Some vocations are synonymous with their clothing: a chef's whites and apron, an airline's brand distinctive attire, medical scrubs and tradies’ hi-vis. Uniforms that signal the profession of the wearer so distinctly and succinctly as to take on an element of near costumery. 

It's a similar situation with the garments linked to the world's oldest profession. Envisage a sex worker and your mind probably pulls a picture of an ensemble so stereotypical it has no actual bearing on reality. A name brand knockoff halloween costume instead of something that accurately depicts and reflects the complexity and diversity of the workforce. 

It's a quandary costume designer Sammy Salsa had to negotiate carefully when costuming Madam, Three's new 10-part workplace dramadey which follows determined mother of two Mack Leigh (played by Rachel Griffiths) as she discovers her husband is engaging the services of a sex worker and counters by opening her own ethical, feminist brothel. So how do you dress actors playing sex workers and not make them feel like they're caricatures?

"There’s always that option of being super realistic or a stylised version of a show with the costumes," Salsa says of the starting point for his dressing which walked a line between those two directions. 

"These are real women’s stories and we wanted to do it justice for them all whilst making something super fun and attractive for the audience. We also wanted the characters to be relatable but also inspiring at the same time – it was important for us to champion real life sex workers in Aotearoa to give them a sense of belonging in society."

Prioritising that real life element was important. Madam is based on the upcoming memoir of American-born Antonia Murphy, who opened an ethical brothel in Northland, but Salsa also didn’t want the areas he fabricated to devalue a legal profession that is still often still maligned as smutty in society and on screen. 

"At the heart of our story, we are talking about a group of normal every-day women who do a job – and a damn good one at that!” he says. “I really played into the idea of the clothing highlighting the personality of each character as opposed to falling into stereotypes. There’s a mix of powerful, playful and quirky in the costume design.

"I think that often shows about sex work fall into some quite massive tropes and we wanted to avoid that where possible, we wanted the audience to be able to understand elements of who each character was with their costumes, but not be gratuitous with the outfit choices."

Florence Hartigan, who plays "sweetheart" Lolly, thinks that penchant to overdo it mean often best screen depictions of sex work are ones in which you don't notice the costumes. Maybe that says something about the fantasy of sex work that’s (often) depicted vs reality.

The genius of Salsa’s costuming, says Hartigan, was in the interplay of those two worlds. "In her day to day life, Lolly’s very sweet, very feminine, very sexy, very into her curves which I love. But for her sex work outfits, Sammy and his team created this aesthetic for Lolly that’s just full femme fantasy. It’s pinks and purples and jewel tones, it’s bows, it’s lace,  it’s giving 60s/70s boudoir lusciousness crossed with a bodice ripper romance cover.

"Sammy really captured Lolly’s love for drama – one of the first things I tried on was this amazing emerald green robe. I tried it on and it was like turning the light on in my brain in terms of a piece of the character I was building."

Johanna Cosgrove describes her character Jaz as "a fun loving wild child – a beautiful sex loving firecracker with a heart of gold,” and her outfits matched that magnetism. "We are talking vinyl! Leather! Fur! Lace! Chokers! Bedazzled fishnets! Mugler bodysuits!" Cosgroves reels off, saying "I’d literally be shrieking at 5am in the costume truck when I saw what I was wearing that day."

Costuming informs as much as it reflects though. Hartigan says acting is about "creating behaviour, and costume does so much to help that. Our clothes affect how we hold ourselves, how we walk, what temperature our bodies are, how physically comfortable we feel." She says small details, like Lolly's long manicured nails, feed into the character's mannerism. "It affected how I held objects, how I would fidget, how I would do certain actions. That’s the kind of thing that helps me find behaviour."

The sartorial storytelling plays a crucial element outside the lacy confides of the bedroom as well. Wanting to foster confidence sees Salsa’s costuming as a conduit for character building, for both the people portraying them and the audience watching. 

"Mack is based on a real person, so we really dug into ideas around how she ended up in NZ. What has she been through? What has she seen? What music does she listen to? We floated around references of iconic, strong female role models around like the 60s and the 90s, I landed on Patti Smith, Sheryl Crow, you know – really strong independent females with a voice in those times,” says Salsa.

"We really spent time building her pre-life to what was scripted. Mac would go to a rally down the road to protest for AIDS rights in the late 80s, early 90s, she’d still be going to the protests… There were some really big protests that happened in America in the 90s and we found this image of a female protester wearing a t-shirt that said, ‘No bad woman, just bad laws’ – and I found the t-shirt! Well, I found a copy of it in San Fran… Those are the keepsakes that I think her character would have kept."

It wasn't just the cast that Salsa was supporting through his costuming. "It's important for me to support our local fashion scene and our creatives in this country," he says. "I also collaborated with designer Blair Wheeler from brand BW on Mack’s green velvet suit – it’s a modern take on the whole pimp vibe."

Salsa and the wider team, including assistant designer Chrissy Vaega, costume designer Lissy Turner, makeup head of department Susie Glass and head of department production design Jane Bucknell, worked hard to create authentic and affirming outfits for the whole Madam cast.

Ultimately though, what was worn was the decision of the people putting them on or off. "It was really important for me that [the actors] felt comfortable and powerful in most of the looks, whether it was lingerie, skimpy dresses, booty shorts or the works," Salsa explains. "If they didn’t feel safe in a look, we absolutely scratched it – no questions asked.”

Madam streams on ThreeNow and screens on Three on Thursdays at 8.30pm.