What makes Mary Tyler Moore’s Mary Richards character so memorable? There’s the pioneering role of being over 30 and single, but also expert hands in the wardrobe department, as Sandy McLendon relates

HETHER or not clothes make the man, they do play a large part in making a sitcom. The Mary Tyler Moore Show is perhaps the ultimate example of what costuming can do for a show.
   When TMTMS was in the planning stages, the first focus was on Mary Tyler Moore. It was a given that such an attractive actress would be fashionably dressed, but Moore's wardrobe took a lot more doing than that. First, the clothes had to reflect the character. Mary Richards was 30, midwestern, earning decent money but by no means affluent, and was working in an office. This meant that clothing couldn't be too expensive-looking or too trendy. Second, CBS specifically asked that Mary Richards not look like Laura Petrie; there was concern that the new show would be seen as riding the coattails of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Third, Mary Tyler Moore has some fashion preferences of her own, mostly ones born of professional experience.
   The character question was solved early on by having Evan–Picone, a maker of better ready-to-wear separates, supply Moore's wardrobe. The Evan–Picone “look” was exactly right for Mary Richards; the line was affordable, well-made, and available everywhere. Each year, the Wardrobe Department at MTM Enterprises met with Evan–Picone and made selections from the upcoming fall season's clothing.
   The choices were mostly separates, with a few dresses thrown in. If you'll watch an entire season's episodes back-to-back, you'll discover that the separates were mixed and matched to create different outfits for each episode. Some pieces even carried over from year to year.
   Later, the Judy's chain supplied Mary's clothing, replacing the Evan–Picone connection.
   There were some technical considerations to be worked out. Patterns couldn't be too small, because small ones create weird “herringbone” effects on television. Colours had to be very well matched and coordinated, because TV lighting shows up the smallest mismatch or clash. And sparkly, glittery stuff was avoided almost entirely—lighting problems again.
   Just choosing clothing wasn't enough, either. Fit is everything on TV—a wrinkle or sag that would go unnoticed in real life looks like a disaster on-camera. The mass-produced clothing chosen for Moore was taken apart as soon as it arrived in Wardrobe and fitted to her as precisely as anything in the French couture.
   Mary Tyler Moore used one fashion trick on the show constantly; in fact, she was still using it on 2000's Mary and Rhoda movie. It's the shoes. Moore has extensive training as a dancer, and dancers have a horror of having their feet look large on-camera. The solution is shoes in a light beige colour called ‘nude’. With nude shoes, the feet are the same colour as the legs, so they look smaller.
   CBS's concern with differentiating Mary Richards and Laura Petrie extended to Mary's hair; they wanted a style very different from Petrie's chin-length flip. They got it, courtesy of something Mary Tyler Moore disliked; a long hairpiece called a 'fall'. The fall was a half-wig, covering the fact that Moore's hair was still the same length it had been in the DVD days. Moore's own bangs were used in front, brushed over the fall to conceal where the hairpiece began. Moore got rid of it as soon as the show was established as a hit, going back to the pageboy-length she liked best.
   For the rest of it? The talented costumers on TMTMS had their hands full creating the illusion of a slice of Minneapolis in the sunshine of Studio City.
   There were beautiful things like the evening dresses Mary wore on her fancier dates. There were silly things like the cutout dress that Sherry, Mary's hooker cellmate in ‘Mary Richards Goes to Jail’, designed for her.
   In any movie or TV studio, working for the wardrobe department is a gruelling task. There's never enough time. There's never enough money. Sometimes the script asks the impossible. And there are rips and stains and weight gained, and shoes lost, and yet the show must go on. • Sandy McLendon

The Mary Tyler Moore Show reunion special airs 10 p.m. EDT, Monday, May 13, 2002 on CBS.

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