The Style of 'Romy and Michele' Is More On-Trend Than Ever

On the 25th anniversary of the cult-classic comedy starring Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino, costume designer Mona May reflects on its iconic fashion.

romy and michele's fashion, fashion in romy and michele's high school reunion
Image by Chineme Elobuike for Thrillist
Image by Chineme Elobuike for Thrillist

Within the first few minutes of Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, the titular best friends and roommates gush over how incredible their outfits are before heading to the club. Admiring her red latex trench coat and cheetah-print corset in the mirror, Mira Sorvino's Romy says, "I can't believe how cute I look." Lisa Kudrow's Michele, dressed in a blue, feather-lined jacket, agrees. "I know. You know what? This is, like, the cutest we've ever looked."

As they say, they're "not being conceited," they're "just being honest." It's true—the 28-year-old Angelenos do look so freaking cute. With a closet like theirs, full of platform shoes and homemade sequined dresses, they always look fabulous. But clothes are more than just looking cute for them: Style is integral to their idea of self-expression and their friendship, which is the center of the 1997 comedy directed by David Mirkin and written by Robin Schiff.

After 25 years, the fashion of Romy and Michele feels more on-trend than ever, one reason why the movie about former high school outcasts who lie about inventing Post-its at their 10-year reunion is a cult classic. Today, when '90s-inspired clothes have infiltrated contemporary style and it's the norm to play with colors and prints, it seems like the boutique the duo opens at the end of the film could be real and incredibly popular. More than that, though, Romy and Michele's ethos—the belief that what's cool is being yourself and letting that come through in what you wear—seems more "in" than ever.

lisa kudrow in romy and michele, romy red latex jacket
Buena Vista Pictures

Much of the film's iconic fashion legacy can be owed to costume designer Mona May, who has influenced generations of fashion fiends with an impressive résumé that includes Clueless, The House Bunny, and Never Been Kissed. May saw Romy and Michele as a fashion movie from the beginning. She recognized in the screenplay the characters' affinity for dressing up and designing their own looks and was excited about the project when she was approached by director David Mirkin, with whom she had previously worked on the early-'90s sketch comedy series The Edge. "He called me and said, 'I really want you to do it because I love your point of view, the exuberance, the color that you use," May tells Thrillist. "You can bring the fashion to this and to these characters. He gave me a bit of a carte blanche to just go for it."

While there wasn't a huge budget or many weeks of preparation, May made mood boards with magazines cutouts, met with production designer Mayne Berke (The Princess Diaries) to see what the world of Romy and Michele's Venice apartment would look like, sourced high-end clothes here and there, like Moschino and Valentino, and hit vintage stores to create and bring to life her vision of the film's style. "The characters were interested in fashion, [but unlike] Clueless, where they had money, here they made their own fashion because they didn't have the money," May says. "Now [thrift shopping] is very popular, but not in the '90 when the movie was made. You didn't wear high and low. So I think the movie was, at the time, very fresh because there were designer pieces, then there were thrifted pieces, and there were basic pieces mixed in. It really felt like a wardrobe that somebody could do."

romy and michele cherry earrings
Buena Vista Pictures

When it came to piecing everything together and the fittings—Kudrow and Sorvino alone had somewhere between 40 and 50 costume changes—it ended up being a hands-on process, sounding like how one might imagine Romy and Michele getting ready on a Friday night. "It was such a collaborative effort," May says. "The fittings were so much fun. Sometimes we did the fittings together, too, so it was like, 'Oh, my god. Are you wearing that? No, I'm wearing this! I'm borrowing it from your closet!'"

May says, "It's such a good thing, I think, for the designer to work with actors and be very open because they have to fill the shoes. As you even do the fittings, more and more details come out and they start feeling who the character is for them, too." As involved as the stars were, though, they each had their own ideas and different favorite pieces. Kudrow, for one, was obsessed with the cherry accessories from the '50s that May thrifted, and Sorvino supplied pieces from her own closet, like the silver dress she wears to the club to try to snag a hot date to the reunion.

"What was very important [to Sorvino] was to make the distinctions between their characters," May says. It's something you can see in each of their ensembles, despite dressing similarly, with Kudrow's Michele always glamming it up with boas and bedazzled heels and Sorvino's Romy being a bit more toned-down. May says it's especially evident in the duo's businesswomen cosplay, in which she designed Michele to have a more feminine neckline and miniskirt and Romy in a pinstriped men's suit. "It was actually Mira's idea, too. She said, 'I really wanted to be more masculine,' and it was great."

romy and michele prom scene
Buena Vista Pictures

One of the reasons the film and its looks have resonated with so many for so long is because it's so unabashedly feminine. Nearly all of the outfits embrace color, playfulness, and cheeky accessories. That embrace of femininity is something that's long been a goal in May's work.

"Something that I want the audience to go away with is, 'Oh, I love this. I can wear this. That's really cute,'" she says. "I think when Clueless came out, it was so interesting—it was like grunge was ending and there was permission for girls to dress feminine again. I think that Romy and Michele was a follow-up to that, like, 'Let's play! Let's add bedazzle, let's add vinyl, let's add a furry boa!' It's fun, and I think we need that in life."

romy and michele pink and blue dresses
Buena Vista Pictures

The fashion of Romy and Michele also feels more relevant than ever because of how much young people have recently embraced personal style—even when it might break rules or go against what's trendy—whether that's on TikTok or with the resurgence in popularity of thrifting. ("I just get really happy when they finally let her shop," a teary Michele says while watching Pretty Woman at the start of the film.) That theme of owning your individuality runs through the film. Early in the prom flashback, the girls are dressed like '80s-era Madonna, and we see that, as May says, "they were the coolest—they just didn't know it." That continues right up to the finale when they change into their homemade pink and blue dresses at the reunion.

"I loved designing those dresses because it was so important to be who they were," May says. "I think it's very important to young girls [to see] because it's like, 'This is who we are. We are not going to fake it. We are not going to pretend. This is really us.'" And, yet again, they look so freaking cute—the cutest they've ever looked.

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Sadie Bell is the entertainment associate editor at Thrillist. She's on Twitter and Instagram.