Edward K. Gibbon on Dressing the Most Loved Characters on Skins

Before Superman, X-Men, and The Great, Nicholas Hoult rose to fame as Tony Stonem in Skins, the provocative teen drama that redefined British television. We spoke with costume designer Edward K. Gibbon about how he captured the chaotic spirit of 2000s youth culture on screen.

When Skins first aired on E4 in 2007, it didn’t just change the face of British teen television; it changed the language of style for a generation. At the centre of that revolution was Edward K. Gibbon, the show’s original costume designer, whose DIY, character-first approach created some of the most memorable on-screen wardrobes of the 21st century. 

Born in Blackburn and raised just outside London, Gibbon grew up in a house with older parents, in a time before the internet, when dressing differently required more effort, and considered a form of rebellion. “It was quite hard to dress in any different way apart from how everyone did,” he says. He learned to find magic in cast-offs, collecting Jaeger jumpers and cashmere hand-me-downs from wealthy neighbours at church jumble sales. “I already had this magpie approach to clothes,” he recalls. “Punk happened when I was 15. That changed everything.”

Punk taught him that clothing could be political, performative, and personal. A message that stayed with him as he took a winding path into design. Inspired by his love of The Smiths, he moved to Manchester to study industrial fashion, squatting in Hulme and working at the legendary Haçienda nightclub during the height of the ‘Madchester’ rave scene, where bands like New Order, Happy Mondays, and Primal Scream gained fame. After a brief stint in acting, he shifted to design history, trained as a tailor, and eventually moved into theater work. 

It wasn’t until someone, “a friend of a friend of a friend,” gave him a shot at a low-budget TV series in Bristol that everything clicked. That series was Skins. It was revolutionary not only in its critically acclaimed storyline but also in its honest portrayal of teenage life, addressing issues such as substance abuse, mental health, and sexual identity with a raw realism that resonated deeply with young audiences. With the exception of Nicholas Hoult, most of the cast came from working-class backgrounds and were discovered through open auditions held in schools across the region. This approach helped launch the careers of actors like Dev Patel and Daniel Kaluuya.

For Edward, it was his first television job. He approached it with no formal fashion degree, just a lifetime of reading, dressing, improvising, and observing. “When I started, I didn’t even really know what a costume designer was,” he admits. But Skins gave him a chance to figure it out on his own terms, with the support of Harriet Barsby, drawing on all the messy, eclectic influences that had shaped him. Gibbon built the wardrobe of a pre-Depop generation, one H&M piece or charity shop oddity at a time. 

He brought in his own clothes, borrowed from the Almeida Theatre’s costume store, mixed designer with discount, and collaborated closely with the actors. “We didn’t have enough money, but we were resourceful,” he says. “Especially with teenagers, the point is that clothes don’t come from one place.” That lived-in, patchwork approach became the defining visual language of the show, and no characters at Roundview College embodied it more clearly than Cassie, Effy, Tony, and Cook.

Cassie Ainsworth’s look was the most overtly performative and the most intricately constructed. Played by Game of Thrones’ Hannah Murray, Cassie was fragile, dreamy, disordered, and deeply intelligent; someone for whom clothes were a costume and an escape. Gibbon has said that Hannah was the cast member most interested in clothing, and that some of her creative choices, such as theatrical character shoes or wearing a wristwatch on her ankle, were incorporated into Cassie’s costume design.

Her wardrobe was pulled from old books, 1960s mod dresses, faded pastel knits, shrunken tailcoats, and “references to Warhol’s girls, but not too far into heroin chic. More like, New York, 1970s, but in Bristol, in 2005.” There was even a recurring idea of Cassie always carrying a book in her coat pocket, a detail that eventually proved too challenging to sustain but symbolised the literary, inner-world quality Gibbon saw in her. She dressed as if she were living in a state of dreaming, to endure the negligence of the real thing. Her outfits carried a purposeful oddity: too many bracelets, a velvet ribbon, a cardigan two sizes too small, with underwear worn as outerwear. It was never refined, but it had the same chaotic charm as a Miu Miu girl or the undone cool that made Cory Kennedy an It-girl of the 2000s.

Effy Stonem, by contrast, was an enigma: initially silent and unreadable, she later became the magnetic center of her generation in series three and four. If her world had included luxury fashion, she might have favored Christophe Decarnin’s Balmain, archival Helmut Lang, or Hodakova’s upcycled garments. Kaya Scodelario, just 14 when she started filming, wore her clothes with a fearlessness that allowed Gibbon to push boundaries further. “She was just a big kind of f*** you at the beginning,” he says. Effy’s early wardrobe was minimal: a ripped T-shirt, smeared eyeliner, and an oversized hoodie that looked like it belonged to a brother or a lover. But as the character evolved, so did the styling. Gibbon and his assistant would modify dresses on set, cutting them shorter and making them more undone. 

“Whatever I put on her, she already made it look slightly dangerous.” He paired studs, chains, and biker boots with deliberately exposed underwear. Effy’s clothes suggested someone who didn’t care what you thought, and if she did, she wasn’t about to show it. At her best, she had the air of a dilapidated 1920s flapper at an illegal rave, draped in tangled necklaces and chipped pearls; at her worst, she looked weathered and worn, swamped in battered leather like a second skin. She wasn’t dressing to be sexy. She was dressing to survive. In doing so, she shaped a look that remains influential today, “especially with people from Korea and Ireland,” in the context of indie sleaze’s return.

Her older brother Tony, portrayed by Nicholas Hoult, was the original cast’s charismatic sociopath: the toxic alpha of the noughties, always in control, and dangerously handsome. Gibbon styled him to convey that authority, while weaving in subtle subversions to avoid banality. “He was peacocking,” he adds. “He was the coolest, the one you’re supposed to look at.” At a time when teenage boys were mostly wearing navy hoodies and baggy jeans, Tony stood out in slim-fitted polos in pink and yellow, tailored trousers, and smart shoes. He dressed like he was older than he was, like he knew what looked good and wore it to prove a point. But his style wasn’t about fashion; it was about dominance. 

Tony wore exclusively quintessential menswear staples: merino wool V-neck sweaters, a jet-black Harrington jacket, and a Gucci messenger slung across his body. When he showed up to his university interview in a suit with cropped trousers, a look still unconventional in 2007 and well before Thom Browne or Hedi Slimane popularized it, became one of the series’ most enduring visual moments. It wasn’t fashion-forward for the sake of it; it was an act of character. Tony was the boy who knew how to play every game, including the one about how to look better than everyone else without trying.

James Cook was the opposite of Tony in every way: loud, impulsive, messy, a grenade with a grin. But rather than dressing him in the obvious clichés of JD Sports streetwear, Gibbon looked backwards to make Cook feel timeless. “He was a bruiser, a grafter,” he says. “We gave him skinhead references, kids on terraces in the ’70s and ’80s.” That meant Farrahs instead of sweatpants, bomber jackets over track jackets, Dr. Martens instead of trainers. His look had grit, but it also had structure, a borrowed kind of retro masculinity that hinted at class, toughness, and pride. 

Jack O’Connell approached the role with a keen awareness of the risk of stereotype. Worried about being reduced to a caricature of working-class masculinity, he worked closely with Gibbon to create a more nuanced portrayal. The result was one of British youth television’s most layered visual interpretations of male identity, balancing aggression with charm, and bravado with vulnerability. Cook was styled to resemble someone who might start a fight at the pub, yet could just as easily win over your mother in a too-tight, collared Lyle & Scott polo shirt.

Gibbon’s genius was in understanding that teenagers don’t dress in complete looks; they scavenge, layer, reuse, and adapt. “You borrow from your mum. You find something on the floor. You wear the same shirt three times,” he says. In hindsight, Skins looks like it could’ve been product placement gold, but it never was. There were talks at E4 about collaborating with Adidas on a sneaker, and the writers considered adding a scene where the gang visits a shoe shop, but the idea was ultimately scrapped.

The costume choices were always character-led. American Apparel (now Los Angeles Apparel), though problematic in hindsight, was one of the few brands that fully embraced the project. But the rest was thrifted and found. What mattered most was not how the clothes looked on camera, but how they felt on the actor. “Whatever we design, it means nothing until you put it on someone. Then you see if it works.”

Almost twenty years later, the show remains a defining example of how television costumes can shape identity, particularly within coming-of-age narratives, and its influence continues to circulate across Reddit threads and TikTok reels worldwide. Marc Jacobs watched and designed an entire collection inspired by the series, Benito Skinner’s Overcompensating replicated its advertising style for a campaign of its own, and Euphoria owes it a clear creative debt. But the real legacy of Gibbon’s work is in how it taught a generation to think about clothing not as trend or product, but as expression. 

They weren’t just characters. Cassie, Effy, Tony, and Cook became cultural archetypes: loner, rebel, golden boy, wild card. Edward K. Gibbon didn’t costume them; he translated their personalities into clothes. It’s the same reason their style still resonates today, much like how people still decide which Sex and the City character they are. In the years since Skins, he has continued to bring his deeply character-driven approach to a wide range of acclaimed projects, including The Lost Daughter, Liaison, The Diplomat, and the upcoming House of Guinness starring James Norton and Louis Partridge. 

Set to premiere on Netflix in September, the series may be a historical drama rooted in Irish history and class dynamics, but Gibbon approached it with the same sensitivity he brought to Skins. He resisted the urge for museum-like reenactment, instead aiming for a sense of lived-in authenticity. “They’re still people, and they’re still clothes,” he says of his method. The production combined original antique pieces sourced from costume houses across Europe with newly tailored garments that were aged and broken down to feel real on screen. With a young ensemble cast at its centre, House of Guinness allowed him to once again explore youth, identity, and rebellion, this time in corsetry and linen, rather than safety pins and polo shirts.