Transcendent as it may be, the film’s fashion is not exactly meant to be attainable in terms of affordability. “This is a movie about girls who have daddy’s credit cards and they can go shopping at runway shows and designer clothes,” May says. Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs, and Alexander McQueen were on the mood board, while Alaïa (“an A-what-a?”) and Calvin Klein are name-dropped in the script. But in reality, the film’s $25 million budget—roughly $60 million in 2025, still on the lower end of a mid-budget movie—did not allow for the Rodeo Drive wardrobe that the characters would have owned. “I went for the designer pieces, but then I had to get the thrift store stuff and alter everything,” May says. “Nobody mixed things like that before. The high and low didn’t exist. I think that also is what gave this timelessness.”
ph: Elliot Marks / © Paramount Pictures/ Courtesy: Everett Collection
What kept May grounded, at the end of the day, was the realization that the film was about teen girls. Sure, they were shopping with grown-up cash, but they were still figuring it all out. (Brands like Trina Turk, Miss Sixty, and Betsey Johnson helped inject the youthfulness.) “It’s young girls, 16 years old. They’re not supermodels walking around. They’re innocent,” May says. “I think that’s why the movie is beloved—because they feel real.”
