Meet the woman who made Clueless matter

Sometimes in fashion — and in life — a look becomes more than fabric. It becomes a feeling, a memory, a shared language. A whole cultural love story stitched into a hem. And no one understands that alchemy better than Mona May, the costume sorceress who turned Clueless into the sartorial Torah of the 1990s — a film whose outfits didn’t just dress characters, but shaped identities.

Three decades on, May landed in London with a new book celebrating the film’s fashion universe — and its impact feels as seismic now as it did in 1995. The book is not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake; it’s a declaration of how costume design can define a generation. And like any great leading lady, May didn’t arrive alone. She teamed up with fashion darling Bernard Garby for an intimate soirée that felt part masterclass, part group therapy, part love letter to anyone who ever wondered if they, too, should have worn more plaid.

The room buzzed with fashion editors, creators and devoted fans — many of whom could still recite Cher Horowitz’s outfits the way others recall family recipes. There was reverence in the air. This wasn’t just about clothes. It was about memory, power, identity — and how style becomes selfhood.

The book itself reads like a love letter to costume design as an art form. Packed with behind-the-scenes photographs, original sketches and May’s own commentary, it pulls back the curtain on how each look came to life — not just whatCher wore, but why. May speaks openly about her process, her instincts, and her guiding philosophy: joie de vivre — joy as a visual language.

“I wanted to introduce people to the process of costume design and help them understand how looks come about,” she explained. The book feels like an extension of that mission — generous, instructive, celebratory. A reminder that clothes don’t appear magically; they’re constructed with intent, psychology and storytelling in mind.

Onstage, Garby interviewed May as she charmed the room with stories from behind the scenes — the sheer scale of the wardrobe, the details viewers may have missed, and the almost devotional planning behind every look. “I had 63 changes for Alicia Silverstone alone, and a very limited budget,” May revealed. “Every single piece of clothing made the screen. I had to dress all the background actors to create their whole world.”

What looks effortless, it turns out, was anything but. The precision was total. The vision uncompromising.

At the heart of May’s work is identity — something Jewish women understand instinctively. “As costume designers, we use background to form wardrobes,” she said. Cher, she explained, “came from a very rich family… she was posh but guarded, the queen bee in the school. The clothes reflected that by being very put together — she was in control of her world and everything matched.”

That sensitivity extended across the cast. Dion, she noted, was shaped just as deliberately. “Her heritage was African American, so we reflected that with her hair always in braids, and her clothes were louder in terms of print and much sexier.” May was quick to credit director Amy Heckerling for creating something radical for its time: a glossy teen comedy that was diverse, intelligent, female-led — and culturally literate long before those terms were fashionable.

Looking back now, every costume still carries weight. “Every single one was meaningful because it was telling a story,” May reflected. “We were redefining the fashion of an era.”

One moment remains especially close to her heart: introducing American audiences to Azzedine Alaïa. “Fashion people in America didn’t know who Alaïa was,” she said. “So to put him on the map was incredible.” It was a reminder that Clueless didn’t just reflect fashion — it educated its audience, quietly shaping taste from the inside out.

And why does the film still resonate? “The whole movie transcended time in fashion,” May said. “Thirty years later, young generations are obsessed with the clothes. I always try to design films to be timeless, feminine and chic.”

Turns out, even in Beverly Hills, a little l’dor v’dor can hide in a skirt suit — passed down not through sermons, but through style.

The Fashion of Clueless, written by Mona May with Monica Corcoran Harel is on sale now at all major retailers