The way to uncover whodunit, according to director Susanne Bier’s gripping six-part series The Perfect Couple, is to pay close attention to what people are wearing. Adapted by screenwriter Jenna Lamia from Elin Hilderbrand’s best-selling book by the same name, the show centers the Winbury family, one of Nantucket’s wealthiest broods, in the days before — and after — a body washes up on their beach, interrupting the impending marriage of their middle son Benji (Billy Howle) to the outsider Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson). As police descend on the compound to question each wedding guest, where they were — and what they were wearing — become essential clues to figure out what happened to Amelia’s now-dead maid of honor, Merritt. 

Signe Sejlund — who has worked on nearly every one of Bier’s projects, including the Emmy-nominated The Undoing, Bird Box, and Emmy-winning The Night Manager — costumes the six episodes with precision and flair, painting a portrait of the private lives that the characters try so desperately to conceal. “It’s a one-word process,” says Bier of working with her friend and longtime collaborator. “Every character has secrets, and that’s really reflected in their looks. I often feel that rather than talking about a character’s history, the physicality of every moment is crucial.” Dakota Fanning (Ripley), who plays Abby, the eldest Winbury son’s wife, adds, “The costumes are super important because there is such a vibe on Nantucket. The way that people dress, and carry themselves because of how they’re dressed, has informed a lot of the character.” 

In addition to belying hidden agendas, the show’s wardrobe ripples with the undercurrent of Nantucket’s sartorial customs. Sejlund had never been to the island, so she worked with consultant Holly Whidden (The Undoing)to nail the aesthetic, a gaudy departure from the Danish designer’s more minimalist sensibilities. “Holly has been going to Nantucket all her life,” says Sejlund, who earned an Emmy nomination in 2022 for her work on Bier’s The First Lady. “She knew so many details that I never would have known otherwise.” Together they found a balance of more casual, nautical get-ups — true to the island’s tradition of sailing and beach-going — and pieces that exude sheer wealth, with many of the characters claiming the island as just one of many homes. “Our principal characters did not necessarily need to be dressed as though they are one-hundred-percent from Nantucket,” the designer describes. “They’re old money; they have multiple properties.”

Modeling this tension is the Winburys’ stony matriarch, Greer. Played by Nicole Kidman, who also executive-produces The Perfect Couple alongside Per Saari, Lamia, Shawn Levy, Gail Berman, Hend Baghdady, Josh Barry, and author Hilderbrand, the character is a picture of East Coast refinement. “I thought about the fact that this story takes place so close to water, and I wanted that to be reflected in her costuming, so Greer’s palette is full of creams, blues, and whites,” says Sejlund. “It’s not a practical palette, but she’s a wealthy, upper-class woman, so she does not need to be practical. “The second Nicole put something on, we both immediately knew if it was right or wrong.”

Sejlund wove in singular trends without which The Perfect Couple’s worldbuilding would have felt incomplete. “What is relevant is the specificity,” says Bier. “I often feel that wealthy people are depicted in the wrong way because it becomes generic.” Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus), who originally hails from Massachusetts and plays Merritt, describes how well Sejlund built the island’s salt-stained old-money aesthetic. “The salmon red shorts, linen button-downs, and boat shoes — it’s such a culturally specific environment,” says Fahy. “I think that anybody who is from the East Coast and who runs in those circles will watch the show and feel like they got it right.”

When it came to dressing the other female characters, Sejlund crafted equally evocative ensembles to embody the tensions roiling beneath the surface. Although designed by Jesper Høvring, who crafts bridal looks for the royal family of Denmark, Amelia’s wedding dress is disarmingly simple, distancing her from the Winbury opulence. For the rehearsal dinner look, however, Sejlund went a different direction, spotlighting Amelia (played by Behind Her Eyes’ Eve Hewson) with a bright red Dolce & Gabbana dress and Jimmy Choo heels. The fact that it’s clearly not a dress the bride would self-select reinforces that it is Greer, in fact, who is in control of this wedding. 

Finding the right rehearsal dinner look for Merritt, who meets her watery demise soon after the pre-nuptial festivities, was critical, as it’s how the maid of honor appears in flashbacks for the majority of the six episodes. “I put the dress in the bathtub to see how it reacted,” says Sejlund of what drew her to the striking Missoni dress. “The beauty of it was that all of those long fringes looked like seaweed. So I made a little film of that, sent it to the director of photography and the director and said, ‘I don’t think I can do it any better.’” Fahy adds, “Signe Sejlund is truly a genius. There’s just nothing that she hasn’t thought of before you can even think to ask the question. She has an incredible grasp of the world and what each character needs to wear to help tell their story.”