Production designer Steven Jordan found inspiration for the revolving aspect of the closet from a visit to a baseball collector’s museum-like home in New Jersey years prior. “He took a painting off the wall, and behind it was a conveyor belt full of historical baseball jerseys and things like that,” he recalls. “When I was trying to put a bedroom together for Cher, it just seemed like the way to go for the girl who has everything to add a dry cleaning conveyor belt.”
Even 25 years later, the Clueless closet largely remains a singular force. Still, there have been some who have tried to emulate it. Whering, for instance, is an app that allows users to style from their closet via the app on the go. Reformation even adopted a futuristic “smart” dressing room, where shoppers could view pieces on an iPad and order them to the dressing room. These are good attempts, but in May’s eyes, they’re still not the Clueless closet. “I don’t think anybody 30 years later has done it successfully,” she explains.
Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion
Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion quite literally begins and ends with clothes. At the beginning of the film, viewers get a glimpse of BFFs Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michele’s (Lisa Kudrow) affinity for colorful and kooky looks through the closet in their shared apartment in Venice Beach. Production designer Mayne Berke told director David Mirkin that the pair were the visual embodiment of “sherbet.” Their closet was an extension of that, with oranges, purples, blues, and pinks playing off of his aesthetic vision. “They were clubby girls,” says the film’s costume designer, Mona May. “They were going out, so the closet was a lot more fun. It was chain mail dresses, boas, a lot of leather and crazy patterns and much brighter, wild colors.”
Filming Romy and Michele from inside their purple-walled closet, the filmmakers were able to showcase the full extent of their fun and zany wardrobe. “We literally oversized it [to about] eight feet wide,” Berke recalls. “And we made the back of the closet removable so we could have the closet’s point of view.” For Berke, clothes are an important through line in the film: “It starts with the closet and clothes, [and] it ends with clothes in a designer boutique on Rodeo Drive
The Princess Diaries 2
