Wakefield’s-own Emmy-Nominated Costumer of The Gilded Age Denise Andres

For fans of HBO’s The Gilded Age, it’s exciting to know that many scenes of the historical drama – created by Julian Fellowes of Downton Abbey fame – are filmed at various Newport mansions, most recently during fall in preparation for season 3, but there’s also a South County connection: costume supervisor Denise Andres. A 1975 alumna of the University of Rhode Island (URI), she maintains homes in both Wakefield and Brooklyn, New York.

Andres hadn’t set out to work in the world of costume design. Growing up, her aunts were skilled in fashion – one a milliner, the other a dressmaker – and owned successful businesses in Providence in the 1940s and ‘50s, and Andres’ mother encouraged her interest in sewing by getting her lessons in the summer. When Andres first enrolled at URI, she was more focused on liberal arts and just finding her way. It wasn’t until she needed a job to help pay for college that she stumbled upon URI Theatre’s costume shop. There, she found a mentor in Joy Spanabel Emery, a professor in theater and textiles, fashion merchandising, and design. “I was completely fascinated by it and became a theater major,” says Andres. “Joy was a fantastic teacher and just opened up a world for me. And working in costumes is what I’ve done my entire life.”

A veteran of nearly 50 years in television, film, and theater, Andres has worked costumes in countless productions including The Sopranos, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Shutter Island. Her IMDb page includes more than 40 projects, and the list keeps on growing. Among her television and film credits, she most often serves as costume supervisor. For The Gilded Age, she oversees a costume shop responsible for fitting over 500 background actors that bring the show’s
late 19th-century setting to life. The costumes constantly need to be tailored and pressed, inventoried, and then put onto a truck and sent to a specific location for filming. The job can certainly be a challenge. From managing fittings to coordinating the transportation of costumes to various filming locations, schedule changes, location shifts, and actors telling her their sizes that are completely off.

In late July, Andres was in Brooklyn when she got the call that a leak in the ceiling was threatening to ruin the hundreds of costumes stored inside the show’s costume shop in Troy, NY. She rushed straight to the scene, ready to assess the damage and relocate the costume shop, which resembles a small indoor mall rather than a single workspace. Fortunately, nothing was lost, but it took more than 30 crew members nearly two days to move the costume shop to a new location.

“It was a lot of work,” recalls Andres. “We were all exhausted, sweaty, hot, everything.” It was after all the chaos had subsided when Andres received the extraordinary news that she had been nominated for an Emmy Award. “Our assistant production manager said, ‘You guys got nominated for an Emmy.’ I started crying.” But it didn’t come as a complete surprise for Andres. “I had a feeling we would get nominated,” she admits. “It’s such a costume-heavy show and the clothes are just fantastic.”

Andres was nominated for Outstanding Period Costumes for a Series for the season 2 episode, “You Don’t Even Like Opera.” While FX’s Shōgun took the prize, the nomination was its own reward, which Andres notes that she shares with a talented team: designers Kasia Walicka-Maimone and Patrick Wiley, assistant designer Isabelle Simone, and costume supervisor Rebecca Levin. Together, they brought the extravagant world of The Gilded Age to life with glorious fashion, earning the show a total of seven Emmy nominations.

But more than anything, it’s the show’s team that makes The Gilded Age experience stand out for Andres, who ranks it as one of her most rewarding jobs. “We have an awesome team, probably one of the best on this coast,” says Andres. “It makes the collaboration so great. Everyone gives way more than 100 percent.”