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Why you're still obsessed with Clueless

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

From Harper's BAZAAR

Since the release of Clueless 25 years ago, the film has become a cult classic that is still pored over by audiences.

Starring Alicia Silverstone, Brittany Murphy and Paul Rudd, it follows the privileged lives of high school student Cher and her circle of friends living in a wealthy part of California. Over the years, the film has been repeatedly used as a cultural reference in fashion, and its script is still among the most quoted even today.

Costume designer Mona May has offered her insights as to why we're still so obsessed by the Clueless and its much-copied costumes.

“Maybe because of the times we’re in now and that intensity we are going through, it’s nice to look back to the more innocent times,” says May.

“That’s not to say Clueless is without substance, they are deep girls, but I think there’s a little bit of that nostalgia for those times without cell phones and knowing everything that is happening everywhere in the world," she continued. "Life wasn’t that complicated to the teens back then. There's a lot more that young people have to deal with now. ”

May explained that, while Cher and Dionne might be famed for their designer ensembles, real-life Beverly Hills teenagers of the time would have dressed very differently.

Instead, she said, they’d be more likely to bear a similar aesthetic to character Tai Murphy, echoing Kurt-Cobain inspired grunge trends of the '90s.

“Amy Heckerling really wanted the film to be ultra-feminine, very pretty, a kind of antidote to what was really happening on the street,” May told the Independent.

“We wanted to change the trends and give permission to women to be girly. I couldn’t take that from what the teens were wearing, so I had to truly invent it.”

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