11 Valuable Fashion Tips From TV's Top Costume Designers

"It's about fit and it's something that people have forgotten. Before, everybody had a tailor. Now, people want to walk in to a store and be like, 'Oh, it doesn't fit me!' Well, because it's not made for you; it's made for average sizes." — Salvador Perez, The Mindy Project and Pitch Perfect 2

"I think mixing bits of color into your wardrobe is not reaching for the black sweater, but adding a turquoise sweater. It's probably easier to buy the blacks or the navies so it all matches, but once you have that color, it just makes life a little bit more fun. How can you be in a bad mood if you are wearing pink or yellow or blue?" — SP

"Yellow is not the color you see very often in the world, but you can put any other color with it and it works. Purple, green, orange, blue. Navy blue and yellow? That sounds weird, but we've been doing that on [Scandal] and it works. Unless you have a lot of yellow in your skin tonally, that's a color that works for everybody. We've also been using orange in that way as well." — Lyn Paolo, Scandal

"The thing that people don't realize is that most of the brands like Banana Republic and J.Crew have an online version of their clothes in petite and tall. You don't find it in the stores; you have to order it online. If you're not an average size, it's learning where to shop." — SP

"For Skylar's character [on Scream Queens] we had a little flared pant, boots, and a little sweater. It was fun, but it didn't really say much. Then, we added the plaid cap and a belt with a funny big belt buckle and a signature necklace, and it suddenly changed the look and made it much more street-style-wise. I would say accessories really added a lot. Usually I want to be simple, simple, but this was like the more, the better." — Lou Eyrich, Scream Queens and American Horror Story

"If the scales don't work together, it doesn't necessarily work — it has to sort of blend. There's an outfit on Mindy that I love — it's a houndstooth jacket, a paisley blouse, a plaid skirt, and lace booties. If I just described it and didn't show you, it sounds crazy — houndstooth, paisley, and plaid? But the scale of it all worked and the tonality of it worked. The houndstooth is gray and gray, the blouse was blue and gray, and the skirt was black and white. It was sort of tonal, so you just saw the color without seeing all the texture." — SP

"Go on a wild fashion adventure on the weekends if you want to experiment, but at work, stick with what agrees with you and be consistent. I try to treat my work attire like a uniform: I want to get dressed quickly in the morning for those 5 a.m. calls on location. So, simplicity, style, and limited choices work for me." — LP

"I think women do this a lot — pick out a shoe and it's a little uncomfortable in the fitting room or in the store. But you go ahead and buy it, and then you wear it for two hours and you're ready to cut your foot off because it hurts so much. If it's uncomfortable in the store, it's only going to be more uncomfortable the more you wear it. Now, if it's uncomfortable because of the stiffness of a leather or something, then that's a different story. But if it's pinching, if it's binding, if it's hurting your heel, if it's not wide enough through your instep, if it's uncomfortable as you walk in store on the ball of your foot or the vamp is cutting in underneath in the middle of your foot, then just don't buy it. No matter how beautiful or on sale it is, put it back on the shelf." — DL