Is All’s Fair too bad or just too glossy? Inside Ryan Murphy’s new legal drama
Ryan Murphy’s All’s Fair, starring Kim Kardashian, fuses fashion, power, and law in an image-obsessed drama viewers can’t stop watching—or hating
Why All’s Fair Is Already the Most Polarising TV Series of 2025
All’s Fair has officially landed on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+, and the first episodes have already ignited what might be the most polarising TV moment of 2025. Ryan Murphy’s new legal drama—led by Kim Kardashian as divorce lawyer Allura Grant, joined by Naomi Watts, Niecy Nash-Betts, Teyana Taylor, Matthew Noszka, Sarah Paulson and Glenn Close—arrived with the promise of courtroom glamour and female-driven power dynamics. Instead, it sparked a storm of criticism.
Reviewers have slammed the series’ over-styled world, its paper-thin writing, its hyper-curated version of feminism and, above all, Kardashian’s heavily scrutinised performance. Yet despite being branded by many as “the worst series ever,” the show pulled off an astonishing feat: the biggest scripted debut on Hulu in the last three years.
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All’s Fair becomes 2025’s most divisive hit—criticised for gloss, praised for spectacle, and breaking Hulu records despite backlash
When Are New Episodes of All’s Fair Released?
Set within the haute-couture-obsessed law firm Grant, Ronson & Greene—where every case feels like a runway—All’s Fair is fast becoming the cultural hate-watch audiences can’t resist.
With new episodes dropping every Tuesday, the series continues to fuel online chaos, memes, backlash, curiosity and the irresistible urge to see just how spectacularly messy it might get next.
How Fashion Steals the Spotlight in Ryan Murphy’s All’s Fair
From the opening scene, All’s Fair makes one thing clear: this is not your standard legal drama. Sure, there are lawsuits, depositions, and fiery speeches, but none of it matters as much as what everyone’s wearing. Ryan Murphy’s world is drenched in cold light and champagne tones, where every hallway walk feels choreographed for an editorial spread.
And this time, the wardrobe isn’t just expensive—it’s historic. The series leans into archival couture, pulling pieces from fashion legends like Jean Paul Gaultier, John Galliano, and Versace. The wardrobe department didn’t just shop; they curated a museum. Each outfit tells a story of power, excess, and image, turning the courtroom into a catwalk.
Kim Kardashian’s character, Allura Grant, struts through cases in vintage Dior by Galliano and razor-sharp Gaultier suits, her silhouette sculpted like a manifesto. The costume design becomes a language of its own—one that speaks about who gets to own beauty, power, and perfection in 2025.
Who Plays Allura Grant in All’s Fair? Kim Kardashian’s Power, Performance and High-Gloss Drama
Casting Kim Kardashian as a high-profile divorce lawyer was always bound to be a meta move. But in All’s Fair, it becomes more than stunt casting: Kardashian’s character, Allura Grant, is less a woman than a hologram of aspiration—a being of contour, gloss and control.
The Keeping Up with the Kardashians star now delivers her lines with the serene detachment of someone who has seen the inside of far too many filters. “Work is my way to relax,” she says at one point, sounding like an AI life coach in heels. The beauty of it is how unintentional it feels—her performance gently blurring the line between character and brand.
On-screen and off, Kardashian doubles down on the theme of archival power. For the press tour, she wore original John Galliano for Dior gowns from the 1990s, and even a sculptural Jean Paul Gaultier corset look that felt like a direct conversation with her on-screen alter ego. Fashion becomes not just styling, but storytelling—a reflection of her (and her character’s) obsession with control and polish.
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Kim Kardashian blurs brand and character, using archival Galliano and Gaultier to turn Allura Grant into a curated symbol of power
Couture Feminism: How Ryan Murphy Stylises Female Empowerment
The setup is classic Ryan Murphy: an all-female law firm, founded in defiance of a toxic, male-dominated industry. Yet this isn’t the gritty realism of The Good Wife—it’s feminism in couture: branded, glamorous and hyper-stylised.
When Allura and her colleagues (Naomi Watts’s Liberty Ronson and Niecy Nash’s Emerald Greene) stride into their minimalist offices, they don’t resemble lawyers; they look like editorial models mid–photo shoot. Their sisterhood isn’t messy or raw—it’s manicured, motivational, and monetised. Here, empowerment is something you can accessorise. And that’s the joke—or the critique—at the heart of All’s Fair. Murphy understands that in the age of “girl boss” culture, ambition itself is a lifestyle brand. His women don’t just break glass ceilings; they do it in archival Galliano heels and Versace blazers. The show’s glossy aesthetic is both a fantasy and an indictment of it.
When Wardrobe Becomes Storytelling: Archival Fashion Redefines All’s Fair
In most shows, wardrobe serves the story. In All’s Fair, the wardrobe is the story. The use of archival pieces—Dior from 1995, Gaultier from 2002, early-2000s Versace—is more than aesthetic nostalgia. It’s a way of binding the characters to fashion’s own mythology of reinvention.
When Kim Kardashian walks into a courtroom in a structured, metallic Gaultier blazer, it’s not just about costume—it’s commentary. The clothes carry the weight of history: designed for rebellion and spectacle, now repurposed to signal power in a hyper-curated world. The past is worn like armour, rebranded for a generation that sees image as identity.
This obsession with fashion legacy turns All’s Fair into a strange mirror of our own media culture, where everything—even feminism—can be reissued, repackaged, and worn again. The couture becomes both homage and critique, dressing the illusion of progress in luxury fabric.
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In All’s Fair, couture becomes commentary—archival Dior and Gaultier transform the courtroom into a runway of image, identity, and reinvention
The Aesthetic Paradox: Why All’s Fair Looks Flawless but Feels Emotionless
If all this sounds exhausting, that’s because it is. All’s Fair is visually stunning, but often emotionally airless. The show’s fetish for perfection leaves little room for mess—and mess, after all, is what makes drama human.
Every scene glows under icy lighting; every conversation unfolds at a flawless camera angle. You begin to wonder if the characters ever eat, sleep, or sweat. The realism of law is gone, replaced by a simulation of success. Archival high fashion dazzles, but also distances. When everything is aestheticised, nothing truly feels at stake.
It’s the same paradox that haunts influencer culture: the more perfectly something is presented, the less we believe it’s real. In this way, All’s Fair becomes a show so saturated in image that it implodes under its own reflection.
Camp, Power and Spectacle: The Critique Behind Murphy’s Glossy Fantasy
There’s something both hilarious and pointed about how Ryan Murphy treats empowerment here. It’s as if he’s saying: this is what feminism looks like when filtered through brand culture. The result is camp—not the ironic, playful kind, but the lavish, overstated kind that tips into self-parody.
When Allura declares, “Love and war—you chose war, and we won,” she might as well be pitching a perfume. Yet beneath the absurdity lies an eerie truth: in today’s culture, power often depends less on substance than on the illusion of control.
The women of All’s Fair are powerful, yes, but their power is inseparable from performance. They perform strength, success, and authenticity, and the show performs right alongside them. The line between character and aesthetic, between sincerity and spectacle, dissolves in a haze of silk.
Final Verdict: Why All’s Fair Is a Brilliantly Styled Disaster
So yes, All’s Fair is as much about fashion as it is about law and love. The archival garments do more than decorate the screen; they define it. Every outfit is both costume and confession, every shot a commentary on what “power” looks like when it’s built from borrowed glamour.
The show may stumble as a legal drama, but it succeeds as a cultural artefact—a mirror of our obsession with surface, nostalgia, and the fantasy of reinvention. Kim Kardashian, ever the icon of curated existence, becomes the perfect face for Ryan Murphy’s world: a woman who doesn’t just wear the costume, but is the costume.
And maybe that’s the point. In All’s Fair, the courtroom is just a runway, justice (perhaps) is a brand, and style is the only truth that really fits.
Angelo Ruggeri
Journalist and Tutor for Styling, Business and Design Course and Master’s Programmes, Milan