by Megan Bailey, Staff Writer

While the fashion in LOST can only be so exciting, since it’s set on an island after all, it’s clear that the costume designers across the seasons put a lot of thought into what each character wears. In the flashbacks, characters can be in all kinds of situations, and some folks are more fashionable than others. It’s a credit to Kathryn Morrison, Susan Zaguirre, and costuming staff that worked to make the outfits realistic and interesting.

First, I want to mention Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim), who ends up having some great looks in her flashbacks. She’s the daughter of a rich businessman, and she’s often in some great outfits (by mid-2000 standards). Her pink backless dress is a serve.

Like many of the other women, once Sun’s on the island, there’s not much use for skirts or fancy clothes. She’s most often in more utilitarian layers, except for a specific scene in season one. In the season, Sun and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) are at odds, and Jin is very controlling, even forcing Sun to button her cardigan when Michael (Harold Perrineau) comes around them.

By episode 17, Sun reveals that she can speak English, even though there’s still tension between her and Jin. She’s able to find space on the beach to stand alone in her bikini, a freeing moment.

On the other hand, there’s Shannon (Maggie Grace), who continues to wear miniskirts while on the island. She does wear shorts and more sensible clothes sometimes, especially later on in her time on the island, but she’s definitely holding onto some semblance of normal life by hanging on to her wardrobe. I can’t really blame her though. This is a look!

Come season three, after Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lily), and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) are taken, Kate is given a dress and brought to meet up with Ben (Michael Emerson). This costuming is off-putting, especially because we so rarely see Kate outside of her usual comfortable, utilitarian wardrobe. Even in flashbacks, she wasn’t dressing up while on the run. So, it’s strange to see her in this white dress.

The men are far less interesting, but there are some fun moments. Toward the end of season one, Sawyer ends up needing glasses, as reading without them is giving him trouble. Jack diagnoses the problem, and Sayid (Naveen Andrews) helps weld a pair together for Sawyer. The pair he ends up with is truly delightful.

I think the costuming for Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) in flashbacks tells us a lot about him too. Early in his flashbacks, before he got super famous, he looks like, well, a bit of a dweeb. And in those scenes, his brother is clearly styled as more rebellious, the bad boy of the two. But as the band gets famous and Charlie falls into bad behavior, he begins to look the part. And there’s an interesting reversal when, right before the crash, Charlie visits his brother, who’s gotten clean and has a family, but Charlie is still struggling with his addiction.

And another fun thing for Charlie is the words he writes on the tape around his fingers, FATE and LATE. These are perhaps not very subtle, but they give you some insight into what’s on his mind. It was fate that the plane crashed, but by episode three, their rescue is very late.

While season three’s “Stranger in a Strange Land” is certainly an episode, I have to point out the hairstyle Bai Ling’s character has, which dates the show pretty spectacularly. I remember wanting the racoon-stripe hair back in high school, and I’m happy to report that I’ve grown out of that!

On the whole, I think LOST’s costuming is an interesting part of the show. While it’s not super in-your-face, it’s clear there was a lot of thought put into what the costumes say about each character, and how they and their wardrobe would change over time. It’s just another facet of LOST to consider—if you ever get tired of the mystery boxes.