Meet Natasha Newman-Thomas, One Of LA's Coolest Costume Designer

Natasha Newman-Thomas scored her first piece of vintage out of a church donation bag at age four, and has been collecting cool things ever since. The staircase leading to the born-and-raised Angeleno’s mid-century Hollywood house—the same house styled by Thomas for Adam Scott's CULT100 photoshoot—is littered with fallen green figs and (literal) windows into the stylist’s vintage designer-filled closet. Inside, her living room is adorned with every style of painting and tchotchke imaginable, forming a trove of not-so-hidden treasure where pieces from the designer’s past creative projects “come to die or get reborn.” As I enter through the front door, Newman-Thomas beckons me to sit in a vintage Eames chair she sourced during the pandemic, but I’m too distracted by the larger-than-life harp foregrounding her living room to respond. As it turns out, the coolest costume designer in LA also plays the harp. 

Part harpist, part vintage-car mechanic, and full-time stylist, Newman-Thomas embodies a kind of “cool girl” renaissance woman of the 21st century. Accordingly, her living room bears a highly curated, museum-like quality—anchored by a Murano glass chandelier and Madonna’s coveted coffee-table book,“Sex”. I ask where she sourced her whimsical orange tulip arrangement, spilling out of a painted ceramic vase, and she tells me Trader Joe’s. Newman-Thomas has the rare type of curatorial eye that can turn a grocery store bouquet into art.

While Newman-Thomas collects everything from French antique furnishings to rare art books, her first love was high fashion. “My grandmother gave me a $2 a week allowance, which didn't get you very far, but I'd save a dollar a week to go buy the L'Officiel runway issue and then I'd spend the other dollar at the Jet Rag dollar sale,” Newman-Thomas says.

The daughter of a church worker, Newman-Thomas’ introduction to secondhand shopping came from sifting through clothing donations to her local Christian Science Church. During her years studying fine art at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, before dropping out to get her pilot's license, Newman-Thomas traded trash bags for thrift stores. As a student, she planned her class schedule around ensuring that Thursdays were free, seeing as that was the day when everything at the thrift was 50% off. While the seasoned thrifter has no “secrets,” so to speak, she approaches the hobby with a methodical thoroughness. “I go through every single piece in the store, that's how you find treasure. You have to hunt for it,” she shares.

Sporting a vintage Fisher King t-shirt—her favorite movie from the age of six—Newman-Thomas exudes a relaxed, creative temperament that makes her aesthetic feel both uncontrived and secondary to her sense of self. “I try to just express myself, and sometimes that's through like a crazy sculptural Comme des Garçons piece, and sometimes it's like my mom's old John Lennon shirt,” Newman-Thomas says. “I look for things that inspire me and will help me find some common ground with other people.” 

The costume designer’s varied artistic interests, as demonstrated by her wide-ranging array of art books, inform her approach to styling characters for the screen. “I don't think inspiration is necessarily limited to the art forms that one works within. I get inspiration going to the Huntington Library and seeing flowers and plants and going to art museums,” Newman-Thomas says. Earlier that day, she recalls taking a photo of an eccentric couple at brunch in Los Angeles for inspiration. “There was this guy wearing a full visor and tactical gear. [My friend and I] were like, ‘Is he going to riot somewhere? What's his deal?’ And then this woman who looked like she shops exclusively at Free People was walking down the street, and we were like, ‘They look crazy next to each other.’"

Despite styling looks on some of Hollywood’s most beloved and trend-inspiring projects—ranging from the music videos for Childish Gambino’s “This is America” to “The Idol,” and “Euphoria” season three—Newman-Thomas never deliberately forecasts fashion trends. “I have one collaborator—a director I work with who mostly does music videos—who is one of my favorite people because I feel like we really elevate each other,” Newman-Thomas says. “The first question he always asks is, ‘What's no one doing right now? Because let's do that.’ And inevitably, about a year after the project comes out, it's trickling into the mainstream.”