'Charlie's Angels' Didn't Look So Sexy Without Some Help - New York Times

I LOVE wearing other people's clothes. Hand-me-downs, vintage, loaners, whatever. I like clothes with a provenance, a history. Somehow I imagine that I can feel the traces of another person's energy lingering in the threads.

One of my grand acquisitions in this regard was an incredibly tight and plunging roller-derby jersey that Farrah Fawcett wore in a memorable episode of "Charlie's Angels" in 1977. It was a truly amazing garment. Not long after she wore it, the jersey found its way to me and briefly into my college wardrobe. Then I had to give it back.

My roommate at U.C.L.A., Victoria Craze, reminded me of this recently on a call from London, where she lives now. We'd heard that a TV remake of "Charlie's Angels" was beginning soon on ABC. Minka Kelly, one of the new Angels, had just broken up with Derek Jeter.

Actually, we weren't really interested in that. We were trying to remember how I wound up with Farrah's jersey in the first place.

"I think Mom loaned it to me — to wear on Halloween," Victoria said. "But I couldn't zip up the front because of my chest. Mom said I looked too squished. So you got it."

Victoria's mother, Carolina Ewart, was a costumer for "Charlie's Angels" for the first few years. Occasionally she would lend us things to wear, if we could squeeze into them. The Angels — originally played by Jaclyn Smith, Kate Jackson and Ms. Fawcett — chased criminals down L.A. streets, beaches and piers, their bodies squeezed tight in some places and jiggling in others. This fascinating duality, this tightness and looseness, was artfully created by Ms. Ewart, with as much good taste as she was allowed. Aaron Spelling, the producer (and father of Tori), was always riding her to get more skin on the show. "He wants somebody in a bikini in every scene," Ms. Ewart would say, rolling her eyes. The ratings soared.

Ms. Ewart was a realist. She was also a nurturing, recently divorced Italian mother of four who needed a job. She had studied fashion design and dressmaking at Pratt, and had been a wardrobe assistant on "Young Frankenstein" and "Planet of the Apes," but she still had a couple of children at home and wanted regular work — not on location. A TV gig was perfect.

Sometimes Victoria and I shopped with her for the show, helping to haul armloads of bags from boutiques in Beverly Hills and the San Fernando Valley. The high-fashion chains now established along Rodeo Drive hadn't arrived yet — no Prada or Chanel or YSL. Armani was 11 years away.

Beverly Hills didn't take its cues from New York or Paris then. It had its own white-pants resort style, kind of French Riviera meets Tampa, Fla. In 1977, running shoes were becoming trendy, and even Ms. Fawcett managed to look impossibly sexy in them. "Farrah has the cutest, most perfect body," Ms. Ewart would say. "She can wear anything."

Focusing on flaws is part of the job of a costumer. Ms. Ewart, a zaftig Anne Bancroft look-alike, had a way of talking matter-of-factly about body types without causing hurt feelings. "You have no chest," she'd say to me. "Play up your legs!"

Dressing actors wasn't just an art or science to her. It seemed more natural than that, and powerful, as if sprung from her mothering instincts. "Sweetie, hold that up," she'd say to me, as we stood in boutiques and shopped for the Angels, whom Ms. Ewart and her loyal assistant, Erica Phillips, inevitably referred to as "the girls."

The alchemy began when the shopping bags arrived at 20th Century Fox Studios, in Century City, where the show was shot. Each Angel tried on Ms. Ewart's finds, choosing some, rejecting others. They stood for fittings during which the jiggle factor was carefully calibrated. If there was a real Charlie behind the Angels, maybe it was Ms. Ewart.

Each Angel had her own look. Ms. Jackson had a New England style, a Katharine Hepburn aura — pants and turtlenecks and beautiful plaid collared shirts from Ralph Lauren. Ms. Smith was given fuzzy sweaters and ladylike blouses. Most of the super-sex-bomb stuff went directly to Ms. Fawcett.

We always joked about where the Angels kept their weapons. They never wore holsters. They never ran after criminals with a handbag in hand. When they drew their guns, they reached behind them — as if the weapons had been concealed in their pants all along.

In one episode, called "Angels on Wheels," they investigate the death of a roller-derby star, and Ms. Fawcett's character, Jill, poses as a new member of the team. Her jersey was taken in so drastically that there was barely room for the team name and number.

As soon as the jersey came into Victoria's possession and she was unable to breathe in it, I tried it on. I'm tall and stringy ("no chest," as Ms. Ewart would say), but, for some almost supernatural reason, the jersey fit perfectly. I won't pretend that it looked on me as it did on Ms. Fawcett. But something was definitely working, as if the magic Ms. Ewart had created for Farrah had transferred to me. The reaction was immediate. Guys asked me out. Friends asked to try it on. I didn't even have to say where it had come from. I wore it to take art history finals and aced them.

And as my old roommate Victoria so keenly remembers, I was wearing it one night when our college dorm had a fire drill. "You didn't want to go outside, remember? So you hid in the dorm closet. And the fire marshal found you."

"And when he opened the closet door," I replied, "all he said was 'Nice shirt.' "

Ms. Ewart died five years ago at the Motion Picture and Television Fund hospital in Calabasas, Calif., after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease. A few weeks ago, when I was missing her and thinking about her fun job — and all she taught me about clothes — I called ABC Entertainment and said I was writing about a former costumer for "Charlie's Angels." Promptly, I got a call back.

"I'm definitely a people-person," said Roemehl Hawkins, the costumer for the new "Charlie's Angels." "I like to take everybody under my wing." She used to be a pharmacist but changed careers seven years ago, took a job as a costume production assistant on "Desperate Housewives," then another on "Entourage."

She doesn't shop in malls or boutiques so much. "I look at what's on the runway," she said, "and try to track things down that I've seen online or in magazines. Like, two months ago I saw a pair of silver high-heeled loafers by Alexander Wang in Vogue and it took me forever to get a pair. I am still waiting for a Stella McCarthy polka-dotted dress from the fall line. Actually, I think it might come today."

Just like the old Angels, the new ones have fantastic hair and distinct personal styles. "Annie Ilonzeh has a semi-international flavor," Ms. Hawkins said. "Sexy but street-tough." And Rachael Taylor "plays a girl who grew up in affluent Manhattan."

"She's put-together, high fashion, luxe, sophisticated. She's the one who can run in a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes."

And Minka? "She's my homage to Farrah," Ms. Hawkins said. "If there's a T-shirt on her, it's going to fall off the shoulder."

"Where do they keep their guns?" I asked.

"Oh," Ms. Hawkins began, laughing, "we kind of fudge that. The guns are in the back of their pants, I guess. Or sometimes a purse. No way would we use a holster."

About six months after I borrowed the jersey, Ms. Ewart called her daughter to ask where it was. I got a call soon afterward. "Martha, sweetie, did you wind up with Farrah's jersey?" she asked. I sheepishly admitted that I had. "Darling, love. Could you please bring it back?"

So hard to do. But I did.