Three years after Lee Sung Jin's Beef swept award season, fans of the show once again have something to sink their teeth into. The new season, which stars Carey Mulligan, Oscar Isaac, Charles Melton, Cailee Spaeny, and Youn Yuh-jung, charts an escalating feud between two couples–millenials Josh and Lindsay (Isaac and Mulligan) who are caught mid-argument by the Gen-Z Ashley and Austin, (Spaeny and Melton.) The argument, caught on video, is used as leverage by Ashley and Austin, a maneuver that is only the start of volatility between the couples. As tension mounts, frailties in each relationship turn to fault lines; what results is a searing portrait of class and the pressures it exerts on us all.

“Each generation starts off thinking that they’ll never become what they see in the older generation,” Lee Sung Jin told Tudum. “But with the passage of time and the pressures of capitalism, each generation soon discovers why the older generations are the way they are. With each passing generation, it becomes harder and harder to just get by.”

Season 2 welcomed Costume Designer Olga Mill who was tasked with illustrating the nuances of these class and generational divides in wardrobing; her execution is precise and honest, a perfect complement to Season 2’s new onscreen talent. I caught up with Mill to discuss everything from early inspiration to the subtle but important differences that tell us who these characters are before they even open their mouths.

Caroline Reilly: Can you walk me through any early moodboards or inspiration that helped you envision the costumes?

Olga Mill: I usually start with boards that express a general color palette and texture for each character. We were working with the concept of the four seasons. Ashley/Austin represented spring—the beginning of love, potential, and growth. Lindsay/Josh were autumnal; their relationship was drying up, past the heat and excitement of summer. Chairwoman Park/Dr. Kim were rooted in wintry icy blues and greys. The club represented an eternal summer.

Photography is also a huge inspiration, particularly Martin Parr and Tina Barney. Sonny, Jake James (DP), Grace (production designer), and I were all on a text thread exchanging images. Honestly a huge part of the process for me is just conversational. Talking to Sonny, talking to the actors, talking Grace. All these people are so smart. Most ideas for me are born out of or majorly evolve just from chatting with them

Once the general feel of each character is established, for a modern-day project I head to Instagram. It’s so helpful that people share their lives and outfits. I try to find accounts where the person feels resonant with the character and start to collage from there.

Reilly: I'm from the Northeast and I'm always fascinated by how distinct wealth looks on the West Coast vs. the East Coast. Were there any quintessentially West Coast looks that you had in mind going into this project?

Mill: I’m from the East Coast as well! Looking at the aesthetic of the 1% regionally, I found the East Coast tends to be more collegiate and a little stuffier. The South has a saccharine, oversaturated, print-heavy style. California’s wealthy class feels much more relaxed—un-ironed, easy breezy. It wants to appear casual and effortless.

Montecito and Ojai are both interesting towns to consider. They both exist as escapes from LA, so they’re kind of fantasy spaces. Montecito speaks to a boomer class—it’s established, the retirement accounts are vested. Ojai is more of a millennial escapist fantasy. It presents as artsier, cozier, more artisanally minded.

Reilly: I'm a huge menswear nerd and I love the subtle ways you used costuming to illustrate the power dynamics between Austin and Josh–can you share a few insights to how you pulled that off so well?

Mill: Something pretty subtle with Austin was how we transitioned his athletic clothing throughout the season. He starts off as a kind of sun-kissed beach bum. His workout clothes are mostly cotton. As his ambition and position in the club escalate, he transitions into sweat-wicking performance fabrics.

For Josh, he starts off in a classic millennial silhouette: tight suit, slightly cropped pants, personality socks, and a narrow light-colored sneaker. As the general manager, he wants to look professional but not too stuffy. He wants to almost pass as a club member rather than identify with the staff. As his allegiance to the club severs, he reverts back to what we imagined was his younger self. The scene where he is playing music and smoking a joint he’s in that hooded robe and hot chip t-shirt.

Another detail for Josh which I loved was the T-shirt that he wears in Episode 207, when he gets attacked in the yard. We created it out of necessity because we needed multiples, and the schedule may have pulled up that scene. Josh is almost killed in that scene, and I wanted to juxtapose that with an image of birth. So I looked at fertility and birth imagery. We landed on the Dumbarton Oaks birthing figure, which we distorted and screen-printed onto the T-shirt. The jacket also has a hand-drawn detail we added of a seed beginning to sprout. Death paired with birth and rebirth speaks to the deeper cyclical patterns that the season explores.

Reilly: There are so many phenomenal brands featured throughout–as a voracious shopper I loved seeing brands like Doen and Jenni Kayne featured because they seem to really epitomize this sort of aspirational but chill West Coast woman. How did the class instruct how you dressed Lindsay and Ashley in particular?

Mill: I love the phrase “aspirational but chill West Coast woman.” It’s a perfect way to describe the regional differences between the coasts we were talking about earlier. We thought of Lindsay as someone who certainly knows how to assimilate wherever she is, but also wants to be a bit above the fray. Her worst nightmare would be to be considered basic.

At first, Ashley is mostly in thrifted hand-me-downs. Throughout the season, she mirrors whoever she puts on a pedestal. At first it’s Eunice, and by the end of the season arc she is in full-blown Lindsay Montecito drag. Ashley can’t necessarily afford the Jenni Kayne cashmere sweater, so she has the ASOS/Zara version.

Reilly: I love the callbacks to art throughout, like the nod to Christina's World; can you talk me through some of the specific art moments and how you approached costuming for them in a way that wasn't too heavy handed or obvious but still effective?

Mill: [The reference t0] Christina’s World is so special. I was pumped when Sonny wanted to reference it for that Lindsay moment. It’s so beautiful but sad and pastoral. That dress choice for Lindsay was also inspired by Marie Antoinette en Chemise by Louise-Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. In general, the lore of Marie Antoinette in her shepherd’s garden was really important to me throughout the season. It spoke to the culture in Montecito and Ojai—a wealthy elite class escaping an urban center to moonlight a simpler, more agricultural life. Another big reference was Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights for the hospital episode. We were trying to capture a sense of chaos.