As Alan Cumming welcomed us back to his Scottish castle in the season three premiere of Traitors, now streaming on Peacock, I couldn’t help but notice that the cast has really upped the ante when it comes to their fashion. Sure, most of this can be attributed to knowing they’ll be on camera. (These are reality television vets from shows like Survivor and The Real Housewives, after all. It’s what they do.)
But for Chrishell Stause, it’s part of the game.
See, the Selling Sunset star isn’t just a fan of the show—she’s been in talks to join the cast since before last season aired. (Deena Katz, who casts Traitors, also works on Dancing With the Stars, which Stause appeared on back in 2020.) The timing didn’t work out then, but, luckily, it did when cameras picked up for season three last year. She already had the game on the mind and knew exactly how she wanted to approach it.
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The former Real Housewife of New York and lady of Bluestone Manor chats with Glamour about the show, what she’d do differently, and the fabulous tartans she brought to the castle.
Her strategy for filming? “Let me be this really sweet, likable realtor that you can trust,” she tells Glamour. Stause was banking on her fellow players not knowing about her background in acting, which would make her well-suited for the deception that’s par for the Traitors course. That involved a bit of misdirection through fashion, which has become an increasingly big part of the show: You have a host who never misses an opportunity to accessorize or add a touch of tartan to his looks, and even a precedent of players weaving it into their strategies, as we saw last season with Parvati Shallow’s headbands. It’s one of the few things a contestant can work out ahead of time, not knowing who will be in the castle and how the dynamics will play out.
“I really wanted to lean into the girly aesthetic, which I like, but also trying to have some Scottish vibes in there as well,” she says, describing the approach as “Barbie meets Scotland.” On her vision board, she had a picture of Margot Robbie in a long-sleeved, polka-dotted pink Balmain mini dress while promoting Barbie. “I was like, ‘What if I could try and get that actual dress?’” she says. “We reached out thinking, It’s probably not going to happen. What does Balmain care about Traitors? But they were so lovely and amazing. They let me do it.”
She also found inspiration in Elle Woods—another female heroine that’s easily dismissed and branded as superficial for her love of fashion, but proves people wrong through intelligence, tenacity, and wit. “That’s kind of what I was aiming towards,” she says, “wanting to be the person that makes friends with everybody, but also can easily be underestimated.”
Still, you know what they say about what happens when you make plans.
“Going into it, you have all these ideas and strategies, but it really has to go out the window once you start playing, because nothing really can prepare you for being in it,” she says. “You’re seeing a very shortened and edited-down version, but they do everything they can to make it such an immersive experience. The game does not stop.”
The other thing Stause hadn’t considered was the weather in Scotland during filming. “None of my outfits were good for the cold,” she concedes. “One of the outfits on [the first three episodes] was kind of a mess because that’s not the way it was supposed to be worn—I was just freezing and trying to find what in my bag would go with that… They keep it very drafty in that castle.” (If she were to do it again, she says she would have brought activewear meant to keep warm and not just look cute.)
While Stause thought carefully about what she would be packing in her allotted three suitcases, and how that could best serve her in the game, she also wanted to prove herself as a competitor, especially in the physical challenges.
“I wanted to have a little fun with it and let the fashion stand out a little bit—but, at the end of the day, I wanted to show people my worth,” she says. “Take the heels off and then show that I’m actually really physically able to help our team win money. Fashion comes into play to show, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover.’ I do really well in the physical challenges. Don’t count us out just because we’re prancing around in heels. I can actually run in heels. I could have done those challenges in heels. If there was a challenge of having to do something in heels, for sure, I would’ve been the winner.”
Chrishell Stause doesn’t necessarily think that fashion played a strategic role in the game for other players, but it’s clear to her that effort was put into it. “I noticed right out of the gate—oh wow, people are going to be bringing the looks this season,” she says. “Being from Selling Sunset, I love that element. Every season, you want to somehow build on it and become better. That’s what we did with Selling Sunset. So the second I saw the cast, I realized this is exactly what we’re doing for Traitors. Everything is going to be elevated.” (She shouts out the Bobs, Ciara Miller, and fallen faithful Chanel Ayan as favorites.)
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It also ended up being a connection between people. “Stepping out of that car, the very first person every single person would’ve seen is Bob the Drag Queen—I mean, he’s so tall, and the hat and everything—and we had a whole conversation about it,” she remembers. “He loved the dress, so we had a moment. We hit it off right away, and fashion was the reason, because he actually had no idea he was so shocked, I think a week or so into the process, to find out that I was queer. We initially connected about our fashion.”
Stause naturally doesn’t reveal much about what’s to come in future episodes, though she does tease that the divide we saw between male and female players in the rowing challenge continues to play out. One thing she does share? She has big fashion plans for the upcoming reunion, which is filming next month—a sort of wish-fulfillment for the “Barbie does Scotland” fantasy.
“I’m having someone custom-make me something that’s very my vision board,” she says. “I have this idea for something, and I’m super excited about it, but I needed someone to actually make it for me.”
The post For Chrishell Stause, Dressing Like ‘Scottish Barbie’ on Traitors Is All Part of the Plan appeared first on Glamour.
