High Potential Costume Designer Sandra Burns Knows: Gams Don't Negate Brains
Morgan's short denim skirts serve character and story (and lewks)—and mark the ABC procedural as something special
Something wonderful happens when you start paying attention to the department heads of TV shows—you see patterns. And it turns out that I have, for years, been a huge fan of costume designer Sandra Burns. She designed two one-season faves, The Cool Kids and Pivoting, as well as the Will Forte comedy Last Man on Earth. But her work on ABC’s hit procedural High Potential finally earns her the attention and accolades she deserves.
Dressing the cast of a procedural might seem like a ho-hum paycheck job, but High Potential broke out precisely because it is anything but ho-hum. This is a procedural where fish-out-of-water genius Morgan (Kaitlin Olson) wears denim miniskirts and colorful swoops of eye makeup while she clocks details that only a high-performing individual could see. And as always with a contemporary series, there’s more happening with the clothes than our non-HPI eyes consciously notice.
“We could make these really bold swings in [Olson’s] clothes because they were supported by her character and ultimately her performance. So they just became so believable,” Burns says. “The items themselves, sure, maybe they're out there. But when we combined them and the way we layered them, this is the way [Morgan’s] brain processes: She layers, she does all these things. She doesn't care about authority, she doesn't care what people think, and she's just truly, authentically herself.”
And part of being authentically herself is wearing some very short skirts. But they serve a much bigger purpose than just visually contrasting Morgan from her more buttoned-up colleagues. ”The skirts are so short,” Burns says with a laugh. “Always, I’m like, ‘Is this OK? Can you do it?’ She's ‘Oh, I can do it.’ And she can! She's going under that tape, she's climbing that ladder, and it's so inappropriate. And that's exactly what Morgan is like. She's never gonna try to fit in.”
Early in the season, Burns received network notes asking if Morgan’s outfits maybe should be a little more professional. She’s accepted a job with the LAPD; would she still dress like that? Which kinda proved Burns and Olson’s point with the costumes. “[Morgan is] always underestimated, and her clothes do that—they make people think, ‘Oh, she can't do this job. Why is she wearing these heels in the park?’ She can, so it's this great thing of how it really shows her character.”
Burns didn’t work on the pilot, but she had previously worked with Olson on the short-lived Quibi series Flipped, so she knew what their fittings would be like after joining.
”She's so willing to try something,” Burns says. “I can hold up whatever and be like, ‘Oh, I was thinking you're gonna wear this leopard with this leopard and then also with this leopard.’ And she's, ‘Great, let's try it.’ We just really click. There's a trust because obviously some of these things seem a little kooky, but she's willing to go there.”
That also includes Morgan’s hair and makeup, a close collaboration that ensures Morgan’s look is never “a hat on a hat”—even if she’s wearing triple denim.
”Her hair and makeup people, Thea [Samuels] and Abby [Roll], are phenomenal,” Burns says. “We really, truly collaborate on what they're doing. And for her makeup, Thea really was like, ‘Oh, she just takes a drugstore eyeliner and was doing like a swoop of color.’ And then she has these insane nails. We're always talking about what she's doing. If an outfit feels a little too put together, then her hair's up and maybe a little messier.”
This is still a show where death gets investigated with regularity, so Burns and Olson have a system to keep Morgan’s clothes from becoming a distraction. “ [In one episode] these children have been kidnapped, and Morgan is really upset and trying to find them,” Burns says. “And it's serious. So the test would be holding up earrings and be like: ‘The kids are in the trunk!’ To see if it balanced with the story, because ultimately that's what it had to do.
Burns also dresses the rest of the cast, of course. And one of her strokes of genius is to ensure that Morgan and her teen daughter, Ava, occasionally share clothes without drawing attention to it. She’s also responsible for the memorable suits that Javicia Leslie, Daniel Sunjata, and Deniz Akdeniz’s detectives wear. Especially since Akdeniz is such a fan of the gym.
”He loves to work out,” Burns says after I bring it up. “We're like, ‘Please, is it leg day again?’ He has a very athletic fit, and so we're continually buying one size, altering it to fit. [But] people fluctuate throughout the season, and you just have to meet them where they are.” And of course, High Potential is an ABC series, so there’s always a sense of aspiration to the wardrobe. Balancing that with storytelling is one of Burns’ bigger tasks.
To that end, she’s delighted that her team will include a tailor for Season 2. ”We're gonna start building more,” she says. “Before, it was a lot of shopping, altering, trying to find vintage things, just collaging stuff together. But you need multiples. You need her photo double, you need her stunt doubles. Very excited to be able to do some more custom stuff for her, which I think will be really fun.”
Sandra Burns’ credits include Pivoting, The Cool Kids, and Space Station 76. (This partial list of credits is indicative only of my idiosyncratic taste.) Her Emmy submission episode for High Potential is the Season 1 finale. And her go-to at crafty is, well, let’s have her explain: “ Crafty is my favorite thing of all time. Actually, my first question when I get hired is, ‘Who's doing crafty?’ I kid you not. I love it so much. Mitch and Amy are my favorite crafty people. We met on Last Man. I'm shouting out the crafty people! I love a good hot snack. Like Japanese rice balls.”