Given her fondness for hot pink outerwear, it is unlikely that Elsbeth Tascioni ( Carrie Preston ) has garments in her closet bearing any resemblance to Lt. Columbo’s iconic, well-worn beige raincoat. Still, Peter Falk’s formidable cigar-smoking detective serves as an inspiration for Elsbeth, with her intentionally disarming wardrobe, and how she outwits the murderer-of-the-week, played by a famous guest star.
“We really want Elsbeth’s clothing to be the equivalent of Columbo’s trench coat,” says Daniel Lawson, “Elsbeth’s” costume designer. He designed the wardrobe for the lawyer-turned-investigator, from Preston’s first appearance on “The Good Wife” in 2010 through spinoff “The Good Fight” and now in the character’s titular turn. Lawson is attuned to the idiosyncratic character’s maximalist-leaning tastes and how suspects and cops view her.
It is Columbo’s persistence and continued presence that Lawson taps into. “Even at the precinct, she comes around the corner, and some cops are like, ‘Oh, come on. Here she is again.
Look at that jacket, look at those pants, look at that hat,’” Lawson says. “Her clothing is the Columbo trench coat — the idea of it — the piece of sand in your bathing suit.” Television Returning to CBS Thursday after a hiatus, “Elsbeth” is centered on a character from the “Good Wife” universe, but the shows’ creators say the similarities end there.
April 4, 2024 Similar to Columbo, who on occasion .
