Palm Royale’s Costume Designer Alix Friedberg Talks 60s Fashion

Palm Royale’s Costume Designer Alix Friedberg Talks 60s Fashion


Grab your lamé gown and Gucci Jackie, we’re going to the Palm Royale! What’s the Palm Royale, you ask? Oh, just the glitziest, most exclusive club in Palm Beach, Miami, and, unlike Maxine Dellacorte Simmons, you don’t need to clamour over the back wall to get in…

Set against the heady backdrop of 1969, Palm Royale is Apple TV+’s newest comedy mini-series and believe me; it is a feast in every way. Star-stuffed is an understatement: Kristen Wigg takes on the central role of the plucky Simmons, a former pageant girl who, having grown tired of her native, lacklustre Tennessee and with an insatiable appetite for all things glamorous, makes her way to Florida’s technicolour Palm Beach with one goal: to become a somebody. Her route of choice? Through the gilded, impenetrable gates of the Palm Royale, a luxurious, members-only sanctum where high society women spend their days knocking back cocktails, backstabbing for sport and enjoying varied physical pursuits with their limber tennis instructors. Their husbands? They busy themselves making ill-advised business deals, playing boozy rounds of golf and evading the Feds. Simmons wants in, and she’s not going to let a little thing like being penniless stand in her way.

(Image credit: Courtesy of Apple TV+)

Allison Janney’s Evelyn, Palm Royale’s queen bee, smells the riff-raff-stench a mile off and sets about trying to send Simmons back from whence she came while clutching on as best she can to her crown, which everyone at the Palm Royale (including her clique) is coming for. Rounding off the ensemble is Laura Dern as Lydia, a denim-clad feminist who may not be all she seems; Kaia Gerber as Mitzi, a manicurist with modelling dreams; Ricky Martin as Robert, a war veteran-turned-waiter at the club, and screen icon Carole Burnett who makes being in a coma look downright fabulous as Palm Beach’s high priestess, Norma.