For Clueless costume designer Mona May, there’s a psychology to crafting a character’s wardrobe. “I think authenticity is one of the most important things when you design costumes, to make sure these characters feel real, and not just like talking Barbies,” she tells Refinery29. “You want the audience to leave the theater and feel like, ‘There was something about that character that felt like me.’”
For a film as far-fetched as the 1995 classic, starring Alicia Silverstone as a spoiled Beverly Hills high school student, grounding the characters in reality was crucial. Yes, these affluent teenagers had access to runway fashion and daddy’s credit card, but May also wanted to portray girls who loved the mall and were youthful and vibrant.
While May — whose book The Fashion of Clueless is coming out in October — had no idea what a cultural phenomenon the movie, which celebrates 30 years this month, would become, she knew the costumes were crucial to the storytelling. From the introductory shot — which showed a montage of glitzy high schoolers poolside, cruising in high-end cars, and shopping in their finest threads — fashion was the focus. “It was colorful, it was California, it was high-fashion, it was teenage fun. It had to immediately grab your eye,” she says.
Pulling together thousands of costumes — 63 of them belonging to Cher (Silverstone) alone — on a $200k budget was no small task, according to May: “[We had to find] every headpiece, every backpack, every pair of sunglasses, every piece of jewelry seen. I don’t even know how I did it, seriously, but we just went for it.” She emphasizes that the film was made in the mid-‘90s, before social media made it easy to discover and access fashion. “It was just the beginning of computers and cell phones, so my research was different. People behaved differently. There was a certain kind of innocence to the time as well,” she says.
Because of that, May felt it was important to establish sartorial social cues (ie: graphic tees for the skaters, exposed slip and stockings with runs for a scattered teacher, etc.), as well bring attention to culturally relevant designer labels (the Calvin Klein slip dress that Cher’s dad refers to as “underwear,” and “totally important designer” Alaïa dress) to the audience not privy to Melrose Avenue.
Because the cast was fairly unknown at the time, there were no giant “PR machines” sending boxes from fashion houses to dress the actors. Still, May enlisted luxury labels for looks such as Cher’s iconic yellow plaid skirt set by Jean Paul Gaultier, along with pieces from Fred Segal and Anna Sui. She also pulled pieces from secondhand stores, army surplus shops, and then-popular mall brands: Body Glove, Roxy, BCBG, Gap, American Rag, Esprit, Vertigo, and Wet Seal (RIP). By combining designer names with mall mainstays, May says she was able to bring out the multifacetedness of each character.
“Dionne [played by Stacey Dash] is a really good example of that. She wears a lot of different things, from high-end Chanel to the leopard jacket that was thrifted and the vinyl skirt that was from a rave store on Melrose,” May explains. Cher also embodied the juxtaposition, sporting preppy co-ords as much as she did cap-sleeved dresses, while also dipping into the soft grunge looks popular at the time, like her layered black sheer top and chunky jewelry. “She’s not just one kind of girl. She’s good-hearted, discerning, but can also be a bit of a mean girl, too.”
May believes the style holds strongly three decades later because, in many ways, the cult classic was ahead of its time. The movie was nuanced in its portrayal of teenage girls, who were fashion-obsessed and naive, but also quick-witted and opinionated. There was a complexity to them — one May felt a responsibility to translate through their clothing. “It was hard to make that movie,” she says. “[Director] Amy [Heckerling] said that many studios passed on it because they didn’t want girls to talk like this. They wanted movies about boys. It was important to introduce young girls speaking that way: being smart, being self-assured, and knowing what they want. Smart girls deserved smart clothes.”
May made sure that the outfits reflected each of the characters’ personalities: Dionne’s bold accessories and prints spoke to her spunky personality, Cher’s meticulously coordinated shoes and outfits spoke to her perfectionism. Meanwhile, Tai (Brittany Murphy) had an evolving wardrobe — which went from baggy flannels and graphic tees at the beginning of the film to Cher-approved plaids and finally a happy grunge-meets-girly medium — that spoke to her journey of losing, rediscovering, and coming into herself.
With so many characters to dress, the looks had to work together as well, like Cher and Dionne’s coordinated school looks. On one hand, it brought to mind a familiar scenario of phoning your friend to plan outfits the night before school and, on the other, it symbolized that the two were counterparts. “Throughout the film, I wanted to make sure that they were equally fashionable, equally important,” says May.
Given that the film was set in Southern California, May felt it was important to also portray the many subcultures, from the posh upper echelon to skaters, stoners, and the business-casual kids who took themselves too seriously. Though they were all living in this platinum credit card world, Dionne’s and Murray’s style, for example, was culturally relevant for Black American teenagers at the time, with the Kangol hats, leopard print, and gold jewelry. May accomplished this authenticity by working with each actor to build the character’s wardrobe together.
Dash, for example, was slightly older, from New York, and had a strong sense of personal style, which played a huge role in constructing her character’s look. In turn, according to May, “Murray [Donald Faison’s character] had to look really good too, because she would never date a slacker.”
The same care was extended to Christian Stovitz (Justin Walker), the suave transfer student from Chicago, who we later find out is gay. May wanted the clothing to lead with his personality and interests — like fashion, which resulted in him wearing hats, a blue tuxedo, and slicked-back hair — and not be a reductive version of what a gay character might “look” like (which wasn’t a given at the time for the industry).
The fashion in Clueless cemented May’s signature style across all her works — which later included other cult classics like Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion and Never Been Kissed — and gave the movie its staying power. It’s the reason why not a single Halloween goes by without a Cher and Dionne recreation, why clothing collections in 1995 and thereafter exploded with Clueless-inspired threads, and why 30 years later, we are still celebrating the film that introduced Alaïa into many of our vocabularies.
“It’s just incredible that this movie has lived in so many people’s hearts. It’s changed them and made them feel good. I’m so proud, I’ll have a pink bow on my grave.”
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