Behind the scenes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

When visiting the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. set I had one mission. I wanted to see Lola. As soon as we entered the first building she was there, sitting in the cargo bay of the Bus. From that point forward, everything was a bonus. One of my favorite bonuses? Visiting the costume department and getting the chance to chat with Ann Foley.

They make many of the costumes in house. Ann estimated that approximately 30% of the clothing is custom made, but that it can vary widely from episode to episode.

Raina, the girl in the flower dress-she’s probably one of my favorite characters. We actually print that fabric and then we make each one of our dresses… I really worked with the writers and we sort of went into her head, and depending on where her head was in that episode… we tried to choose that color wisely.

The action of the cast impacts their costuming. Agent May’s silver sequin dress required five different versions.

We made five because May was fighting herself in the episode, so we had one beautiful one for May, then we had one that she could fight in, so we sewed stretch panels inside so she could fight and do all of her movement. She had two stunt doubles and then Agent 33 was in one as well.

Of course, not all of the costumes are custom. Shopping is a big part of outfitting the cast, too.

I have some fabulous shoppers on the show. And also I am a big online shopper. I’m gonna give a big shout out to Shopbop and Net-A-Porter and Mr. Porter… It’s great because we know the characters now, and I think the bigger challenge was at the end of last season and starting this season when we started going darker and edgier was trying to find that idea of all of the characters. For example Elizabeth Simmons, to me, is probably one of the more challenging characters to shop for on the show because she is eclectic. So it will be one piece from this store, one piece from that store, and it’s just about styling her and bringing her together without any of them going over the top.

What was one of her favorite moments?

Last season, when Coulson and May went undercover as FitzSimmons, I mean, probably the best fittings I’ve ever had in my life because Elizabeth has a very specific way of standing in her fittings, and Ming did that in the fitting photos for the cast. You could hear her laughing across the studio. It was wonderful. I was really fun.

[bctt tweet=”Chatting w/ @AgentsofSHIELD costume maven@AFoley24 #AgentsofSHIELD #AvengersEvent #ABCTVEvent “]

The sets for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are huge. Getting to dive behind the scenes was pretty surreal.

Like stepping into a Quinjet. We sat down and took pictures on a Quinjet. Seriously…we. were. on. a. Quinjet.

There were cool surprises around every corner. If we didn’t have a tour guide, we would have needed breadcrumbs to find our way back out!

We ended our tour by watching Chloe Bennet film a scene from the season finale. She could not have been sweeter, and I’m pretty sure she would have chatted with us all night if she didn’t have work to do. I’m bursting with season finale spoilers, but…I don’t want to ruin any surprises! You can wait a week, right?

[bctt tweet=”Behind the scenes at @AgentsofSHIELD w/ @ChloeBennet4 #AgentsofSHIELD #AvengersEvent #ABCTVEvent”]

So what’s coming up on tonight’s episode?

“Scars” – Skye is torn between her loyalty to S.H.I.E.L.D. and her connection to the Inhumans as tensions rise between the groups — and Coulson reveals a secret he’s been hiding from even those closest to him, on “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” TUESDAY, MAY 5 (9:00-10:01 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.

“Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” stars Clark Gregg as Director Phil Coulson, Ming-Na Wen as Agent Melinda May, Brett Dalton as Grant Ward, Chloe Bennet as Agent Skye, Iain De Caestecker as Agent Leo Fitz, Elizabeth Henstridge as Agent Jemma Simmons, Nick Blood as Lance Hunter and Adrianne Palicki as Bobbi Morse.

Guest starring are Henry Simmons as Alphonso “Mack” Mackenzie, Ruth Negga as Raina, Patton Oswalt as Sam/Billy Koenig, Kyle Maclachlan as Cal, Edward James Olmos as Robert Gonzales, Jamie Harris as Gordon, Christine Adams as Agent Weaver, Mark Allan Stewart as Agent Oliver, Maya Stojan as Kara/Agent 33, Dichen Lachman as Jiaying, Luke Mitchell as Lincoln Campbell, Alicia Vela-Bailey as Alisha, David Douglas as Michael and Crystal Coney as scientist.

”Scars” was written by Rafe Judkins & Lauren LeFranc and directed by Bobby Roth.

For more information on “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” visit ABC.com and follow along on Facebook and Twitter.