"American Horror Story: 13" Costume Designers Reveal the Archive Miracles Behind the Coven's Return

American Horror Story has always dressed its monsters to kill, and on Friday night at New York Comic Con, the people behind those looks finally take center stage. "SLAYYY! DRESSING TO KILL: The Iconic Costumes of FX's American Horror Story" brought stars Leslie Grossman, Billie Lourd and Gabourey Sidibe to Room 405 alongside costume designers Lou Eyrich and Catherine Crabtree, with TheWrap's Kayla Cobb moderating. The conversation arrived a little over two weeks into American Horror Story: 13, which reunites the witches of Coven and Apocalypse with characters from across the anthology's 15-year run.

Asked how the team set the tone for a new season, Crabtree said it starts with Ryan Murphy, who arrives with a strong vision that the department builds on and sends back to him. Eyrich used the moment to thank the fans, saying much of 13 was designed with them in mind. Crabtree estimates the new season is roughly half archive pieces and half new builds. The show shipped the archive to the team, who pulled pieces to reuse as Easter eggs. In other cases, an original served as the sample for recreating a costume in multiples, so a familiar look on screen may or may not be the original garment.

Dressing Queenie

Gabourey Sidibe returns as Queenie from Coven, whose original look drew on urban Detroit styles. On Coven, Sidibe revealed that she wasn't getting full scripts, only sides, so her first fitting is where she actually learned who Queenie was. For 13, she wanted the adult Queenie to carry her ties to Voodoo, and the team found jewelry that feels like it belongs to a practitioner. Eyrich added that the look keeps its urban roots but is now more grown up, with elevated designer pieces.

When Cobb brought up Queenie's return to her personal hell, Sidibe said she lives for the Chubbies fast-food uniform and still finds it hilarious that Queenie's eternal punishment is a chicken shop. She also shared a bit of on-set trivia: the peeling skin she has to eat on camera is actually a salted caramel marshmallow, and it was very tasty.

Queenie also has the most duplicate costumes of anyone this season. Because the character loses an arm, the team had to build a rig into her clothes, with tubing running around her shoulders and down her arm to a pump roughly 10 feet away so blood can flow through. Each version had to be roomy enough to hide the apparatus while staying comfortable.

Sidibe shared a less glamorous memory from The Big C, where the wardrobe department kept offering her pieces Amber Riley had worn on Glee, sharing how Eyrich was indirectly dressing her years before they ever worked together on AHS.

Dressing Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt
Leslie Grossman's Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt was built around Coco Chanel: red jackets, pearls and bows, with the aesthetic credited to Paula Bradley. Grossman's history with Eyrich goes back to Popular, the first series she made with Murphy. She says Eyrich's fittings take every insecurity an actor brings in and solve it for the character, so that once the clothes are on, she simply becomes that person. "That is a rare magic, and that is a skill," Grossman praised.

Grossman gave much of the credit to Murphy, saying she has worked with many showrunners and "there's no one who cares more about the fashion than Ryan."

Dressing Mallory and Winter

Billie Lourd, who plays both Mallory and Winter Anderson this season, says Mallory is right up her alley: she loves a black dress, and Mallory's moon-and-stars motif matches one of her own tattoos, topped off with a crown. Winter's look leans on a dickie worn under her tops, which Lourd joked gives the character a certain vibe. She added that the costumes, especially the shoes, are what let her switch between two characters, sometimes on the same day.

Dressing Sarah Paulson

Eyrich described Cordelia Goode as the good witch: pure and intuitive, with a wardrobe rooted in botanicals and her greenhouse. For 13, the team kept Cordelia's silhouettes and modernized the details. Crabtree pointed out a few deliberate callbacks, including turtlenecks and earrings by designer Dean Harris, reused from earlier seasons.

Paulson plays five characters this season, and Eyrich named Sally McKenna from Hotel as her favorite of the actor's looks to design. The best story, though, belongs to Tuberculosis Karen. Eyrich was designing Red Tide while Paulson was playing Linda Tripp in Impeachment: American Crime Story, which left little time for fittings. Karen's coat came from a Target sleeping bag, and the dress underneath came from a Free People sale rack. When Karen returned for 13, the stunt doubles needed copies, so Crabtree's team had to recreate the improvised original.

Grossman called Paulson the heart and soul of the show, an actor with zero vanity who always asks what a scene is really about. She joked that Paulson's tenacity would make her an excellent federal prosecutor. Sidibe agreed that no one fights harder for the story, explaining that rehearsals can run an hour "because if it does not make sense to us, it does not make sense to you."

Jessica Lange's Wardrobe and Archive Miracles

For Constance Langdon, Crabtree said the team spent a long time hunting for prints, letting the fabrics tell the character's story. The sequin dress Constance wears across Episodes 3 and 4 took extensive research and development, and Crabtree expects it to become an iconic moment for the show. For Fiona Goode, the team recreated a dress from the pattern of an earlier costume, then left it on a dress form for weeks while they auditioned different laces.

Eyrich said the department began saving fabric back in season three, but some pieces still required what Crabtree calls a miracle. For Elsa Mars' Bowie suit, she searched the Los Angeles fabric district and found the exact material used for the original. She did a similar search for the witch hat Fiona wore.

Crabtree said the 13 workroom ran with around 20 tailors. The red capes in Episode 4 were all built in-house, each with a magnetic release for an on-screen reveal. As for souvenirs, Eyrich admits she has kept only one dress over the years, and she wasn't allowed to take home the knit sweater Evan Peters wore.

A Hot Day on the Cobblestones

A clip of the witches striding down a cobblestone street in parasols and hats prompted Eyrich to reveal that every witch originally carried a parasol. They cut it down to two for the shot's composition. Grossman remembers it as a sweltering day on cobblestones that were tough to walk on, and she gave a shout-out to Frances Conroy, back as Myrtle Snow in her signature red wig. Eyrich noted that Myrtle's scorpion pin is a reused piece.

Grossman also welcomed model Alex Consani, who plays the young witch Morwenna, calling her exciting new blood for the coven. That scene was Consani's first day of work.

Building Mr. Nas' Cape

The final clip spotlighted the cape worn by Mr. Nas, the elderly gentleman in Constance's care. Crabtree explained that it began as a button-front nightshirt that the team pushed into something far more theatrical. The finished piece has 13 parts, with a 3D-printed spine and a faceted tail, held up by a harness so its weight doesn't drag down the fabric. Crabtree said it took a lot of research and development, plus plenty of trial and error, to get there.

Both designers said nearly everything this season hides a little extra, from Easter eggs to recurring serpents. American Horror Story: 13 airs new episodes Thursdays on FX and Hulu, with the finale set for October 29th.