Heidi Bivens

The HBO Max website was down for many users on the last Sunday in February—mere minutes before Euphoria’s season two finale was set to hit the streamer. The show, written and directed by Sam Levinson and starring Zendaya (who is also an executive producer for the second season), became the most tweeted-about show of this decade in the US—according to a report released by Twitter, there have been 30 million tweets about it since season two debuted in January. Asia hasn’t escaped the “Euphoria high”, with the show proving a popular streamer and trending across social media in the region.

Against the dark, fashion captures the zeitgeist for Gen Z, but fashion lovers of all ages are being inspired. When we suggest Bivens is responsible for creating this buzz, she humbly demurs. “If I’m credited for something, it’s in the ether. Creatively it [the fashion] is there; maybe it hasn’t bubbled to the surface yet. But I’m often inspired by real people and real fashion—ideas that are out there and just haven’t hit mainstream culture yet,” says Bivens, the series’ costume designer. “So I think, if anything, maybe I was just able to tap into what was coming before it fully arrived.”