The Bear’s 10 Best Outfits & Fashion Moments

One element of The Bear that people don’t talk about nearly enough is the amazing costume designs and stylish moments from the series. Just like other parts of the show, including the food of The Bear restaurant, the production design of the kitchen, and the acting, the costumes are one of the things that were heavily researched when creating the show. The costume designer for the series is Courtney Wheeler, who does an incredible job at bringing these characters to life.

People tend to overlook the costumes of shows that seem like “regular clothing” and not something big and flashy like period films, but it shouldn’t be that way. Shows like The Bear are a challenge in themselves to create something so realistic while telling another layer of story untold through clothing, which at times, for example, could be just a white tee.

10 Sydney’s Thom Browne Chef Jacket

Sydney Is Gifted A Custom Jacket From Carmen

Sydney is gifted a brand-new, beautiful, and customized chef jacket, made by Thom Browne. This is just one of the moments where a costume highlights a turning point in a character’s growth. Up until this point, Sydney more than proves herself to Carmen as an incredible chef. She showed loyalty and dedication in the upscaling of the restaurant alongside him, and so he does something very special. He gifts her a Thom Browne chef jacket.

Before this moment, Sydney, like the rest of the kitchen, wore a white tee with matching blue aprons. Not only does she upgrade to a chef jacket, but this one is customized with the brand’s iconic red, white, and blue stripes on the sleeves, as well as embroidery on the sleeves with her initials. The colors compliment the blue-heavy scenes perfectly, and the red bandanna she wears in her hair with it. She also still carries the same yellow striped hand towels on her apron, making a nice toned-down, cohesive, primary look.

9 Carmen’s Blue Jean Storage

Carmen Has An Ironic Storage Solution For His Jeans

In the first episode of The Bear, there is a quick scene of Carmen grabbing a pair of blue jeans, only for the audience to see that he stores them in his oven. Between the signature quick cuts of Carmen rushing throughout his day, this earned a short-lived chuckle from viewers. This actually has an explanation, as there are different reasons for this odd storage solution. His apartment is a small one in Chicago. He’s not home most of the time, and all of his focus is on fixing this restaurant, so he doesn’t care about having everything perfectly nice.

This also plays into the irony of Carmen making his oven unusable. It seems odd that a chef would do this in his own oven, but as shown in other scenes, not only does he eat at the restaurant during the day, but if he cooks dinner for himself after work, it is not anything fancy at all. The last thing a chef wants to do after cooking for others all day is to come home and do it again for themselves.

8 Richie’s Black Suit

Richie Has A Huge Turning Point Highlighted By This Suit.

In season 1 of The Bear, Richie is a character that successfully stressed out audiences with his troubled personality and hot-headed outbursts, yet as the episodes go on, we learn to love him more and more. When he is sent by Carmen to work in the kitchen of another successful restaurant, he truly sees and treats this as a new start for himself. Here, he begins wearing a suit and, in particular, an all-black one that he wears at the start.

The charming details of this black suit showRichie’s genuine efforts at being better. An all-black suit is something very sleek and stylish. It isn’t a slim fit, but a little more old-timey, and possibly something he thrifted. The black shirt has some subtle stripes to it that almost even look sparkly. Audiences can’t help but be happy for him when this costume is revealed, as the suit is a great way to show the change of his mindset.

7 Carmen’s White Tees

When Carmen Likes Something, He Sticks To It

Carmen can almost always be seen wearing a classic white t-shirt. It may seem like something so simple took no effort and has no meaning or research behind it, but that is far from the truth. Every single thing in the costume design process is very intentional and tells a story. The first thing we can observe about the t-shirt is its quality and the care of it. Looking closer at the details, this is a very well-fitting tee, hitting at a nice point on the bicep as well as a nice flattering point at the waistline where they should.

The other thing is care. It is hardly ever stained. It takes a skilled chef to be able to always wear white tees, not stained. And when it is, that could even show his state of mind and how he’s not being as careful. Carmen has an “if it works, it works” mindset, so he would definitely be the type of person to find a piece of clothing he likes, and buy multiples of it.

6 Sydney’s Style

Sydney’s Style Is Cool And Comfortable.

Sydney’s style is a perfect fit for her character. It’s pretty up-to-date with the trends of her particular generation in a very realistic way for both her and her job. A lot of her clothing looks like it’s something she thrifted and experimented with, layering pieces like sweaters, button-downs, and sweater vests. She isn’t afraid to mix patterns and colors, but overall, her wardrobe fits the look of the rest of the show, with lots of cool blues and greens. The fabric all looks very comfortable and loose, not very fitted.

She also takes the extra step of personalizing her work clothing. Everyone in the kitchen wears a matching blue apron and a white tee. The way she stands out is by wearing bandannas and silk scarves that she ties over her hair. She has a variety of fun colors and patterns. It can be a challenge to figure out how to get across a character’s personality when they’re wearing a uniform, but this element does it well.

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5 “Berf” Tees

A Hilarious Typo Happened When Printing Tees For The Kitchen.

A funny moment that happens around the costumes in the show has to do with a typo. This is a hilarious scene when t-shirts are ordered for kitchen staff that should read “The Original Beef” but instead it says “The Original Berf”. And of course, Richie decides to wear it anyway. It is always a fun opportunity when a costume designer gets to use their piece as a funny moment in a movie or show. It also makes for a great thing for fans to wear that is sort of an inside reference among those who have seen the episode.

4 Natalie’s Style

Natalie’s Style Is Feminine And Practical.

Natalie’s style is a unique one, since she is not actually a part of the kitchen staff. She has more of an opportunity to dress up more and be more feminine because of that. She doesn’t have to work in a hot kitchen like the others, but when she begins to become more and more involved with saving the restaurant alongside Carmen, her clothing reflects that.

She begins to wear coveralls that are outside of her usual style, showing how much she is down to help her brother and the restaurant. She also begins dressing a little more professionally when she starts taking over the business side of things in the office, wearing pencil skirts and blazers. In the Christmas episode where we see a younger Natalie, we see her previous style, which is still very bright and fun while fitting into the show’s overall color scheme. Her wardrobe shows how committed she is to helping bring back the restaurant.

3 Carmen’s Rugby Polo

Young Carmen Wears A 2000s Staple To Christmas Dinner.

Audiences get to see a younger Carmen in the incredible season 2, episode 6, “Fishes”, which takes place at a past family Christmas dinner. Given the very real and stressful nature of the episode, the costumes aren’t very bright.

We usually see Carmen in a white tee, but here, he’s in a dark polo with a large white collar at the top. It looks older, is of the times, and tells us the place he’s in. He still has the white element of the collar framing his face, but collars like this are definitely something he wouldn’t have worn in present episodes.

2 Marcus’ Beanies

Marcus’ Style Reflects His Quiet Personality.

Marcus’ style is an understated one. He has a pretty quiet personality andhis wardrobe reflects that. His signature pieces of clothing are his beanies. He pairs different colored ones with his usual apron and t-shirt, like the rest of the kitchen staff wears. They’re never super bright colors, which blend in just enough with the show’s use of blues, greens, and jewel tones. This seems to be a common pattern in costume and highlighted things in the series.

For example, red is a fantastic color to pop against the cool backgrounds of the kitchen, but it’s a very particular shade that blends in enough to be realistic and not distracting. A great signature costume piece like this is one that looks like it’s really something that the person would wear, and has worn multiple times. It’s something they’re comfortable in.

1 Neil and Theodore’s Matching Outfits

Neil And Theodore Fak Provide Comic Relief During A Stressful Christmas.

Another funny costume moment is between the duo of the two brothers, Neil and Theodore Fak, who provide comedic relief in the very stressful and suspenseful Christmas episode. These two brothers pop up at the perfect times to provide comic relief, and they don’t even have to open their mouths to have the audience laughing.

Despite their mature age, they both wear a green flannel buttoned all the way up, with a red-orange sweater draped over their shoulders. We get to see more of their hilarious interactions in season 3 of The Bear, and we can only picture what it was like for them to shop for the same outfits, which are very intentionally styled.

The Bear

Release Date

June 23, 2022

Seasons

2

Writers

Christopher Storer

Directors

Christopher Storer

Showrunner

Christopher Storer

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