Allison Pearce brings a lot of laughs to season three of Tires. She is the costume designer of the hit comedy series, beginning with season two and expanding with season three. With creators Shane Gillis, Steve Gerben, and John McKeever, Pearce always wants to take the jokes seriously. Or, at the very least, treat them authentically.
“I used to work on Saturday Night Live,” she told What’s On Netflix, “and I remember learning the art of parody when I was there. When Kate McKinnon was playing Hillary Clinton, it wasn’t to make Kate’s character a caricature. It was like, what exactly did Hillary Clinton wear in this debate? It was emulating that and building the same necklace, the same blazer.”
Pearce, who previously worked on Black Bear and Clerks III, spoke with us about some of the funniest costumes in Tires season three.
The new season of Tires really steps things up in scope. Not just more characters and locations, but even fantasy sequences. How much bigger did the job get?
It was really exciting, obviously, to read the scripts really early on and be like, oh, John feels really comfortable with the design and the look of the show and my work that he’s like, let me write in these made-up spaces. There’s Shane and the gang in a Bronze Age village. I could make this space that feels really like Tires, but still is its own thing and very thoughtful and designed and should feel authentic and rooted in reality.
Is Will’s hat authentic to the times?
No, we made that. That’s really funny because when [production designer] Amber [Unkle] and I were planning the village, we were like, okay, so it’s between Iron Age and Bronze Age. It’s 900 BC to the first century. We were thinking about what animals existed in a village at this time, because I was thinking about putting an animal horn on Will’s headdress just to make him a bit of the village goofball. In Shane’s mind, Will’s always doing dumb things on the show, so I wanted him to feel like he was kind of peacocking in this hat.
[Laughs] Where did Will’s reindeer horns come from?
I found reindeer horns on Etsy. I then found some shearling and I molded it into a hat and the scenics helped me paint the reindeer horns so that it wasn’t super heavy for him to wear. But that was a really fun costume to make.
And the other thing was there’s sheep in the village. I remember in our early meetings, we were talking about what everyone who is in the village background especially has jobs there. And so, Amber and I were talking about what kind of animals they keep, and they wanted to do goats. I was like, “Can we do sheep? Because then I’m going to have to put all the cast in goat skin,” which is so challenging. I liked the sheep look on camera a little bit more. It’s more of an Icelandic sheep vibe.
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Maybe more akin to what Shane’s dream would be on the show.
I feel like that’s something that Shane would dream about on the show.
It’s like Shane’s look in that is a very masculine, kind of Outlander, dramatic leading man.
You even get to the costume design for a monster in one of these episodes.
I know.
Even though we only see the creature for seconds, how’d you want to present “the monster”?
It’s always how it works. You see it for a second and hours and hours and hours were spent on that. That one was really fun. Lucy (Sofia Hasmik), in the show, she’s this temptation character we see. So for her modern-day looks, I was giving her pops of red and maybe graphics that kind of felt like she was more of a Mary Magdalene to Jill’s Virgin Mary because there’s a lot of religious undertones in this season.
So I think when I was kind of framing what the monster would be, I was like, okay, well, she’s of the woods and the woods are representing this scary, dark place. What I was calling her was a moss witch, honestly, because I wanted it to feel really natural. I wanted all these elements of earth worked into her costume, but it was the nightmare version of that.
It wasn’t greens and florals, but it was black and bone white and things that were kind of bone-chilling to see on camera. Sofia was such a sport. We made her this headdress, but underneath I wanted it to feel comfortable for her. We were molding with clay, but underneath it’s a rugby helmet, so it’s comfortable for her to wear.
Designs for the Monster on Tires Season 3 – Picture Credit: Allison Pearce
Do you think we’ll see Tires go more to these fantastical settings in the future?
I think Amber and I were like, can we do Victorian next? That would be so fun.
How did the production scale and schedule compare to, say, season two for you?
We’re still at the shop a lot. That’s still where we live. All these other elements and locations and characters that come into play for season three, but I’m still pulling from inspiration the same way I did for season two with thinking about who are these other characters that come into the shop? Who are the customers? Who are the other people who work for businesses?
We have a new company, Takataka Tires. So it’s like, who is this company? They’re kind of squirrely Asian businessmen, so they have their own look. I think the scale of this was more about creating all the new worlds that we have in season three.
You worked on a great drama that couldn’t be more different than Tires called Black Bear [with Aubrey Plaza]. For you, any similarities between costume designing for comedy and drama?
Black Bear is an intense drama. For me, I don’t want to design comedy like a sitcom. I want it to feel really authentic, like a drama. I’m thinking about the textures and making sure everything looks really lived-in. With Tires specifically, it’s not Philly at all. It’s a very small town in Pennsylvania. I don’t use any Philly sports teams, even though the whole crew is Philly folks and Eagles fans, but I’m not using any of that on any actors. I think with Cal and Shane, I’m thinking about their look similarly to how I would think about maybe someone in Black Bear. Okay, they’re really living in. They’re probably wearing the same uniform all day. Shane’s probably been wearing the same flannel since high school.
They’re getting oil on their hands in the garage and then they’re wiping it on their shirts. So I’m thinking about it still in terms of what feels real.
So, character first.
Totally. It should support what John and Shane and Will are trying to do. I said Will, but I meant Steve, what they’re trying to do story-wise.
The tracksuits are a good example of that.
I love Kilah’s look because Kilah, she wears a lot of track pants and she feels really almost like Manchester, ’90s Guy Ritchie. She’s really working class. To me, that feels relatable and cozy. There’s something about track pants, tracksuits when you put them on these characters. One of the Andiamo brothers, Tommy Pope, he’s different because he’s more like a Fila tracksuit or an Adidas classic tracksuit or Sergio Tacchini. I love tracksuits. Obviously, you can tell.
Tires S3. (L to R) Stavros Halkias as Dave in Episode #302 of Tires S3. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2026
On the flipside, as Shane’s dad, Thomas Haden Church looks really slick, like classic businessman and dad chic. How’d you want to change up his look this season?
In season two, we see Phil pretty buttoned-up. He’s showing up in his little blazers. He lives in Florida, so I’d say he has a Tommy Bahama, Robert Graham vibe to him. And then in season three, we see him become a little unhinged. He’s met Bonnie, his new lady love, and he’s probably phoning it in a little bit to Valley Forge. So he’s not doing the blazers anymore.
He’s a little funkier and a little more unbuttoned. And I think he’s mirroring Bonnie’s (Rachel Blanchard) looks too. I wanted them to feel like they’re thinking about what they’re wearing and they’re thinking about color and texture. When we see them in the meditation episode, when they’re all going to this space, it’s all white and it’s like they’re kind of joining a cult. Phil’s drinking the Kool-Aid in season three a little bit.
You got hippies and you also have a white supremacist on the season.
There’s a lot. You have a lot. But the white supremacist to me shouldn’t look like – it could be any guy. There’s nothing about it visually that gives away white supremacists.
The haircut’s terrifying enough.
Oh yeah, totally.
You made Church look really good. Good-looking man, of course, but very sleek.
Thank you. I think he was really happy. Everyday would ask me about the earring and I said, “Yes, you have an earring in season three.”
You definitely have a ball with the Will fashion show when he is at the Women in Business event. How’d you land on those very distinct vintage looks?
I wanted to know what type of vintage store it was, kind of informed what Will’s vintage looks would be. I was thinking about how he probably secretly loves that these women and Women in Business are dressing him up. He’s really feeling himself.
A lot of that is vintage we sourced from some of my local Philly vendors. It’s all really special things, but we had put it together in a way that still felt Will and is still like, oh, he wears just an amazing fringe leather jacket or these kinds of peacocking pieces. That’s his character.
Did it feel like you’re doing very much a ’90s rom-com throwback, having a scene like that for Will?
We talked about doing a certain number of looks that he puts on, like a montage, a rom-com montage. And then it kept growing and growing because everyone was having so much fun with it on camera. They were calling me and being like, “Do you have any silk scarves that Steve could play with in this shot?” It’s exciting to inspire the performance in that way.
And the answer is always yes, I always do have random silk scarves to bring to set.
Tires S3. (L to R) Shane Gillis (Executive Producer) as Shane and Taylor Misiak as Jill in Episode #308 of Tires S3. Cr. Jessica Kourkounis/Netflix © 2026
Just in case?
Just in case. You never know. Comedy is like that.
What do you usually feel like you should always have on hand on a show like Tires?
I always have uniforms. I have a vintage vendor in Westchester, Jawn Supply, and I call him and I’m like, “Okay, I want companies that are generic small-town companies, like a brewery, a restaurant, a small high school.”
There’s Sex Addicts Anonymous character that wears the Surf Pennsylvania shirt. I have this stock of amazing vintage and interesting graphics and things because that’s what people wear. When you see someone in Wawa, they’re wearing a graphic tee. And so, I don’t want it to feel like a brand showcase, but I want it to feel like, oh, that’s someone’s hoodie that they got in college.
So it’s like that’s the kind of stuff that’s in my arsenal.
When you just walk around living day-to-day life, how much are you clocking outfits and taking mental notes?
I feel like I’m that creep taking photos of people on the street and I’m like, wow, this is the best outfit. They don’t even know. They’re just being themselves, and that’s what feels so authentic.
What’s really inspiring about my job is just going out and looking. When we started season three and season two, we walked around town and took street photos of people and saw that, oh, here’s a guy wearing shorts in the winter and it’s 20 degrees out. Those are things that make the show really real and authentic to me.
