Inside the Glorious '90s-Inspired Fashion of 'Romy & Michele: The Musical'

Nearly 30 years ago, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion introduced the world to two hilarious, stylish BFFs who love each other as much as they love a good outfit. Now, the duo has a new party to get dressed up for, and you don’t need to be in the Sagebrush High School yearbook to attend: The 1997 film has been adapted into an Off-Broadway musical.

Romy & Michele: The Musical stars theater veterans Laura Bell Bundy (Legally Blonde: The Musical) and Kara Lindsay (Newsies) as the titular Valley Girl besties—made famous in the film by Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow—who travel back home to Tucson, Arizona for their 10-year high school reunion with a plan to impress their old classmates by lying about their success. Endlessly quotable and with a wardrobe to die for, the comedy’s been beloved since it was released, with a sequel reportedly now in development. Just like the film, the musical—directed by Kristin Hanggi with original music and lyrics by Gwendolyn Sanford and Brandon Jay and a book by the original screenwriter Robin Schiff—is a testament to friendship, being true to yourself, and never claiming to be the inventor of Post-It notes.

It’s also a musical that, by design, has to have great fashion, which is where costume designer Tina McCartney comes in. McCartney, who’s worked across stage, film, and television on projects like the In the Heights movie, the Beetlejuice musical, Fosse/Verdon, and the Tony Awards, aimed to strike a balance between honoring the movie’s source material while also making the costumes work for this new incarnation of the story. “There are those iconic moments that you really, really want to hit, so I wanted to make sure that we nailed those things,” McCartney explains to Maire Claire over Zoom. “But outside of that, there were new scenes that I got to create looks for. And when working in theater, all of a sudden they're singing and dancing, right? It's a musical, so we have to take it to another level.”

That’s no small undertaking, given how famous the film is for its clothes, which were the vision of lauded costume designer Mona May, the woman behind seminal ‘90s movies like Clueless, The Wedding Singer, and Never Been Kissed. She brought the pals’s high-low style to vivid life, filled with anything that was “exuberant, fun, and had colorful patterns.” She’s also a consultant on the musical and gave key insight to McCartney that helped carry the movie’s unforgettable ensembles onto the stage.

That gave her freedom to dress these musical versions of Romy and Michele, and express their unique personalities and iconic bond through their costumes. “They are so different, yet they're still so close, they're such good friends. They each think the other is the coolest person they've ever met.”

With Romy & Michele now officially open to the public at Stage 42, McCartney takes us through some of the musical's biggest fashion moments.

Meeting Romy and Michele

To begin, McCartney filled her mood board with imagery from iconic ‘90s music videos by the Spice Girls and S Club 7, as well as house music of that era. From there, she worked with May to narrow down what made Romy and Michele different, stylistically speaking. She distinguished many of their ‘fits by how Romy’s “a bit more masculine, a little tougher,” while Michele is “fluffy, soft, glittery.”

That dynamic plays out from the start, as the show begins with the pals and roommates getting dressed to go out clubbing. For that number, titled “This Is It (A Look They’ve Never Seen),” the lyrics dictate what clothes they reached for in their well-stocked closets: Romy’s outfit is described as “Barbarella bondage chic,” which fits her metallic blue dress with harness details. (Michele, meanwhile, lands on a fish-patterned minidress with marabou trim.) Their colorful looks helped them stand out against the musical’s ensemble cast, all dressed in silvers and blacks for the night on the town.

McCartney adds that Bundy and Lindsay also had a hand in shaping their characters's signature style. “They would put something on and be like, ‘Oh, this feels so Michelle,’ or ‘This feels so Romy.’ They're just such fantastic comedic actresses, and they bring so much to the characters.”

Prom Night

Though the story takes place in the ‘90s, the action flashes back to Romy and Michele’s high school days, including their prom night. With the titular besties in Madonna-inspired ensembles and their peers in more modest gowns, McCartney again channeled two distinct nostalgic aesthetics to present the leading ladies as a team—and on a different plane, sartorially speaking, than the rest of them.

“I leaned into that Gunne Sax look of the ‘80s for the ensemble. It's really about showing that they're different, they've always been different, and that's sort of their superpower,” McCartney says. “It was really about making sure that the colors were different, playing that up, that no one else really is in that look, they're even more glam. So for me it was about, Okay, how do we show that they’re fashion forward, they're on the cutting edge, and everyone else is sort of doing something very different?”

Road Trip

“I wanted them to be tied together through color, through style, at certain moments,” McCartney explains. That inspired the pink-and-green ensembles for the song “The Lie Will Set Us Free,” where they scheme to head home armed with their fabrication about being successful businesswomen.

“When they're going on their road trip to Tucson, having them look like a team was really important to me, and making sure that they coordinated together,” she adds. “Because in the film they're more individualized, whereas in the show you see them as a unit. You're seeing their whole body, you're seeing them framed by eight other people. So it was important to me that they were set apart in some of those moments, sort of them against the world.”

The Businesswoman's Special

How would a cashier at a Jaguar dealership and her unemployed roommate dress when they want people to believe they’ve invented one of the most famous office supplies on a desk? Romy and Michele’s projection of what they both think exudes status leads to their different takes on the power suit.

For this moment, McCartney wanted to pay homage to the film, but also make it fashion-forward and contemporary. She pulled that through the sleek lines and exaggerated shoulders of Romy’s blazer, and the more feminine, ‘90s-style sweetheart neckline of Michele’s jacket. It’s a look that wouldn’t be out of place today, even if their skirts are a bit shorter than you’d normally see in the office. (After all, this is the concept of “business chic” envisioned by two women who’d walk into a diner asking for a “businesswoman’s special.”)

The Reunion

You know the moment we’re talking about: Romy in galactic blue, Michele in pink, showing their former classmates that they really know how to make an entrance—and hit the dance floor. “That’s one of the big payoffs of the movie; they’re just being their full, quirky, fun, joyful selves. We had to pay direct homage,” McCartney says.

“Mona May did a really great job with capturing both of their personalities. We'd spoken about it, she and I, and there's so much thought about all the details that went into those dresses,” she notes. “So that felt like the right thing.” (One such detail: The symbol on Romy’s futuristic blue dress is a Star Trek emblem, because Sorvino had imagined the character as being “kind of a trekkie” in the original movie.)

It’s something she knew audiences would be looking for—the outfits themselves, and the “joyful” moment where the two besties dance together in the most Romy and Michelle way possible.

Director Hanggi intended for the entire show to capture that exact feeling. “She wanted to make sure that the show was a joy bomb. That was the inspiration for every choice we made: Is this going to tickle people? Are they going to be thrilled? Are we going to tell the story in a way that is uplifting? That was really important to us.”

Equally important was celebrating the movie’s—and now musical’s—true love story: the bond between best friends. “The story is about two friends, and it's showing the value of friendship, and those relationships aren't always as celebrated in our culture,” McCartney says. “I think that’s why it has stayed so iconic and has really touched people.”