In designing the costumes, West worked hand-in-hand with Javan to create the visual separations between Lavinia, who she describes as "trying to fit a mold that she felt was going to be a safe haven for her in life. I made her wardrobe very conservative, almost a little like armor...Lavinia’s whole world is beige. There’s nothing that’s going to rock the boat or shake anything up. She’s going to be accepted by the other corporate lawyer wives even though she conies from this wild background. Her world is all about a lack of color." The beige dress that Sarandon wears throughout much of the early scenes of the film, West describes as "almost a girdle, keeping all her wildness in like armor."
To get the right look for Suzette. West followed several older female groupies around to various L.A. clubs to see how they dressed. She had expected to see a lot of short skirts, but was amused to learn through her research that the women prefer pants because "the seats aren’t very clean in most of these clubs." The look she designed for Hawn was "someone who grew up in the ‘60s but was still trying to appeal to rock ‘n’ rollers and lead a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle....skin and freedom and looseness and flamboyance."
The film begins with Suzette working at a Hollywood club, and then at her apartment, which was shot in a real Hollywood apartment. The two environs are "very wet and colorful and visceral," Javan says. West outfitted Hawn in black for the opening scenes and "let her wardrobe get much lighter as she went to the sun from the darkness of Hollywood and the nightclubs and her nightlife." Javan also made sure that the vehicle that would take Suzette on her path toward enlightenment - the car she lovingly refers to as "the Shitbox"- was blue.
As the film moves into Phoenix. Javan describes Lavinia’s world as "dry and very uptight, very monochromatic, the color of the DMV, as Lavinia says, and you can really see how she has become a self-control freak as well as a control freak and has really squeezed all of the essence out of her life. She put her and all of her children’s relationships in jeopardy because of this super controlling, uptight nature that she developed to counter-balance how wild she was."
To give the Chatsworth-located home the Phoenix/Lavinia feel, Javan added cactus plants to the outside garden areas and changed the "furnishings so that it was very, very controlled and meticulous and Type-A looking.. .everything was beige and monotone... We wanted everything to look like it was about to be shot by’ "Architectural Digest"’ except for the kids’ wing, and in particular, Hannah’s room. "We decided that Hannah had a lot of Suzette in her...Hannah’s room is green and there are lots of interesting textiles. That’s probably what terrifies Lavinia, because she sees a bit of Suzette and herself as a youth."
Similar to Lavinia, Geoffrey’ Rush’s character, Harry, also required clothing that worked like a suit of armor. West says, "His wardrobe, when it starts, is all very buttoned up and contained...His sleeves are buttoned, his neck’s buttoned and he’s in this vest going to Arizona. Like a turtle shell, the vest was like his cushioning, his padding, his protection against the world." When he meets Suzette, he is freed from his shell, "he loses that vest and his wardrobe opens up, his shirts loosen and his sleeves get rolled." West said the vest, and the loss of it were such a prop to the film that she had copies made for each of the crewmembers at the end of the film.
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