Carrie's tailoring, Peggy's hats... Guardian writers choose their small-screen style crush
Carrie Mathison, Homeland
American Vogue loves to put serene, beautiful actresses on its cover; crotchety-faced, nervous-wreck federal agents, not so much. Interesting, then, that when Annie Leibovitz photographed Claire Danes last summer, it was not the sunshine-blond, movie-star-and-mum version of Danes who gazed out from the newsstands, but Carrie Mathison, her Homeland character. Her gaberdine and leather Burberry trench was tightly buttoned, the collar turned up incongruously against the August weather; her hands were thrust into the pockets, her gaze cool and level. In one of the pictures inside, Danes was in a surveillance van, wearing a knee-length Victoria Beckham sheath dress accessorised with bulky headphones and trademark crossed-arm pose. Similarly, when Danes starred in a fashion shoot for the New York Times's T magazine, she was wearing Comme des Garçons and Valentino, but still recognisably Carrie, with that shiny, natural hair, posing against the backdrop of Tel Aviv.
Carrie wears trouser suits, macs, shoulder bags: a commuter-train uniform chosen for its practicality and anonymity. The level of repeat in her wardrobe has a heartening reality. She wears the same pieces again and again and again, as a working woman in her position would. She looks fantastically sexy in black leather jacket and grey cotton marl T-shirt. She has a grey trouser suit that does nothing for her, and looks as if the real Carrie might have bought it on a distracted shopping spree – a marvellous, ego-less touch from the wardrobe designer. She is not using fashion to armour herself against the world, as many of us do, and there is a lack of artifice that lends her an emotional vulnerability. The dark colours and lack of artistry leave the spotlight on her face, which is marvellous: the suspicious, twitchy eyes, the epic crying, the manic, toothy smiles.
Jess Cartner-Morley
Peggy Olson, Mad Men
At first it almost hurt to look at Peggy – and not in the good way it hurt (and still does) to look at Don and Joan. A tight ponytail and tiny, fearful fringe topped off a motley collection of overly fussy blouses tucked unflatteringly into frumpy skirts in pukesome shades of green and beige. Everything screamed social and sexual immaturity and vulnerability, which, of course, attracted the disgusting Pete Campbell to her as blood attracts sharks. This in turn led to an interlude of secret maternity wear, followed by secret baby and secret adoption. A girl grows up fast under these conditions, and since then Peggy's wardrobe has – like the woman herself – become less fussy, more focused, more put-together. Ponytail and separates have gone out, a bob and dresses have come in. But it is still clearly armour. Necks are high, patterns sober, hemlines sensible, at least for the 1960s. They are not chosen with fun, comfort, self-expression or any other frivolity in mind. They're there to help her in the job she's doing among men who – despite, or more likely because of, her success – will still seize any opportunity to do her down. I suspect her personal taste and professional needs will finally converge in the 80s pant suit – though, God and Matthew Weiner willing, the series won't stray beyond 1979.
Lucy Mangan
Vod Nordstrom, Fresh Meat
Fresh Meat captures the lives of six university students foraging for meaningful friendship amid carpet stains and penne pesto. There's a posh one, a sensitive one, a pretentious one, a good-time girl, a geek – and then there's Vod: magnificent, hedonistic, goofy, uninhibited Vod. The daughter of an RAF officer and a boozy mother, Vod is both insecure and full of bluster, with an anti-establishment streak that seeks outlet through spliffs, pints and bovver boots. Her wardrobe is an experimental mish-mash of mixed messages: braces, blue lipstick, a rocker quiff and a leopard-skin dressing gown. Zawe Ashton, the actor who plays Vod, told the Guardian last year: "I always describe her as having no subtext, no filters. The whole birth of that character was so much about hair and makeup and wardrobe."
Vod is largely uninterested in looking feminine, save for a BP-sponsored university event where she dressed in full ballgown, only to clamber on a table, unleash bags of fake oil from under her skirt and cry: "Carry on stuffing your faces with sausages – ignore the oil spill!" She's bold, unnerving and a little bit wrong – but who cares?
Rosie Swash
Jane Tennison, Prime Suspect
What I most love about DCI Jane Tennison's clothes is that DCI Tennison doesn't really give a damn about them. Yes, she looks chic and stylish in her simple blouses and plain tailoring (it's hard to make Helen Mirren look bad, in all honesty), but her image is largely unimportant to her. Lynda La Plante's heroine doesn't think about fashion any more than her male colleagues, who, though not blessed with Tennison's room-hushing sexuality, are dressed in similarly bland suits.
Sometimes we see Tennison stir after a late night of heavy drinking and obsessing over evidence, having slept in her crumpled workwear. And even when she's on top of her game, nothing is overdone; every last detail feels authentic. Her shoes are always sensible courts, never dominatrix heels. She goes for soft tailoring, not power suits with sharp angles and jumbo shoulder pads. Her shirts look stylish, but generic and robust enough to deal with the odd yolk stain at post-briefing fry-ups with the lads from the station. Nothing is perfect, everything is functional, ticking all the right boxes, while her attention remains firmly on the job at hand. The sheer ordinariness of her wardrobe – when, nowadays, female detectives such as Stella Gibson in The Fall must appear as though fresh from a Whistles sample sale, or like Sarah Lund, as famous for her jumpers as for her ace detective work – is exactly what makes DCI Tennison's such an unforgettable look.
Sali Hughes
Claire Underwood, House Of Cards
Say what you like about Claire Underwood, the blond, terrifying one played by Robin Wright in House Of Cards: her wardrobe is cold, hard perfection. As one half of a Washington DC power couple, Underwood knows that perception is everything, and dresses accordingly. At work, she is pristine in form-fitting shift dresses, crisp shirts, mannish trousers, tailored overcoats and expensive accessories: Louboutins, perhaps, or an Yves Saint Laurent tote. By night, at the Capitol Hill galas where she publicly swaps longing looks and urbane witticisms with her husband, she binds herself into chic, corseted gowns and strapless cocktail dresses. Whatever the occasion, her palette is as controlled as her small talk: black, navy, charcoal, pewter, cream, white. Every outfit shows off her tanned, gym-toned biceps and lithe, bare legs (hosiery is for wimps).
From her precise fringe to her sharp stiletto heels, Underwood's look projects control. It's a perfectly curated aesthetic that confirms her as the commander of her own tastefully accessorised destiny; the wearer will never be found slobbing out in a holey T-shirt or accidentally inhaling a pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food. And yet it's not much of a spoiler to reveal that Underwood is as battered and broken as the rest of us, if not more so. As House Of Cards progresses, you wonder whether those beautiful corsets are the only things holding her together.
Hannah Marriott
Stella Gibson, The Fall
I always suspected that power blouses were unwearable by mortals like me, who live in the same world as bra straps, spaghetti bolognese and an ironing deficit. Watching Gillian Anderson coolly cut a swath through BBC crime drama The Fall in a succession of the glorious things left me wholly convinced. Anderson played a murder detective who worked with a certain stillness, even when calmly practising strangulation techniques on her own wrist, or accepting sex from a man at her hotel door by merely reaching for the Do Not Disturb sign. Those silken, cream-coloured blouses were part of that stillness, yet they almost revealed her flesh; a hint of woman in a man's world. These are blouses that make a subtle joke about their own femininity; associated with Tory wives who pretend to be ladylike while actually wearing the trousers, or royal women who have to look pretty for the camera while commanding with a will of steel. In fact, a plain silk blouse is one of the sexiest things you can put on, if you're not really meant to be wearing clothes that make people look at you. I dread to think how much you have to spend on one that sits right on the body like Gibson's, effortless and breezy as expensive milk.
Sophie Heawood
Leslie Knope, Parks And Recreation
I admit, the reason I love Leslie Knope's wardrobe has a lot more to do with Leslie Knope than with the clothes. In Knope, Amy Poehler has created one of the truly great female TV characters: bursting with ambition, unflappably optimistic, indefatigably gauche and, most of all, eternally good-hearted. And her all-time idol is… Joe Biden. If you don't love this woman, you have no soul.
Knope's clothes reflect her character perfectly in that the underlying ingredients should be awful but, put all together, they become surprisingly endearing, even inspirational. Those brisk skirt suits and 1970s trouser suits could look C&A, but on Knope they bespeak an ambitious woman who is unfettered by feminine concerns about prettiness or elegance, one who dreams of being Hillary Clinton but is really, well, Leslie Knope. Her bolshiness and lack of self-deprecation should be an inspiration to us all, with or without the brown trouser suit.
Her off-duty style depends on her mood: on bad days, it's teenager-like hoodies and jeans; on special nights out, it's mainstream pretty dresses. In other words, her wardrobe is the same as 90% of western women. But Leslie shows us how to Knope it up.
Hadley Freeman