How SNL’s Costume Designers Make 200+ Costumes Every Week

Name: How SNL’s Costume Designers Make 200+ Costumes Every Week | InStyle
Uploaded: 2025-05-28T01:05:04+00:00
Duration: 17 min 3 s
Channel: Instyle

Instyle

6 months ago

Go behind the scenes of ‘Saturday Night Live’ with costume designer Tom Broecker as he reveals how SNL’s iconic looks come to life each week. Broecker shares what it takes to design, build, and fit over 200 costumes in just a matter of days, from modern styles and period pieces to animals and high-concept characters.

Broecker shares the fast-paced structure of the week, from meeting with the host on Monday to reading through sketches on Wednesday to building costumes in time for Saturday’s live show. He and Ego Nwodim discuss how each cast member has their own costume closet, how characters evolve through fittings, and how wardrobe helps shape a performance.

You’ll also hear behind-the-scenes stories from some of the show’s most memorable looks, including the Church Lady’s dress, Dooneese’s purple outfit and tiny hands, and Will Ferrell’s now-legendary “More Cowbell” sweater—tightened just before air. Whether you love comedy, fashion, or the art of live performance, this inside look at SNL’s costume design process is full of insight, personality, and classic backstage stories.

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00:00It takes a very special kind of person to sort of engage in the chaos that Saturday Night Live

00:06provides you. Since 1975, Saturday Night Live has established itself as a comedic institution in

00:13America, becoming a launchpad for the careers of some of the most iconic comedians in TV and film

00:22history. From sketches that have captivated pop culture, to memorable characters who are

00:29household names or launching countless catchphrases. A crucial part of the visual DNA of the show,

00:38and sometimes even the punchline of the joke itself, are the costumes.

00:45I've been here over 30 years. I started as a PA. My very, very first cast was Jan Hooks and Phil

00:53Harmon and Dana. Any given show, we have anywhere from 120 costumes to 200 costumes. One of the great

01:00things about working on Saturday Night Live is actually the variety of costumes that we have to

01:05do each week. Some will be contemporary, some will be period, some will be science fiction, some will be

01:10a 3D animated drone costume, or some will be an iceberg. That variety is also the thing that I think

01:18keeps bringing people back. When I'm in my enclosure, tripping over stuff, biting my trainer's knee, I am at work.

01:26There is a structure to the week. Generally on Monday is a meeting with the host. Tuesday is we shoot promos.

01:34It's the last show before the season finale. That's right. Yeah, I'm just super curious to see how the whole thing's gonna end.

01:40What do you mean? Who's gonna die? Wednesday evening, we read the whole show and we read about 40 sketches.

01:48We go into meetings with the writers and the actors and they start giving us ideas of what they think each character might look like.

01:55Thursday's rehearsals start and the music starts and everything kind of starts. And while all of that is happening,

02:00the writers are rewriting and coming up with different ideas. A lot of people say that I have learned the art of detachment by working here and committing

02:10a thousand percent to something, but also understanding that at any given moment things could change.

02:15One of the ways in which we do magic here happened a few weeks ago. Marcello was doing a Benson Boone sketch.

02:21This is the one that we had made and bought and all that sort of stuff, but didn't arrive because of FedEx.

02:29We were waiting and we didn't know any of this until three o'clock on Saturday. And so...

02:34This we had to recreate, well, we had to create in two and a half hours.

02:38We had four pairs of silver space pants, and so used the pants, cut the pants apart, made sleeves.

02:45These beautiful things that I've got! Please!

02:52This past week what happened, particularly in the cold opening, we were doing the temple scene with the gold coins.

02:57What is this? What transpires in this holy place?

03:02Friday morning, that was going to be Jesus at the cross.

03:06We were doing all of that and we were doing Roman soldiers and then about three o'clock in the afternoon,

03:13we got the call that they were changing the whole concept of the piece and it was going to be the temple and Jesus and all the merchants and that sort of stuff.

03:21And you just have to learn how to roll with it.

03:23I will rid this place of all its money!

03:29Remind you of anyone?

03:31Some of the sketches that the writers write are easy to sort of go, oh, political.

03:36I say political is easy.

03:38Actually, politics is one of the harder things we have to do.

03:41Mainly because male politicians don't buy a new tie every week.

03:46So, the tie that they're wearing for the event that we may be recreating doesn't necessarily come from Nordstrom's or Saks.

03:55It came from their closet five years ago.

03:57So, we have this thing called the cricket, which actually can take a piece of fabric and then we can scan the image of the tie into this thing.

04:06And out pops the pattern, cut out the pattern and then lay the pattern on top of an existing tie to create the new pattern to make it look exactly like that.

04:16Our job is to kind of get as close to it as possible.

04:21You know, the time Kamala Harris was here, you know, we got the information from her team that it was going to be this specific black suit.

04:28We had originally been told she was wearing the Dior, so we went out on Saturday morning and got the Dior.

04:34And then, turns out that she actually was wearing the Gabriella Hurst suit.

04:40We had this version of the Gabriella Hurst and you can see that each one of these metal pieces are screws.

04:46So, we had 40 minutes to switch.

04:50My team went into overdrive and they went and undid every one of these.

04:55You can see, like, they started to do it here.

04:57And then, ultimately, this was the suit she wore.

04:59You can kind of see where the original things were, but you couldn't see that on camera.

05:05Kamala was looking in the mirror, so you had to have the mirror image of that thing.

05:10I was there sort of making sure that the pin was in the exact same place that her pin was and all that sort of stuff.

05:16And it was a very stressful situation, that one was.

05:20As Saturday Night Live has grown in scale over 50 seasons, so is the complexity of the costumes and the technology Tom's team can use to achieve the impossible in three days, week after week.

05:33We work a lot with our makeup team, and Louis makes these amazing prosthetics, and we used to have to do them with foam.

05:41Just the difference of feeling and getting the weight of a body out of silicone is something completely different than getting the weight out of something out of foam.

05:50Right here is the Trump stomach. It probably weighs 25 pounds, so it's, you know, you put that on and it's real.

05:57The other time when I really realized how this technology with the silicone stomachs and the silicone breasts and all could help were twofold, were one, when Jake Gyllenhaal was on.

06:08On your left, rider inbound!

06:12He wanted, like, a little paunch. Louis made this amazing paunch, and so he could wear his bike shorts right under it.

06:20And then when Ariana Grande was on, she was doing Jennifer Coolidge.

06:23Wow, you look great, Jennifer Coolidge.

06:26And so we needed Jennifer Coolidge breasts on her.

06:31And part of the amazing thing, and going back to my team and everything, we developed these things, and Louis does these things, and then we had to figure out how to make all of these changes happen within two minutes and 30 seconds.

06:43We work with dressers here, and they're all Broadway dressers, and they know how to, like, make these quick changes in two minutes and 30 seconds.

06:49It takes a very special kind of person to sort of engage in the chaos that this place provides you.

06:56Dress rehearsal happens, and as you know, we have about an hour to go from all of the notes which we have been given and change things.

07:04And sometimes there are little changes, and sometimes there are bigger concept changes, but we have to know how to implement them very quickly.

07:12Now, for the live show, I start at my desk in my office, but I stand sort of in the hallway where everyone has their quick change booths and where all the hair and makeup is set up.

07:22We call it Main Street.

07:23Main Street, there's nothing in Main Street right now. By the time you get to Saturday, there's hair and makeup, wigs, people. All of these become quick change booths.

07:33These all open up, so it does become a whole, a whole little village.

07:38Every cast member, he probably already told you this, has a closet here.

07:41Lauren likes to think that we help the performer not only do their comedy, but also figure out their style.

07:48In these closets are sort of what I'll call the general outfits that we could use whenever we need them to be specific things.

07:57In Bowen's particular, like we have a couple suits that fit him. We have some dress shirts. We have slacks.

08:03Mikey, you can see sort of a little better. He has khakis he wears. He has jeans. He has his political shirts.

08:10And then if you can see down here too, you have character boxes.

08:14You can definitely see that this is Sarah's closet.

08:18I mean, it's a beautiful assortment of color. It's easy to shop for her because you see things and you're like, oh my God, Sarah would love that.

08:26But at the same time, it just then becomes, oh my God, Sarah will love that. Sarah will love that.

08:30And then we have a closet of Sarah will love that and can wear it once.

08:35Beyond quick changes, with live TV comes an unpredictability that is unique to SNL.

08:41But even after more than 30 seasons, not even Tom can predict which characters will become an overnight cultural phenomenon.

08:48The whole idea of, of recurring characters and how they come to be.

08:53Domingo is in the past.

08:54Kelsey, I'm here.

08:56You never know. You truly never know when you start on Wednesday, when you read the sketch, if something's going to hit, so to speak, and therefore after it hits, you need multiple garments again and again.

09:13You know, the Domingo sketch, the writers had an idea for the initial sketch that it should be sort of autumnal and velvet for the bridesmaids.

09:22These two dresses were part of the Marcelo Domingo sketch.

09:27That first one over on the velvet was the Ariana's.

09:30In fact, you can see it right here.

09:33You know, she's right there.

09:35And then for the 50th, when we did it actually on the show.

09:38In the middle of New York and she screams to the sky.

09:42What she's looking for is this home Latin guy.

09:45We wanted to do a slightly different version, echoing that from a color standpoint, but have it be more springtime and have it be a floral.

09:53And then for Marcelo, we knew that it needed to be a black shirt and a gold chain and a sole patch.

09:59We found this really great suit from stock that we had here.

10:04Monday morning happens and then he realized, oh, okay.

10:07So people like that.

10:09And then all of a sudden, Funko dolls were talked about getting made and did we have the license to the dress and do we have the license for this?

10:16And it snowballed into a very big pop culture, cultural moment.

10:22So I'm just going to come out and say it.

10:23They should let me do the White House Correspondents Dinner.

10:26Okay.

10:28Weekend update has become an interesting challenge.

10:32It tends to be much more influenced by a current event or something that's happening.

10:36This was the Miss Eggie update.

10:38We ended up having to dye all of the underthing because we could only find white.

10:43My type A ass knew that the white of that garment was not matching the jacket, but I was like, I have to let some things go.

10:50Tom came to me and was like, we're going to be painting this.

10:52And I was like, I didn't even ask.

10:54I was going to leave it alone.

10:56And like, they care about the details.

10:57It was between dress and air.

10:59There were, I think, six people.

11:00There's an Instagram photo of it where literally they were all in a room and you can see them.

11:05They all had different brushes and they all were painting.

11:08Each one took a different part of it.

11:09Can I say where the purse is from?

11:11Because I got so many comments asking where the purse is from.

11:14You too can own this purse.

11:16This Miss Eggie purse.

11:17It's from Zara.

11:18For the look, it was sort of a nod to like that 90s Queens of Comedy, Def Comedy Jam kind of performer.

11:24Having the right clothes on, I kid you not, makes all the difference.

11:27Down to like, I was wearing heels in that costume and I didn't need to.

11:32I feel like the performance often is in the shoes.

11:34I feel like an acting teacher taught me that.

11:36Well, it's, it's, well, for an actor, it's how you interface with the floor.

11:39Like it's literally you start at the floor and how you stand, it affects how you stand.

11:44A lot of comedy relies on the visual and sometimes you want the joke to be the appearance and sometimes you want the joke to be the words.

11:56There are certain writers who understand that the joke is the costume.

12:02Here to explain his side of the story is the iceberg that sank the Titanic.

12:06Hi Colin, hi.

12:11This is the Bowen Titanic Iceberg costume.

12:14This is the hat.

12:16It was sculpted with a carving knife.

12:18Kate is an artist who works here and so we literally gave her a square of foam and she just started like using the electric knife and just hacking.

12:29And, you know, the hard part was just ultimately trying to figure out how it would stand Bowen's head.

12:35Celebrations for the 50th season meant appearances from beloved characters, allowing Tom and his team the chance to revisit, revive, and at times restore classic SNL costumes.

12:47With the 50th coming, we knew it was going to be really important to sort of make sure we did have probably the top 60 costumes.

12:55There were a few costumes that I knew existed and had an idea that they were somewhere and they were in someone's house.

13:03There were certain things that we needed to recreate.

13:06The cowbell sweater, unfortunately, had a few moth holes in it.

13:09And Gene, really explore the studio space this time.

13:13You got it, Bruce.

13:14This is the remaking of the cowbell sweater.

13:17We just haven't had time to put the leather trim nor the grommets on it, but this is the new version with no moth holes in it.

13:24Will is someone who is unafraid of his body.

13:28Between dress and air, we fixed his sweater to make it even smaller.

13:31He felt that maybe the joke would play faster and better if we shortened it a couple inches and made it a couple inches tighter.

13:40You know, the other instance that he did, which was the show after 9-11.

13:46This quarter, we're going to focus on earnings.

13:48Hey, sorry I'm late, gang.

13:50We didn't make it that small.

13:52Right before he went out for air, he tucked it all up under his regular underwear.

13:58So when he walked out, that was the first time everyone had seen it.

14:02Look, I'm sorry if I offended anyone.

14:06I mean, you do all know that I'm way proud to be an American.

14:12This is the original church lady outfit, the real one.

14:15Saddle, let's just saddle down.

14:18All right, hello, I'm the church lady and this is Church Jack.

14:20It goes back to like color theory and stuff.

14:22The blue and the red are combining to make it purple, but to me, it's red and blue.

14:27We see it generally like this when we fit it and then all of a sudden on Saturday, we see it completely differently because it's on TV under different lights on the set.

14:36This is one of the original Lawrence Welk slash Denise dresses.

14:4050th anniversary of the Lawrence Welk show.

14:43And I'm Denise.

14:45It was sort of like the culmination of taking everything we've always done and putting it into this and, you know, I think they turned out really good.

14:55They all had to have this long cuff so that her hand is here and it's her little hand comes out like that.

15:07For Radio City in the Lonely Islands part, my job was to design some cupcakes.

15:12I love those cupcakes like Mickey Adams, those cupcakes!

15:15It's always a thing of like, well, where does the head pop out and how to do the head and where does the thing and do they have to dance?

15:25We ultimately knew that they needed to have their hands exposed.

15:28So this is what this was for.

15:30This is the facial part.

15:31So their head holds the entire thing up, up this way.

15:35We found this incredible fabric here that looks like the cupcake tin.

15:40You know, sometimes things just fall into place.

15:42This year, with it being the 50th, I think everybody entered the season understanding that it was going to be unlike anything that ever existed in their lives.

15:54And we have a lot of people who have been here over 25 years.

15:57I think there's maybe one or two people who have been here 50 years.

16:01And that's the sort of magic that sort of happens here.

16:05You know, this is a place which a lot of people find home-like.

16:10It is true.

16:10This place is magic.

16:12It is.

16:12And that is a word I feel like I throw around a lot concerning SNL and the things that come together and how they come together.

16:18But I'm in awe.

16:19During that week of the 50th, there were moments that I had to remind the people I worked with.

16:27And also, a reminder to myself was that this was never happening again.

16:32And so, to stop and take that moment in was super important.