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[girlshbo]

Shoshanna’s experience at the fetish bar is actually based on something that happened to Lena Dunham on an earlier trip to Japan. “Everyone was like, this nurse’s costume thing doesn’t feel totally real,” reveals the Girls creator. “I literally circulated a picture of me in a nurse’s costume surrounded by Japanese men covered in red wax and was like, ‘Well, this is what we’re capturing.’”

Costume designer Jenn Rogien was tasked with filling the bar’s clothing racks with fetish costumes—something she’s done for other shows in the past. For Girls, Rogien explains, she went with archetypal looks. “The sexy nurse, the sexy stewardess, and my personal favorite—the sexy flight attendant,” she laughs.

Because these were costumes that were meant to be used by multiple bar patrons, Rogien felt that it didn’t make sense to shell out the big bucks for the expensive custom outfits that a real fetishist might invest in for personal use. Instead, she wanted them to feel “a little mass market, if you will.” —Diana Band