Lauren Hadley, Costume Critique

I was in middle school when Mean Girls first aired in 2004. I remember the day perfectly. I went to the opening night in the theatre and saw it with my best friend at the time, Bella. I may be over exaggerating a little, but we fell in love with the movie. The moment we left the theatre, we decided to wear pink EVERY Wednesday. We were crazy!

The costume designer for Mean Girls was Mary Jane Fort. She has also worked on other productions such as the Scary Movies, and Bring It On. Last year marked ten years since the movie came out and Nylon Magazine wanted to celebrate by interviewing Fort. They asked how much research she did before she started designing the wardrobe for the characters and she said, "We read millions of teen magazines and looked through millions of high school yearbooks from all over the country. But real schools are not quite as glossy, and we wanted a little more gloss just given the subject matter of the group." 

I think that Fort did a good job at creating looks which matched the timing of the production which took place in the early 2000s. I can recall seeing similar looks in my school at the time. There were about three major differences I noticed in costume between characters, Cady (Pre-Plastic), the Plastics, and Janice.

Before Cady became a Plastic, her style was very relaxed and casual. It was obvious that looks were not important to her. Although, she still looked very natural and beautiful. This all makes sense because she moved to her new school from Africa. Even her hair was very casual and seen always in a ponytail. She wore plaids, solid colors and a majority of her skin was covered up. When she joined the Plastics, everything changed; from her personality to her style. She now wore much brighter, tighter clothing. Suddenly she had Barbie doll legs and cleavage. Looks were not at the top of her priority list. I really liked how Cady dressed before she became a plastic. I like the natural, laid back look she had. It seemed very comfortable unlike those mini-skirts and high heels she began to wear.


Janice, Cady’s new best friend had a very unique look also. Some would describe her style as punk, or emo. Through her style, it was obvious she didn’t care about what she looked like or what people thought of her. She wore a lot of dark colors such as blacks and army green. Her clothes were baggy and loose which didn’t show off her body shape. She was an individual and she made that known through her wardrobe. Even on her prom night, she wore something very unique and something not many girls would think of wearing, a Barney-purple tuxedo. Although I would not ever wear what Janice wore, I was inspired by her individualism and lack of care.