Y&R’s Costume Designer Mandi Line On Her Genoa City Style Takeover

Last November, Mandi Line’s work as the new costume designer of Young and Restless made its on-air debut. The gig marks her entry into the world of daytime television, but she has a prolific and prestigious body of work in prime-time (Pretty Little Liars, Charmed), music videos (Linkin Park, System of a Down) and as a celebrity stylist, with Jared Leto, Kirsten Dunst and Mandy Moore among her clientele. Soap Opera Digest checked in with Line to learn about her career and her approach to bringing a new sense of style to the citizens of Genoa City.

 

To hear Line tell it, the opportunity to join Y&R came at just the right time. Work in Los Angeles was scarce during and in the wake of the writers’ and actors’ strikes of 2023, and when job offers did start rolling in, they were for projects shooting far from home. “For the last nine years of my career, because of [tax incentives that have shifted a lot of production out of California], I’ve been in Vancouver, I’ve been in Jersey, I’ve been in New York,” she notes. “And I had a moment where, I’m not kidding you, I lay in bed and prayed to God, the universe, whoever it was, and said, ‘I would love a job, I would love it to be contemporary, and I don’t want to pack a bag.’ I did also say I want a parking space [laughs].”

If she was deliberately attempting to manifest her dream assignment, she didn’t have to wait long for it. “Two days later, I got a phone call,” she marvels. ” ‘Have you ever considered doing a soap?’ I think it was dead silence on the phone, and the history of who Mandi is played back in my head. It was almost like, ‘Wait a minute, where my career has taken me, I’m supposed to land here.’ ”

That hunch was confirmed when she arrived at the Y&R studios for an interview. “I walked in a room with Josh Griffith, our showrunner, and the words that came out of his mouth I knew I was meant to be here. He looked at me and he said, ‘Oh, my gosh, you’re exactly what we need.’ ” Line — who wears her platinum blonde hair shaved close to her head and sports multiple tattoos, chuckles, “I’m a lot to take in and I get it.” Griffith’s positive reaction, she notes, “Resonated a lot in my heart. I felt really validated.”

While working in daytime was foreign to Line, she did have deep roots as a fan of the genre. “I’m gonna be honest,” she grins. “Jack Abbott [Peter Bergman], when I met him, all I could think was, ‘That’s Cliff [Bergman’s All My Children character]! That is Cliff and Nina! Do I call my mom? What do I do? I’ve been waiting for this my whole life!’ ”

And, for the record, Line did fan-girl outwardly, as well, during that first encounter with Bergman. “There was this moment and this voice in my head that said, ‘If you don’t say it now, you’re never gonna say it.’ A lot of people play it cool. I am cool, I don’t want to play it cool!’ So, I said, ‘It’s so nice to meet you, I’m really happy to be here as the costume designer for Young and Restless, but I need to let you know’ — and I said this to him, straight up — ‘I love you. I really love you. I don’t know if you ever loved me back, but Cliff is someone that I grew up watching, and Cliff and Nina and that story just broke my heart.’ He’s probably heard the same thing before, but there was a little grin on his face and he was like, ‘Wow, thank you.’ ”

Line’s history as a soap lover wasn’t the only reason she felt like Y&R was such a good fit. “Part of why it resonated with what I was looking for in my life is that what I do best is contemporary [wardrobe looks]. The evolution of my career is that I started with music videos, and then my first TV show was a college show, Greek. I elevated it to things that college kids didn’t wear, and it became that word: aspirational. Then came Pretty Little Liars, 90210, Charmed. So as far as evolution goes, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. I’m growing older and loving it and owning it, and when I go into fittings with some like Michelle Stafford [Phyllis] or Sharon [Case, Sharon] or Courtney Hope [Sally], the best part of who I am comes out naturally. I don’t want to walk out the door without looking fabulous, but I am also changing, and I don’t want the bar to drop. And then you meet these women and I was like, ‘Oh, they’re also at 11!’ ” Besides, she winks, “I truly don’t want a 13-year-old telling me what’s cool on TikTok. I want to know what’s fabulous in Genoa City!”

While Line was excited to dive in and begin dressing the show’s cast, her intention was to build on the foundation that already existed in characters’ closets, not give everyone an extreme makeover. “Coming into a soap, you have 50 years of lineage and history,” she notes. “I’ve come in to take over shows before and you come in and you just wipe it away. But one of the most important things that I realized is that these characters have had an arc. They’ve had growth, they’ve had different designers [dressing them]. So who am I to come in here to say anything bad [about their wardrobes]? I knew that I would love to elevate the show, but it wasn’t about me knocking anything. It wasn’t about saying, ‘Oh, I can’t believe you wore this!’ It was about truly looking at, for example, Melody [Thomas Scott, Nikki]. Melody’s always been the queen. She comes in and jaws drop. How do I elevate that? So, it was truly me looking at the canvas that was there and just putting my mark on it — and if my mark ever says anything, it’s now, it’s modern, it’s relevant. If anything, I brought a little edge to it.”

She’s Got The Look: Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott, l., with Hayley Erin as Claire) is getting some edgy new items for her closet, courtesy of Mandi Line.

As for what she thinks makes a look edgy, Line points out, “A lot of times people, think edge is [about] spikes and punk rock. To me, edge is fashion forward. I got brought in on [the 2022 Fox drama] Monarch, to redo Monarch, and the director said, ‘Mandi’s gonna bring this edge,’ and I knew what he meant. The designer before me was doing country, because it was a country western show. But country isn’t country anymore! Country is edgy. Everyone that gets on that stage is wearing risk-taking things. They’re wearing the fashion of the moment. They’re wearing what just came out. They’re wearing such strong pieces.” And, at Y&R, she’s slowly adding those kinds of elements to characters’ closets. “Melody Scott never had a pair of leather boots to her knees,” Line offers. “That’s an investment piece we did for Mel. To me, that’s edgy.” Being more fashion forward can also mean removing elements of a look. ” The rich men of the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s wore tie bars, and pocket squares,” Line observes. “Rich men now, you’re lucky if you get them out of sweats! So, Billy has these gorgeous Zegna suits, Zegna shirts, but I took off the tie, I took off the pocket square.”

Updating and modernizing all these Genoa City wardrobes must be done within the confines of a strict budget, of course, which is why Line relies on what she calls “the high/low balance game.” She recalls, “I was in a fitting with Mel and I said, ‘Oh, we’re going for a Carolina Herrera look and she said, ‘Oh, I love her stuff.’ And she puts this blouse on and goes, ‘But this is Banana Republic.’ And I said, ‘Not when it’s on you!’ So we popped the collar and she looks again and goes, ‘Wow, you made it look like Caroline Herrera!’ Mel will be wearing a fancy jacket, but don’t get it twisted — that girl will sometimes have Amazon in her ears, okay? But she knows that it ties the outfit together. I write little notes to the actors and I wrote one to [Christel Khalil, Lily] and I said, ‘I know these earrings look cheap, but they match the dress so much. Trust me, you’ll love them.’ And she walked to set and goes, ‘I love these so much!’ And they were, like, seven dollars! Also [to be mindful] of the budget, I will reuse pants, I’ll reuse skirts, I’ll reuse shoes. That’s how we kind of balance things out.”

Thoroughly Modern: Line helped set trends as the costume designer for Pretty Little Liars. Pictured (from l.): Lucy Hale, Ashley Benson, Shay Mitchell