"It's handled"Olivia Pope's favorite line has been a fixture in pop culture ever since she strolled onto the screen, white hat on, fixing DC's most sensitive affairs in ABC's tv series Scandal. Created by tv mogul Shonda Rhimes and played by the talented Kerry Washington, the character has redefined what it means to be a powerful woman on television. Unwilling to compromise her sense of self and her ambitions, she has glued millions of fans in front of their screens for the past seven years.If she's known for her power moves, she also captivates audiences with power style. Birthed by Emmy-winning costume designer Lyn Paolo, Olivia's looks made quite a splash. Adored by fashionistas and sought after by Gladiators (name of Scandal's fans) the fashion of the show became it's own phenomenon, making the character's clothing a focal point in the series. With Scandal coming to a close at the end of its seventh season, Spotern spoke to Lyn Paolo. The costume designer revisited the origins of Olivia Pope's style, her work at Shondaland and touched on many more topics, including the Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder crossover we've all been waiting for. 

How did you become a costume designer ?

Lyn Paolo : I didn’t become a costume designer in the usual way. I actually went to university in England and did a degree in English literature, education and child psychology. But once I moved to the United States, I would have had to redo part of my education and that didn’t seem like an affordable prospect. So like a lot of my friend from England who were here at the same time in the early nineties, I started working as a production assistant. I fell in love with filmmaking and just very slowly worked my way up and learned on the job. So it was sort of an apprenticeship, and I actually feel it was a better way to learn. And I say that to many people who come out of  costume design programs in different universities. I just say "yes, you think you know about design, but you don’t really know about film design. You need to work, you need to be an assistant and you need to spend the long hours on the set learning what the camera does." So I think it was the best education.

On what show did you get your start ?

I worked as an assistant on commercials and music videos. The first show that I designed on my own was Homefront, it was a period piece set in the 1940’s in America. That was my first forray into having my own show and designing it. And I won an Emmy the first year, so I was very lucky. And I was one of the youngest person to win at the time and then the next year we won again. So we won 2 years in a row. It was an interesting time because after that I couldn’t get a job.Then 6 months later, I did a pilot with John Wells who has been my boss now for over 20 years. And then that pilot did not get picked up. And he was doing an other show at the same time called ER. And he said  "Would you wanna do this with me ?" So then I went on to ER and I was on that show for fifteen years. The whole run. And because of that, I wanted to move on and didn’t wanna be pigeonholed as the person who does hospitals, so I said "I think I should move on and do something else" and he was like "Well, why don’t you just stay and do another show with me ? " And so  whichever show John has done in those 25-26 years we’ve been together, I have done his shows. So then he gave me the West Wing and I think have done 16 or 17 pilots for John. And you know they don’t always go, but we’ve consistently worked together for a long time. And I still work with him, I’m still doing Shameless and Animal Kingdom for John Wells.

How did you come across Scandal ?

You know it’s really interesting because, because of my wish to never be involved in an other medical drama I had not seen Grey’s Anatomy, after living fifteen years on ER, it’s just not something that I would watch, and then I just got a phone call one day. I was in my office at Warner Brothers and a lovely person called and said "You know Shonda Rhimes would like to meet you", and I have to be honest and Shonda probably thinks this is really funny, I didn’t know who Shonda was. I was living in my own little world. And I said "Sure", and I called John and said  "Somebody called Shonda Rhimes called to have a meeting with me". And he was like "Oh my Gosh Lyn, oh yeah you should meet with Shonda, she’s great ". They were neighbours, they lived on the same street. He said "She’s gonna love you, you’re gonna love her" and we met. She had been a big fan of the West Wing and was so gracious and kind and lovely in my interview and literally said "you know I love your work" and I thought "oh my gosh" coming from such a prolific producer was a lovely thing. And we just hit it off. I mean I absolutely adore her and her partner Betsy. We communicate well and we have fun together.

We know Olivia Pope has a signature look : the pantsuit, the coat and the Prada purse. Where did the Olivia Pope look come from ?

The look really came from Shonda’s script. Shonda wrote our famous line : "Are you a gladiator ? We’re gladiators in suits." Wich is the line that Columbus Short delivers to Katie Lowe in the pilot and I had done some concept boards for the character. I’ve always been a fan of the mid-eighties sort of those Lauren Hutton, Charlie commercials. The Charlie perfume always had this image of a woman striding across the screen in a white pantsuit, and I always thought that was such and amazing powerful image for a woman. So it was a really collaborative effort between Shonda, obviously the folks at ABC and then Kerry and I.I remember distinctly meeting Kerry at Warner Brothers in the big dressing room that they have there. And Kerry and I both had the same images. I had my board that I created, the concept board, Kerry had the same sheets from magazines. So we were already on the same page. The idea of her being in creme, her white had been part of my original concept and you know Kerry loved that. I literally said to her "So is she a pants girl or a skirt girl ?" And that was Kerry’s choice, Kerry said "You know I think she’s a pants girl." So that’s all Kerry, the choice to be in pants. So it was a real collaboration, and it continues to be a collaboration.

The Prada purse came out of the fact that I was literally carrying one of my personal Prada purses in the room, because you know on a pilot sometimes we don’t have a lot of money. And that was one of the purses that Kerry picked. It kinda grew from that, and then our relationship with Prada grew. They have been so gracious and kind to the show on so many levels. Mrs Prada and her team have been all exceptionnaly kind to us. And you know our relationships with the brands grew out of, I think, the fact that people liked to watch the show and liked to see wich fashion is gonna be on the show every week.

Olivia is very fashionable and she wears a lot of big brands, was it hard at the very beginning to get those brands ?

You know, I think thank Goodness for Kerry because she loves fashion, you know she’s a fashionista and the two of us together would always be like did you see this, did you see that, did you see this fashion show. And slowly, because the show garnered so much attention for the fashion, I would slowly I reach out to brands just with word of mouth. Then one time, I went to New York with Kerry, and we ran around town meeting all the PR teams from the different brands and we slowly built up our relationships.And I’m grateful we have very good relationships. Friends would send us pieces way ahead of them being in the stores. Because you know, so many people would write to me and like Spotern they would call me or write me e-mails or notes on Twitter saying "where did you get that coat ?" And I was feeling a little bit bad saying "well it was last season I don’t think you’re gonna find it now." So we tried to be current with fashion. We try to have our episodes air right at the moment it’s hitting the stores. And that has made it a collaborative event with the gladiators, and even when the price point was too high, there’ve been moments where we did things for lower price points consciously. We did our little collection with The Limited. You could dress like Olivia. That was sort of a bit of a thank you to the fans.

We’ve noticed your amazing work on Olivia’s palette, she was used to wear black, white, greys, creme, a lot of neurtral colors, and on season 5 there was a big change, she started including bright colors like red, orange, yellow. Can you expand on that ?

At the beginning of season 5 there was a major shift. Previously she had been in the White House with Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) living with him sort of dressing like the First Lady. She had giving up her role and giving up her power to be part of his world, and then she realizes that, that’s not right for her, nor is her relationship with her parents a solid place to be. Plus she didn’t have his baby.So in reaction to that we wanted to express this huge change in who she was, and she walked into dinner with her dad during season 5 and she’s in bright orange and purple with purple shoes . It was a definite gaspy moment for the Gladiators. They lost it. They understood that the change in costume meant something in the story and to Olivia. That was fun and this being our final season, I can’t tell you why but things change again.

Indeed, on season 7 Olivia is on a dark path, how does that translate into the colors, the shape and the texture of the clothes ?

You know we’ve gone very architectural, I think you’ll see the shoulders are broader, her suiting brings a lot more structure to her jackets. We had a lot of Tom Ford this year, Alexander McQueen, a little bit of Vivienne Westwood, you know that sort of more edgy look. We’ve sadly gone away from our italian designers just for a little while and we’re focusing more on a couple of british designers. We did quite a bit of Stella McCartney, you know that edgy, kind of fashion forward silhouette, with the really strong shoulders and we’ve done quite a few capes, that sort of Dark Knight, is she good, is she evil, we don’t know, look.

Now that the show is coming to an end, will we get special fashion moments ? Statement pieces or call backs ?

I can’t give it away, but there will be some bits that will be very reminiscent of earlier seasons. But it’s hard for me to tell you anything because honestly we don’t know. I think we got 5 more episodes to do and everything is in Shonda’s brain. We have no clue (what's gonna happen). Anyway there will be some moments that everyone will go "ha ha !!". But we have no clue what’s going to happen, it’s just like everyweek we’re just like the fans, we’re just like rushing to read our scripts to see what’s happening.

If I’m not mistaken you started to work on How To Get Away With Murder during its third season, since you were not the original costume designer of the show, what changes did you incorporate upon your arrival ?

So for me coming in is always hard and difficult, because you want to be respectful of the person who went before and understand the choices that they made. You know someone else did the pilot and a costume designer was after for two seasons, so I’m really the third costume designer on the show. And Shonda asked me to do the pilot but I couldn’t do it. That was when Kerry was having her baby, and I didn’t wanna leave. I didn’t think it was the right thing at the time not to be here, cause it was on location.Coming in, I think Pete Nowalk, who’s the creator, wanted a new feel for the new season coming back, that the kids on the show had sort of grown up. After everything they’ve gone through, they were more mature, so the opening of season 3, we’re in court with Annalise and she’s in that amazing navy blue Escada suit, that had this fantastic burgundy pattern running through it. And all of the sudden all of our kids were in the audience but they were full on amazing suits, like a lot of Paul Smith, and a lot of Gucci, very elevated suiting that they probably couldn’t afford.So really Pete’s vision for season 3 was that the kids will be more mature, that Viola and Annalise in their own way were changing. We got rid of the heavy costume jewelry, we don’t use leather on her like in the fisrt 2 seasons We’ve  just moved away from that. It’s more structured jackets. Cause you know she was sort of bracing for the onslaught of dealing with all the things that happened,  and as we find out in season 3, the death of one of the Keating Five. We didn’t know who was dying, but that whole season, the same way we are on Scandal, we were all waiting to find out who was the body, who died in the fire at her house. And truthfully, she had no clothes, she lost everything in the fire, so we reinvented her clothes.

It was a really great opportunity for me to come in, and redo her wardrobe and change the character because so much happened to Annalise too in those first two seasons, losing her husband, hiding the murder… So it was fun to make her feel the same but also just to transition her look. So we had a really great time. Pete is a great partner in that, he’s like Shonda in that he gives you his trust, he will give you notes, but he really understands what costume designers do. He allows you the freedom to do your job and also appreciate what you do, wich is a lovely, lovely thing. He’s great, he’s a lot of fun and Viola is a stellar partner to have in the fitting room. They’re both so talented.

Shonda Rhimes, Kerry Washington and Viola Davis announced an upcoming cross-over between Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder what can you tell us about it ?

There are so many levels, so many moments, everybody on each show packed the set to see those ladies perform together, it was a full house. Everybody was so excited to see Kerry and Viola together and they were excited.  It was a lot of work but it was wonderful. You know when you see two amazingly talented actresses together like that  it gives you chills and the crew just loved it, it was amazing.

The Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder crossover will air Thursday, March 1 on ABC.

Now that Scandal is coming to an end, do you already have another show lined up ?

I’m already working for Shonda on her new show wich is called For The People. And Tom Verica who was our executive producer here at Scandal is producing it, and Paul Williams Davies who’s writing it also wrote on Scandal so it’s kind of a mini Scandal family that sort of moved on to that, and I’m going to be back on Animal Kingdom and then i’ll go back to Shameless, so I’m already moving on, sadly.

For The People will air Tuesday, March 13 on ABC.

In conclusion what can you tell us about those seven seasons? What does the future hold for you?

I just don’t think I’m gonna have another Scandal in my career, I said that to my agent the other day and she said  "oh you will". I feel very lucky between ER, The West Wing and Scandal I had three big big shows in my career. And you know, I’d like to have another one, I’m greedy for the work. I love what I do and I love the challenge of doing something new, so I’m excited. I just love what I do.