MEAN GIRLS COSTUME DESIGN
The 2004 cult classic Mean Girls had a huge impact on pop culture; if you ask any teen girl, she has most likely seen it at least once. The movie is a commentary on the social hierarchy of high school clique culture. Though the movie is full of iconic lines and an incredible cast, the costume design stands out amongst it all. Nothing makes me happier than a film where you can see the story through the clothing, and it’s no surprise that Mean Girls does an incredible job at portraying this.
I would recommend watching this movie before reading it, but if you don’t, a summary is that Cady Heron moves from Africa to a new school, and she gets coined a “regulation hottie” by school outcast Janice Ian, who encourages her to join the Plastics and take them down. Long story short, Cady becomes engulfed by revenge and popularity after seeing lead Plastic Regina George kissing her crush. The plan to destroy the Plastics eventually backfires when Regina finds out about all the things Cady has done to ruin her status. Prompting Regina to leak the Burn Book (which had a nasty thing written about everyone in the school.) Making the school go crazy, and then causing Cady to lose her status when confessing she had written the entire book (even though she had only written one page lying about her teacher pushing drugs). After all of that, she wins homecoming queen, gives a speech, gets the cute guy, the Plastic make-up, and everyone learns their lesson.
We start the movie with Cady, our main character, a homeschooled, innocent girl from Africa. At the beginning of the movie, she is shown in mostly browns, reds, greens, and navy blue. Though she doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb, she definitely doesn’t reach the level of style of the Plastics. When Cady goes to the mall with the Plastics after being invited to sit with them for the rest of the week, she wears an oversized pink tee shirt from Damien because she had nothing pink. Pink, at this point, has not entered Cady’s radius yet. The pink shirt being oversized could symbolize that Cady is just being thrown into this newfound femininity and popularity that she has yet to grow into. At the Halloween party, she wears a homemade “ex wife” costume, and compared to the other people at the party, she looks crazy since she didn’t dress like the majority of the girls in tight costumes or lingerie. Regina kisses Aaron Samuals at the party, which then causes Cady to go full-fledged revenge on her by pretending to be plastic and taking down Regina.
Once she begins her indoctrination into being a Plastic, she starts to wear baby blues, whites, and pinks, as well as incorporating new jewelry such as skirts, tanks, track suits, and, of course, heels. In the slow motion scene of her walking in the hallway, she wears a baby blue jacket, a pink cami resembling the colors that Karen wears, a gingham skirt drawing inspiration from Gretchen, and accessories such as her Louis Vuitton bag and C necklace that Regina would wear. Every part of this outfit resembles the colors and styles of other plastics, symbolizing that she has yet to find her own style. Moving on to when she starts having an obsession with destroying Regina, she wears hotter pinks and reds. Red is usually shown as a powerful and sensual color, which makes sense for her to wear as she is rising over Regina and trying to get Aaron to like her back. When she is crowned queen bee by Karen and Gretchen, she is wearing a hot pink ‘Rebel’ shirt, a black polka-dot mini skirt, and heart-hoop earrings. We learn from Gretchen that hoop earrings are “Regina’s thing.” Though this is most likely a stretch, her earrings being hearts and not circle hoops could be a symbol that even though Cady is in Regina’s place now, she won’t ever have the same amount of power Regina does. At the party that officially marks the downfall of Cady, she wears a black pleather dress with a silk strip down the front. This dress slightly mimics the dress that Regina had on hold for the homecoming. Once we’ve reached the end of the movie, when the burn book has been revealed to the whole school and the plastics are broken up, Cady is shown wearing more casual clothing, though it is less glamorized, as her plastic outfits look more polished than they did at the beginning of the movie. She wears bright blue, white, converse, and fitted jeans. Cady had a major transformation; to quote the movie, she went from “homeschooled jungle freak to shiny plastic to most hated person in the world to actual human being.”
The most fashionable people in the movie are the Plastics, who wear heels, skirts, slogans, and designers. I’d like to point out the heels. If you’ve ever been to a high school, you’d notice no one wears high heels on a regular basis, but the plastics do. This is because the plastics are not your average high school students; they are practically Barbie dolls. They wear designer outfits that the average person could not afford and that most people would not feel comfortable in. The outfits of the Plastics are extremely enviable, not only by the other characters in the movie but also by the audience.
The first plastic is Regina George; now Regina George is the ‘It Girl’ of Northshore High School, and her costume design most definitely shows it. We first see her wearing her gym uniform being carried by a group of boys. If you’ve ever taken a PE class, you know those uniforms are not the most flattering. She somehow pulls it off effortlessly without being overly provocative like Karen and Gretchen, cementing the fact that she can still be desirable without showing a lot of skin. When she invites Cady to sit with them, she’s wearing a black power suit with a pink popped collar. The power suit shows how powerful she is and the “boss” of her group, while the pink pop is a nod to her femininity. Now at the mall, she wears a tank that says “a little bit dramatic,” poking fun at the fact that she creates drama around her. She also wears a black skirt and a pink cardigan over it. Regina is mastering her very girly pink style, along with the black and red accents she wears to make her more intimidating. For the majority of the movie, her style stays pretty consistent, with high heels, skirts, and tanks, usually covered by a cardigan. Her Halloween costume was a bunny, which is clearly a nod to the Playboy bunnies, who were highly desired by men. Okay, anyway, back to Regina George’s clothing. While she is reaching her downfall due to the weight gain from the Kälteen bars, she wears a tracksuit in brown, which leads to her being kicked from the table. The brown reminds me of Cady at the beginning of the movie, where she is at the bottom of the hierarchy, showing how Regina has essentially lost her power. When she gives the burn book to the principal, blaming it on Cady, Gretchen, and Karen, she wears a black long-sleeve shirt, jeans, and a braid in her hair. She looks more put-together and ready for revenge than she did at the lunch table. At the end of the movie, once she has reconciled with everyone, she moves on to hang out with the sports girls and is seen in a gray long sleeve with a pink heart and jeans. She, like Cady, looks more down to earth but still keeps that small touch that made them who they are.
Gretchen Wieners, the most polished out of the group, takes inspiration from British and typically more conservative high fashion brands. She was a loyal follower of Regina George, constantly trying to win her affection. Even though her gym uniform exposed her stomach, she was more covered than Karen’s; she isn’t as desirable as Regina to not show any. Her mall outfit is by far my favorite out of all the outfits in the movie: a brown patterned skirt, a pink sweater, and a Tiffany Toggle necklace. Her Halloween costume was a black spandex cat costume, and even though it doesn’t show bare skin, the outfit is very form-fitting. Showcasing her conservativeness also contradicts a lot of the things she wears and does. By the end of the movie, she’s found a new clique, and she is dressing like them, showing that she really is just a follower, and sporting the silver hoop earrings that Regina George said she wasn’t allowed to wear.
Karen Smith: What you need to know about Karen is that she’s your average dumb blonde. But even though she’s in the Plastic Friends group, she was really just there for the ride. She was the most naive and childish in the group, and this is clearly portrayed in her outfits. She wears bows, mini skirts, baby pinks, and blues. We first see her in her gym uniform, which is very short shorts, and a tank top, which, as pointed out by Damine, established her as “slutty.” Her mall outfit was a fully pink head-to-toe outfit compared to the other girls. It looked more childish, as they used other colors and accessories. Her Halloween costume, which comes with the iconic line “I’m a mouse, duh,” is basically lingerie with mouse ears, further showing her as a slut. By the end of the movie, she is shown in basically the same clothing, showing that out of all the girls, she was the only one not pretending to be someone she wasn’t.
The physical opposite of Regina is Janis Ian; she wears a more gothic style highly reminiscent of present-day mall goth and grunge styles. She wears mostly black with accents of bright yellow and red. Her clothes consist of things that look homemade or thrifted, which could be a direct rejection of the mall culture that the rest of the Plastics practice. Although she herself doesn’t go through a major transformation through style, by the end of the movie, she is wearing hair clips that could be symbolic of her taking in her femininity and not rejecting it finally forgiving Regina, and having a boyfriend.
Mean Girls is an incredible movie, and the costume designer, Mary Jane Fort, deserves major props for her designs. If you haven’t seen it, I highly suggest you do. There is a reason it is so beloved by so many people.
Sources:
ModernGurlz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcvKdNiA7uc&t=1039s
Mean Girls(2004)
