Tuning into old Friends episodes (available to stream with an HBO Max subscription) can be like jumping into a time machine with all of its landlines, references to movies like Die Hard and all of the iconic ‘90s outfits. I can think of so many fabulous (and a few not-so-fabulous) wardrobe choices that defined the era, but according to the former Friends costume designer, there were way more per episode than I would have guessed.
Debra McGuire began working as the costume designer on Friends in 1994, the first season of what would become one of the best sitcoms of all time. It turns out when your series has six lead cast members, you go through a lot of clothes, as McGuire revealed at a recent event (via THR):
[Friends] pushed the limit of what we could do. We were doing 75 wardrobe changes in a 30-minute sitcom. I can’t really imagine it looking back. I have no idea how we did that.
I need a second to process that number. Seventy-five wardrobe changes for one episode is actually insane. Debra McGuire was in charge of that classic Season 3 scene with Joey wearing all of Chandler’s clothes, but even that was just one piece that she painstakingly styled by layering items from Matthew Perry’s wardrobe.
So to get to 75, If we’re just talking about Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Joey and Phoebe, that would be about 12 different wardrobes per actor, so there would have to be some of the Friends side characters included in that number, right? But how often did we see, for example, Paul Rudd’s Mike or Anna Faris’ Erica in more than one outfit in an episode? I’m definitely going to start paying attention to that aspect of the show now!
The designer said she didn’t set out to make Friends fashion so emblematic of the ‘90s either, admitting:
Did we know it was going to be successful? No. I didn’t really care about the fashion the first couple of years. I just wanted to make great pictures. The actors were so young and didn’t really know much about fashion [until later].
After Friends ended in 2004, Debra McGuire continued to work with Jennifer Aniston and can take a lot of the credit for all the times Aniston wore the cutest outfits.
Today she’s still with the actress on The Morning Show, whose Season 4 finale just aired on the 2025 TV schedule. Work on Season 5 starts in January, she said, and she’ll be there, exclusively styling Alex Levy’s wardrobe. Debra McGuire said:
We have been together for 31 years. We have a language together that doesn’t have to be spoken.
The fact that Debra McGuire continues to work with Jennifer Aniston on The Morning Show might explain why some of Alex’s clothes have strong Rachel Green vibes, and I think it’s lovely that these women have stuck together all of these years.
If you want to check out Debra McGuire’s latest looks for Jennifer Aniston, The Morning Show can be streamed with an Apple TV+ subscription, and if you want to try to count all of the Friends wardrobe changes, all 10 seasons are available on HBO Max.