“My biggest challenge on this show is black,” Daniel Lawson, the show’s costume designer, said with a sigh.During a recent evening shoot the wardrobe trailer for “The Good Wife” on CBS sat outside a courthouse in Jamaica, Queens. The clothes in it were trial-ready: sober, simple and uniformly dark.
A year ago Mr. Lawson was dressing the leads on “Lipstick Jungle” for their stiletto-stomping adventures in the glittering precincts of Manhattan. “On that show, it was all about the clothes,” he said. “They wore sequins at home. Who wears sequins at home?”
Almost no one, especially now. The events of the last year have knocked some sparkle out of most Americans’ lives. This year when network executives turned to research to discern what recession-battered viewers wanted, they braced themselves for bitterness.
