by Tom Broecker is no stranger to working under pressure. As well as iconic TV series such as 30 Rock and House of Cards and numerous Broadway plays, the award-winning costume designer dressed the team Saturday Night Live—who changes in and out of multiple costumes in real time every week—for a whopping 30 years. But with the new musical cinematic adaptation of it Mean Girls—out in today’s theaters—he faced a challenge of sorts: recreating a beloved classic of early ’00s cinema, full of memorable looks, for a new generation.
The new film is an adaptation of the 2018 Broadway musical, based on the original 2004 film, so Broecker had clear fashion iconography to draw on, and a significant opportunity to say something new. As beloved as the original Mean Girls still, it was important to Broecker and directors Samatha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. that this version represents the particular cultural moment of 2024. So, while there are definite nods to the look of the original film – the Santas, certain blouses, specific Halloween costumes – Broecker took the musical film’s costumes in a new direction.
A big focus, he explains, was how early millennial fashion seems to be coming back into style with Gen Z kids these days – albeit with some important updates. Something about Y2K fashion “fits better” this time, he says, also noting that shoppers today care more about sustainability and how certain products are made. More importantly, Broecker says, he wanted to use the film’s fashion to reflect each character’s self-actualization arc.
The results? Bring completely. Here’s what the costume designer had to say.
We are obviously dealing with a film adaptation of the Broadway musical adaptation of the original film. How do you decide which clothing decisions from previous iterations are included and where to take creative liberties?
What is sacred and iconic and inalienable? There were so many issues that we dealt with in terms of that. In general, we used to push away and make new interpretations. But there are a lot of easter egg moments. The story takes place in 2024, and even if you didn’t have the original version, I think it would still be the same. For example, the winter talent show where the girls are dressed as warm Santas – those costumes have been updated and changed, but they are still warm Santa costumes. We’ve changed them and updated them, but they really reference the originals. These are made from sparkles, not latex. We are pushing into a version that is similar to but also different from.
Looking for other Easter egg costume moments?
The thing to keep in mind is that many scenes from the original film have been cut out, as it is now a musical. But Tina Fey wears a vest in one of the scenes, and we referenced that idea for today, because maybe this teacher would still wear a vest. We also paid tribute to the last polka dot blouse she wears in the original for the big audition scene at the end. This character would still have the same aesthetic today.
So it was very important to update it for 2024. Is Gen Z fashion a big part of the film?
That was one of the things that the directors really wanted: This has to be in 2024, and this is a high school in the suburbs of Chicago. This is not a Euphoria high school or a Backtalk girl high school – those shows are beautifully designed, but this is not the case. Mean Girls Gen Z is its own thing, with lots of gender fluidity, athleisure, and lots of vintage and second-hand thrifting. Oddly enough, a lot of Gen Z fashion references the Eighties and Y2K. It’s interesting how much fashion is referencing that period, but it fits better now. And now there’s this focus on sustainability and how things are made too.
The 90s have been trending in fashion for years, but it finally feels like Y2K fashion is coming to an end.
There’s this Juicy Couture thing, the trucker hat thing—if you’re looking, it’s there and just starting to hit the high school kids.
It’s interesting to hear you talk about Y2K fashion. When I spoke to the costume designer of Saltburn, which is set in 2006, 2007, she mentioned that it is difficult for the Uppers to dress them, because those fashions are not completely hit in the costume houses yet. They are still in many people’s closets, so she ended up doing a lot of shopping on the RealReal and similar sites.
Fully. Betsey Johnson, Treasure, Bebe! We shot in New Jersey, so we did a lot about great thrifting in New Jersey; and here in New York City, we have places like Crossroads [Trading] and Buffalo Exchange. The thing about this movie is that kids don’t shop like that anymore. Shop for children from her phone. So we did a lot of Instagram shopping. I was on Instagram shopping all the time, and now the algorithm thinks I’m a 16-year-old girl!
What was the hardest look to get right?
I think what the musical does really well is that it reframes the story through Janis and Damian’s point of view. Each character is funneled through their eyes. And for this film, those new actors [Auliʻi Cravalho and Jaquel Spivey] giving their own life to the characters, and it was very important, because they are different from the original. So it was really important to get the main characters right—Janis, Damian, Regina, Cady, Gretchen, and Karen. We had to convince Janis to be 2024 Janis, not 2004 Janis.
It’s a challenge – to immediately recognize these characters through the lens we already know them, but also to create space for the new actors to bring their own spin.
With Janis in particular, she is queer and lesbian, and there is no queer coding in this film. It was very important for us to show her creative life as a musician and artist. She does this yarn art that becomes a central moment in the film, and was very important to her character’s sense of texture, that layering. High school is a difficult time – you put on clothes one day to feel like one person, then you come home and think, I’m not really that person, and then the next day you put on something else and you reset differently. . So by the end, Janis is stripped of all this decor and extras, and we simply see her in her lilac tuxedo. She no longer needs to hide behind her eclecticism. She presents herself exactly as she is, and that’s really powerful.
Because of your background working on saturday night live, who has a frenetic reputation, I’m curious how you got to work on a film.
Working on a film is like, “Yes how long?!” And for SNL I usually have like 12 hours. We shot [the new Mean Girls] in 32 days, which is still really fast. But what I love about this is that there’s a storytelling arc that you can share through the clothes, but at SNL, it’s just setting up a situation so you can listen to the jokes. And this movie goes from a few days before school starts all the way through the prom, so we see these whole character arcs.
Was there anything from your clothing department that the actors tried to steal?
I’m not going to say! But there were five people who were like, “I’m taking this!” And I was like, “Okay, but if we do reshoots, I know where you get!” One of them was very nice and said, “I want to take some of these things because this is my first time on a shoot and I really love my wardrobe.” Someone can be warm in a paper bag and look great, but if they’re wearing the smallest swimsuit and don’t feel comfortable, they won’t feel or be warm. So if we can make people feel good, we’ve done half our job.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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