Once you count a marriage by decades, it's a sure bet that the couple has seen each other in every possible way.

Yes, he knows how she looks without makeup, and she knows how he smells in the morning. Still, if they're to keep romance alive, they want to look good for each other.

"She's still trying to keep magic in her relationship," Joely Fisher says of her character, Joy, married to Eddie (Brad Garrett), on Fox's 'Til Death. "It might involve something in the cleavage department, depending on what the day is."

"She has always known that her curves and sexuality are a little more powerful than everything else she has to offer," Fisher says.

Fisher is voluptuous, and show costumer Lori Eskowitz-Carter is mindful of dressing her appropriately.

"We get in trouble for showing too much on television," Eskowitz-Carter says. She uses button-down shirts and knitwear, favoring Theory, Elie Tahari, Dolce & Gabbana, Tory Burch and Gucci blouses.

"We have a trick where we do a lot of layering and tank tops," says Eskowitz-Carter, which allows Fisher to leave the top few buttons open, so they don't gap.

Playing against the 6-foot-8-inch Garrett allows Fisher to totter about on stilettos.

"She can wear the craziest, highest heels you have ever seen," Eskowitz-Carter says. "We spend a ton of money on her shoes. Nobody knows they are really down there."

The majority of Joy's shoes are Louboutin. She also wears Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik, Gucci and Valentino.

"It's not like they have a ton of money," Eskowitz-Carter says of the characters.

"Eddie and Joy are very much working-class. And Brad wants the show to feel real."

Eddie is a teacher, and Joy was a travel agent until she was laid off. The designer and the actress acknowledge working stiffs, particularly those who have been laid off, don't usually wear such high-end shoes.

"Most of the time she is home," Eskowitz-Carter says. "She's skating a fine line of being home and looking great."

Joy wears a lot of jeans, mostly True Religion, Seven and Citizens of Humanity brand. Theory provides her dressier slacks. Joy's jackets are from Vince and Burberry.

Jewelry is from Fisher's own line, Knot2much2ask, which she created with her best friend.

"When we started, the economy was in a place where people felt, 'OK, I could spend $125 on a little piece of gold,' " Fisher says. Now, they're revamping the line.

"We reflect what is happening to married people," Fisher says of Joy and Eddie. "We reflect what is happening in the economy."

And because of that, Joy's look is easily attained, the costume designer says.

In CBS' Monday comedy Accidentally on Purpose, Jenna Elfman's character, Billie, has two strikes against her becoming fashionable - she's a newspaper journalist and pregnant.

(Before the e-mails start, please note that having been both simultaneously, I empathize.) Yet Billie has something that trumps all - Elfman. The willowy former ballerina would look gorgeous in anything.

Set in San Francisco, her character reflects the Bay Area's boho chic with flowing tops and scarves.

"I had a definite concept in mind as to how I wanted her to look," Elfman says. "I did it with photos. I wanted it to be a mix of a little timeless and a little classic and edgy and funky mix between vintage and modern. And I wanted one thing on her, in every outfit, to have something a little messed up. I wanted there to be a hole in something she had on. I don't want her to be perfect. I wanted her to be a little messy."

Costume designer Linda Bass is in sync with Elfman but doesn't go so far as to allow the character to be slovenly.

"It's television, so you can't quite do it in a way that's understandable," Bass says. "If I do disheveled on film, it will just look like a mistake."

Bass sees Billie as a "fashion eclectic," she says. Along those lines, she mixes it up for the character. She wears Alberta Ferretti Philosophy blouses. Billie also wears blouses by Temperley and the Olsen twins' company, Elizabeth and James.

Her T-shirts are from Urban Outfitters and a store on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, Vintage T-Shirt.

Since Elfman is just shy of 6 feet tall, finding trousers with a long enough leg is a challenge. Bass favors Elizabeth and James and Diane von Furstenberg pants.

Jeans, "because they come the longest, are J Brand, slightly flared and skinny leg," Bass says.

Billie wears dresses and in the pilot wore a Dolce & Gabbana dress; in other episodes, she wears Catherine Malandrino dresses.

"Jackets look real San Francisco to me," Bass says, logical considering the breezes from the Pacific. Billie wears a Lam gray and maroon striped jacket and a Vince leather jacket.

Her shoes tend to be flats "because of the guy factor," Bass says. She's already so tall that if she wore the stilettos now in vogue, Elfman would tower over male co-stars. The shoes are from Nine West and Nina.

Billie carries a Marc Jacobs purse, and the wardrobe department converted a Tory Burch shoulder tote into her computer bag.

"Anyone can have that look," Bass says. "Jenna wears it like someone 6 feet tall wears it. If you have an eye and like to shop, then anyone can do it."

Dressing well in law enforcement isn't easy.

Once cops are out of uniform, most departments require men to wear a new sort of uniform - a jacket and tie. The trick for a character is to dress professionally without looking shabby or too fashionable.

"If you dressed characters on TV the way real people dressed it would be not really interesting," says Shelly Levine, costume designer for CBS' Thursday hit The Mentalist. "Sometimes you have to take liberties. TV is an amazing creature; so much of it is visual. If you are looking at boring people wearing boring clothes then everything becomes boring. You don't want it to become a costume. You don't want it to take away from the story."

With that in mind, Levine creates the wardrobe for Wayne Rigsby (Owain Yeoman). At nearly 6 feet 4 inches, Yeoman towers over his co-stars, and Levine is careful to dress him accordingly.

"When you are tall and thin, and you wear pants almost pegged at bottom, it's not a good look," Levine says. "People may like it in private, but the look is a little too contemporary. Actors want to dress like themselves in real life, and unfortunately they're not playing themselves in real life."

Levine makes sure jackets are long enough and that sleeves don't flash too much cuff. "I am just trying to make him look as law enforcement as possible," Levine says.

"Wayne was conceived as the jock cop," according to Yeoman.

"He is a guy. I have 100 friends I could liken him to, all of whom are called Chuck," Yeoman says. "And everything that comes with it. His look has always been as far as you can go on TV; everyone always looks like a slightly better version of self. We always wanted it to look like maybe he was piecing together the best of what he could."

Levine selects a lot of Hugo Boss for Rigsby.

"They have a nice contemporary look," he says. "The lapels are not too narrow, and the pant leg is not too narrow. There are very few manufacturers that do two-button, single-breasted, with a single vent."

For shirts, Levine has them made by the show's tailor or uses Hugo Boss. He favors matted fabric for ties and buys Armani and Macy's Alfani.

For shoes, Levine picks Ecco.

"It's a very comfortable shoe, an ankle boot," he says. "It gives him a little more support because he is running around."

When Rigsby goes casual, he's in Diesel shirts and Abercrombie jeans.

Moving into the second season, Rigsby's wardrobe will change a bit.

Very few articles of clothing, even those that stars wear on hit TV shows, become iconic.

Lucy Ricardo's polka-dot dress with the white collar and trimmed short sleeves reached that level. More recently, Carrie Bradshaw, that eternal fashionista, made Manolo Blahnik shoes must-haves.

Still, it's usually tough to remember precisely what actors wore -- unless it's something exciting. The latest version of the TV fashion icon is a natty pink trench coat that Brenda (Kyra Sedgwick) wears on TNT's The Closer, ending its fifth season on Monday, Aug. 24.

"It has changed a bit over the years," Sedgwick says of Brenda's look. "At heart she is definitely a Southern girl and likes to dress like a woman. You very rarely see her in pants. She is somebody who loves her cashmere sweaters that she has hundreds of, and some are really old. If you take care of cashmere, it can last from your teen years into your 40s.

"She is very much the flowy skirt woman, who doesn't apologize for being a woman and being a woman in a powerful position," Sedgwick continues. "I love the addition of the fitted '40s Irene tops and skirts. And it keeps her in the realm of still a fish out of water. However long she is in L.A., she will not be of L.A."

As popular as that pink trench is, Sedgwick wouldn't have picked it for herself.

"Greg always make choices based on reality, but also on the reality of the character," she says of costumer Greg LaVoi. "Brenda would not be seen in a khaki trench, unless it was from the '40s and went down to her ankles. He likes to spin things and make them not ordinary."

LaVoi recalls spotting the Ralph Lauren trench in the Neiman Marcus catalog. Mostly, though, he shops for Brenda on eBay, favoring the severely tailored suits from former MGM costume designer Irene.

"Brenda started out as a fish out of water with mismatched prints and ill-fitting jackets," LaVoi says. "She has become a fish on the runway, a vintage-wearing, feminine woman in a man's world."

LaVoi sews much of Brenda's clothing, buying vintage fabric at L.A.'s International Silk & Woolens. Brenda wears a lot of cashmere from Pure Collection. Dresses are vintage I. Magnin and Mode O'Day. She also wears Alfani, from Macy's, and 9 West.

Her shoes are from Barney's Co-op. She has worn Franco Sarto, Kate Spade, Manolos, Jimmy Choo and Gucci.

"There was a pair of Chanel that made the story line two seasons ago," LaVoi says. "She's walking through mud with new shoes, and the Chanels took on a life of their own."

Not to knock anything Chanel, but the shoes didn't reach the iconic status of the pink trench.

When we think about kings, the image usually hearkens back to the Middle Ages.

Those times continue to fascinate. How else to explain theme restaurants where wenches serve mead in goblets, computer games of swordplay and the popularity of talking dragons? As NBC's Sunday drama series Merlin proves, kings rule.

Not everyone can carry off such a royal visage, but Anthony Head as King Uther Pendragon does.

"The good thing about this show is it easily could have been slightly two-dimensional," he says from Wales, where he's shooting the second season. "I fought very hard to keep it adult enough to interest adults. He has a range of reasons for doing what he does."

And that includes how he dresses.

"It was suggested early on, because I would wear chain mail as a warrior king, I would still prove myself," he says. "It is aluminum, not heavy but very containing. By the end of the day, you know you have worn it. It is just cumbersome to make, somehow."

No one knows that better than Charlotte Morris, the designer who pored over history and art books, then sewed costumes or hired specialty shops to craft them.

FBFX replicated chain mail from aluminum.

"It's just lighter and easier to move around," she says. "They didn't want everyone to be conscious of the costume. This fiberglass material is so much lighter, and they're able to move around. He wears a big arm piece and shoulder piece and all bespoke, all made to fit. It is quite complicated; it all has to be articulated, all attached and buckled together."

For purists -- granted, we are dealing with fictional accounts, but still -- the series plays loose with the centuries.

"We slightly bent the rules and sort of extended it," Morris says. "It is originally set in the 1200s and extended to the 1500s.

Capes are crucial, and with the proper swagger, a king's stride renders a cape fearsome. Morris sewed capes from materials from London's The Cloth Shop. She shopped at Alma Leather for leather trims.

She sewed wraparound trousers, often using mole cloth from the Cloth House. Gloves came from Chester Jeffries and Pamela Woods.

Head, whose mother, Helen Shingler, was an actress in BBC period pieces, took him on sets in France, and the family visited castles. "My parents built me an amazing chateau about 3 foot tall," he says. "Neither of my girls was remotely interested. The girls were not into knights at all, and it was a bit small for Barbie. My parents had been working on it, and they ran out of brown paint at one point and used instant coffee."

He chuckles at the memory, then adds, "I used to dress up as a knight."

When you work in a warehouse, you tend to be a little less focused on form and more on function. But when your warehouse houses some of the world's greatest secrets and spooky artifacts, all bets are off. Luckily, for Claudia Donovan of Warehouse 13, airing Tuesdays on Syfy, she's literally smart enough to combine style with functionality in order to be a quirky character worth emulating.

Costume designer Joanne Hansen (Fringe) sees Claudia (Allison Scagliotti) as someone capable of traversing the real world and the warehouse, which is a world unto itself.

"She's a smart, computer-savvy girl who hacked her way into the warehouse," Hansen says. "We tried to create a look that would take her from inside to outside. She doesn't have a lot of resources; her life's focus is just getting into the warehouse." That's a goal that was 12 years in the making when her brother's failed experiment sent him and an artifact into another dimension.

That kind of obsession tends to make one quirky, and in that department Claudia doesn't disappoint. Her hair, a red bob, features a strip that changes color regularly -- normally matching at least one color she's wearing. But that is about as far as we're likely to suggest she goes in the area of coordinating.

"We don't want her to stand out, but we do want her to have some individual style," Hansen says. "It's difficult to put her character in a time and place. We know she is current. And because she is so independent she can survive anywhere."

The trick for Hansen was making Claudia strong without making her hard. She needed an edge, but it needed to be tempered with vulnerability. And she achieved that by blending everything from styles to fabrics to decades.

"She wears a vintage motorcycle vest but with contemporary skinny jeans and Converse runners. Ultimately the look is timeless ... but because she has this connection to the artifacts, she has this 'old-new' quality about her."

Whether it be the Converse high-tops (which she rolls down) or the skinny black or grey jeans by Hudson, the tank tops from Urban Outfitters or her plaid hoodie from Forever 21, Claudia's street smarts keep her layering. Hence the vintage biker vest. It can be peeled off without affecting her functionality.

And that's part of her connection to Artie (Saul Rubinek), visually speaking. Like the warehouse itself, he is constantly adding -- layers. In his former life, he was a professor wearing sport coats and ties, but as curator to "Warehouse 13," he has morphed that into something more functional to his current location but without losing the layers of his former life.

"We've tried to ground his looks," Hansen says. "He will always be in earth tones and grounded colors, and his look is totally deconstructed -- and that works for his shape. Even his pants are like sweat pants or yoga pants."

Apparently form and function go hand in hand in the warehouse.

Since the dawn of TV time, whenever characters have been artists, they had to don a beret and vaguely French clothes.

Among the reasons to love Nickelodeon's iCarly, airing Saturdays, is that it doesn't stoop to cliches in writing, acting or wardrobe. Spencer (Jerry Trainor), Carly's guardian and older brother, is an artist.

And he dresses as a 21st century Seattle-based artist in his 20s would. In this case, that means jeans and funny T-shirts, layered with thermal and Western shirts. He looks like a guy whose profession requires him to weld, paint and sculpt.

"Lets get crazy," Trainor says, describing Spencer's look. "Let's call it nouveau abstractionist northwestern splashy."

Costume designer Kris Dangl based Spencer on a Nickelodeon set designer, Josh Inch. "We used to call him the millionaire playboy," she says. "He is the sexiest, ruggedest -- a real guy. There's nothing feminine about him. He's a real dude with that low-key boyish quality."

Since clothing logically needs to reflect where we live, Spencer's are "totally northwestern," Dangl says. "It's kind of like that rugged, unrefined intellectual thing that John Corbett used to have on 'Northern Exposure.' And it allows his goofiness to just shine through."

To stop Trainor's natural goofiness from seeping through, she would have to garb him in a lead suit. Instead, Dangl shops in the small funky shops of Venice, Calif. But she also buys at Nordstrom and Fred Segal.

Jeans are vital to Spencer's look. "He doesn't mess around with his jeans," Dangl says. "He has one style of jeans until he is done with them, then tosses them in trash. I started with Lucky jeans and now it's Diesel."

His T-shirts are from Woot Shirt, Planet Funk and Threadless.

"I just really make sure his T-shirts are something an artist would appreciate," Dangl says. "I recently got him a T-shirt that said, 'Get some exercise,' and it shows a stick drawing of a human being chased by a T-Rex. There's a whole part of the script this week where Jerry is obsessed with the 'beavcoon,' a beaver raccoon. I found a T-shirt of an armadillo with a bull's head."

Western shirts come from Urban Outfitters. As for shoes, Spencer is a loyalist.

"He has never not worn a pair of low top Converse," Dangl says. "Just always Converse -- black."

Spencer's wardrobe hews close to Trainor's own choices, he says.

Like many actors, he's tempted to borrow from the wardrobe department. "I do. I try not to because I know I'll steal it if I take it out. Occasionally I will have worn something really lame to work and we will all be going out and I just need a cool shirt to wear out, and I swear I'll bring it back and they never see it again."

Beverly Johnson continues to break barriers.

In 1974, she was the first black model to grace the cover of Vogue. On Thursday, July 30, Johnson helps pick the next winner of TV Land's She's Got the Look, the modeling contest for women over 35.

Now 55 and as exquisite as ever, Johnson describes her on-air look as "kind of fashiony, elegant and bold but not exotic. Because I just wanted to make sure to have the message -- this was about fashion, about a modeling career. It wasn't necessarily that I dress that way, but I wanted the contestants to have the feeling that this is all about modeling."

Although Johnson certainly can pull together an outfit and do her hair and makeup, she works with stylist Robert Dupont to ensure her look is right.

"He shows me the different things he has chosen," Johnson says. "Some things I think, 'Oh, no. This is terrible!' Now I try on everything because I have been wrong so many times. Even though I hate it on the hanger, I try it on. He keeps me tuned in to what is happening in fashion. You can get stuck. Robert keeps me fresh."

Dupont puts Johnson in a lot of Lloyd Klein and Nicole Miller. He also loves the fancier dresses by Allen Schwartz. The classic staples of Diane Von Furstenberg dresses and separates have also been used.

Johnson favors shoes designed by Taryn Rose, an orthopedic surgeon who designs luxury shoes. For any woman who has ever gingerly peeled off heels and wanted to auto-amputate, these shoes look divine.

Like many women assured of their own tastes, Johnson knows what she wants.

"Beverly doesn't go for trends," Dupont says. "She is not afraid of color."

Dupont advises other women to "not overaccessorize, especially when using color. Have your own style."

Though Johnson certainly looks much younger than her years, she's very clear that everyone, including her, must work to maintain it. She recalls a publicist questioning why Johnson needed hair and makeup professionals for an event.

"It would be great if I could roll out of bed, shave and show up," she says. "It doesn't work that way. Aging gracefully means keeping oneself healthy and abreast of all of the scientific genius of man. And as far as ... different things one can do for their health, mammograms and colonoscopy (are things) that one needs to do in order to remain healthy. And then we can start with the outside -- once we keep the inside as best as we can, and really respect our bodies in a healthy way.

"It's not just aging gracefully, rocking back and forth in a rocking chair," Johnson continues. "One still has to make an effort to age gracefully."

It takes time to develop an individual style, and Lauren Baldwin (Tracey Bregman) has had 24 years to refine it.Yes, Bregman has been playing Lauren on CBS' The Young and the Restless for that long. This week is the culmination of a special promotion. Viewers entered a contest, for which 2,600 were eligible, to have the soap pay for their Las Vegas wedding, complete with Bregman and her TV husband, Christian LeBlanc (Michael Baldwin), as witnesses.

At this writing, Bregman wasn't sure what she was wearing to the nuptials on Sunday, July 19, but given Lauren's typically sleek style, no one was worried she'd be anything less than fashionable.

"Because she's in fashion, she's very current," Bregman says of her character, a department store heiress. "I think she always dresses age appropriate but doesn't allow that to constrict her. A lot of the way she dresses is for fun."

Jennifer Johns, costumer for the show, describes Lauren's look as "upscale, current and sexy, and not necessarily in that order."

"When I started she was already a professional," Johns says. "It was the '80s. As young as she was, she had a very sophisticated, adult sort of look. She is a lot more relaxed now. She had a lot of Chanel. And the show was different, too. We did so many gowns. You want to have dinner? Let's do it formal."

This is, after all, a soap, so outrageous turns of events are the norm.

In one story, Lauren was being held hostage on a yacht (you didn't expect a subway, did you?) and was wearing a pink Juicy sweat suit.

Given her druthers, Bregman would wear dresses by Leger, which Johns says are "very body conscious, very sexy." Lauren wears a lot of dresses, favoring Back Halo and Robert Rodriguez.

Though she doesn't often wear separates, when she dons a blouse, it's from Theory or BCBG.

Many women rely on suits, though Lauren tends to wear them "for court appearances," Johns says. And she wears the high-end Gaultier.

Johns shops for the upscale Lauren at Barney's, Fred Segal, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom and Saks.

Bregman is so petite that she often brings her own jeans and shoes, Johns says. Bregman says she owns more than 100 pair of pants.

Lauren's wardrobe is completed with a few pieces by Roberto Cavalli, Alexander Wang and Bebe. Johns also looks for less expensive items at the Gap.

The lingering question is: Is it possible for a real woman, who isn't a department store heiress, to achieve Lauren's look?

"Sure," Johns says. "Anything can be approximated and we are not spending scads of money. She is very pretty and very petite. It's probably more about whether you look like her than whether you dress like her."