When it comes to appearing in court, clothes are a reliable tool for conveying a person’s character and values. Consider Elizabeth Holmes’s neutral, relatable, turtleneck-free makeover before her fraud trial, or the pristine white turtleneck dress and taupe Birkin bag that Cardi B wore to reject a plea deal in a misdemeanor assault case, simultaneously signaling innocence with her color palette and reminding the crowd of her professional success with her very expensive purse.

Likewise, on “Pam & Tommy,” a Hulu series that presents a fictionalized version of the events surrounding the release of a sex tape stolen from Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee in 1995, style is a means of being taken seriously in the eye of the law. For Pam, that means donning a sea foam suit jacket and a matching miniskirt as she delivers her testimony, looking businesslike but defiantly glamorous.

The show’s latest episode, which was released Wednesday, opens with Pam (Lily James) sitting quietly at her vanity, putting on lipstick in preparation for a deposition. She and Tommy (Sebastian Stan) have filed a $10 million lawsuit against Penthouse magazine after learning of its plans to publish stills from the tape, but only Pam has been summoned to give a testimony.

The deposition is painful and humiliating — at one point the opposition lawyer asks: “Mrs. Lee, do you recall how old you were the first time you publicly exposed your genitals?” — cementing the show’s thesis that the tape’s release wasn’t merely a titillating celebrity scandal but a crushing personal trauma. It also presents a sex symbol known for her starring role on “Baywatch” in a more buttoned-up light.

The show’s costume designer, Kameron Lennox, based the look on a real suit Ms. Anderson wore to court. Ms. Lennox and her team tweaked the color slightly — pale blue can look white on camera — and selected a lightweight tweed similar to the fabrics that brands like Chanel and Dolce & Gabbana used at the time.

Through studying Ms. Anderson’s style, Ms. Lennox came to the conclusion that her strength came from her confidence in her body, not from using clothing as armor. On the show, Pam wears an array of body-conscious styles: latex minidresses (at the club); tight henleys and denim shorts (at home); that iconic red bathing suit (at her job). Her deposition outfit is generally consistent with that silhouette, with some concessions made to the conservative environment of a law office: not too tight, not too short, no cleavage.

“She wanted to be heard. She wanted to feel self-assured and confident in that scene and not ogled,” Ms. Lennox said. “When you go to court, everyone says, ‘Wear your Sunday best.’ This was our version of Pamela Anderson in her Sunday best.”

One of the great aesthetic joys of “Pam & Tommy” is Pam’s parade of haphazard, freestyle updos, which Barry Lee Moe, the head of the show’s hair department, collectively refers to as the “Baby Bardot,” after Brigitte Bardot’s famous coiffure. For some scenes, including an appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” Mr. Moe and his team created a playful, soft version of this look by curling Ms. James’s wig before pinning it up.

Inspired by a real hairstyle Ms. Anderson wore to court, he wanted her deposition updo to communicate a spiky strength, which he achieved by adding a zigzag part and leaving straight tendrils around her face. “Severe lines tend to put people on guard a little bit,” Mr. Moe said. “This was her protecting herself.”

Knowing that the deposition scenes would involve tight shots of Ms. James’s face, David Williams, the head of makeup, wanted her eyes to have a similar sharpness. In scenes that take place in nightclubs and at movie premieres, Pam’s eye shadow tends to be heavy and dark, but here her black eyeliner has been applied with a more precise hand, paired with softer brown eye shadow and a muted, rosy-brown lipstick.

“We really want you to focus in on the eye, because this is where it’s all Lily,” Mr. Williams said. “She’s doing the work.”

Like Ms. Lennox, Mr. Williams and Mr. Moe did detailed research on Ms. Anderson’s hair, makeup and facial structure. In addition to a prosthetic chest plate, Ms. James’s daily transformation involved color contacts, a dental piece and a prosthetic forehead meant to emulate Ms. Anderson’s higher hairline. (The team experimented with a prosthetic nose as well, but nixed the idea because it didn’t look good from all angles and ran the risk of distracting viewers.) Mr. Williams and his team used contouring to enhance the look of the prosthetics, and then went in with period-appropriate makeup.

The hair, makeup and wardrobe team’s desire for authenticity reached a fever pitch around the show’s “Baywatch” scenes. Ms. Lennox did several rounds of fittings before she nailed both the color and shape of Ms. Anderson’s iconic bathing suit, which is low under the arms, high on the legs, and low in the front. “The stakes were all on that day because it’s not just in the zeitgeist of America, it’s in every country in the world. People know ‘Baywatch,’” Mr. Williams said, noting that he’d never been more nervous about a shoot in his career. (A 3:30 a.m. phone call to his astrologer put his mind at ease.)

In the same way that Pam is unmistakable on a beach in her bright red bathing suit, Ms. Lennox wanted her to light up the boardroom where her deposition takes place. She dressed the lawyers in dark suits and ties so Pam’s pale teal suit would pop.

“In my mind’s eye I just visualized her levitating and glowing among this nastiness,” Ms. Lennox said. “Visually it was like her rising above it.”

Pam does stand out, and her spin on business attire gives her a certain dignity, as though she’s exerting her sense of self in a room full of men leveling degrading questions at her. It almost seems successful. But at the end of a very long day, she’s the one being comforted by a stenographer in the women’s restroom.

Look Again is a column about images that make news, from photojournalism to memes, selfies to red carpet moments.