How ‘Apples Never Fall’ Costume Designer Found Inspiration in Real Tennis Stars

“Apples Never Fall” costume designer Allyson Fanger turned to real tennis stars for inspiration when creating the outfits for a Florida family devoted to the sport. By using the players as her baseline, she found ways to inject different bits of personality into each family member’s style.

The Peacock series follows Sam Neill as Stan, a man who becomes the prime suspect when his wife and family matriarch Joy (Annette Bening) goes missing.

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Jimmy Connors, whose peak years were in the late 1970s, served as Fanger’s inspiration for Stan. She dressed Stan, a longtime player, entirely in tennis attire, telling Variety, “It’s his life and being a coach is his full identity, so I dressed him in Fila and tennis brands.”

In Fanger’s mind, Stan was someone who shopped the new brands — and was comfortable in tracksuits as well. “I wanted his brands to stay true to that old-school vibe, and he still had that tracksuit from 1980.”

As for Joy, Fanger looked to former tennis pro Martina Navratilova and described her look as “Americana with a sporty bend.” Joy’s palette was predominantly classic navy and white. Other times, Fanger dressed Joy in Tory Burch, noting, “Tory was one of the first to do the tennis looks, and that was Joy’s brand.”

The one exception was when Fanger put Joy outside of her tennis court look for the retirement party. After years of running a tennis academy, Joy and Stan decide to step away. For the sequence, the costume designer chose a raspberry-red outfit to make Joy a focal point of the evening. For Fanger, it led to the family’s most elevated look. “The rest of the crowd was dressed in a very muted palette, and it was smoky in the room,” she says. “It was the only time we saw her in a color like that, and no one was popping like Joy.”

Russian model and tennis pro Anna Kournikova was Fanger’s main inspiration for Brooke, played by Essie Randles. Of all the Delaney children, Brooke maintained the sportiest vibe into her adulthood. “She’s a physical therapist, and that’s her world,” explains Fanger. “She’s also close to her dad, so I wanted to bring that part of her with the Oxford shirts worn over cool track pants.”

Finding looks for each character was a relatively easy task for Fanger. Even though the
series shot in Australia, she could turn to the classics but incorporate local brands.

Jake Lacy’s Troy Delaney was modeled after Roger Federer. In one scene, Stan calls Troy out
for being “flashy.” To encapsulate that, Fanger chose outfits made by high-end athletic brands, some of which she sourced from Australia, and made sure to add a lot of Stanford pieces — since he wanted to remind everyone that’s where he studied.

Logan Delaney, played by Conor Merrigan Turner, had a combination of Andre Agassi and Bjorn Borg in his styling. Since Logan spent time at the marina or sailing around, Fanger wanted him to ooze a “boaty, preppy vibe, but also have some grit and texture.”

Having the tennis stars to reference, Fanger says she was able to keep each look on track. “It really helped me when I was doing their tennis clothes. It was helpful when I was out shopping and putting looks together.”

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