Clueless (1995)
Costumes by: Mona May
Directed by: Amy Heckerling
This movie may be for you if: you were ever accused of treating your school hallways as a runway, you really love plaid, and you’d negotiate with an armed robber to protect a designer dress.
Where to watch: Netflix, Paramount+
The costume designer for Clueless was legendary 90’s tastemaker Mona May. To celebrate the film’s 30th anniversary, Mona worked with fashion writer Monica Corcoran Harel to write a new book, The Fashion of Clueless. In a recent interview, Mona told me all about the book, reminisced on her many other influential movie wardrobes (Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, Enchanted, Never Been Kissed), and of course, we talked about vintage. You can read my full interview with Mona here: Mona May is Like, a Totally Important Designer!
I saved even more from our conversation to include here in my official costume breakdown for The 100 Fashion Films Project. Mona walked me through the process of creating some of the movie’s most iconic looks, and spoke on the enduring legacy of the film’s costume design. I even asked which celebrity Clueless homage is her favorite, and her answer surprised me!
Writer and director Amy Heckerling had recognition from the surprise success that was Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), but nobody was particularly eager to fund another teen movie, let alone her bubbly retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma. The young cast of Clueless was mostly unknown at the time, and the project was Mona May’s first big studio film.
When they finally got the green light, Mona was given a budget of only $200,000 to create the wardrobe for an entire school’s worth of characters. Cher (Alicia Silverstone) alone had over 60 different outfits. Every character and clique needed a distinct style, and everyone had to look like they could afford to live (and shop) in Beverly Hills.
The 1990’s marked the beginning of a new relationship between fashion designers and Hollywood. Giorgio Armani was pioneering the concept of celebrity styling, and despite over 70 years of product placement, TV and movies rarely featured loans or “pulls” from fashion houses like we often see today. Mona knew that Cher needed something impressive for the now famous robbery scene in Clueless, and there was only one thing she could do: call Azzedine Alaïa himself. Not only did the then-unknown costume designer want to borrow a dress, but she wanted to tailor it to Silverstone. Then, the actress would lay on the ground in an LA parking lot.
Thankfully for fashion history, Alaïa said yes, and Amy wrote in the now famous lines after the dress was confirmed.
The Tunisian couturier wasn’t the only designer that received a call from Mona. She managed to borrow additional designs from Anna Sui, Calvin Klein, Jill Stuart, and Dolce & Gabbana.
Mona’s creativity and resourcefulness couldn’t end there. The remaining costumes of Clueless had to be part of her budget, so they came from just about every place you could get clothes: malls, thrift stores, and LA rave outfitters on Melrose Avenue. Others were handmade by Mona herself, or embellished to complete the look. The movie’s most memorable look of all came from one fateful trip to a department store.
Mona described the process of deciding on a plaid suit as a sort of “yes, and” between her and Heckerling. They decided that the perfect first day of school look, and our introduction to Cher, would be a balance of classic and edgy. The idea started with a Catholic school uniform, bounced back and forth between their opposing concepts as each layer was added. The white t-shirt beneath it all was like “the base of life, in a way,” as described by Mona. Cher was wealthy and poised, but still a teenager, and a plaid skirt suit seemed like it could somehow be all of that at once.
Mona first picked up a blue plaid, envisioning a beautiful contrast with Silverstone’s blonde hair. Next she picked up red, which Heckerling would later declare “too Christmas,” but would appear on Cher later in the movie.
“Out of the corner of my eye I saw the yellow. I think I was at Saks Fifth Avenue,” Mona recalled. “It was expensive, I didn’t have a lot money. But I grabbed it.”
An enduring media mishap has lead to the yellow skirt suit being widely credited as Dolce & Gabbana, but the set is now officially confirmed as Jean Paul Gaultier. The plaid suit was released as part of the final collection for JPG’s Junior line for the F/W 1994 season.
“It was like a ray of sunshine, the energy of the yellow,” Mona remembers of the fitting. “And I think that’s part of how it’s etched in our subconscious too, because it was really perfect in that moment.”
It was already a stretch to keep one designer suit for Cher, so buying a matching set for Dionne (Stacey Dash) just wasn’t in the budget. Mona instead used the yellow plaid as a pattern and made a contrasting copycat, adding personal touches like a vinyl collar to match Dionne’s vintage purse and hat.
Mona May loves hats. The only thing she kept from the Clueless set was a hat, and many of film’s most memorable looks wouldn’t have been complete without their hats. New York based milliner Kokin was responsible for many of the custom designs that appeared on film, including the “Dr. Seuss” hat serves up a hell of a first impression of Dionne.
The sartorial success of Clueless was largely due to its inventiveness. “There was nothing on the ground to relate to,” Mona said of popular fashion during filming. “When we went to high schools, everybody was wearing grunge. I had to invent this whole world. My guideline was runways, but you can’t just take runway clothes and put them on 16-year-old girls and make them seem like real, authentic high school girls.”
To maintain a youthful innocence, Mona quickly decided none of her teenage characters would wear stilettos. Cher’s whirlwind of outfits were only paired with block-heeled Mary Janes (and occasionally sneakers) to keep any of the fashion from looking too mature.
When I asked Mona for her own top five favorite fashion films, almost everything that made the cut was released between 1961-1969. Her affinity for 60’s style is clear in Cher’s wardrobe, especially in her bow-tied empire dresses and headbands.
The aesthetics of the fictional Bronson Alcott High School played a major role in shifting styles through the end of the 90’s. The first half of the decade was marked by overwhelmingly casual dressing, heavily featuring moody color palettes and more androgynous silhouettes.
In the early 90’s, plaid was inextricable from grunge and the punk stylings of designers like Vivienne Westwood. Trends like goth, facial piercings, and torn clothing were emerging from underground scenes at raves and skateparks and into mainstream culture. Popular feminine fashion of the early 90’s was minimalist and muted, favoring simple shapes like slip dresses and cardigans and in clear opposition to the neon spandex and sculpted powersuits of the 80’s.
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