Killer Looks From 'Big Little Lies' Puts Monterey On The Fashion Map

In a dreamy, cathartic last episode, viewers learn that it takes five Audreys to slay the monster, as the finale of Big Little Lies restores peace to the coast of Monterey, the posh seaside town where nothing is what it seems.

The finale gala isn’t the first time the women of Monterey get dressed to the nines at Otter Bay Elementary. The ladies of Big Little Lies prove that in small, tight knit communities like Monterey, fashion plays a pivotal role in how your neighbors, friends, and frenemies see you. With this series, Monterey, the one-time center of the sardine packing industry, has just become as chic as Paris, due to the killer looks served up by the starlets of Big Little Lies.

In the series finale, all Monterey moms must dress like Audrey Hepburn for a glamorous fundraising event at Otter Bay Elementary Charter School. Costume designer Alix Friedberg told W Magazine that her favorite look of the show was Renata’s “chic take on Audrey’s My Fair Lady iconic ascot dress.” Eliza Doolittle, brought to the screen by Audrey Hepburn in the 1964 adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion is a fine metaphor for the premise of the show: bubbling beneath the glitz and luxe lifestyles is not only a Cockney accent, but the potential for violence.

Madeline, Jane, Celeste, and Bonnie turn out dressed as Holly Golightly, a character whose fate is darker on the page (in Truman Capote’s novella Breakfast At Tiffany’s) than in the film adaptation, where Hepburn’s Golightly gets a happy fairytale ending, and a closet full of Givenchy. Still, Holly Golightly is a flawed heroine, much like the characters who inhabit the idyllic maritime landscape.

Once the mystery of Big Little Lies is solved, (Perry is revealed as Jane’s rapist; Max as the school bully; Celeste as his battered wife) the monster is impaled (literally) and women and children get to live in harmony, with nothing bubbling beneath them but the sea. In a pact of female friendship and power, femininity and diamonds, the women of Monterey can finally shed their costumes, peel away the armor, and celebrate their lives.

And so, in the spirit of a restorative ending to Big Little Lies, here’s a rundown of the ladies’ signature styles, and the designers who’d most likely show up in their closets.

Martha Mackenzie

Designer Inspiration: Dolce & Gabbana x J. Crew

Celeste Wright

Designer Inspiration: The Row x Le Perla

Bonnie Carlson

Designer Inspiration: Chromat x Ulla Johnson

Jane Chapman

Designer Inspiration: Converse x Levi’s

Renata Klein

Designer Inspiration: Chanel x Alaïa

About the author

Jill Di Donato

Fashion Editor

Jill is a New York native who holds a BA in Literature from Barnard College, and an MFA in writing from Columbia University. She is the author of the novel Beautiful Garbage (She Writes Press, 2013) about the downtown Manhattan art and fashion scene in the 1980s. A former staff writer for The Huffington Post and Bustle, Jill comes to Culture Trip after working with Refinery 29, Vice, Salon, Paste Style, Los Angeles Times, Nylon, Shopify, Autre, and producing content for emerging fashion labels. She teaches classes about fashion and culture at Barnard College and The Fashion Institute of Technology. Her prized possessions are her Gucci fanny pack, vintage rocker t-shirts, and her grandmother's collection of costume jewelry. She's always on the lookout for a gem-encrusted turban.