‘Diversity in Characters, Diversity in Wardrobe’: How Colman Domingo Set Himself a Fashion Challenge for ‘SNL’

Next, they began to unpack the costume design for the actor’s characters in a suite of varied SNL sketches; they realized they could have a lot of fun. “[We] chose lots of sketches that played to my strengths and also challenged me a little bit, but also, there’s a diversity in characters,” he explains. “And so, for me, diversity in characters is also diversity in wardrobe.” A standout sketch—among the best of this 51st season and beyond—sees Domingo play a bitchy fashion school professor at the scene of an armed robbery in New York’s fashion district. “I don’t teach…I show,” he drawls while smoking a cig, “I am the lesson.” When asked to describe the suspect, he dresses down his criminal ’fit: “Be on the lookout for a mess.” More professor of Couture, D’artagnan Meringue please!

Domingo worked with legendary photographer Mary Ellen Matthews, who has lensed 25 years of the show and its starry hosts: her promo photo shoots are instantly iconic, always jovial and playful, drawing the most characterful performances out of everyone from Timothée Chalamet to Kim Kardashian.

“The beautiful thing about working with Mary Ellen is that she is extremely fast and captures iconic images,” says Domingo. “We wanted to make all these images about New York City moments.” They shot in a bodega, on the city streets, in Central Park, and on stage in the iconic Studio 8h.

One of the most important aspects for Domingo when taking on the Saturday Night Live slot was to challenge himself in as many ways as he could—that sensibility articulated itself in his choice of fashion, too. “With my stylists, they really outdid themselves when it came to creating a beautiful collage that I had not done before,” he says. “I feel like myself, yet fashion forward. We decided on some emerging designers such as Craig Green and Who Decides War, that I had not worn before.” Said Craig Green look was a daffodil-print, quilted jacket and arpeggiated paneled floral shirt and pants. He also wore a glamorous, structured, and shoulder-padded Weinsanto shirt with barrel-leg pants and heeled Zvelle shoes, a cornflower blue and leaf-printed Paul Smith shirt with Willy Chavarria shoes, and a Who Decides War patterned, pink military-style jacket.