This story contains spoilers for Too Much.
A few episodes into writer-director Lena Dunham's new Netflix series Too Much, there's a scene anyone who's stayed in a relationship past its expiration date—and who takes personal style seriously—will flinch at.
Ad producer Jessica "Jess" Salmon, played by Megan Stalter, has moved to London to reclaim her life following a cataclysmic breakup from Zev (Michael Zegen), her boyfriend of seven years. He's left her for knitting influencer Wendy Jones, played by Emily Ratajkowski. Jess is processing by recording virtual video letters to Wendy that she never sends, immersing herself in the indie-rock world of a new romantic interest, Felix (Will Sharpe), and trying her best not to fixate on what she ran away from to wind up across the Atlantic Ocean. Emotional turmoil and early-romance hijinks ensue, all while she's dressed in a range of kaleidoscopic fur-trimmed statement coats by day and dog-and-mom matching Victorian nightgowns with her tiny rescue, Astrid, by night. But in the style of many Lena Dunham characters, Jess trips out on one too many recreational drugs and falls head-first into an extended flashback of every single moment that led to her breakup.
Her reflections eventually cut to a time when she walked into the New York City apartment living room she shared with Zev, wearing a dress from the British brand Foundry Mews. It's white and long-sleeved with a detachable sailor collar and a lace skirt, the kind of piece you'd see in the vicinity of a Sandy Liang pop-up or a Brooklyn art gallery opening. It's a callback to one of the first looks Jess wears onscreen, for a trip to a pub that introduces her to Felix.
In the show's present, the dress isn't commented on. It sticks out from the black leather jackets and ripped-up jeans at the bar, but Jess clearly feels comfortable wearing it. Visually, it emphasizes the contrast between Jess's wide-eyed, Sense and Sensibility expectations of England and the moody, gritty reality around her. But in the past, it's theatrical. This dress is the start of a one-sided argument over who she is and who she dresses for.
"I swear you dress as a 'fuck you' to people sometimes, Jess," Zev scoffs before Jess has said a word. "It’s like you want to make them feel like idiots for looking at you. You don’t want them to know that you’re beautiful or even me to know that you’re beautiful."
Jess feebly defends herself. "Yeah, well, I like the dress," she says, voice cracking. "I think it's kind of cool."
The scene lasts maybe three minutes, but it speaks volumes about how Jess's first relationship soured. Someone who truly loves you feels that way no matter what you wear; they probably appreciate your style, too. Zev acted like he dated Jess in spite of the pieces hanging on her side of the closet.
Choosing the right garment to carry all that emotional baggage came down to costume designer and stylist Arielle Cooper-Lethem. "This dress totally has that 'man-repeller' vibe where guys may not think it’s at all attractive and every girl is like, 'HOLY SHIT GIRL, WHERE IS THAT FROM?'" she says. When you express yourself with a piece like that and the person closest to you says it's ugly, unbecoming, or, in Zev's parlance, not what a "Gigi Hadid" would wear, it hurts. "All us fashion girls know that experience so so deeply," Cooper-Lethem agrees.
It really felt important to me and Lena that Jess didn’t compromise any of herself to be with Felix.
It's fitting that on Jess's first night starting over in London, she's packed and changed into her maligned sailor dress despite that history. If she's going somewhere new, she's not letting past opinions on her style hold her back.
"I think it was important to feel that she is herself literally everywhere, whether it's London, New York, in bed, or at the club," Cooper-Lethem says. The dress visually bridged all those places in one garment: "We settled on it because Lena [Dunham] wanted there to be a dialogue between her pioneer-looking nightgowns and this dress that she’s so harshly judged for (which is so cute!)"
The two had worked together to populate Jess's mood board with Betsey Johnson's Spring/Summer 2026 runway and "girly, ruffle-y, put-together, fun" pieces. She's a dreamer with strong—if off-kilter—instincts, and her wardrobe shows it. Part of what makes Jess a great romantic heroine is her tripling down on clothes that bring her honest joy. "Sometimes we look at her and think, 'How did she get there?' or, 'I would never put that with that, but this is so much of what creates is her charm," Cooper-Lethem explains. "She has dreamt up a world of her own and never really loses sight of that world."
Felix will later describe her in the same words as the show's title—"too much"—but in a way that endears him. He likes that she's a romantic who finds fantasy in the mundane, and that she doesn't dress like the "beige high street people" who might populate London in real life. Instead, Cooper-Lethem says, "She’s ruffled and soft and pink. It was important that she felt really unique and fresh to Felix as well, so she really stands out visually from his other 'flings' we meet in the show."
The Jess who's getting settled in London has also made some cuts to her wardrobe. "She Marie Kondo’d jeans," Cooper-Lethem says, so she only wears denim in flashbacks with Zev. "Why? No reason other than that maybe she realized they don’t bring her joy."
While Jess's blossoming relationship with Felix has its own roadblocks over the romance series's 10 episodes, none are on account of her closet. If anything, she dials up how she presents herself. To attend a wedding as Felix's date, she wears a metallic turquoise halter dress out of a Go-Gos music video. Showing up for the gig that eventually leads to her drug spiral, she chooses a floral dress, hot pink fanny pack, and knee-high red boots over purple tights—while everyone else is more or less in black.
"It really felt important to me and Lena that Jess didn’t compromise any of herself to be with Felix. She had done that before, as we see in the flashbacks," Cooper-Lethem explains. "So then the question was, How do we allow her to be a lil' freak, but also a deeply lovable freak? I hope we landed that!"
Jessica's styling throughout season 1 stays true to the ethos of her sailor dress: whimsical and ever-so-slightly out of place. That's in part because it captures her character so well—and because the series covers a lot of emotional ground in a truncated timeline. "I think she doesn’t quite have enough time in the first series to change aesthetically. We are really living in a number of weeks in her life and girl is BUSY," the costume designer says. "I’m excited to see where her arc could go in a second series if the heavens allow it."
When we leave her, Jessica does eventually get an ending that can rival her daydreams. (It is a romantic comedy after all—happy endings are a genre prerequisite.) Her last look onscreen involves a cropped white T-shirt, tiered tulle skirt, and a giant white hair bow, all to parallel her first official look in London. In episode one, she chose her dress, knowing only she would love it. By episode 10, she has someone in her life who's equally enamored.
