aliaschick820
Cadet
March 12, 2003 -- IF looks could kill, sexy spy Sydney Bristow's would.
Not since "Sex and the City" have we seen a show like "Alias" - which gives fashion equal billing with its star, Jennifer Garner.
Garner has impersonated a torch singer in Paris, a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas and a New York punk princess. Each time she appears on screen in another alias, it seems the thrills and suspense of the script screeches to a halt for a brief "oh-my-goodness" fashion moment.
For her first wardrobe fitting last season, the show's fashion designer, Laura Goldsmith, had Garner meet her at a store in L.A. called Syren.
Syren specializes in rubber.
"It's a fashion store - but every once in a while somebody comes in for a rubber hood and a pair of rubber sheets," Goldsmith says. "They make custom stuff and people are into all kinds of things you don't want to know about."
"They had to unlock the door to let me in and they locked the door behind me," Garner told Conan O'Brien in a recent interveiw. "And there are whips and there are chains . . . and I'm a nice girl from West Virginia and my eyes are like this big.
"This man says, 'If you could just step in here and dust yourself off with baby powder . . . and we'll get started.'
"So I put [the powder] on, and it takes two people to get [the outfit] on, and I was just sitting there and I'm thinking . . . I can't wear this on television. What am I gonna say to my dad?"
"That made a big impact, the blue rubber dress," Goldsmith says. "It became sort of famous - to my surprise."
(This year, the Costume Designers Guild has nominated Goldsmith for an award in the same category as the costumers for "Sex And the City," "The Sopranos," and "Six Feet Under.")
Meanwhile, if rubber starts showing up this spring on a lot of young women - you'll have Garner's forgiving father to thank.
Ultimately, it's the scene - not the runway or the street - that dictates the look, Goldsmith says, whether it's scripted or not.
For a scene aboard a 747, Garner played a call girl decked out in luscious Cosabella lingerie (with a rhinestone-handled whip) while seducing a corpulant baddie in a Versace track suit who was eating shrimp cocktail.
Yes, it borders on caricature. But "that's what's so fun about this show," says Goldsmith. "Nobody makes you hold it back."
But things don't always go swimmingly. For a recent scene in a pool, Garner wore a stunning electric blue La Perla bikini which showed off her assets.
The problem? "We didn't really think to line it with pockets for the little gel pads that we use to do just a little enhancing," Goldsmith says. "So I think they did a take or two and the pad actually came out and was floating in the water."
Not since "Sex and the City" have we seen a show like "Alias" - which gives fashion equal billing with its star, Jennifer Garner.
Garner has impersonated a torch singer in Paris, a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas and a New York punk princess. Each time she appears on screen in another alias, it seems the thrills and suspense of the script screeches to a halt for a brief "oh-my-goodness" fashion moment.
For her first wardrobe fitting last season, the show's fashion designer, Laura Goldsmith, had Garner meet her at a store in L.A. called Syren.
Syren specializes in rubber.
"It's a fashion store - but every once in a while somebody comes in for a rubber hood and a pair of rubber sheets," Goldsmith says. "They make custom stuff and people are into all kinds of things you don't want to know about."
"They had to unlock the door to let me in and they locked the door behind me," Garner told Conan O'Brien in a recent interveiw. "And there are whips and there are chains . . . and I'm a nice girl from West Virginia and my eyes are like this big.
"This man says, 'If you could just step in here and dust yourself off with baby powder . . . and we'll get started.'
"So I put [the powder] on, and it takes two people to get [the outfit] on, and I was just sitting there and I'm thinking . . . I can't wear this on television. What am I gonna say to my dad?"
"That made a big impact, the blue rubber dress," Goldsmith says. "It became sort of famous - to my surprise."
(This year, the Costume Designers Guild has nominated Goldsmith for an award in the same category as the costumers for "Sex And the City," "The Sopranos," and "Six Feet Under.")
Meanwhile, if rubber starts showing up this spring on a lot of young women - you'll have Garner's forgiving father to thank.
Ultimately, it's the scene - not the runway or the street - that dictates the look, Goldsmith says, whether it's scripted or not.
For a scene aboard a 747, Garner played a call girl decked out in luscious Cosabella lingerie (with a rhinestone-handled whip) while seducing a corpulant baddie in a Versace track suit who was eating shrimp cocktail.
Yes, it borders on caricature. But "that's what's so fun about this show," says Goldsmith. "Nobody makes you hold it back."
But things don't always go swimmingly. For a recent scene in a pool, Garner wore a stunning electric blue La Perla bikini which showed off her assets.
The problem? "We didn't really think to line it with pockets for the little gel pads that we use to do just a little enhancing," Goldsmith says. "So I think they did a take or two and the pad actually came out and was floating in the water."
