How Cher and Dionne Would Dress in 2021, According to the Costume Designer of ‘Clueless’

Number of pop-lifestyle gemstones have had as significantly of an effect on style as Clueless, the ’90s rom-com that celebrates an anniversary this 7 days amid a up coming-gen revival. Mona May well, the film’s costume designer, is just one of the most prolific abilities in the marketplace, deserving of credit history for our modern-day worlds. May’s styling for pre-Y2K cult hits like Romy and Michele’s Higher School Reunion and Never Been Kissed has formed 2021’s vogue (Liquid minidresses! Twinsets!), while Clueless’s Cher (Alicia Silverstone) and Dionne (Stacey Sprint) continue to be way of living muses many years later on. “It’s not just the style that mesmerizes folks more than the 25 years given that the movie has been out,” May tells me on a online video call from Berlin. “Each look actually was similar to who they were being. You love these characters—you adore the girls.”

In 1994, as soon as Amy Heckerling wrote the movie and tapped May to type it (the two met like “twins who found every other” on a pilot that in no way aired), they looked forward. “This is definitely a motion picture about trend in the future,” states May perhaps. “At the time, every person was actually dressed up or underdressed,” she suggests of remixing this on film. “What I released was thrift-store outfits with significant-fashion clothes with apparel from the mall—something that now is this kind of a normal point to do. You know, we have on the Balenciaga purse with ripped denims and flip-flops.”

She imagined Cher and Dionne as Beverly Hills teens who, like May, traveled globally and went to Paris exhibits to scout then arrived home to feel of some thing new. “It’s intriguing, with Silverstone, we really had to teach her a minor little bit a lot more how to dress in designer dresses simply because she was just a kid, a hippie animal activist presently,” remembers Could. “And then you have Stacey Sprint, who presently understood about fashion, and she drove sure items and wanted specific things—how they ought to match, how they should really look on her.” Observing it now, “that’s portion of the charm and also why gals relate to these people,” May well shares. “Cher was herself in one particular way various from Dionne, who’s a lot more funky and outrageous.”

As I publish, I’m putting on 1 of my most trustworthy ensembles, a white tee layered with a black tank and bicycle shorts—not significantly from what May dreamed up as a substantial school’s monochromatic P.E. dress code. “Everyone experienced their personal unique type,” May perhaps describes. “When you look at Cher, she has the white T-shirt which is now so synonymous with the black tank—which now everybody wears! My P.A. just arrived to get the job done carrying it, and I reported ‘You know, that is what Cher wore in health club,’ and she was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t see Clueless nonetheless!’” May possibly claims with a chuckle.