The Unusual Language Of Class In Netflix's ‘Sirens'

Forbes

25-05-2025

Sirens. Julianne Moore in a goddess gown for Netflix's Sirens. Cr. Macall Polay/Netflix © 2025
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'There have been a lot of movies and television series about the 1%, especially lately,' Caroline Duncan said to me. We were talking over Zoom about her work on a limited series released May 22 on Netflix, Sirens, which is an adaptation of Molly Smith Metzler's 2011 play, Elemeno Pea. 'There's obviously a big fascination with these communities. One thing that we were really trying to say and do with this show, in terms of the visual language about class, we wanted our show to feel almost more like a period show, like it was completely curated.'
Given the breadth and quantity of existential crises currently ongoing in the real world, this show does feel period, which was unexpected, something this writer very much enjoys. How exactly does a person make current day apparel into a decadently costumed period piece without losing the audience? Duncan manages it admirably, her costumes create a sub-world of sorts, a place with a physics very different from what we are used to.
'If you saw this world through Devon's eyes, you would immediately understand why it felt like a cult,' Duncan told me. Devon (Meghann Fahy) is one of a trio of leading ladies as is her much younger sister Simone (Milly Alcock). But the center of this universe is Michaela (Julianne Moore), Kiki to a very privileged few. Though any glove Michaela might wear would be bespoke, the fist within would be something more capable than iron, something more pragmatic.
Sirens. (L to R) Trevor Salter as Jordan, Glenn Howerton as Ethan, Milly Alcock as Simone, Meghann Fahy as Devon in episode 104 of Sirens. Cr. Macall Polay/Netflix © 2025
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'It's beyond Stepford,' Duncan continued. 'When you look at the uber wealthy through the lens of a person who has no access to it and no reference for it, who isn't following fashion magazines and watching parties in the Hamptons, this would seem crazy. It would feel like everyone was wearing costumes all the time.'
The opening of the series absolutely supports this mission, we are treated to Julianne Moore as some sort of forest mother goddess, resplendent in an ankle length gown which fits her whole vibe, regardless of the absurdity of the situation, assuming one could adapt a more objective point of view. This feels like the right moment to acknowledge a bit of bias on my part. I have always loved Julianne Moore, she has this quality of equipoise elegance that always reminds me of my mother. I mentioned this to Duncan.
'Julie is deserving of all of your love,' the designer replied with a smile. 'She's an incredible collaborator and human. It being the first breath of the show, I think the impact of that outfit had to really set the tone for the series in terms of the themes of the power of womanhood, the confines of femininity, the tension and the power struggle to sort of survive in the currency of feminism.'
Sirens. Julianne Moore in episode 104 of Sirens. Cr. Macall Polay/Netflix © 2025
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All of that sounds a bit heavy, but I promise lovely reader, this show is a joy, it will make you laugh even as your sighing over another stunningly beautiful (and unfathomably expensive) expansive view of the family home where this story takes place. Yes, the themes here are complicated and they are not topics which have been discussed with much decorum in recent years. But that's one of the truly magical things about art, one of the reasons culture needs art so much: it lets us contemplate and consider from a reasonable (safe) distance. A topic's potential to cause discomfort is not a good argument for ignoring it. Especially when exploring all the jagged edges can be as delicious as it has been executed in Sirens.
'Very early on we all agreed creatively that because every person in this show, outside of Michaela and the staff to a degree, is in pastels, pastels are our neutral on the show,' Duncan told me. 'The binaries are black and white, and Michaela owns white. So Devon should be in black. Devon, who ultimately has confrontations and moments of tension with Michaela in the first episode, should burst like a storm cloud onto this island. In most places, black is very neutral, in most parts of the world, wearing black makes you almost invisible. But here it makes Devon stand out.'
Sirens. Meghann Fahy as Devon in episode 101 of Sirens. Cr. Macall Polay/Netflix © 2025
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Stand out she does, like thrift store Hot Topic in a sea of Lilly Pulitzer, Devon couldn't blend in if she wanted to, and her arrested adolescence would never let Baby get stuck in some corner.
'You can almost smell her,' Duncan said, 'through the people that she is surrounded by, there's something kind of rotting about her wardrobe. That being said, we did trim and edge her camisole intentionally with the same green that is the Kell House green to give her this siren call, this early, early, early Easter egg of calling her to the island.'
When you are telling stories on film, costumes are much more important than our culture seems to be willing to admit. And they do an awful lot of heavy lifting, as do the people who make, find, source and organize them. There are some things which cannot be given away in dialogue, that cannot come from exposition without risking suspension of disbelief, of losing the audience. Everyone is tired of being spoken down to. But costumes can silently fill in those gaps, and with an artisan like Duncan in charge, there was never a danger of a single detail slipping through the cracks.
Without going into any details, this is a story about sisters trying to save each other, even when the other doesn't want it. Or maybe its about women trying to save each other, even when the other doesn't want it. Devon and Simone had a rough childhood, but the way they wear that trauma is as unique as the women they grew into. Michaela sees this, even when the sisters don't. Watching that on screen was one of my favorite parts of the show. There is so much which can be communicated in total silence.
Sirens. (L to R) Meghann Fahy as Devon, Milly Alcock as Simone in episode 101 of Sirens. Cr. Macall Polay/Netflix © 2025
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'We knew that we were going to see Simone as opposite Devon,' Duncan told me. 'I wanted Simone to feel like she was the brightest point of our color arc. Obviously, the world of the show is heavily imbued with pastels, but I would say Simone's costumes are more electric than pastel. Or, they're a pastel where the dial has been turned up way, way too loud. And partly that's to mimic her mania. But of course it's also to make Devon's reaction to seeing her feel really, really satisfying to the audience.'
This is a show which has obviously dedicated much time and effort to what the audience will experience, it feels a bit like a play in that way, and whether intentional or not it is a lovely nod to the subject material.
'The design of this show is pulling away from naturalism and leaning into satire,' Duncan told me. 'In setting the tone and then allowing the Kells to feel like the most grounded in terms of their palette. I think it helps this world building feel like everyone is dressing for Michaela's gaze.'
Everyone is absolutely dressing for Kiki, she is the center of the universe, the source of all things and to have her turn away is to try blooming in complete shade.
'In Michaela's rule book,' Duncan explained, 'Simone fits right in. However, she's not a part of this world yet. She's climbing the ladder because she's following the rules. I wanted her to stand out from the rest of the sycophantic pastel crowd, that 1%, but show that she clearly understands the rules of this world that she's engaging with. I also wanted her to feel very young.'
When I was writing this interview, I knew I had to find the proper way to articulate my appreciation for the show's mini Greek Chorus, the invaluable and ineffable Cloe, Lisa and Astrid. If I was talking to you instead of writing, I would be sorely tempted here to pause for a moment of silence.
Sirens. (L to R) Julianne Moore as Michaela, Kevin Bacon as Peter Kell in episode 105 of Sirens. Cr. Macall Polay/Netflix © 2025
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'The most joyful process of this project was when we would be able to focus solely on them,' Duncan said with a little laugh, after I finished my fawning over her character design. 'They bring a lot of comedy, obviously, to this world. And everything I offered to Molly and Nikki and the other directors, it was always a 'Yes.' Like, go as far as you can possibly push it. So their clothing had to have the harmony of a Greek chorus. I imagined that these characters would phone each other, if they weren't already together, getting dressed before an event and be like, 'I'm going to wear the pink one, you wear the yellow one.''
From the moment the trio first appears they draw the eye across the screen. Given that this world is entirely curated by Kiki, we know that she has set this up on purpose. The machinations constantly brewing behind the scenes are as fascinating as they must be exhausting to live through.
'In the first episode, the outfits that they wear, two of them are wearing Zimmerman. And we could not find a companion piece in pink for Jen Lyo (Cloe) in a Zimmerman fabric that we loved. So we printed a fabric and built her that dress because the dresses that Astrid and Chloe were wearing felt so, so correct, that we just had to make a third to bring that into that world.'
Sirens. (L to R) Glenn Howerton as Ethan, Milly Alcock as Simone, Meghann Fahy as Devon in episode 101 of Sirens. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025
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Three has always been a number suspected to be powerful, it shows up in religions across the globe, it's in more folk and fairy tales than I could list. There is a sense of balance in the number three, and in both writing and costume this production makes deft use of our cultural associations.
'This show is a lot about triplicates. We have the three sirens, we have the three fates. And they allowed us to really lean into these uncanny Fellini moments in the scripts. When other moments had to feel more grounded, their satire was really mimicked in their clothing.'
I asked Duncan about collaboration with actors. Please know, not every actor wants to participate in the planning part of costuning, some actor's processes mean they prefer to be dressed. Others feel like it is important to be involved in what their characters will wear. One way is not better than another. Another reason that art is important? It proves to us, or reminds us, that solutions are legion, that there is rarely a single 'right' way to make something.
Sirens. (L to R) Bill Camp as Bruce, Meghann Fahy as Devon in episode 104 of Sirens. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025
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'Bill Camp who plays Bruce, he's truly a national treasure,' Duncan told me. 'He's not only one of the greatest actors of our time, but he is so probing and so thoughtful and so honest in his approach. He really is a storyteller and he wants to ask questions to understand and improve his performance. He's the most amazing kind of actor to collaborate with because he brings you ideas that come from a deep character study that only he has access to. He had done a lot of research on and had a close friend who also suffers from dementia and he gave me a lot of insights about how he thought his performance of Bruce was going to play out. When he comes to the Island he's completely out of his element, there has to be a bit of pride to his outfit, even though he doesn't have a fancy suit. He puts on his suit and he probably only has one suit. We talked about how maybe it's the suit that he wore to his wife's funeral. So I bought a suit that was about 20 years old. We aged and distressed it. I wanted it to feel ill fitting, either because it was an older style of a suit or because he's lost weight since his diagnosis.'
These details, the consideration and the time, it's not stuff that an audience is necessarily going to consciously pick up on while binge watching a Netflix series. But we'd sure notice if they weren't there, human brains are funny like that, they way we run our eyes across something and move on if it's all as expected. The things which bother us, which break the spell and kill the magic, it's almost always something incongruent, out of place or nonsensical. I do not know how to properly articulate the amount of work that goes into making something seamlessly unnoticeable, blending in the way a million eyes will think it is supposed to.
Sirens. Milly Alcock as Simone in episode 101 of Sirens. Cr. Macall Polay/Netflix © 2025
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I will not give away the details of any story, I won't even tell you how the pieces start falling into place. It's too much fun to experience it all for yourself. But I need to tell you that the ice blue dress Simone wears in the last episode? The one that made my heart flutter with all the breadcrumbs leading back to Grace Kelly? Caroline Duncan designed and made that dress.
'There were a lot of things that we wanted it to say,' the designer told me. 'One obviously was tying back to the beginning of the show and the mythological elements of it, because the last shot of Simone is her standing very similarly to Michaela, at a bluff's edge with the house behind her. It's this incredibly beautiful shot of her. She's stepping right in and her fist is going to be iron. I'm not really sure what's going to happen under her domain, but I can't imagine that her evolution is going to make her a different leader in this community.'
Caroline Duncan's gorgeous dress for Milly Alcock as Simone in episode 105 of Sirens. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025
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Sirens is available to stream now on Netflix.