“Means Girls,” a musical comedy inspired by the 2004 film, follows Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) as she navigates a new school, learning lessons on friendship, high school, and bullying.
Throughout the movie, which was released on Jan. 12, Heron becomes more akin to the school’s most popular girls, Regina George (Reneé Rapp), Karen Shetty (Avantika Vandanapu) and Gretchen Wieners (Bebe Wood), also known as “the plastics,” and spends much of the movie trying to fit in at a stereotypical American high school.
Although costume designer Tom Broecker – who has also designed many costumes for “Saturday Night Live” – followed the theme of pink, girly costumes, many of the looks are altered versions of the original outfits from the 2004 film, intended to follow current trends and appeal to a Generation Z audience.
According to an article from The New York Times, Broecker’s goal was to imagine what the high school characters from the 2004 film would dress as members of Gen Z.
Broecker said he used celebrities including Billie Eilish, Jenna Ortega and Sydney Sweeney as references for the costumes yet none of their style influences shine through in the film. Instead, many of the outfits look cheap, like they came from fast fashion sights like Shein.
Before the release of the film, visuals were released showing George wearing pink Isabel Marant trousers and a Bardot mesh crop top. Fans quickly took to social media making claims that the outfit looked like A.I.’s idea of how “trendy” teens dress.
The first time Heron was seen wearing pink in the 2004 film, she was wearing an oversized pink polo shirt while shopping at the mall with the plastics. Although the scene was cut from the new film – due to the fact that many teens spend their time online shopping rather than walking around the mall nowadays – Broecker incorporates the boxy pink look in a different way.
The pink polo shirt, which is a staple representing Heron's transition to becoming one of the plastics, is swapped out for an oversized pink vest in the new rendition of the film. The outfit change shows how style has changed in the last 20 years, and yet is not successful in representing current trends.
Although vests were trending during the COVID-19 pandemic, they have since gone out of style, leaving the supposedly trendy version of the outfit looking outdated.
Broecker was the most successful when he stuck the closest to the costume design of the original film.
The 2024 film’s “sexy Santa” costumes worn by the plastics for a school talent show were the looks most closely replicated by Broecker, who said he took inspiration from Ariana Grande’s version of the look in her music video for her song, “thank u, next,” making them more glittery than the plasticky skirts in the original film.
The film is missing much of the charm from the 2004 movie, focusing too heavily on social media, fast fashion and Gen Z buzzwords. The film missed the mark when representing Gen Z’s true meaning of teenage bullying, high school life and fashion.
