Carey Bennett, costume designer for ‘The Office,’ shares stories from set

A show is nothing without its crew, and The Office had one hell of a crew.

As we know from our interview with hairstylist Kim M. Ferry, who joined The Office in Season 2, crew members have tons of delightful behind-the-scenes stories to share about their time on set. The same can be said for Carey Bennett, the show’s original costume designer, who caught up with Office stars Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey on a recent episode of the Office Ladies podcast.

Bennett, who was on The Office from Season 1 to Season 4, explained that she agreed to work the pilot because it was during a hiatus from her job at another NBC comedy, Scrubs. She chatted all about the inspiration for the Dunder Mifflin wardrobe, Dwight’s memorable mustard-colored shirts, and more.

Searching for Scranton’s sense of style

When Bennett was asked how she came up with the wardrobe for Michael and the rest of the Scranton branch, she revealed she visited an actual office for inspiration.

“Well, you know, research is the king of the whole deal. And I never assume that I know what I’m talking about. Like, I always try to go to the source and see something in real life, because real life is always way more nuanced and amazing than anything you can think up in your head,” Bennett shared. “Like, it just is. I always find things that astound me and are like the little seed that kind of sets the fire off in me.”

Since Bennett had never worked in an office she opened the phone book, searched for paper companies, and found one in Glendale, California. In her own words, she just “kind of called them up,” talked to the owner, and invited herself over for wardrobe research purposes.'”

This trip to this Glendale paper company, it did not just inform the wardrobe of our show, it informed the entire look of our show.

“The owner was so darling. And I just went in there and was very respectful and was like, ‘This is what I’m doing. I’m just trying to get a vibe and see what goes on here and see if I can kind of glean some details that maybe I wouldn’t have normally known,'” she explained. “But once I got in there, I was like, ‘Oh, my God. I mean, having watched the English version of [the show,] it couldn’t have been more perfect.'”

Bennett also shared that the Glendale paper company had a bunch of printed inspirational posters hung up, as well as a number of other authentic details that inspired her to take photos for future show inspiration.

“I took a million pictures and I took pictures of all the people. They were so kind to let me do that. Literally all the characters were there in different iterations. Even Dwight was there, although he was this guy that was [wearing] like a wolf t-shirt to work,” she explained.

Bennett took things a step further by making a slideshow of the photos, titled “Welcome to the Working Week.” She set it to music, brought it to her first Office meeting, and dazzled showrunner Greg Daniels.

“Greg was like, what is this? Where is this? And you will take us there,” Bennett recalled. “So then we all went back and we took Greg, I think possibly Ken Kwapis [director] came with us. We took our production designer, who was Donald Lee Harris at the time. I think our DP [director of photography] came, and we just all trundled back over there. And this time we brought video cameras and we videotaped everything.”

“This trip to this Glendale paper company, it did not just inform the wardrobe of our show, it informed the entire look of our show,” Fischer said. “When you took those guys over to film, I know that they used that in the production design. They used it in so much of creating the world of Dunder Mifflin. And that was all initiated by you. We have you to thank.”

Mustard-colored shirts and Old Navy jeans

Bennett’s real office tour inspired her to create Dunder Mifflin’s imperfect, somewhat dated style. She imagined that Jim borrowed clothes from his dad’s closet, decided Pam wouldn’t be able to afford designer jeans and shopped at Old Navy or Gap, and kept authentic office culture on the brain at all times.

Though many characters on The Office have distinct, memorable looks, Dwight’s mustard-colored, puke-themed palette certainly stands out. According to Bennett, bestowing that mustard shirt on Dwight was somewhat of a show tradition.

There it is!
Credit: MITCHELL HAASETH / NBCU PHOTO BANK

“Actually, that that mustard shirt is kind of like a good luck thing that I do on my projects. And that has a back story,” she said. “That was from Scrubs, the wonderful director that that pulled me onto that project, Adam Bernstein, he has a thing about mustard shirts. And he was like, ‘We just need a mustard shirt. It’s just important.’ And now of course, that show took off. So now I try to put a mustard shirt — like it’s just my thing. Mustard shirt.”

Working with The Office‘s small wardrobe budget

Another memorable Dwight-related fashion moment is when he and Angela bumped Birkenstocks in the Season 2 episode, “Email Surveillance.” For those wondering, yes, the Birkenstocks were a product placement thing, but Bennett noted the products that companies sent them were sometimes super helpful considering the show’s wardrobe budget was so small.

“I mean, just to give you an idea, I had seven regulars on Scrubs. I had 16 regulars on The Office that I had to dress every show, and I had $5,000 less a week to spend. So we were just always scraping, scraping, scraping,” Bennett said.

In rewatching the episodes for the podcast, Kinsey noticed that many of her clothes weren’t properly fitted and called back to the small budget.

“Like very rarely did we alter anything. And I know that goes along with the budget you had, but I went on to do a show after The Office and I have never been so altered in my life,” Kinsey explained. “You know, the little seam on your shoulder? I realize all my shirts on The Office like the seam hit me like halfway down my arm. Like all of a sudden every little thing was altered. And in re-watching, like, this episode in particular, I was like, oh, look how long my pants are.”

“Right. But on purpose, though, because, I mean, that was the thing. It’s so funny,” Bennett replied.

Touché, Bennett. The wardrobe definitely helped make the show.

Be sure to listen to the full podcast episode for more behind-the-scenes stories from Bennett’s time on set.

You can stream episodes of The Office on Peacock and follow along with the podcast every week on Earwolf, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.