The Obsession with Joanne's Clothes on 'Nobody Wants This'

It's a fashion show that's not a Fashion show.

I finished watching Nobody Wants This on Netflix a few weeks ago. Every time the show comes up in conversation with friends, so does the brown shirt with the two big holes in the front that Kristen Bell wore to watch her on-screen boyfriend Adam Brody play sad, grown-man basketball with his friends. Once I got past this being a plot point — I struggled to think of an adult woman, particularly one with kids, at this stage of life with the desire and/or free time watch their husbands or boyfriends play sports — I could only think about that top, the smart work of series costume designer Negar Ali Kline.

That top turns its nose up at your T-shirt the way Joanne turns her nose up at things she perceives as conformist, like religion, or, I might hasten a guess, espresso martinis (such a luke-warm take would fit seamlessly into her podcast). Yet, kind of like this show, Joanne’s clothes are easy to typecast. And that might help explain why viewers are obsessed with them.

On fashion shows like And Just Like That or Emily in Paris, which slot into the same genre of ambient television as Nobody Wants This, we watch the main characters carrying pigeon purses and wearing sleeves so puffy they might not fit through a doorway. Carrie, Samantha, and Miranda now dress so ridiculously, they look like they’re cosplaying themselves. They walked so Emily Cooper can run. Her wardrobe looks like an AI imagining of “clothes for a rich, Instagram-addicted twentysomething whose hobbies include presenting Power Points to luxury brand executives.”

But Joanne is easier to scan.