Poorna Jagannathan’s Mugler Look for ‘Lanterns’ Is the Final Boss In Her Fashion Reinvention

This is The Close-Up, where the biggest names in entertainment explain the story behind their latest personal style statement.

According to Poorna Jagannathan, her wardrobe can be divided into “pre-Deli Boys” and “post-Deli Boys” eras. “My pre-Deli Boys wardrobe is a lot flowier, and that is not my vibe anymore,” the Never Have I Ever actor tells Marie Claire.

While starring as Lucky in the Hulu crime-comedy series, Jagannathan was introduced to a side of fashion—and a lot of Mugler— that changed the way she wanted to dress offscreen. “There was a certain way that Lucky dressed that I had never stepped into before, and I can never step out of now,” she says. “She just has a very structured, powerful look to her. It's a lot of shoulder… It's avant-garde, and I always want my red carpet look to have a tiny tinge of that.”

For the premiere of HBO’s highly anticipated DC Studios series Lanterns, Jagannathan considered a gamut of brands before ultimately landing on the French fashion house’s Fall 2026 runway. The moment felt full circle to her fashion reinvention. “[For Deli Boys], we got Mugler off, like, The RealReal,” she says. “To be able to wear this current season is beyond my wildest dreams.”

Designed by creative director Miguel Castro Freitas, the look has all the power-dressing hallmarks of Mugler—structured shoulders, razor-sharp tailoring, cinched waist—while its green color is an homage to Lanterns. “To step into a Mugler moment for this particular role seemed very apt,” she says. “‘The Commander’ collection plays with silhouettes that convey power and structure, and it's very much the character. She is an extraordinarily powerful woman and commands a lot of attention.”

Jagannathan doesn’t consider herself to be a strict “method dresser,” but she admits to liking a theme. “It helps me whittle all the stuff down,” she says. And once she commits to an idea, she is willing to go all in. After she discovered the Mugler look involved a sweater and a winter coat, she didn’t once consider switching to something more appropriate for L.A's August heat. “I am going to die,” she jokes ahead of the event. “But I am so willing to pay the price of that.” She did, however, draw the line at not wearing the green gloves shown on the runway: “It would just completely melt me.”

That willingness to commit is part of what makes fashion so fun for Jagannathan. She loves collaborating with costume designers on her characters’ wardrobes—“I come with not only costume suggestions, I also come with costumes”—and has developed a keen understanding of the labels that work for her. (In addition to Mugler, she considers Saint Laurent “a lighthouse brand.”)

Lately, she has also been diving deeper into vintage shopping, “splurging a couple of times a year” on archival pieces. Ever since her friend, television personality Tan France, lent her a 1986 Alaïa jacket, she has “been on the internet looking for anything from that collection.”

Jagannathan traces that instinct for fashion experimentation back to her upbringing in India. As a high school student in Delhi, she shopped on Janpath Street, known for export-surplus garments. “[You would find] stuff where one sleeve is shorter than the other or like the buttons are put on the wrong way,” she says. “I learned fashion on the streets of this ‘export-reject’ place where I'd have to mix and match and make really quick decisions and bargain someone down to close to zero.”

Her shopping habits may have changed since then, but her appreciation for the region’s craftsmanship and custom tailoring has only deepened. “South Asians designers have always been in the background at Western couture houses,” she says. “The craftsmanship is unparalleled.” With this in mind, Jagannathan makes a point to wear at least one South Asian designer on every press tour. (For Lanterns, she is planning a look from Indian designer Rahul Mishra’s latest Couture collection.)

Working directly with designers like Gaurav Gupta and Anita Dongre on custom pieces has made those fashion moments particularly meaningful. “To take a modern piece, like Mugler, it's such an honor to wear it,” she says. “But when you are also able to have a dialogue with a designer, there's something about your own imprint in it that makes it even more special.”

For Lanterns, Jagannathan let the Mugler look take the lead, pairing it with Christian Louboutin pointed-toe pumps and minimal jewelry, consisting of Misho earrings and Lié Studio rings. “It's such a commanding look that my instinct was to go very simple with everything else,” she says. Her beauty look followed the same logic. Jagannathan swept the wig she wore on Lanterns into a slicked-back style—a red-carpet ritual she has adopted across projects. “I'll try and wear the wig that the character is in,” she says.

With a particularly packed year of premieres, Jagannathan has “really upped” the attention she gives to getting red-carpet ready. “This year, pretty much back-to-back, I had Deli Boys [Season 2] premiere and press. And then Lanterns. And as soon as Lanterns finishes, I start Nocturne press,” she says. “I felt like I should invest in a beauty routine because there's so much public-facing stuff.”

In the months leading up to the premiere, that has included XERF treatments for skin tightening at Lean Lab and PicoSure laser sessions at Jour Hair Skin Institute for her melasma. Closer to the event, she turned to her go-to facial at Osea and at-home red-light therapy with CurrentBody. Then there is what she considers the “pièce de résistance” of her beauty prep: “No matter what city [an event is in], I will get a spray tan.”

For all the planning that goes into a red carpet, Jagannathan’s approach comes down to knowing how she wants to feel once she gets there. “I think about the occasion. I think a little bit about the theme. I think about what I want to convey,” she says. “I just gravitate towards a very powerful structural look for the red carpet. That's just who I am and what I feel very comfortable in.”

So what would her Lanterns character, who spends much of her time makeup-free on a Nebraska ranch, make of the transformation? Jagannathan likes to believe she would be impressed: “[She would say,] You clean up well—farm to serving, baby.”

Photographer Malik Daniels | Stylist Carolina Orrico | Makeup artist Saisha Beecham| Hair stylist Tym Wallace | Styling Assistant Natalia Zamudio