30 Years of Clueless: An Interview with Costume Designer Mona May

Can you believe it’s been THIRTY YEARS since we first got to see Clueless?! 

This iconic movie has given us so many fun quotes that we still quote today – plus some major closet envy! (Still dreaming of that outfit computer program *dreamy sigh*)

The outfits in Clueless are amazing, and for this special 30th anniversary collection, we had to honor them! 

Our new Clueless accessories include: 

·       A Cher Cosplay Mini Backpack

·       A Dionne Cosplay Mini Backpack

·       Clueless 30th Anniversary Mystery Pins

Whether you’re looking for the perfect accessory to go with a cosplay or you want to carry a bag around to show off your love for this film, everything in this Clueless merch collection is a must-have! 

To celebrate these incredible outfits, we sat down with costume designer Mona May to discuss her work on Clueless, how she looks back on the 30th anniversary, and her new book, The Fashion of Clueless – out October 28th! (You can order it here!)

Read our interview below or click on the video to watch it on YouTube! 

You know, it's amazing, like you said, that it's 30 years that this movie has lived in our consciousness, in our hearts, and in the fashion world for so many years. It's really a testament what a great film it is.

And I think all the elements kind of came together so beautifully, with the script, with the director, with all the creatives and the actors being just... I mean, Alicia Silverstone was just the magic too, which was amazing. 

I was very lucky because I met Amy Heckerling, the director, on another project. It was a pilot for television, and we just fell in love with each other, like creatively, when you meet your soulmate, it's so amazing. Remember, this is before the phones and computers, so we would bring the same tear sheets. And if you don't know what tear sheets are, it's like you tear a picture from a magazine of an outfit, and we would bring the same one to work. So fun. 

The pilot didn't get picked up, but we just had such a good time. So when she wrote Clueless, she called me up and she said, you know, you really are the girl to do it because I grew up in Europe. I actually studied in Europe, then I studied in New York and Los Angeles fashion. So fashion was kind of my first love before I came into costume design. So she knew that I can bring something very unique to this movie by my point of view. You know, more European. 

And, you know, the movie is about fashionista girls in high school, you know, girls who have unlimited amount of money to buy clothes. So that was just, I think, completely a dream come true to have a project that really has the fashion, has the costume design, which is more about developing the characters.

And, you know, the process was very interesting. Because when we went scouting to schools, you know, like in the Valley here in Los Angeles, and, you know, even Beverly Hills High, we looked for locations and we looked at the kids and everybody was wearing grunge. So there was no blueprint for us on the streets at the time. I mean, it was, you know, Kurt Cobain was a big deal at the time, you know, so it was just, you know, grandma sweaters, plaid shirts, big shirts, baggy pants. And me and Amy basically looked at each other was like, okay, this is not the world that we want to be living in in this movie.

I had to really, you know, when a movie is made, it takes about a year for it to come out, you know, so not only do we have to predict kind of what's going to happen a year from when the movie is being made, but also what should people really wear, you know, in this film.

So my task was to really look at the runway shows, you know, to go to London and Paris and Milan, even Berlin, New York of course, and see what's happening. You know, what's happening cause fashion is six months ahead. You know, this is where the girls probably would go with their daddy's card, you know, to the fashion shows, and they can pick anything up.

But the very important part of costume design is to really find the characters and who they are. So you can't just take the clothes from the runways and put it on my little 16 year old girls. It would just look weird, you know, they're not super models. We don't want high heels. 

So as a costume designer, I had to kind of translate that idea into something that makes sense in the world of a sixteen-year-old in high school, and Amy really wanted the movie to be very sweet, very feminine.

You know, we wanted to be age appropriate in a way and bring something that is the opposite of what we've been seeing on the street, you know, really kind of like, let's have the girls dress up again. You know, that was the idea. And of course, California is so bright, there’s so much green and colors and, you know, flowers. So, the colors really needed to be very California and fun. It was kind of also the antidote to what was on the street, which was so dark and kind of gloomy.

You know, it never happens that you just go and look at the yellow plaid suit and bring it in and that's it. It's really, you know, as a costume designer, you have the ideas, and you have to kind of think of the character. Who are they? 

You know, like Cher, she was always very in control. She was the number one in school, right? The queen bee. You know, who was Dionne? She was more funky, right? She had a darker skin tone, you know, different colors would look good on her. She was more sassy.

So, this is kind of what I have to first imagine. You know, those are kind of my clues to what the costume should be to make the girls feel authentic. Then, of course, we do beautiful boards from magazines, you know, show the director, show the actor, so we're all on the same page. You know, how are we bringing the high fashion into the high school?

But then we have to go shopping. You know, we have to go and find the pieces.

And that was also very challenging because I'm shopping for something that's not out there, right? It doesn't exist. So, I have to really be very innovative and scrappy in a way. I have to, you know, [we] don't have a lot of money. It's not a huge budget movie, too. It's a medium-sized film, and I had a lot of people to dress. I had to dress the whole entire cast. I had to dress the whole, all the people that you see in the film, the background actors in classrooms and on the quads. So there's a lot of clothes that I had to find.

But that was kind of cool because I was able to, because, you know, sometimes it's the mother of invention when you don't have something, you know, you kind of find it. So I had to go for the high-end stuff, but then also to thrift stores, to the mall, and kind of make my own mix. 

That was very unusual, I think, for the time as well, because people didn't dress high and low. They kind of dressed as a punk rocker, they dressed preppy or rockabilly. They didn't kind of do what we do now, which is, you know, have the Balenciaga bag with the ripped jeans and the flip-flops and the expensive leather jacket.

So it's very interesting. That was really cool to bring that fresh mix. So all of that, let's go shopping, let's find the pieces wherever they are, and then the fitting room is really when the magic happens. 

It's really like a laboratory in my fitting room. Alicia comes in, she comes in in her sweatpants. You know, she's eighteen years old, you know, a hippie at heart. She's already saving the world and saving the animals. She comes with her dogs in her sweatpants and here are all the high-end clothes.

So here we are now, have to really figure out who that girl is and have Alicia try them on and figure out what works. 

Completely. And I think every actor, I don't think some actors, I think really [for] every actor, it's that way because you get into the skin. You can have crazy ideas of what that could be, my imagination, the director’s imagination, but not [until] Alicia puts it on, or any actor, you really figure it out.

And, you know, in her case was so interesting because she didn't really know fashion. So we had to teach her. So she was learning about the character as she was putting the clothes on, you know, how to stand, how to move. You know, the clothes are very binding as she says in the movie. And it's not what she was used to with the kind of sweatpants look that she preferred. 

And for example, you know, here's a great story about the yellow suit. We knew that we wanted to do something very spectacular for the first day of school. You know, it was meet the character first day. She's outside in a quad. A lot of people are going to be crossing in front of her. 

And I wanted to do something with plaid because I was thinking, okay, always kind of going to reality, even though it's very, you know, out there, the fashion, very heightened fashion, but you know, a school girl, so Catholic school girl uniform, plaid skirt, little sweater vest – and then how do you take that and what would Cher do, right? 

So, okay, of course, Vivian Westwood plaid is always so cool. So I was talking to Amy, let's do plaid suit. Great. So I found like a blue one because I thought [Alicia] would look beautiful in it and a red one. 

And then corner of my eye, I saw the yellow one, you know, it was off the rack. It was a Jean Paul Gaultier junior line. It was kind of out of my budget. I was like, it's so cool. 

And it just, the yellow was so beautiful. And I was like, I don't know, yellow doesn't even look good on blondes, right? It's not something like I wear often as a blonde.

And in a fitting, we tried the blue suit. It was beautiful, but just was like hmm, we tried the red one and Amy immediately was like, okay, this is not our color palette for fall, this is our Christmas palette, which is later in the movie.

Alicia put the yellow one on and it was like, we had goosebumps on our arms because it was so perfect. It was a ray of sunshine. She was the queen bee. 

Everything that we wanted for that moment, we knew that she's going to pop in the scene, right against the green outside. That no matter how many people cross in front of her, she would just be the number one girl. And it made the history, but you know, it's a process.

Well, I think each girl's story gets told. You know, I think the big story is, of course, fashion and Beverly Hills and girls having money and, you know, really bring it on in a way to the maximum, something that really no one has seen before. But, you know, the movie is about friendship.

It's about the real girls. And I had to make the girls authentic and real because you would not really relate to them if they were just kind of, you know, again, models running around in their high heels. There’s so much story and clothes really, color especially too, tell a story and emotion, and I'm very much about color. You know, I think being born in India, [the] first things that I saw in life really kind of made me fall in love with color.

 I think color has so much energy. So this movie was very uplifting. You know, it was all about the energy, about the fashion, but it had to be authentic, rooted in the girls that you can emulate, and you feel like you love. So it's such a combination of things that really make a good story that you can relate to and love and [can] live for that many years. I think the movie would never live that long if these characters didn't really touch us so deeply.

And inspiring, and I think that was really the point.

I think really to be inspired to not dress like a boy, in grunge, to be a girl, to really embrace that, you know, and all the pieces of the cap sleeves and the empire waist and the little A-line skirts and berets and peacoats – things that are timeless, you know, for girl bodies. It always looks good on us. 

Well, it's [the] 30th anniversary, and it's about time that we had something, a legacy now honoring all the costumes in one place, in one book, where you can turn the page, and the book is written chronologically like the movie. So you're opening [it] as the movie unfolds and you meet all the different characters and [I’m] telling the stories of us being together making this movie and talking with Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd and reminiscing the times of how young we were and how fun it was – kind of naiveté in a way of us not even knowing how big the movie is going to be and to have all the behind the scenes photos.

I mean, things that I haven’t seen…there's photos in there that are costume continuity Polaroids that I haven't seen in 30 years that Paramount found. That actually survived. It’s a complete treasure chest. 

And, you know, just the talking to everyone and the camaraderie, the kind of connection that we all had, because this movie made us family and springboarded all of our careers. I mean, Amy really chose us in a way to be part of this amazing journey, such a fun journey. And I want people to have something in their hands to be able to kind of go to at any time and be inspired. You don't have to go and see the movie or wait for it to be on Netflix or somewhere. You really can have it in your home. And, you know, anytime you maybe feel sad, you can open the book and feel good and see the characters and say hello. 

And there are style guides there too. So, how to dress like Cher maybe for a date, but with the clothes now. What about your new gym outfit that you want to have? You know, so it's really fun. It's, to me, it's a very creative place. It's for people to get creative, maybe get off your phone and kind of like dive into it and hear the story from a different angle too, from kind of the insider eye.

You know, I'm a big book lover, and I think it's so great to have books that you love, that you can always go to and be inspired and have fun and share with friends or family, mom.

You know, I mean, it's like, there's so many moms and daughters, fans of the movie. How fun is that? I mean, it's so amazing to see the span of different ages. You know, you have the women who were young when the movie came out and now are in their 40s or 50s and their daughters, who are teenagers.

I had even as young as an eight-year-old come to one of my screenings and talks, which is just amazing. The book is for everyone. It is for the 50, 60-year-old and the eight-year-old, you know, and any kind of creative person, I think will enjoy it. 

I think so. I think it's about being creative, about looking at the clothes and reading about the stories and going, oh my God, how fun! Maybe I should do something fun and change it. And, oh, I remembered it, I love that blouse! Oh, remember this? That was so cool. Oh, Paul Rudd. Amazing!

You know? And I think also learning about a costume designer, what a costume designer does. I think [there’s] a little bit of a mystique behind what we do. Sometimes people think that actors wear their own clothes or, you know, what is the process? And, you know, the actors talking about working with me and how the relationship was and how it informed them and how we kind of created these characters together.

I mean, you know, stories like Paul Rudd, he reminded me, “Hey, I wore my own jeans, remember? And my own boots.” I was like, “You're right!” We had to save money somewhere, you know? But so fun, really fun. So yeah, I mean, I think just having fun in life, we need more fun. 

You know, it's just the best memory because I was very young. It was one of my first studio movies. I didn't even have an agent yet. I had this amazing director who chose me to do this incredible film. Now I get to play the role of the costume designer and the fashion designer, two of my loves combined.

Amy was also this person that encouraged all of us to just be the best of ourselves in the way in our craft. So I feel like she allowed me to paint the, you know, the picture in any color, in any outfit, in any, I mean, she encouraged me to use hats. I mean, not many directors allow you that.

So, she almost opened like a genie out of the bottle, you know, that I just came out and I was like, oh, I can do all of this and nobody's stopping me?! So, it allowed me to kind of gain confidence as an artist, you know? And then the success of the film also allowed me to believe that wow, it worked, you know? Because sometimes you may do something wild and it's like, okay… But it worked, you know, the movie just blew up and everybody started dressing like that, like in the film.

And then each movie after, you know, I kind of had a certain signature, you know? The color became really part of my signature. And all the movies that I get to do, the female-driven comedies and Romy and Michelleand Wedding Singer and Never Been Kissed and Enchanted and House Bunny, it's just such a dream. So it really, you know, it started all of our careers in a way. I mean, Paul Rudd, it was one of his first movies. Alicia had worked before, but that movie put her on the map, you know? It kind of put all of us on the map in a way.

And the book, too, talks about it. Each of the actors I interviewed spoke about that, how special that movie was and what it meant to them. 

Well, I just love the fittings, you know? Fittings are really my favorite thing as a costume designer, developing the character, really diving in with the actor, you know? 

And it's like, for example, when I had Stacey Dash who played Dionne in the fitting, she was already from New York and she was a little older. She had a fashion sense and she was already sassy, and like, she knew what she wanted. She's like, “Yeah, this is great. Let's do the vinyl skirt!” And we use so many kinds of vintage pieces with her, like the leopard jackets and vintage purses and a little bit more brighter colors than Alicia could wear.

So that really is super fun. And I think dressing extras too, because it was so important to create the world. Like if you had all the main actors dressed in all the finest clothes, you know, Alicia Silverstone, her 63 changes and Dionne in, you know, 45. If the extras were grungy, you'd be like, what's this world? Okay, these girls are cool, but…  

So every morning I had to come and we had the extras lined up in front of the truck and gave them a whole makeover because they had to come out of grunge and put the cool clothes on and have the hats and have the backpacks and accessories. I mean, my goodness, it was wild.

But that's the best memories of just really creating this world that now you can completely dive into when you're watching the movie and you're immersed in this kind of hyper stylized world that everybody belongs. 

Oh my God. I mean, hello, you guys. How fun is that? I mean, truly, this is what we're talking about, being creative and having fun. I mean, this is such a great, you know, rendition of my outfit.

You can see the little yellow sweater underneath. You have the pleated skirt. You know, there's a lot of pockets.I mean, you even have the chain, which is so cute. And the little pink pen. I mean, everybody should have this in their repertoire.

And I mean, there's also Dionne, which is so cute. We have the dynamic duo, which are so fabulous. And the vinyl, look at the little vinyl collar that I added to her outfit. I just think it's so fun. And you guys did such a beautiful job.

It's so perfect. It's a perfect gift, I think, for yourself or others. And it's just going to make you way cooler wearing it. I think if Cher saw this, she would approve it. It's so fabulous.

I think with this book, they can go into more detail.

You know, they can kind of understand how things work, that maybe the extras had to be dressed, and everyone that you see had to be touched. And kind of look behind the layers of things, you know, that just you see the first things, but then you go deeper. I think what's so interesting to me when I look at the clothes, and I'm so proud of that, that you look at the pieces and they are all wearable now, not just by a nostalgic way, they're just still cool and relevant in the fashion.

And that's kind of the way that I see the world. That's how I dress my girls and my actors and men in films. It's kind of timelessness of fashion, you know, and really look at something that can live that many years.

So maybe there's something that you can wear and it's not always the flash fashion moment, you know, the micro trend or whatever it is. You know, I think that maybe we can look at fashion, and now I think sustainability is very important. 

You know, so this also teaches you that maybe the pieces that you have can work forever. You know, it's that perfect black dress or the perfect red dress like the Alaïa or the perfect date dress. Maybe those are your staples in your wardrobe. That’s what I would love people to see and kind of learn. You know, learning about yourself, who you are. We all play kind of certain characters in life, right? And, you know, maybe we can open up to other things and especially be inspired, I think, by color.

You know, that's really, I would love people to wear more color, especially people from New York. In LA, we have a little bit more of a brighter palette. So, you know, maybe open up people to more color, which would be great.