Everyone’s favourite comedy drama, The White Lotus, is back in its third season (one episode drops every Sunday), and it’s making one want to head to Thailand already. The gobsmackingly scenic show, with possibly the greyest characters you have ever seen on TV, has been shot in Hawaii and Sicily in its first two seasons. This season it takes us to the fictional White Lotus resort in the Asian country. Needless to say, its resort wear fashion is absolutely top-notch.
What this season especially gets right is its pick of India’s (and possibly Asia’s) best resort wear designer label, Verandah, helmed by Mumbai girl Anjali Patel Mehta. Mehta, who gave up a Wall Street job in New York to come back to India and make sunny clothes, is elated to be included in this massively popular international production. “This show is a masterclass in vacation style,” she says.
In an interview to Elle, Mehta says the show’s costume designer, Alex Bovaird, reached out to her in January 2022 for sending over clothes for Season 2. However, Mehta was tied up with promotions in New York (where she sells at Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus), and missed the opportunity. They reached out to her again for Season 3.
Anjali Patel Mehta in the kaftan featured in The White Lotus | Instagram@anjalipatelmehta
The legendary Thai actor Patravadi Mejudhon (she plays the resort owner and a former actor in the show) wore one of Mehta’s famous beach kaftans in the first episode. The orange-green kaftan, which Patel calls the ‘Wonder Woman Star’, has geometric shapes, stripes and stars on it, and is made for poolside panache. The actor Natasha Rothwell will also be seen in one of her signature hand-beaded kaftans in the coming episodes, and so will a couple of other characters.
The White Lotus, first released in 2021, was one of the finest shows to enjoy the worldwide OTT boom thanks to Covid (the second season released in December 2023). The show is a wry social commentary on the privileged lives of rich white people. Their holiday wardrobe is a mix of quiet luxury as well as sexy beachside staples.
Season 1, in Maui, saw sequinned kaftans, tankinis, ruffled cover-ups and mostly casuals worn with Piaget watches. This is for the affluent of course; the resort staff wore Hawaiian shirts with pineapple motifs everywhere.
In Season 2, in Sicily, Bovaird had said she wanted to dress her characters a bit more as Americans tend to up their game when they travel to Europe. Moreover, series creator Mike White had told her to go big and bold. “It’s supposed to be really pleasurable to watch… he wants the frame to be juicy and interesting,” she says in an interview.
Season 2 has more fun with the wardrobes of the have-nots—two young escorts (Lucia and Mia) and a Gen Z assistant (Portia). The young sex workers show up in cheap and showy clothes, but start to play dress up in swimsuits from Dior and La Perla, like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, once their client gives them shopping money.
Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya wears an Alice Temperley pink dress with an Alberta Ferretti scarf when her husband Greg takes her around on a moped, indulging her little-girl fantasy, only to tell her he’s ditching her vacation early. Her assistant Portia’s wardrobe was hotly debated for being slipshod, but fully matched her disinterested personality.
The makers of the show know the interest in the series’ fashion, and have tied up with several fashion brands like Banana Republic, Abercrombie & Fitch and H&M for capsule collections.
Aren’t we glad the summer’s here?
X@namratazakaria