This story contains spoilers for Season 3 of Nobody Wants This.
Three seasons into Netflix's Nobody Wants This, Joanne and Morgan—played by Kristen Bell and Justine Lupe, respectively—"know who they are style-wise," costume designer Negar Ali Kline tells Marie Claire. The sisters are confident in the brands they like and jeans that fit them best, but that's not to say their L.A. cool-girl closets stopped evolving. "They're in very different places in Season 3," says Kline, who worked on the Netflix show since the beginning. "Both are finding themselves in new territory."
Joanne, for one, moves in with "hot rabbi" Noah (Adam Brody) and enrolls in Judaism conversion classes. "She's not necessarily changing herself to fit into his world, but she's mindful of it," Kline says. "She's taking [her conversion] seriously, so we wanted to see that reflected in the wardrobe. She wants to represent Noah well in this world as the rabbi's girlfriend."
With that in mind, the clothes are more restrained while still embodying "the DNA of Joanne's style." The cropped and cut-out tops from Season 1 are buried behind the podcaster's colorful knitwear, classic button-downs, and preppy motifs. "Joanne is kind of tailored, buttoned up, and a little bit more alpha," she says.
The first noticeable shift in Joanne's fashion happens early in the season. She arrives at the temple for her initial conversion class in a "first day of school" outfit, complete with a short-sleeved, navy blue sweater and a plaid Prada pencil skirt. As the classes continue, "you'll see her in preppy polos and pleated skirts, which is very schoolgirl, but the grown-up, fashion version of that," Kline says.
Joanne's most memorable style switch happens outside the synagogue, in her new home with Noah. Gone are the days of going to bed in well-worn graphic tees—Joanne showcases new PJs in almost every episode.
Kline (whose "love language" is luxurious sleepwear) wanted "really cute pajamas" to play a leading part in the new season. "They're cohabitating now, so she gets home, and she puts on her PJs," the costume designer says. One of Kline's favorite outfits from Season 3 features blue sweatpants and a gray Henley shirt. "I want all of her cozy looks," she says. "Those are the looks that we can all relate to."
Later in the season, to propose to her, Noah invites Joanne to a wedding that says he's supposed to officiate. Joanne doesn't think much of it, rolling out of bed and straight into an oversized sweatsuit and a leopard-print coat from the Amsterdam-based brand Arma.
"It was scripted that she was very much not prepared," Kline says, noting that she slept through her alarms, her manicure isn't complete, and she almost doesn't get on the private plane. "At every turn, this plan was almost thwarted, so she wasn't dressed for the occasion," she adds. "My uniform for traveling is a sweatsuit, but I always wear a nice coat in the airport because you can wear whatever you want underneath and you still look put together."
To Kline, the leopard-print piece wasn't just Joanne's airport look. She wanted it to become her "hero coat," so the character wore it on repeat in other scenes that didn't make it to screen. "The leopard coat has been forever [known] in the fashion vernacular as an It girl piece," she says, referencing Kate Moss, Sienna Miller, Alexa Chung, and Twiggy. To find the right one for the pivotal scene, Kline pulled more than 15 leopard-print coats for Bell to try.
While Joanne moves in with her boyfriend, joins the Jewish faith, and gets engaged, Morgan delivers the season's most "major fashion moments," Kline says, calling the Valentino look that she styles on Watch What Happens Live the "peak of it all."
The costume designer worked with Valentino in hopes of sourcing a Cruise 2026 gown she had in mind for the scene. The off-the-shoulder style "was one of one, so there's a lot that goes into being able to secure a dress like that," she says. But once she saw the mint green gown in the campaign, "I was like a dog with a bone—I had to have it." It was "ethereal and romantic, but meanwhile, still Morgan with the sexy cut-outs," she adds.
While Morgan models the dress, Sasha (Noah's brother, played by Timothy Simons) sees her in a new, romantic light for the first time. "He looks at her like she's an angel, and it's this 'wow, I've never seen you like this' kind of moment," Kline says. "The color, the chiffon, the way it floated, and the way she was walking, it worked in all the different environments that it needed to work in."
Not only is New York City the backdrop for Morgan's "statement dress," but also, some of her best street style looks. Making her grand entrance in Manhattan, she pops on screen in a very Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy-coded "city look," complete with a black turtleneck, tan trousers, and a red, rom-com-ready trench coat. The crimson coat was the first costume Kline found for Season 3.
"These characters are so personal for me, because I relate to them in that we all dress a little differently when we go to New York," she says. "We take our jackets because it's more seasonal, and there's definitely an opportunity to get dressed up a bit more, whereas L.A. is so casual most of the time."
Both the Valentino gown and the trench demonstrate what Kline has known about Morgan since Season 1: "She wants to grab people's attention. There's a looseness with Morgan's fashion choices, even the way that she carries herself, her posture, and her body language," she says. "She's just nonchalant and irreverent. She's just going to do what she's going to do, and that's a really fun character to dress."
Yes, Season 3 finds Morgan and Joanne in different chapters of life, but stripes (of all things) connect their contrasting closets. "I have way too many [striped shirts] to even count—it's just very much in my personal taste," she says. Growing up in L.A., Kline has also always been surrounded by stripes: "I've really based [these characters] on my friends and people that I know."
The pattern also played a part in Esther's "self-discovery phase." After separating from Sasha, getting her real estate license, and going "back on the apps," she's "living out loud and discovering a new side of herself, and we wanted that to be reflected in her wardrobe," Kline says.
Jackie Tohn's character trades the more modest looks of Season 1 and 2 for midriff-baring blouses. Wearing a Christopher Esber crop top at a family function "is something that we've never seen Esther do, but this is the new Esther," Kline says. "It was really fun to meet the girls where they were this season."
Whether Joanne, Morgan, or Esther is on screen, "everybody's well-dressed" in this "specific slice of life in L.A., which isn't necessarily the case in the real world," Kline says. "L.A. is such a diverse place, but for us, even though this is a contemporary show, there is a world that we've built that is very specific to [show creator] Erin [Foster]'s vision."
Kline recognizes that it's rare to hear the word "worldbuilding" in a present-day project, "because it's just supposed to reflect the current moment." But in the Nobody Wants This universe, it's normal for Morgan to wear Valentino to a book proposal that she's wildly unprepared for. "[Joanne and Morgan] are It girls; they have relationships with brands and PR people," Kline says. "We thought, 'she has this meeting, and so, her friend that does PR for Valentino sends her the plaid suit."
That said, "from season one, they've maintained their personal style throughout everything," she adds. "They're at the stage of their lives where they know who they are, they've figured out their style, they know what works on them, and they do dress for the occasion."