How The Big Bang Theory Came Up With Howard Wolowitz's Unique Fashion Sense

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

If you think about Howard Wolowitz, the character made famous by Simon Helberg on the blockbuster CBS sitcom "The Big Bang Theory," you probably think about his super-tight turtlenecks, unique bowl-shaped haircut, big flashy belt buckles, and tight pants. According to Jessica Radloff's 2022 book "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," Helberg and the show's costume designer Mary Quigley worked extremely hard to create Howard's unforgettable look, which did evolve over time ... even if they encountered some strange technical issues at the start.

"Howard's look was so bold that by the time I stepped out onstage wearing that outfit, I knew who this guy was," Helberg recalled to Radloff before telling her that there were some amazing wardrobe malfunctions initially. "I think there were a couple pairs of jeans that I needed assistance with because they were so tight, particularly around the calf," he said. "There was some buttering up of the thighs to get the pants off." Heberg explained that in the pilot, Quigley had to make a unitard turtleneck because the clothes he wore were so small that he thought the turtleneck was probably for a six-year-old. Understandably, it didn't stay tucked into his pants. "She had to sew on a diaper with snaps that would basically hold it in place and prevent it from coming undone," he said.

Understandably, Helberg was a little worried about this intense process at first, but once he and Quigley figured it out, it was smooth sailing. "I thought if the show picked up, this is going to be a long go. But eventually we found some turtlenecks from the long and tall kids department and we could tuck them in," the actor revealed. "And then to get all those sharp belt buckles so close to so many vulernable parts, plus the tight pants, and the pin on my turtleneck that would jam into my neck ... I was always trying to get used to being smothered by my own wardrobe. But it was also negative twenty degrees in the studio when we would shoot, so it kind of went a long way."

"Wolowitz's look was certainly out there at the time," Mary Quigley openly told Radloff in the book. "In the way he was written, he thought he was the suave one. If anyone had a closet full of different clothes, it was him." The turtleneck Howard wore was his odd interpretation of how Clark Gable used to dress on hiatus between films, because as Quigley tells it, Gable used to wear white turtlenecks with a white sweater over his shoulders with white pleated pants. As for his colorful skinny jeans, the inspiration was pulled from the looks of The Beatles and The Monkees, which inspired Howard's signature mop-top haircut. "He thinks he's kind of a rock star." (Quigley's joke here is particularly funny when you consider that, at one point, the series almost cast a rock star as Howard's absent father.) "Sometimes I'd get the jeans at Urban Outfitters, but I also dyed a lot of white jeans because I really wanted a saturated color," Quigley concluded.

Still, there's one specific piece of Howard's costume that Quigley and Simon Helberg will never fully explain, and that's Howard's signature pin in the shape of a little alien. "The reason why Howard wore the alien pin is between Simon and I, and never to be told," she told Radloff. "Simon and I swore we would never tell anyone why we did it. But there were lots of different alien pins because I had multiple colors depending on what he was wearing. And then the belt buckles were an example of his flashiness."

When Radloff asked Helberg if the alien pin was there for a "fascinating reason or just silly," Helberg coyly told her, "It may be a little bit of both. That's all I'll say." 

Throughout "The Big Bang Theory," Howard evolves both as a character and just as a human being, particularly after he meets and settles down with the girl of his dreams, Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz (Melissa Rauch). According to executive producer and writer Steve Holland, the show made this clear in Howard's costumes. "Howard basically wore the same thing, but we tried to pull away from the bright, bright colors," Holland said of the character's sartorial growth. "It was almost subtle enough that when we were doing an episode in season [11], if we showed a flashback, you could see him in those bright green lime pants, which we had kind of gotten away from... just small changes to let the character grow up a little bit." Mary Quigley added, "He also began to wear slightly more muted plaid shirts instead of tight T-shirts over the turtlenecks."

There was one thing that never changed about Howard, though, and that's his helmet-style hair. "It was kind of unspoken that I would never do anything drastic to my hair, so it was always possible to achieve Howard's look," Simon Helberg said to Jessica Radloff. After acknowledging his co-star Kaley Cuoco's surprising hair transformation before the season 9 premiere of "The Big Bang Theory," Helberg continued, "But they never did tell us that we couldn't do anything; it was just sort of expected that when we came back from summer hiatus, we had the same look. I'm sure I could have lobbed to change it, but I felt like it was very specific to him and he would never see any reason to upgrade that style. They flat-ironed it and sprayed it to keep it in place. It had a little movement, but I just wanted it to look like a solid block of hair that you'd find on an action figure or something."

"The Big Bang Theory," including all of Howard's signature looks, is streaming on HBO Max now.