that stuff is in England. I actually considered flying to England and pulling from the rental houses there, but that was too big of a project. We had to go to many different rental houses and pull lots of choices because they’re not standard sizes like you’re going to Macy’s and buying clothes. I had to go with very specific size charts with everybody’s measurements and measure the clothes in these rental houses. So, for one outfit, we’re going to pull in six, seven, eight different choices to get one that fits. For the women, I had, like, three racks of gowns. It was kind of like doing a Broadway show! It was huge.”