Moira Rose’s Wigs Were Catherine O'Hara’s Idea, Plus More Fashion Facts from ‘Schitt’s Creek’

Sure, Moira's haute couture would stick out in a small town on its own, but the show took it to the next level by pairing said haute couture with an absolutely wild assortment of wigs. Wigs that were actually O'Hara's addition to the character. “The wigs weren’t in it and the vocabulary wasn’t in it, that’s what I got to add,” she says. “I just asked if I could wear wigs depending on my mood. It works for fashion reasons, it works for hiding or revealing what I’m feeling, it works as a protective helmet, so it’s just too much fun.”

As for Moira's clothes, socialite, designer and fashion icon Daphne Guinness was an early (and frequent) inspiration behind the bold, often black-and-white avant-garde looks. As Dan Levy says in the documentary, “She came to me with some references, in terms of how the character would look and she was thinking of having this sort of accent. I remember finding it all quite dazzling. Little did I know at the time just how much Catherine brings to the table.”

It's no surprise that Levy, along with costume designer Debra Hanson, spent a tremendous amount of time and energy on outfitting the show's characters. In fact, Levy admits, “Wardrobe is probably the most important element in storytelling outside of actually writing.” He adds, “We as people say so much about who we are and what we believe in and what we want and what we think of ourselves by the way that we dress.”

The thing about fancy designers and once-in-a-lifetime pieces is that they're often very expensive, and yes, TV shows have budgets. Enter vintage stores and sellers, which Levy familiarized himself with very quickly in order to acquire the wardrobe he wanted for the show without going bankrupt. A task, he says, that only got harder. “I think it got harder season after season because we kept pushing the boundaries of how far we could take our budget,” he says. “But part of that I think is what makes the show what it is. We’re really scrappy and all good things come out of a lot of hard work and sweat and tears.”