The costume designer for the Netflix series dishes on the logic of Joanne’s personal style, and the looks that make her stand out in a sea of rom-com heroines.

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Lately, it seems no one can get enough of Joanne’s wardrobe from the Netflix series Nobody Wants This. Played by actor Kristen Bell, Joanne is a Los Angeles sex podcaster who finds herself swooning over the unlikeliest of men: a “hot rabbi” named Noah, played valiantly by The O.C. veteran Adam Brody. The series is a tale of two people coming together later in life with careers and stable identities of their own, but it’s also a story of two worlds colliding to dramatic effect.

Nobody Wants This takes inspiration from series creator Erin Foster’s conversion experience after falling in love with her now-husband Simon Tikhman. And early on, costume designer Negar Ali Kline decided the color palette for Joanne and her family members would be a mix of “poppy colors and pastels” to contrast the rich jewel tones that Noah and his family seem to favor. That was done intentionally, Kline explains, to make a distinction between their two worlds. (As their lives begin to intertwine in later episodes, however, you’ll notice Noah wearing brighter colors.)

“She lives out loud, she’s bold, she’s fearless,” Kline says of Joanne. “She has this confidence. She’s not afraid of standing out. That’s why, I think, we chose the pieces that we did. Because they conveyed that sort of fearlessness.”

Kline also drew inspiration from “It Girls through the decades,” including the Hadid sisters, Alexa Chung, and, of course, the Foster sisters themselves. But it wasn’t about tracking down pieces those women have actually worn so much as taking cues from their approach to dressing.

Just like Alexa Chung, Joanne can go from demure, ladylike looks to a rock n’ roll, smoky and sexy vibe—sometimes in the same day. “The thing I like about Alexa Chung is that she has this chameleon-like approach to fashion. We wanted Joanne to be flexible like that also, although still maintaining a very inherent personal style,” Kline explains. “She has this emotional intelligence where she can dress for her audience. She puts on a power outfit to go meet the Spotify executives. She puts on her high heels and she’s dressed in this very chic work look. And then she’s in a knife-pleat skirt to meet the parents.”

Here’s how Kline came up with some of Joanne’s best Nobody Wants This outfits, and the pieces you’ll need to recreate them for a rom-com character arc of your very own.

A Matching Set in a Striking Color

Joanne attends temple in her most visually striking Nobody Wants This outfit: a red Reformation set.

(Image credit: Adam Rose/Netflix)
One of the first outfits our plucky blonde heroine wears in the series also happens to have been Kline’s most considered: the Reformation red georgette slip skirt and fuzzy cropped cardigan Joanne styles with a By Far bag to attend synagogue for the first time.

“First of all, she had to pop in the temple, right?” Kline explains. “She’s sort of like the fish out of water in this moment in the temple. So she really had to stand out not only for [Noah] to notice her, like on a practical level, but also because she’s different than everybody else.”

On a more symbolic level, Kline wanted a memorable look that evoked strong female protagonists of rom-coms past.

“There are these costumes that sort of etched in our collective memory. Like, the one for me is the Annie Hall costume. Or Sarah Jessica Parker in that tutu. And we just wanted something that met the moment.”

The Reformation Layla Skirt in “Poinsettia Red” Joanne wore in episodes one and two is sold-out apart from a handful still available on Poshmark. But Reformation routinely offers the Layla Skirt in several other colors and patterns, as well as silk, satin, and linen iterations, in standard, petite, and extended sizing. For a closer color match, though, I’d for this cropped J.Crew cashmere sweater and a tomato red slip skirt from Favorite Daughter.