Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1400113
yourself champagne bar—the perfect distraction. To complete the look, I turned back to Cassie's journey and our logo. The plane is a proxy home for Cassie, a place she felt comfortable, confident and suffused in glamor. Jessica Petruccelli worked with me to find a wallpaper that evoked those lines, along with finishes and lighting that subtly reinforced a residential touch. Those sets up and running, I turned to the next major design element, Annie's loft. Cassie's best friend is a bold, ladder-climbing lawyer who does not shy away from questionable clientele. I thought she'd have worked with a hot new designer for her showstopping loft, giving so much room to play. In her career, life and apartment, what Annie reveals and conceals plays against expectation. I started my massing sketches by organizing public and private spaces, a datum that I spun to create the thick brick arches that marched down the center of her Dumbo warehouse loft. Public spaces were closer to the entrance, but otherwise few traditional barriers exist in the space. I hid the kitchen behind colorful shapes, while the scripted "shower in the living room" was front and center. Small details tied both sides together—a counter from the bathroom threads through to the common area sink, folds into a credenza in the office area, wraps down into the floor of the lowered bedroom, dining and kitchen spaces, and tucks behind the pantry and before we pick it up again at the foyer table—right behind the mirror Annie uses to check her hair and makeup before she leaves for work—a subtle note that was a joy to realize. The arches informed the retrofuture '80s look throughout, including a curved plexiglass shower —which I loved, but our local manufacturers did not. While searching for a company willing bend clear 6-foot-high plexiglass into a 4-foot- diameter curve, I had to jump on a plane to Thailand where the show filmed through the Thanksgiving holiday. I was thrilled to rejoin the team there, who found no detail too small to perfect, from the letter pressed price tags in the café-turned-lobby store where Cassie buys her Norma Desmond scarf, to the rabbits hiding in the sets, a callback to Cassie's inciting trauma. Moments between sets were devoted to reconsidering the "private side" of the loft using off-the-shelf shower elements. It was a dispiriting adventure—the design team threw every idea at the wall, but none stuck. With barely a day to spare, we were saved by Just Plastics out of New Jersey, found by our resourceful assistant set decorator, Charlene Wang De Chen. Another priority in the space was including living female artists and artisans' work. Steve Yockey and I talked about Annie's loft as a gallery for daring and, at times, unnerving choices. We worked with custom furnishings and prototypes from lighting designers, and were thrilled to prominently feature pieces by Crys Yin and Jane Dell, whose works play with expectation, dreamscapes and the subconscious. After anchoring the show's heightened aesthetic with those sets, the other locations and supporting sets had two main jobs: honestly represent the A. SKETCH PLAN OF ANNIE'S LOFT DRAWN IN PENCIL AND MARKER BY SARA K WHITE. B. SKETCHUP MODEL OF ANNIE'S LOFT—VIEW TOWARD SHOWER. BY JOSH SMITH AND SARA K WHITE. C. ANNIE'S LOFT. VIEW FROM FRONT DOOR TO SHOWER. PHOTO BY SPENCER LASKY. D. ANNIE'S LOFT. VIEW FROM SHOWER TO FRONT DOOR. PHOTO BY SPENCER LASKY. E. CASSIE'S NEW YORK APARTMENT. PHOTO BY PHIL CARUSO. F. RABBIT SCULPTURE EARLY PENCIL SKETCH BY SARA K WHITE. G. UNISPHERE WAITING AREA WITH QUESTIONABLE RABBIT SCULPTURE. PHOTO BY PHIL CARUSO. A B