Read This: An oral history of the over-the-top fashion of Clueless
This being the year of Clueless’ 20th Anniversary, tons of retrospectives are popping up across the internet. One that’s well worth a read is an oral history assembled by Uproxx that explores the film’s unique sense of style. Writer-director Amy Heckerling and costume designer Mona May provide the bulk of the interview with actors Wallace Shawn (a.k.a. Mr. Hall) and Justin Walker (a.k.a. Christian Stovitz) on hand to give their perspectives as well.
It turns out Heckerling and May were friends before the project and grew even closer as they tried to costume an entire school full of fashion-forward students—including 60 costume changes for the lead girls—all on a relatively small budget. May explains:
So much of creating films, directors can be male… not understanding fashion and maybe even afraid of it. And [Heckerling] was completely full on and understood how important fashion is in the film. She has amazing sense of fashion and that is incredibly helpful to a designer on a movie. The collaboration is so much more heightened because of that.