If the fashion in “Euphoria” feels noticeably different this season, that's because it is. In one of the show's many creative switch-ups, Natasha Newman-Thomas has taken over costume design from Heidi Bivens, guiding it into a new frontier of tastefully Western, untastefully adult terrain. Having previously collaborated with Sam Levinson on “The Idol,” Newman-Thomas was familiar with the director’s overstated aesthetic sensibility. This season, she invigorates each character’s style eccentricities with a designer-driven edge and so her symbolism isn't subtle. A financially insecure Nate (Jacob Elordi) clothes himself in designer workwear he can't afford, his bride-to-be, Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) infantilizes herself in kinky cosplay for online clicks, and the newest addition to the series, Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), wears gold scorpion-encrusted cowboy boots to personify the mythos of the American frontier. 

Thanks to the wild success of the first two seasons of the show, which helped establish a new generation of the Hollywood A-list, Newman-Thomas had her pick of the litter when it came to costuming this season’s cast. Picking up five years after season two’s finale, the fashion and brand partnerships of “Euphoria” have graduated alongside their characters. As Rue (Zendaya) finds herself deeper entrenched in the underbelly of the LA drug scene—couch surfing in ratty, oversized menswear and torn socks—Nate swaps his Nike sneakers for Golden Goose, and Cassie cosplays various male fantasies in custom Agent Provocateur. 

As Newman-Thomas sees it, the performances in “Euphoria” are two-fold. Each cast member portrays a character who, in turn, performs a version of themselves for the other characters around them. Her use of clothing to signify performance within the story manifests most prominently in Nate and Cassie, two of the most insecure characters in the show.  “An element that bonds [Cassie] with Nate is their aura of performance…that it's hard to see what's really going on under there,” Newman-Thomas shares in conversation with The Set Set. 

As a twenty-something catapulted into a management position (he’s taken over his dad’s property development business), Newman-Thomas wanted Nate to exude a deceiving impression of wealth and success while also dressing like a “man of the people.” As Newman-Thomas says, “he's living in this very performative space, which I feel like he occupied in high school as well, giving off this constant air of confidence and perfectionism. He's simultaneously trying to present as this contractor who wears flannels and workwear, but also trying to impress these investors, so he has to wear really high-end luxury to kind of sell them on his success and instill confidence in their investments.” 

When Newman-Thomas first saw Bottega Veneta’s viral spring 2023 collection, she knew it was “a match made in heaven” for the character of Nate. “It checks all the boxes of this performative work wear and super luxurious essence that Nate is trying to project,” Newman-Thomas explains. “He is really faking it till he makes it, and I don't think he would be spending that kind of investment on himself if he truly wasn't convinced that he'd be able to earn it back.”

As for his dysfunctional other half, Newman-Thomas wanted to instill a sense of aimlessness and stunted maturity into Cassie’s comically sexed-up costumes. She has her housekeeper shoot videos of her dressed in a series of increasingly absurd fetish wear, ranging from pup play in a satin corset (from Sweeney’s own lingerie brand Syrn) to an adult baby getup featuring a sheer babydoll dress and white diaper-like pants. For as simple as these outfits are, each one provides a window into her headspace. “Cassie really takes sex work personally and embodies what she thinks men desire… and it's far beyond just sex,” Newman-Thomas says. The bride-to-be’s camp outfits stand in stark contrast to the parade of bedazzled lingerie presented in Alamo’s strip club. “In Alamo's world, you're kind of selling sex more so than desire. It's love versus lust,” Newman-Thomas says.

When it came to dressing the many dancers of The Silver Slipper, Newman-Thomas sourced lingerie from all over. “It really was a combination of sourcing vintage burlesque pieces and pairing them with some contemporary designer pieces like Nué,” Newman-Thomas says. “We've shopped a lot of items from, for lack of a better word, stripper stores on Hollywood Boulevard, and it's really a combination. I bedazzled a lot of lingerie.”

Throughout the season, Newman-Thomas uses costumes to delineate thematic motifs. In the case of Alamo, who is introduced as a larger-than-life pimp, the American West plays a huge role in his costuming, framing him as an allegorical figure. “Alamo's mood board was a lot of photos of ‘80s Miles Davis, when he was kind of doing a Western thing,” Newman-Thomas says, citing Miles’ “Japanese Urban Cowboy” aesthetic and an early 1980s Rick James as style inspirations for the newly introduced character.

Throughout the whole season, Newman-Thomas brought a “let's just take it as far as we can” ethos to the costume design of “Euphoria” that borders on satire. Whether we find ourselves in the nauseating pastel confines of Cassie’s suburban bedroom or the fluorescent haze of Alamo’s strip club, this third (and rumored to be final) season luxuriates in a kind of hyper-saturated, sexed-up maximalism supported by Newman-Thomas’ varied costumes. In season three, every outfit feels heightened to the point of unreality, mirroring the inundation of highly-produced content we scroll past on social media every day.