Netflix’s ‘Sirens’ Gives Lilly Pulitzer Style a Sinister Twist

Netflix’s aptly named new show Sirens easily pulls you into its dark current. Set on an ultra-wealthy beach enclave (basically, a thinly veiled Nantucket), the personal dramas and Machiavellian plans of the vacationing elite are buoyed by an underlying tension that’s impossible to ignore. It’s basically The White Lotus meets The Perfect Couple—but with even more hydrangeas and no smoking gun.

Like many shows in the “messy rich people” genre, this tragicomedy is suspenseful, subversive, and just a touch silly. But unlike its peers, the most disturbing sequence in Sirens isn’t a mysterious drowning or action-packed shootout. It’s a Lilly Pulitzer makeover montage.

Let’s set the scene: After a night spent in jail, Devon (Meghann Fahy) decides to investigate her estranged sister’s (Milly Alcock) mysterious life on “The Island.” She’s broke, she’s hungover, and she eventually arrives at her sister’s workplace via ferry after sleeping with the captain. She sees Simone’s all-encompassing, boundary-less job as an assistant-slash-best-friend of Michaela (Julianne Moore) as cause for concern. But like a siren’s call to jagged rocks, the glitz and glamour of the private jet lifestyle hypnotizes Devon for a moment, culminating in a fever dream of a shopping trip with Michaela’s drones.

To the drumbeat of Cardi B’s WAP, a cadre of tropical print-clad ladies who lunch usher the broke waitress through a private car service and into a maniacally chirpy dressing room. She’s bombarded with delulu therapist speak (“let it go if it doesn’t serve you”) while she tries on pastel puffballs and garish prints. A silver-haired socialite lip synchs to “certified freak, seven days a week” while wearing raffia. Others guzzle vintage Champagne.

Almost immediately upon watching, my cortisol spiked. The entire sequence is so vivid, so disturbed that I will never look at a floral shift dress the same way again—and that’s exactly what makes the costumes so arresting. “In populating the frame so heavily with pastel prints, I was trying to overwhelm her and the viewer with a homogeneity of color that heightens the question of whether there is a cult at play,” says the show’s costume designer, Caroline Duncan.

Sirens reminds us that behind all that poise and polish, there’s a dark side to prep. “One of the exciting challenges when designing Sirens was how to use a bright, cheerful palette to create the tone of unease and the uncanny for Devon immediately when she enters Port Haven,” explains Duncan.

Traditionally, Lilly Pulitzer is meant to evoke Palm Beach and sorority sisterhood, not dangerous liaisons and familial infighting, but that’s not always the truth, is it? The basket lockets, headbands, and cardigans worn by these fictional preppy elite telegraph all there is to love about the Coastal Grandma lifestyle, but there’s always something churning beneath that shiny veneer.

Since The Preppy Handbook first hit bookshelves in the 1980s, American sportswear has been synonymous with privilege and power. Its leisure-derived hallmarks—such as riding boots, varsity sweaters, and boat shoes—signaled that the wearer had sufficient time and money to indulge in leisure class pursuits. Sailing the family boat, cocktail hour at the private club, and “summering” at an inherited estate are, by design, exclusionary—and so are the clothes designed for these events. You can only buy “authentic” Nantucket reds at Murray’s Toggery Shop on the island. And a gold basket pendant carries more weight if inherited rather than bought outright.

This complicated legacy comes to life in the gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss attire of Simone, Michaela, and the socialites in their orbit. Simone, whom we first meet wearing a fusty magenta shift dress, has access and proximity to wealth and power, but none of her own. “Simone’s prints and pastels are a little brighter and have more contrast than the other characters, mimicking her manic desire to belong, but that she is still climbing the rungs,” says Duncan. With her carefully curated wardrobe, she mirrors the other hangers-on who frequent her boss’s fancy fundraisers in their stifling yet smiley garb of choice.

As the queen bee of this group, Michaela notably stands out in her goddess gowns and elevated attire. She has the luxury of not having to blend in, and as such, goes for jewel tones and generous drapery over starchy poplin and flamingo motifs.

Similarly, Devon’s outsider status makes itself known. She arrives at the couple’s picture-perfect shingled mansion in smeared makeup and a black tank top. And even when she gets a shopping freebie from her sister’s benefactor, she chooses a slinky Francesca Miranda red dress over a puff-sleeved sack. “There is a danger and a seduction to the fit, fabric,” says Duncan of the custom creation. “The bare back draws everyone’s eyes, and makes her feel incredible in her skin.”

Devon’s subversive style is a fan fashion favorite (along with all those Nantucket basket necklaces, according to Duncan), but that’s how it’s always been. Outsider status lends a much-needed critical eye to this divisive, exclusionary aesthetic—and can often make it better. After all, the prep label is not Brooks Brothers or Vineyard Vines, but one started by a former tie salesman raised in the Bronx: Ralph Lauren.

Much like The Stepford Wives and Valley of the Dolls before it, Sirens reveals the sinister side of high society, and it may change your tastes along with it. By the end of binge-watching the mini-series, palm prints appeared nauseating. Pink started to remind me of Pepto Bismal and ’50s psych wards. And I have always considered red chinos to be a jump scare. Now, more so. This strong reaction, though, isn’t a bad omen; it’s a good reminder. When you understand that prep is nothing more than a moneyed fashion flex, it’s a whole lot easier to make it your own.