An Interview with Ceci

Living Single's costume designer on the inner-workings of Hollywood costume houses, the importance of knowing your style, and her special love for menswear tailoring.

Jun 03, 2024

A truly boring thing about me is that I will have to talk about being an immigrant for the rest of my life, irrespective of where I go or what I do, because that is where the severing occurred. X marks the spot, if you will. The love story I have with television is also a story about discombobulation. To migrate is to be cut loose, bloody and untethered. In 2008, I was very young and had two primary needs: to assimilate and to learn what I didn’t know. Television would help me do those things; it would give me a place to go and I would emerge metabolized, churned. I would learn about documentation, rituals, and the women that were inside of me.

Living Single premiered on August 22, 1993, but I wouldn’t watch it until the late aughts, during dire years of my life. Formalistically, it’s a fairly straightforward show: six twenty-somethings inhabiting a brownstone tenement navigate romance, work, growth, and their friendships with each other, set against the backdrop of 1990s New York. Khadijah James (played by Queen Latifah) is editor of the up-and-coming culture magazine Flavor; she is leonine and dyke-y, the undisputed forerunner of the sixsome. Her best friend Maxine Shaw (Erika Alexander) is a young marvel of a lawyer, quick-tongued and quick-witted. Maxine lives across the street from the brownstone, although she overstays her welcome so often she might as well pay rent. This is a particular grievance to Regine (Kim Fields), Khadijah’s childhood friend and roommate, who doesn’t take too kindly to Maxine’s freeloading. Synclaire (Kim Coles), their other roommate and Khadijah’s cousin, finds Maxine enthralling and fun. Kyle Barker (T. C. Carson), a stockbroker with an affection for over-accessorizing, and Overton Wakefield Jones (John Henton), the building’s kindhearted handyman, reside in a second-floor apartment in the brownstone, adding some masculine polarization to the friend group.

In the ’90s, third-wave feminism was reshaping America’s pop cultural topography, allowing some space for the media to respond with thoughtful and perceptive ideas on ways to tell stories about women. Though Living Single was a show about young Black adults living on their own in the big city, its point of focus was really young Black women living on their own in the big city, and the intimacy and secrecy that we knead amongst ourselves. The show required a style identity that, much like the brownstone tenement itself, served important significance about the cultural and economic landscape that the show’s creator Yvette Lee Bowser was aiming for.

Ceci has major skin in the game. Her first gig was styling Janet Jackson and Bunny DeBarge for a Mountain Dew spot before she was even aware that one could do styling for a living. She would go on to steer the costume department at A Different World, solidifying her taste and creative process as a costume designer. Living Single was entering its second season when Ceci began working on the show; it was still in need of a strong stylistic identity to complement its characters. I spoke to Ceci about her work history, television bureaucracy, tailoring, and most importantly, where all the clothes went.

Let’s start at A Different World, which I believe is the first show where you worked as a costume designer. What was that like, blossoming on such a major set?

Well, I worked on pilots during pilot seasons before that. None of them went to air, so that was the first one that actually was on the air, and I worked there for several seasons. It was some on-the-job figuring it out. I’m really quick and bright, and that part wasn’t particularly difficult. But then there’s the political component—there’s diplomacy, there’s hierarchy, there’s the producers, the writers, directors. There’s all these various subsets and groups of people that you have to figure out how to best interact with. The most important element is the network, so you also have to consider the network, you have to consider that it’s a business. I quickly learned all of that and to keep it in mind when I’m doing my work.

When I’m shopping, people always say, “Oh my god, it must be so fun shopping for clothes, whatever…” It can be. But I have a lot of people in my head when I go shopping. There’s of course the actor, the character, the script, and the context of the script. Then there’s the producers and what their particular ambitions are for the character or that particular story. Then of course there’s the writer, and then there’s the director, and then there’s the network. All those people are traveling with me when I look at something and decide, “Okay, is this something that I want to pull?” I have to make a very quick assessment, keeping all of that in mind. I cut my teeth on A Different World and really became very good at [the business], and I think a lot of people falter because they’re not able to see it as a business. Somebody might say, “Oh, well, this is an amazing outfit,” but then it’s over budget, but they want to get it. But at the end of the day, the network doesn’t care how amazing that outfit is. The dollars and cents aren’t making sense.

It was interesting coming into that arena because the producer wanted me to work with the existing crew and I was able to hire a couple of new faces, but there was some resentment because they felt like, “Now, who the hell is she coming in from the outside? We’ve been here.” I think they kind of felt—I don’t think, they straight out told me, that they thought that either one of them might’ve been more qualified to take the mantle. I think I garnered their respect very quickly because I knew what I was doing and I had a vision and a point of view that they didn’t have, and that’s that.

I mean, I think what they wanted was someone who was Black, first of all, and they were not. I applaud Debbie Allen for really supporting me when I first started because there were some ideas that the white producers and writers couldn’t understand. Because I was fairly new, they wanted to just really impose their point of view, and Debbie was always there to say, “No, Ceci says this is what’s happening and this is great, let’s go with it.” She was always the one who was very supportive and helped to anchor my position as a department head. Because everything was really on point, the department really didn’t suffer and they couldn’t do anything but respect my work.

Wow, that’s very formidable. I think that’s important to think about, this work of juggling that one has to do in order to do this job.

Yeah, it’s not just about going shopping for pretty clothes.

No, that’s very important to note, because I myself also neglect that part of the work. And also the power of having someone that roots for you and goes to bat for you in these environments.

Yeah, absolutely. In turn, that kind of informs the type of designer that I am now, because I will always go up to bat for my crew and I’m always defending them and making sure that they’re being treated equitably and get what they need and all those things, and I think it really makes all the difference.

Of course, of course. What was it like moving from this very polarizing world on A Different World, where it’s a Black show but run by white people, and moving over to Yvette Lee Bowser’s production, where she was the main creator and the stories were very authentically Black? Were there any similarities between these two experiences?

Well, Yvette was a writer on A Different World too. I don’t know if you know that. There was that continuity there, and then she became the showrunner. Living Single still had its share of white executives, white producers, white everybody. That being said, they also wanted to make sure that the show was from a Black perspective. I had four years, five years of A Different World under my belt, so I was very confident at that point in terms of my aesthetic and what I brought to the table. Culturally, it was a great time to do a show—a Black show—because there were so many brands that were popping up, like FUBU and Phat Farm. Even Nike was always on board. Everybody wanted to give me things. I would get things from all over the world. I would get things from all over the country, people who were just hand-making hats or a dress or a skirt and they were like, “How about this? How about that?” It was really nice to be able to have to choose from just the diaspora. It was really great because everybody wanted to be a part of that. Unfortunately, that doesn’t exist anymore and I don’t exactly know why. It might just be because of the fact that the Black sitcom kind of went by the wayside, so there’s not that knowledge and infrastructure there that people know.

The new designers don’t know that they can actually contact the designers and do product placement and all of that. Maybe that’s a factor, I don’t know. But it was really great and having that experience of A Different World, of being able to define the characters, that took me into Living Single and really helped amplify their Blackness and their uniqueness in and of themselves. I was really able to sharpen that. Even though I came in on the second season, they weren’t as developed and they weren’t as immersed in Black culture. I think that’s also what I brought to the table for that show, and I was supported in that as well because of Yvette being Black—that made a lot of the difference. There were some other Black writers, but because I had had an experience and a name for myself, I didn’t have to fight.

It’s interesting to talk about the sort of eclecticism about where different garments were sourced from and that stylistic landscape. I think it’s very apparent in the show.

Yeah, I mean I don’t know where they all went, but when I was working on Dear White People, I tried to reach out to different designers and it was just a whole different vibe. It was very difficult to get them on board. It just wasn’t the same. There wasn’t this huge influx of people wanting to even mess with product placement. I don’t know why.

Oh, that makes me a little sad.

Me too.

The loss of generosity and that openness.

Right, exactly. With Karl Kani and Cross Colours and all that stuff, I remember they used to drive onto the lot in their little hoopty and they’d pop open the trunk, and I’d go in there like, “Okay, I want to get this for Sinbad, or I’m going to get this for Kadeem.” With Phat Farm, they would come and they would have their stuff and I was like, “Yeah, what you got this week?” It was really a great sense of community with regards to supporting the fashion and the culture. That part I loved.

I mean, what a major loss.

Exactly. Exactly. I worked with this young lady who’s a part of some sort of collective of designers and I think their purpose is just informing in terms of how you get into business and all of that. I asked her, I said, “Well, do they understand that they can approach shows?” They said, “Well, no, I don’t think that they know that.” That was kind of eye-opening. I was like, “Okay, so maybe they just need to be informed.”

Going into the second season of Living Single, what were your stylistic goals taking over from the previous costume designer?

I think it was more really just anchoring themselves in culturally being Black, subtly and not so subtly. I mean for Kyle’s character, I used a lot of Aklia’s jewelry—she’s African American, she handmade a lot of the beads. She went to Africa to get a lot of beadwork. I just tried in subtle ways—in any kind of way that I could—to demonstrate who [the characters] were. Even if it was just using the color palette, the African colors, the red, black, and green. I really always wanted them to make them unapologetically Black.

I love that very surrealist take on the Afro-romance that was going on in the ’90s. You also had a very dynamic cast to work with, people that were already well-known within Black pop culture, like Queen Latifah and Kim Fields. Were there any challenges distinguishing Queen Latifah’s celebrity persona from Khadijah James?

No, not really. When I work with an actor, I’m working with their character, I’m not working with them. I have to remind them of that, because they’ll say, “Oh, I don’t really like this.” I say, “You don’t really like this for you, or you don’t really like this for the character? I think the character would really wear this. I don’t care what you wear outside of the show.” With that in mind, I never really ever thought of Dana as Queen Latifah. In fact, when I first met her, I was like, “What does your mother call you?” She said, “Dana.” I said, “Okay, I’m going to call you Dana.” And I never called her Queen… I felt silly calling her Queen. Queen what? “Queen Latifah, I need you to come and wear th—” What? That just was a lot. So, I’ve always called her Dana and that personalized it. I never really touched on the rapper persona. The only challenge with Dana was that she was used to the music industry where you get to the studio when you get to the studio. She couldn’t stand going to wardrobe and that whole procedure, like, “Oh, I got to take off my clothes.” She oftentimes was tardy and all of that wasn’t her favorite thing. But once we did it, we did it, and it was great. It was great.

How very Khadijah James of her. Were there any times where the actors themselves directly influenced their characters stylistically? Did they ever probe a little too hard where you were like, “You know what, we’re going to probably try that out”?

Well, the one person would be T. C. Carson, he used to crack me up. I was like, “T. C., you’re killing me!” Because we filmed in front of a live audience, we had the quick-change rooms behind the sets, and each actor had their own quick-change room. At the start of the show, all their garments for the first wardrobe change would be in their room. I might say, “T. C., I’m just going to put this one little necklace just right here, just this one.” And he was like, “Oh yeah, that’s great, that’s great.” Then I’d be back there, and T. C. used to come with a… not a satchel, but almost like a tackle box, a big layered box of accessories. I’m like, “Oh hell, here come the tackle box.” We’d be getting ready to get to the scene, and he’d throw open the curtains of the quick-change room adorned, just adorned. He’ll have this all across, sideways, angled, ten necklaces. I was like, “T. C., wait, what? We gon’ to have to edit some of this, reel it back.” Because for him, I really loved to do the textures and the colors and the earthiness. But he would still be stylish and clean and just represent Black man-ness, so I liked to put jewelry, but subtle, not so much. He would slather that shit on. I was like, “Oh my god.” He was one that liked to amp it up.

Kim Fields was very collaborative and fun because she loved the whole dance and the coordination between the clothes and the wigs, and she couldn’t wait to get to wardrobe. She was like, “What are we wearing this week?” Her clothes had to be very tailored because she’s busty, but she’s petite and short-waisted. She loved to come to wardrobe and we’d collaborate. “Okay, we’re thinking about this wig, this pixie cut, or this, this,” really doing a whole head-to-toe situation. She was very very collaborative and a lot of fun to work with. Erika was kind of like Dana in that she didn’t mind coming to wardrobe, but she was like, “Eh.” She wasn’t really necessarily into the clothes like that, like you would think a girly girl would be. She was like, “Nah,” but still very cooperative.

I love that tidbit about T. C. Carson, because it’s fun how they mirror their characters in these ways.

Yeah. People to this day still DM me, “Where can I get this?” They’ll send me a picture of something that T. C. had on, and I’m like, “Where can you get it? You can get it in a time capsule! What you talking about? That was 30 something years ago.”

The whole way this project started is because I wanted to source a few of these items and I’m having the hardest time, so difficult.

You’ll never find it. You’ll never find it. A lot of times, some of these things were samples that never necessarily made it into manufacturing that they just let me borrow or use or buy. Unfortunately, and I’ll give you just a tidbit, remember when a few years ago they were talking about Oscars So White and there was this big push to have more Black representation? Well, a lot of times it stops there and people don’t realize that it’s all across the board—every aspect of Hollywood is affected by the lack of representation. I was doing a movie that was [set in the ’90s] and I went to Warner Brothers because Living Single was a Warner Brothers production. When a show’s done, anything that you don’t want to use for the next year is absorbed by the costume house. Whatever the actors don’t take, the costume house absorbs it, so I was sure that there’d be some great ’90s things in there. Well, lo and behold, there were not. I’m thinking, “Where are all the ’90s things that I know personally I put in here?” Well, when you start thinking about it, Hollywood is so white. The people who run costume houses are white and periodically because of space constrictions, they have to purge their stock and literally sell it or give it away or do whatever to make space for the incoming stock.

If you’ve got somebody white who doesn’t understand our culture, who doesn’t understand the importance of what they’re looking at—some oversized, fuzzy Phat Farm jacket or whatever—they’re going to be like, “What is this shit? Nah, get rid of this.” Now they have a hip hop section, but it is very small, it’s incomplete, it’s sad, and we end up reusing this small little section. When I say a small section, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a costume house, but they’re huge. They’re gigantic. Imagine a huge airplane hangar almost or a warehouse with floor-to-ceiling lanes, aisles of racks, and they’re usually three-tiered racks that go all the way up. I mean, they’re probably 20 feet up, 25 feet up. There’s aisle after aisle after aisle after aisle after aisle of clothing from every period you can imagine. When I say it’s a small section out of all of that, it’s probably .00001% of the total of what they have. If you were looking for white girl ’90s, there are going to be some granny floral dresses or whatever, you’re going to have all of that. I say that to bring the concept of having representation across the board in all aspects so that when these decisions are being made, we’re at the table when these shows are being greenlit, we’re at the table when these shows are being produced and made, and we’re at the table in all aspects of Hollywood so that people value our culture. Sometimes we just have to be our own gatekeepers.

I 100% agree with that. That’s such a major loss, and just really alarming to hear that there’s no archiving of any sort for a very vast majority.

I mean, if I had had the foresight to think that this would be the case, I’d have done it myself. But who knew? Who knew 30, 35 years ago that they just would not... It didn’t even occur to me that they would not retain all these amazing pieces. Gone.

It’s so very heartbreaking. I wonder what the future of this industry looks like when there’s no preservation.

Exactly.

Let’s go back to how your personal style or taste affected your work on the show.

[It was important to me to] not be so enslaved to labels and fashion designers and specific looks. It’s so easy to get on the hamster wheel of what’s in style and fashion and what’s in, what’s out, what’s on the runway, what season, all these various things. Ultimately, my best advice is to get off that wheel. Don’t even get on it. It’s fine to notice it. It’s fine to nod and say, “Okay, that’s what they’re doing this season. Okay, great. I’m with it. I’m for it. I’m not, or whatever it is.” But it’s very liberating to finally find out who you are and what your perspective is.

Every character that I work with, yeah, of course I have to shop contemporary, but I’m not just limited to contemporary and I’m not limited to how trends are represented. I love to shop vintage because a character is very much like real life. Like for T. C., I did a lot of textures and colors and vibrancy and just that whole African Black man vibe with a very conservative suit just to kind of bring it out and do something different, his ties, his colors. I mean, oh my god, I used to be in love with T. C.’s suits and fedoras, and then when he would put on an overcoat, I was like, “Yes, this Black man, y’all need this.”

And your panache for menswear…

Oh my god. It was just… I don’t know why, I love men’s tailoring so much. It’s so elegant and exquisite. I mean, the leather stitching on the lapel on the inside and just the care and the engineering that men’s suiting take. Oh my god, it’s an art, and the fabrications, the richness. Oh my god, oh my god, just woo! Beautiful. Of course you can get that similar in a woman’s suit. I think Khadijah was the one who wore most of the suits. Because of her stature, I did shop in men’s suiting. At that time, there was a trend of a little bit of femininity, I think, in terms of the men’s suiting. So I was like, “Oh, this is perfect. I can get the size and just tailor it and do little darts here and there.” That’s how I would do Khadijah’s suits and then soften it up with a nice silk blouse, or just make it more feminine, versus T. C. who was always just really leaning into the masculinity and the Black man-ness of it all.

It’s a feast for the eyes. It makes sense as to how they’re so harmonious with each other.

Right. I mean, the thing about it is you have to be passionate about doing that, about the endeavor because it’s the passion that will be the impetus to take you to the next level. Let me tell you, I spent all day looking for the right tie, just looking for the right tie. That’s it. Somebody might say, “What? What’s the big deal?” No, it’s got to be exquisite! It has to be elegant. It has to be harmonious. It has to go with the vest and the shirt. It has to be a whole tableau! It has to be just… when you finish, when you put it all together, undeniably like, “Oh, this is just succulent.” It’s just… my god. But that’s because I’m passionate.

I won’t just stop and go, “Oh, here’s your shirt, here’s a tie, here’s a suit.” Mm-mm. I really always go the extra mile. I don’t care what it is, because I’m just really passionate about what I’m doing. I feel beyond blessed to be able to say that this is my career, that this is my life.

One thing that I do want to say, and the strongest advice I have for people who are interested in going into this career, is to realize it is a career, not just a job. The reason why I say that is because when you get started, each level kind of rests upon what you did prior and its stairsteps. It’s not just a job you do for a few hours and go, “Okay, I’m out.” You have to be dedicated and passionate to want to work the long hours. It is not for the faint of heart. You got to be willing to go the extra mile to really do excellent work, and I think people don’t realize it.

They also don’t realize that it’s all not the same; a stylist is not the same as a costume designer. They’re two different paths and the media is not the same. I started doing print work and catalogs and stylist work for props and movies and plays. They’re all different. They all have a different cadence, they all have a different hierarchy. They all have different budgets, they all have different politics, they all have different advertising. They’re all different. Certainly one person could say, “Oh, I do it all,” but I would advise anybody interested to dip your toe in all aspects so that you can figure out what’s a match for you. Until you find that match, it’s going to be very difficult to be passionate about the project.

I love how much you love it and it validates my own love for the show, for the work.

Thank you. Thank you. I think why the looks last the test of time is because of the time that was taken with each and every character to make sure that they were amplified to perfection. I don’t think I ever phoned anything in. I mean, nothing. Even the people who shop with me or whatever, sometimes they’ll be like, “Well, what about this?” No. It could be close but no prize, and I won’t settle. I have to have what I’m envisioning, and it shows on screen.