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Khaleej Times
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Khaleej Times
UAE: How to master power dressing in 2025 using Apple TV+'s 'Severance' for inspiration
Eid celebrations are over, school holidays are winding down and regular office hours have resumed. The UAE is back to business. And, for the first time since Covid took a wrecking ball to office dress codes, workwear is at the top of the fashion agenda, thanks to the most-watched TV show in the history of Apple TV+, the sci-fi dystopian thriller Severance. If you've not seen it (and you really must), the overall premise is an exploration of what happens if our work lives are entirely separated from our home lives. The protagonists undergo a procedure that separates their conscious into Innies (corporate drudges tasked with 'work that is mysterious and important' for Lumon Industries, their employer and inventor of the severing concept) and Outies, the side of the self that gets to live life, blissfully ignorant of office politics, and immune from Sunday night dread as the work week looms. To be 'severed' promises the ideal work:life balance. As you'd expect from Apple, the production design is impeccable, a masterclass in storytelling through the use of colour. On the severed floor at Lumon, the protagonists of the Macrodata Refinement team are shown via a palette of almost exclusively blue and green. Not since the 1988 movie Working Girl made Melanie Griffiths' boxy suits and bouffant hair de rigueur, has office style been so aesthetically all-in. But while Working Girl was about power dressing, Severance's corporate automatons are powerless. Each day they are dressed by their Outie, consciousness switching to their innie persona in the Lumon Industries elevator. 'She dresses me in the morning, like I'm a baby,' bemoans Helly R, played by Britt Lower, of her Outie's control over what she finds herself wearing each day. While the conflict between Helly R's inside and outside selves is central to the show's narrative thread (no spoilers here), were I in her nude, block-heeled shoes, I'd be less quick to condemn my Outie's fashion choices. Like Apple's iconic founder, the late Steve Jobs, who wore an Issey Miyake black turtleneck, Levi's 501 blue jeans and New Balance trainers from the 1990s until his death in 2011, there is something to be said for a workwear wardrobe that is reliable, repeatable and rudimentary, as Lumon Industries' verbose Mr Milchick may or may not have said. As Severance 's central female character, and the standard bearer for the show's style credentials, Helly R's office wear, as chosen by her Outie Helena, revolves around some form of blue A-line pencil skirt, three-quarter length sleeve knit top, and those nude heels (specifically French footwear brand Repetto's Marlow style; designed for dancers, durable for eight hours at your desk, whether your job entails running down Lumon Industries' endless sterile corridors or not). There are no prints, no extraneous detail, and very little variation in silhouette, bar the occasional shift dress. Build a wardrobe of mix-and-match block-coloured basics, and you too can devote as little time as Helly R does to thinking about what to wear for work (even if her lack of sartorial say-so is down to bioengineering rather than free will). The trick is to find a palette you are comfortable working within, pun entirely intended. For me, it would be a spectrum of beige, from ivory to camel (do not attempt this if you have children under the age of five). Then, harness the discipline to shop only within those shades, sticking to simple shapes that suit your body type. Thus, in true Lumon style, freeing your creativity and frivolity to run wild outside of office hours. Just not too wild. Where Helly R's wardrobe is a lesson in restraint, it's wise to be discerning in your choice of televisual style cues. I once got carried away watching a Love Is Blind reunion show, ending up down a Google rabbit hole and impulsively ordering a floor-length rhinestone sheath dress from partywear brand Babyboo. It looked fantastic on screen, but, being neither a reality TV star, nor a highschooler with an upcoming prom, it has yet to emerge from its box. In a world of unlimited style choices, there's something to be said for limiting your shopping self's freedom of thought (Season 3 of Severance?). So, the next time a new series of Selling Sunset tempts me with the prospect of 150mm heels, I'll stream some discordant jazz and hit up Clarks for a Helly/Helena-approved court shoe instead.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Severance's Dichen Lachman Dissects Finale's ‘Heartbreaking' Twist, Season 3 ‘Possibilities' for Gemma — Watch
Warning: This post contains spoilers for Friday's Season 2 finale. Gemma saw her dreams of escaping Lumon come true in Severance's season finale — and then it turned into a nightmare. More from TVLine Severance's Bloody, Brilliant Finale Gives Us Some Long-Awaited Answers - and Another Huge Cliffhanger Severance Renewed for Season 3 at Apple TV+ Harley Quinn Boss Discusses DC Comedy's Future, As Season 5 Finale Serves Up Much Closure Friday's finale ended with Innie Mark helping free Gemma from her time-loop hell on the testing floor and guiding her to an exit door — but instead of joining her, he turned back to stay behind with Helly. His decision made a certain amount of sense to Gemma, though, Dichen Lachman (who plays Gemma) tells TVLine in the video above: 'My feeling was she was piecing together that he had gone through this procedure, because Mark would never do that.' But she's still 'hoping and praying that she can get through to either his Innie or his Outie to come out with her. It's heartbreaking.' (She does concede that it was a 'thrilling' moment for all those viewers rooting for a Mark and Helly romance, 'but one would hope that they're a little bit torn!') Gemma was torn, too, when Mark found her in the Cold Harbor room and convinced her to come with him, even though she was totally severed and didn't know who he was. Why did she trust him, then? 'I think all of the Innies have parts of their Outies,' Lachman theorizes. 'There's things that they feel that they don't quite know how to explain… On some level, all of Gemma's little Innies would probably have this instinct to trust Mark, even though they have no recollection of who he is or their relationship.' So where does Gemma go from here in the just-announced Season 3, now that she's away from Lumon's evil clutches but still without Mark? 'I mean, there are so many possibilities,' Lachman teases, reminding us that Gemma has dozens of Innies that are now left stranded inside Lumon as well. 'I am reluctant, usually, to ask too many questions' of series creator Dan Erickson, she says, but she did ask him about Gemma's Innies, 'and I think Dan just kind of raised his eyebrows at me.' Hmmm… she may be onto something there. Press PLAY above for more inside scoop on the Season 2 finale, and hit the comments to share your thoughts and theories. Best of TVLine Yellowjackets' Tawny Cypress Talks Episode 4's Tai/Van Reunion: 'We're All Worried About Taissa' Vampire Diaries Turns 10: How Real-Life Plot Twists Shaped Everything From the Love Triangle to the Final Death Vampire Diaries' Biggest Twists Revisited (and Explained)
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Sound of ‘Severance' Is Way More Than Office Space
If something has felt increasingly off from the very first reveal of the MDR office at the beginning of 'Severance,' that is entirely by design. But there's an art to crafting invisible unease — and in maintaining that sense of unease as our understanding (well, our wild suspicions) of Lumon Industries has changed over the course of the Apple TV+ series' run. Supervising sound editor Jacob Ribicoff and re-recording mixer Bob Chefalas own a share of the responsibility for the ineffable presence of Woe, Frolic, Dread, and/or Malice inside the walls of Lumon. It is often their emphasis on specific sound design and foley elements that make small mundanities feel so strange and potentially threatening; differences in how music and dialogue play inside the severed floor versus outside of it also contribute to our sense of claustrophobia or the bewildering openness of the outside world. More from IndieWire 4 Oscar-Nominated Cinematographers Analyze Pivotal Scenes from Their Films 'Andor' Season 2 Trailer: Get a Glimpse at Ben Mendelsohn and Forest Whitaker in the Cast So the IndieWire Craft team reached out to Ribicoff and Chefalas to ask them not just for the specific sound cocktail mix that makes the 'Severance' elevator transition between 'Innie' and 'Outie' so visceral — though they were kind enough to give it to us — but a wider view of how they approach sound inside of Lumon, and how they've slowly cranked it up while in conversation with each episode of the Apple TV+ series. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. IndieWire: Part of what's so wonderfully creepy about Lumon's Severed Floor is there's this really sterile feeling paired with strange, throwback computers/tech that sound very distinctive. How do you approach that balance? Ribicoff: For the kind of background whirr, start-up, and shut down of the computers, I came up with a historic gumbo of computer sounds mixed together and then played very low. For the refining sounds, there were some classic 8-bit beeps and whooshes. For the keypad typing, we were able to have a keypad from the shoot shipped to the Foley house and we continued to record that per episode in sync and matched to production. IndieWire: 'A historic gumbo' feels like a very Lumon approach. If you had to pick one or two, what feelings are most important to get across about the MDR office through sound? Chefalas: Even though the MDR office is a very large empty room, we want it to sound isolated and airless. Very little reverb and quiet enough to hear the sounds of the computers. For the 'Innie' world, a lot of the production movement is replaced with Foley so it can be mixed into the proper environment. IndieWire: Does anything tend to get more emphasized in the Innie or the Outie worlds in terms of the level of atmosphere in the mix, how you approach sound effects, Foley, etc.? Ribicoff: There's no question that the Outie world breathes in full airy, windy, realistic, dynamic surround, whereas the Innie world stays pretty LCR [left-center-right panning] and claustrophobic. But for the 'Innie' world in both seasons, there is a gradual progression towards weirder, more dynamic, surreal environments as each season moves toward conclusion. Chefalas: With the Innie world, we lean on the sound of the Foley very much. Especially in hallway scenes where we had to remove most production footsteps and replace them with Foley. The balance of dry Foley and its reverb would constantly change depending on the location. Ribicoff: One of the really enjoyable and rewarding aspects of working with Ben [Stiller] and his picture editors has been the degree to which they have leaned into and elevated the Foley for storytelling and to underscore the physicality of the characters — like the many wild running sequences through Lumon corridors. Bob used all his best tricks to push footsteps through loud music cues during the mix. Amazing! IndieWire: The mix really does feel like the perfect balance of the music with the physicality of the footsteps. I imagine you have a library full of atmospheric whooshes for the elevator transitions from Innie to Outie, too. Ribicoff: Well, there are basic elevator sounds — doors and motors ascending and descending. There is the 'fritz' sound, which you hear when the character's eyes close and flutter while they are 'transitioning,' which is a combination of high-pitched beeps and sharp static spikes cut in sync. There is the elevator ding, which comes from an airplane alert tone. Then there are suction-type whooshes, which really help with the zolly shots zooming in and out on the characters' faces. That's it. Oh, and sometimes a low-impact hit when the elevator lands at the end of the sequence. No two sequences are quite the same. IndieWire: That's so cool. I'm curious how you think about any difference between what sounds get emphasized when we're in Innie versus Outie mode, especially in places we might not necessarily notice. Chefalas: For the dialogue mix, I tend to favor the boom mics on the Outie world and let the atmosphere and all the movement be heard. With the Innie world, the boom mics can make the rooms sound too large and they need to be carefully dialed in. IndieWire: I'd also love to hear about how you've collaborated across departments throughout the show's two seasons. Do any interesting decisions come out of those conversations? Ribicoff: I mainly worked with Geoff Richmond, the supervising picture editor, and Ben. We had an initial spotting session before Season 1. At the beginning of Season 1, I had the idea that the room tones for different parts of Lumon could be derived from the sounds of breathing, either human, animal, or monster, and could have a swirling quality — because Lumon is like this evil host feeding off the lives of its employees. Ben and Geoff very wisely tempered that idea and said, 'Let's start ordinary and get more surreal strategically as the story unfolds.' Also, they often asked me for a collection of sound effects they could cut with while shaping a given episode before the sound team formally came on. The show is so vividly drawn that some of my best conversations were with the episode itself. 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