Costume designer Brenda Cooper is head down in her upcoming book, “The Silhouette Solution” out this December, a fashion book with a foreword by Fran Drescher. But it’s far from their first project together. Decades ago, it was Cooper who crafted the timeless looks for Drescher on the CBS comedy, “The Nanny” when it began airing in 1993.
The show is now seeing a resurgence thanks in part to its streaming debut on HBO Max, which means a renewed interest in Nanny Fine’s wardrobe.
Cooper, who worked on the first four seasons, says she wanted to turn Drescher into a walking work of art with her outfits. The key for her was to create something that “had to be fun, witty, sassy and elegant. It was a sassy elegance that was important to me, and pushing that to the edge without tipping it.”
She also kept in mind that those outfits had to have a formality to them because Fran Fine was working in a household. Cooper would typically have to pull together 50 outfits for the cast per episode; of those, six would be for Drescher.
The key to Drescher’s wardrobe for the show was about knowing the right pieces. “From the beginning, that became a turtleneck, the miniskirt, opaque tights and a pair of high heels,” Cooper reveals.
Heavily influenced by bygone eras, whenever possible, Cooper wove in styles from the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, as well.
“What Fran loved was that I could use wit and humor because I’m British to elevate the comedy,” Cooper says.
Case in point: On one occasion she had accidentally dressed actress Renée Taylor, who played Fran’s mother, to match the floor, and it was kept in because “it was considered hilarious.”
Here, Cooper breaks down her 10 favorite outfits from “The Nanny.”
10. ‘Ode to Barbra Joan’ (Season 1, Episode 20) – Bob Mackie
“In this episode, Fran Fine is going on this date. I always loved to make Fran look like Audrey Hepburn or different characters. For this, I wanted to make it look like different characters, like, ‘Let’s play dress up.’ I went to Elizabeth Courtney Costumes [Bob Mackie’s design studio] where all of Bob’s clothes were. All his designs for Cher were there, too. Do you know how exciting it was to go into those warehouses and see clothes that Cher had worn and they were hanging up on racks? I saw this dress and nothing could be [more] perfect,” Cooper says.
“I always loved her hair up like that. Todd Oldham’s 1993 Spring Collection had all the models wearing their hair like this, and I just loved it. You see it on Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington. So, we did her hair like that.
“That necklace was from a thrift store. I wanted this ‘My Fair Lady’ look and I found that for $70.
“Fran can take a lot of looks, and this is one of my favorites. It said exactly what I wanted it to say. It’s sexy and elegant. It’s a bit over the top, but we need that in entertainment sometimes. But I had the freedom from Fran to take it as far as I wanted.”
9. ‘The Two Mrs. Sheffields’ (Season 3, Episode 9) – Todd Oldham
“Todd Oldham was a huge influence from the beginning. I’d go shopping at Neiman Marcus because they had Moschino Cheap & Chic, and Dolce & Gabbana. They always had bright and bold stuff back in the mid-’90s. They had Todd Oldham there too, and we became friends with him, and he would supply clothes or we would buy it,” Cooper explains.
“This was a go-to formula that looked fantastic: a short miniskirt that I’d put with the perfect black turtleneck, not just any old turtleneck, it was the perfect black turtleneck, and her opaque tights not sheer. It would create that long, sexy elongating line.”
8. ‘The Nanny Behind the Man’ (Season 2, Episode 16) – A Classic Formula of Turtlenecks and Cocktail Dresses
“I would find these great dresses, but they had a spaghetti strap and it wasn’t enough for me. So again, it was about putting the turtleneck under that dress which gives it a completely different vibe. The black turtlenecks would just save you. I could go out and find these cocktail dresses and pair them with the turtleneck.”
7. ‘The Dope Diamond’ (Season 3, Episode 3) – Todd Oldham Again
“For the most part, there’s never a piece of clothing that came out of a store and went on set. It always got shifted or changed, or embellished. With Todd’s outfits, you never had to elevate or embellish stuff,” Cooper says.
“The design of that suit and its sophistication, the line of it. The juxtaposition of the wild graphic print was the perfect combination for her character being a “formal nanny” with a very loud mouth.”
6. ‘Canasta Masta’ (Season 2, Episode 14) – Adding Sass to Anna Sui
“This is an Anna Sui suit, and that’s fine. If you put your finger over the suit, it’s sassy. It’s OK, but let’s make it brilliant. I asked myself, ‘How can I pump up the volume on this? How can I make it wittier, funnier and sassier?’ What’s more formal than a vest?” Cooper recalls.
“Vests became huge. It became a huge piece because you could put on a black turtleneck, a black miniskirt, black tights and then I would put a vest over it. It would add that sexiness to an outfit, and I had dozens of them. That’s a Donna Karan vest here. It was the perfect yellow. I added the shirt and tie which formalized it and made it sassy and elegant.”
Also, “I took the skirt up as short as I possibly could. And with the shoes, I’m sure those are Jimmy Choo shoes. They were always suede because it didn’t reflect the light.”
5. ‘I’ve Got a Secret’ (Season 2, Episode 12) – Turtlenecks and Cocktail Dresses
“Every week, I had to come up with six outfits that are top to toe tailored with accessories, so I came up with formulas. One formula was the turtleneck under a dress.
“There are a lot of cocktail dresses out there, but that isn’t going to work for a nanny. How do I solve that problem? With a turtleneck. I found a thin turtleneck, so you’ll see a lot of her in a turtleneck.
“This was from BCBG, and it was this specific fabric and very molding to the body. That dress was from Ralph Lauren. Nobody would put a turtleneck under that dress, and it started a trend.”
4. ‘Personal Business’ (Season 1, Episode 9) – Fran and C.C Babcock
“That red jacket was my jacket. I had a collection of 1940s jackets, and I used to put C.C [Lauren Lane] in all of them. She was a different character. She was town and country, very proper, but she couldn’t be town and country boring,” Cooper says.
Also, “I would make pencil skirts for her, but it would be to her ankle. It was the same principal as Fran, but executed differently; muted colors, shoulder pads, more demure, a bit kind of uptight looking and stiff, but still appealing.
“With Fran, that crop top was by Rachel London and it needed to fulfill something in the script, but I always wanted to elevate the humor with the clothes.”
3. ‘The Nuchslep’ (Season S1, Episode 4) – The Look That Started It All
“The major influence was a piece of clothing that was used on Twiggy in ‘Princesses.’ That show was in 1991, and her character Princess Georgina ‘Georgy’ De La Rue wore it,” says Cooper.
“It was from Moschino’s Cheap & Chic, and that vest was another departure point for her character on that show. I was able to take that vest from the show. That vest with the white shirt and black skirt was the inspiration and the embryo of the Fran Fine character. That was when we did the pilot. The white shirt formula was a go-to fabulous one. I used white shirts as an alternative to the turtleneck. I would buy them from Anne Fontaine Beverly Hills.
“I loved the ruffles and then I’d put a jacket over it. That was another formula of going back to the white shirt where color would make it loud and sassy. There was always that formality to it.”
2. ‘Personal Business’ (Season 1, Episode 9) – A Mini Vest
“This look was perfect for a date. Yes, I could have just done her all in black, but why? Why do all black when you can just add this vest and it had those sparkles? This is the essence of clean, elegant, graphic, sassy and sexy.”
1. ‘Pilot’ (Season 1, Episode 1) – Elevating Bath Robes
