Inside the Revealing Undercover ’70s Wardrobes of ‘Dark Winds’ Season Four
Fashion
Fashion
Costume Designer Lahly Poore-Ericson upped her game for the Los Angeles undercover episode of AMC's "Dark Winds".
Midway through season four of the ’70s-set noir mystery “Dark Winds,” Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) and his sergeants-slash-protégés, Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) and Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten), leave the reservation for the bright lights of Los Angeles.
The colleagues—and chosen family—must find Billie Tsosie (Isabel Deroy-Olson), a missing 16-year-old, before gangland assassin Irene Vaggans (Franka Potente) does. Disguised for an undercover mission and prepared to do whatever it takes to bring Billie home, the trio must blend into 1970s Hollywood. But their disguises actually reveal more than they conceal— exposing their hopes and dreams, evolving story arcs, and the past they’re still reckoning with.
Costume designer Lahly Poore-Ericson, who has been with the series since season two, scours LA costume houses, Santa Fe markets, and vendors for standout ’70s vintage, while she and her team also custom-design and build much of the wardrobe, because, as she explains, it’s a cop show at the end of the day. “So as soon as someone's shot, killed, thrown off a cliff, any of the other things that happen, you need multiples for your stunts.”
Jim Chee’s Smooth LA Looks
The City of Angels holds haunting memories for the former FBI agent. After his mother was forced off the reservation when he was a teen, the two made a new life for themselves outside of their community. This season, he confronts his deep trauma over his mother’s death off the reservation and reclaims his connection with his culture. In Los Angeles, that reckoning plays out not just emotionally, but sartorially: he knows how to code-switch through his clothes.
“He’s comfortable on his home turf,” says Poore-Ericson. Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” blares through a sweeping shot of the Hollywood sign to the no-frills motor lodge where the team has posted up. Chee, clad in a pastel floral shirt, chambray trousers, a wide brown belt, and the coolest racing aviators, knows exactly where to begin their search: the local Bureau of Indian Affairs office, where he and his mom stopped first.
“He is more in tune with current fashion of the day than the other characters,” says Poore-Ericson, who custom-designs Chee’s rakish wardrobe, like his on-point suits and patterned shirts during his season two PI stint. “Chee has such an easy style and has lived urbanly a lot more than the other characters in the show,” she adds. “And Kiowa wears and loves clothes.”
Chee crosses paths with Sonny Bearheart (Chaske Spencer), a slick crime ring recruiter with a suit collection that rivals his own. Sonny invites him to a party later to talk more shady business—promising “hot chicks”—and Chee thinks Billie might show up. So he changes into a fresh athletic-striped blue terry-cloth polo for the night out. “He has a little more of the bling and the style,” says Poore-Ericson. “It’s also Jim Chee’s character. He does have an ego. He knows he's a good-looking guy—and he is.”
Chee wears his heart on his sleeve (or his neck, we should say) through his traditional Navajo silver chain necklace, which his younger self sports in a flashback upon his arrival in LA. “He's going through a personal journey,” says Poore-Ericson, who works closely with real Navajo Consultants, Jennifer Wheeler and Manny Wheeler, on the meaningful jewelry.
Bernadette’s Action-Ready Undercover Gear
Considering retirement, Joe has tapped his surrogate daughter Bernadette to lead the NTP because she grasps how essential Navajo culture and spirituality are to doing the job right. A formidable and highly capable force, Bernadette is always ready to protect her team at a moment’s notice. “She's got so much action,” says Poore-Ericson. “And she's trying to fit in. It was easier [to dress her] on the res, but now that she's in LA, she needed a little more urban feel.”
Bernadette packed city-ready clothes that keep her nimble: a graphic vintage Gap t-shirt and military sailor pants worn as jeans, a fashion trend of the era. Poore-Ericson admits the denim is actually a retro-looking contemporary pair. To back up Chee, Bernadette infiltrates Sonny’s club night looking like a Hollywood starlet. She stuns in a vintage emerald-green strappy dress, silver hair clips, and heels—rather than her chase-ready cowboy boots. “That was probably a little out of Bern’s comfort zone, but that was the right thing to fit into the club scene and be accepted into it in LA,” says Poore-Ericson.
But Bern didn’t bring the dress from home. Poore-Ericson imagines that the team went on a little shopping spree with the cash that Sonny gave Chee—or his undercover persona, “Mike Garcia”—earlier. “Everyone's going to this party,” says Poore-Ericson. “So they went shopping on Hollywood Boulevard.”
Zahn McClarnon in "Dark Winds" season four.
Joe’s Self-Improvement Wardrobe
Joe has another reason to come to LA: His wife Emma (Deanna Taushi Allison) moved there in the aftermath of shocking revelations in season three. Since she left, Joe’s been “working on himself,” as he says, embracing spirituality and going to the sweat lodge. “Joe is trying to get back in balance,” says Poore-Ericson. “He's lost his balance with the natural world and with his own self.”
Joe’s also conflicted about leaving the career he’s dedicated himself to. His NTP gear has long doubled as his everyday uniform and he wears jeans instead of the regulation trousers that his team dons every day. “He is the boss,” says Poore-Ericson, of the look that was established in season one by Peggy Stamper. “Also, he looks amazing in those jeans. Zahn himself just resonates in a pair of jeans and that shirt.”
For LA, Joe swaps his NTP gear (and his worn-in jeans) for a short-sleeve button-down, with the sleeves rolled up and dark chinos.“He's really trying to up his game a little bit more. For once, he isn't wearing his jeans all the time. He's wearing some polyester Wranglers,” says Poore-Ericson. “He gets a few new pieces because he's doing two things: He's trying to fit into LA—and he's trying to win Emma back.”
Boots Made for Action—and Style
Cowboy boots, which have trended back in fashion again, have long been durable, protective, rugged footwear for life on the range. On “Dark Winds,” the heritage boots represent the regional context of the period, but they also stand up for the action scenes demanded by the storylines.
“We have to have so many pairs because of the stunt and photo doubles,” says Poore-Ericson. But of course, Jim Chee has a functional and perennially fashion-forward collection. “Kiowa has a pair of dressy Lucchese boots that he wears — not all the time — and then Tecovas,” says Poore-Ericson.
She also finds styles from third-generation bootmaker Jerry Guerra’s Black Jack Boots in El Paso, the “cowboy boot capital of the world.” “You can go and find amazing, amazing cowboy boots at the discount stores in El Paso,” says Poore-Ericson, also suggesting the Lucchese outlet there. She and her team source boots from a variety of brands, and the cast will break in the same pairs over multiple seasons — just like we do with our own favorite footwear. “Everyone's got different styles, different brands,” says Poore-Ericson. “It's a ‘share the wealth of the cowboy boot.’”
