We speak with the costume designer of of We Are Lady Parts and frequent collaborator with Nida Manzoor, PC Williams!
Besides its bold writing and direction from series creator Nida Manzoor, the costuming of We Are Lady Parts is a crucial element for its profound success. Costume designer PC Williams, working with her frequent collaborator Manzoor, showcases the diversity of garb for Muslim women and the variety of ways they present themselves to the world. The band itself has hijabi, niqabi, and non-covered women with bright and colorful garments. These signify the beauty and depth found among countries worldwide with Muslim populations, all brought to the forefront with the titular Lady Parts.
To delve more into how she approached the costuming for Season 2, now streaming on Peacock, we spoke with PC Williams. She describes the process of working with Manzoor, taking inspiration from Muslim women worldwide, where she sees her role as an artist, approaching Bisma’s storyline through the costuming aspect, and much more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
The Nerds of Color: I want to give you a belated congratulations on your BAFTA, and you deserve another one, as well as all the Television Awards, including the Emmys here.
PC Williams: Thank you so much. I’m really proud of what we’ve done. So you know what will be, will be, but I know that whatever happens, I’m really proud of what we’ve done.
Yeah, as you should be. We Are Lady Parts shows such an incredible range of what Muslim women wear and use to express themselves, more so than any other western film or TV show I’ve ever seen. So how does it feel to be able to have created that and working alongside your fellow genius storyteller, Nida Manzoor?
I mean, working alongside Nida is an absolute dream come true every day. So that is, in itself, sort of like cherry on the cake. But I think I compare what we were doing in season one with what we doing in season two. And I feel like in season one, as someone who isn’t Muslim, I wanted to get it right. I wanted to make sure that I was doing the right things according to how Islamic dress should be. And I think by season two, I as an individual had evolved. The characters themselves had evolved, and my understanding of Islamic dress has evolved. And so I’m able to take a load of more risks than I would have done in the first season this season. And I think those risks pay off massively on screen.
When we, me and Nida, started talking about, like, where we want to push the girls, where we want to stay the same, whatever, I started like, going in this deep dive of Muslim influencers and the range that exists online of young women. All are so firm in their faith, but all present so differently. There are so many. And it’s like, not just not like they’re from one part of the world. It’s girls from the Middle East, girls from Copenhagen, girls from the UK, girls from Berlin, like there’s so many who are proud Muslim women and who rock their faith differently every day. To tap into that was amazing.
I love the photo shoot episode so much watching the band mates try on mixing and matching different clothes. What was it like working on that episode and designing all these different outfits for them?
In the photo shoot episode, when I read it, I knew what needs to come across is that someone has actually spent the time trying to put rails together that they feel is representative of these girls individual aesthetics. It had to read as though that was something that had been thought through. So my junior ACD (assistant costume designer) Jay Hudson and my ACD Misty Griffiths, they worked on it together. Like, if you could take out all the color and all like the fun from all the girls costumes, and you had to give me an echo version. What would it be? And it looked honestly, I mean, I had to leave set that day because I was laughing so much, and we would have had no usable footage for my laughter in the background. I gagged.
One of my favorite arcs this season was Bisma’s as we see her, who is played brilliantly by Faith Omole, wanting to present more of her blackness through her new braids, but being afraid of potentially taking off her head scarf, for the potential backlash she’ll receive in her Muslim community. So what was it like designing on that episode and working with Faith and other Black women on set?
When I first read that script, I called Nida, and I was like, “Nida, are you trying to say that you have an issue with my costume from season one?” and then we had back and joke about it. Of all the costumes Bisma’s is probably more aligned with my personal style, and I think it’s because we have a very similar sort of cultural background. I’m half Nigerian and half Guyanese. I grew up in London. I like Ankara prints. I reference like our traditional fabrics alongside more western clothing. And I understood what Nida was trying to say, which is that, like, my mum always says that we’re like peacocks. That’s why, like, when you go to a Nigerian party and the aunties are a matching bag and shoot. We’re like a showy culture. And when your culture is quite flashy, or your religion is not, your religion is about, sacrifice and restraint, in terms of how we might choose to present.
I think that there’s, there’s this like, push and pull that happens there. And so trying to work out how to visually represent that push and pull, how to lean into what you feel so strongly. Because religion is a choice, your cultural heritage and your cultural identity is something that you don’t necessarily choose. That’s what’s just handed down to you. So you’re having to sort of fight with what you’ve chosen versus who you are, in a sense. The two of them, are the same, like you are who you are because of the juices that you make. But I think it was myself, Faith, Nida, and Cynthia, our hair and makeup designer, we had lots of conversations about how far to go, where the restraint level should be, which pieces can we not let go of, and which pieces could we let go of. And those conversations, I think, built in to make what I think is a face shining moment in that episode where she births this new this new set, this new sense of self that we all should feel privileged have been able to witness.
Yeah, it’s just so beautiful to see in so many ways. So my last question, what I love so much about this season is it grappled with the question of, what is the role of the artist? So do you have an answer for that, and what do you aim to say overall with the storytelling of your beautifully designed costumes?
It’s tricky, right? Because I think everyone, each artist is individual. No two artists are the same, and each artist’s message is individual to that person, and who you are informs the artist that you become. I think me as an artist, I’ll take like my favorite thing to design this whole season was the “Malala Made Me Do It” costumes. I mean, they have this video of me as they walk into set, and I’m just like, a giddy five year old child, because I’m, like, bursting with pride. But what I loved about that, and when I put it into context of my artistry, is that you take this universal theme, Western, but it’s comes through from each person through their lens. So an Asian version of Western is leather and diamanté, and it is almost like a YMCA 1980s village people, New York music video.
You take Saira, and we’re taking into Americana and Indigenous textiles, and we’re combining them together. You take Malala, I am taking Dolly Parton and with our queens and combining them into one. You take Bisma, and we’re doing like African print, sort of like taking over of a colonial piece. You take Momtaz, and we’re doing just classic denim tassels, country madness, all of these, all of these costumes are so individual and unique to the person, but the theme is universal, and my job as an artist is to take them and enable people, whoever you are, to see yourself reflected. And those are the kinds of costumes that I want to create over the time I want to design stuff that enable people to feel seen. Because I think once you feel seen, you can dream. You’re like, “Oh, I can do this. I can do that. I can I see myself here.” So my, my, my answer is going to be different. I don’t know. Neither answer. We should be different. I don’t know like anyone else’s answer, because everyone’s everyone’s version of artistry comes from a very specific individual space. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, absolutely, that was a perfect answer.
You can watch all of We Are Lady Parts Season 2 now on Peacock
