Margo’s Got Money Troubles Understands That Fashion Is Always a Form of Reinvention
Margo’s Got Money Troubles Understands That Fashion Is Always a Form of Reinvention
Apple TV’s most surprising series builds its most powerful argument not through its writing but through what its characters wear.
Fashion has always been about becoming. The clothes we choose, or the ones we cannot afford, say everything about who we are trying to be and everything about the gap between that version and the one we actually live in. Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Apple TV’s wickedly smart new series from creator David E. Kelley and produced by A24, understands this instinctively. And it builds that argument into every single costume.
Elle Fanning plays Margo Millet, a junior college dropout who gets pregnant by her married literature professor, decides to keep the baby, and turns to OnlyFans to support them both. In her everyday life she moves through the world in vintage knits, worn basics, and the quietly unglamorous clothing of someone assembling an existence from whatever is available. Costume designer Mirren Gordon-Crozier, who has dressed Fanning across five projects and developed a deep understanding of what works on her, sourced pieces going back seventy years, pulling from costume houses like Western Costume and Palace alongside more accessible labels. The result is a wardrobe that feels lived in rather than dressed, which is exactly the point.
Then HungryGhost arrives and everything changes.
HungryGhost is Margo’s OnlyFans alter ego, an alien character built from blue body paint, custom cone bras worn with tassels deliberately on the outside, hand-embroidered moons and extraterrestrial details, and a visual language that sits somewhere between avant-garde cosplay and pure performance art. The look grew directly from the show’s storytelling since Margo’s roommate Susie, played by Thaddea Graham, is a devoted cosplayer who designs and builds the costumes herself. Fanning and Gordon-Crozier developed the aesthetic together, adding moons and alien motifs to custom pieces and building everything from scratch with the DIY fearlessness the character demands. “We decided, why don’t we just paint myself blue?” Fanning recalled of the creative process.
The contrast is not accidental. It is the show’s central thesis made visible. Margo in her everyday life is constrained by money, circumstance, and the expectations of everyone around her. HungryGhost has none of those limitations. She is entirely invented, entirely free, and dressed accordingly.
The supporting cast deepens the fashion conversation. Rico Nasty and Lindsey Normington play two established OnlyFans creators whose wardrobes, sourced from Wasteland and Dolls Kill, are sharper and more deliberate than Margo’s, the visual shorthand of women who have already done the work of figuring out who they are on screen. Nicole Kidman arrives as a former female wrestler turned legal mediator, bringing an entirely different costume vocabulary to the show’s most unexpected role. And Michelle Pfeiffer’s Shyanne, a former Hooters waitress now reinventing herself for the benefit of a church-going boyfriend, is dressed in the careful, aspirational clothing of a woman who has been performing respectability for so long she has almost convinced herself.
Every character in Margo’s Got Money Troubles is wearing a costume of some kind. The show simply has the intelligence to make that literal.
Margo’s Got Money Troubles is streaming now on Apple TV+.