Sitting in the auditorium of the Morgan Library, I peeked over a girl’s shoulder at a drawing of Cher Horowitz. She was clad in a red and black brocade coat, its neck and cuffs fluffed with feathers, that signature red Alaïa dress underneath. She yammers into a chunky black cell phone at her ear, its antenna stretched far beyond her towering updo with a few strokes of a pen. A bright red Sharpie slashed the autograph Mona May, Clueless’s costume designer, across its left side. I nudged Steven Jude, sitting at my left. “How do we get one of those?”
It was a screening of Clueless in time for its 30th anniversary, and Mona May would be in attendance for a discussion at the end. Indeed, her book The Fashion of Clueless, comes out in October. But tonight the Morgan had creatively added the screening and discussion of the film–itself a retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma–to its programming in time for a Jane Austen exhibition, some of which also includes Austen’s personal style.
My exposure to Clueless as a young babe was life-altering. Like To Wong Foo, whose significance to my own life I’ve well-documented, Clueless was on rotation in my house as soon as it was on Pay-Per-View. Every time I’d scroll through the television channels, there it was, and I’d watch it from wherever it had started all the way to the end. I sat with rapt attention and more than anything, I’m sure it was the costumes that were eyecatching. That yellow plaid suit! The red Alaïa! The “most capable-looking outfit” for Cher’s driver’s test, that sheer ruffled blouse with matching sweater vest and argyle skirt. I wanted to be Cher. And I think now, watching the movie upon its 30th anniversary, I still do.
I think what I admired most was Cher’s confidence, even though, as she later learns herself in the film, she is so totally clueless. I loved the idea of what high school could be, how you could look in it, how people would talk and live. It’s what I wanted my life to be. It wasn’t exactly, but I’ve always made room for a good outfit. Clothes are a storytelling medium all their own, but the story we tell is one of our selves.
I met with a young costume designer recently who told me some hard truths about the state of the industry–how so many shows don’t care nearly enough about costumes and devalue the work of people in the department. I don’t think the days of turning to film and television for our fashion cues are gone, necessarily, but I live for the moments where when you remember a character you think of their costume, too. It’s what Mona May did with Clueless, where any given year you can still see people dressed as Cher and Dionne for Halloween. Consciousness: infiltrated. Incidentally, I’d learn, Mona May also did the costumes for Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (where one year I myself was Michele Weinberger to my friend Cassandra’s Romy White for Halloween…I made the dress myself and I still have it) and The House Bunny. When I text the latter to Steven Jude, he responds “To be clear: We met our Lord and Savior last night and didn’t even KNOW it (but felt it).” Truer words?
In the audience tonight, someone shows up in a replica of the yellow plaid suit, another in the “capable” outfit. And while I wear no costume replica, I’ve dressed for occasion and brave the heat: a colorful caftan with a vintage belt and wooden leopard heels.
Steven and I have been sending Clueless memes back and forth to each other for literal years, but somehow we’d never actually sat and watched it together. I don’t know that I’ve watched it with a lot of people, to be honest; it was a thing I mostly did while sitting on my mom’s bed as she filed her nails behind me. It was only later that I learned other people loved it as much as I did. At the Morgan, it was almost disorienting sitting in a room of people who felt the same. They also came not just for the film–it’s playing in a few places for the anniversary now–but for the costume designer, and there were so many of us that the event sold out.
I often felt lonely growing up as an only child and thought to myself surely nobody else knew about whatever this thing I loved was. But as I grew up, I learned I was almost always wrong; or, I found people who wanted to learn about the things I loved too and then share them with me.
When the lights come on after the screening, the organizers share that with the purchase of Mona’s book, you’d get a signed print of the costume sketch, the one with the black feather coat and the red Alaïa dress, drawn by Felipe Sanchez and designed by Mona May. My heart leapt, and Steven and I both got in line to meet Mona, buy our books, and get the print. She came down the line and shook everyone’s hand in a signature hat (she is apparently always wearing a hat) and thanked us for coming, said it was nice to meet us. And now, on my desk, sits the print I coveted. It says, “To Elyssa: Stay Fabulous! Xoxo” with Mona’s signature in matching red Sharpie. I clutched it like a teenager at a pop star meet and greet.
A programming coordinator from the museum was nearby. “I am 36 whole years old and I am delighted,” I said to her. My little seven-year-old heart did backflips. So much of what I do I do for her, the little girl. I don’t think she ever thought from the edge of the bed in her parents’ room watching the movie she would never peel herself away from, that she’d really get to New York, get dressed up, and go meet the person who created the reason she loved the movie so much in the first place. And yet here I sit at my desk, reflecting on the whole experience, a drawing of Cher and Mona May’s signature staring back at me. I totally paused.