Tom Broecker is no stranger to working under pressure. In addition to dressing up iconic TV series like 30 Rock And House of cards and numerous Broadway plays, the award-winning costume designer dressed the cast Saturday evening live– who put on and take off multiple outfits in real time every week – for an astonishing 30 years. But with the new cinematic musical adaptation of Mean girls—now in theaters—faced a different kind of challenge: reinventing a beloved early 2000s classic, full of memorable looks, for a new generation.
The new film is an adaptation of the 2018 Broadway musical, which in turn is based on the original 2004 film. So Broecker had a clear iconography of fashion to draw from and an important opportunity to say something new. Just as loved as the original Mean girls It remains important for Broecker and for directors Samatha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. that this version reflects the specific cultural moment of 2024. So while there are certainly nods to the look of the original film (the slutty Santas, certain blouses, specific Halloween costumes), Broecker has taken the musical film’s clothing in a whole new direction.
A big focus, he explains, was how early-millennium fashion seems to be coming back into fashion with Gen Z kids these days, albeit with a few major updates. There’s something about Y2K fashion that “just fits better this time around,” he says, also noting that shoppers today care more about sustainability and how certain products are made. Most importantly, Broecker says, he wanted to use the film’s style to illustrate each character’s arc of self-actualization.
The results? Totally get it. Here’s what the costume designer had to say.
It’s clear that we’re dealing with a film adaptation of a Broadway musical adaptation of the original film. How do you decide which costume decisions from previous iterations to incorporate and where to take creative liberties?
What is sacred, iconic and non-negotiable? There were so many questions we answered about this. In general, we tended to push away and make new interpretations. But there are plenty of easter egg moments. The story takes place in 2024, and even if you didn’t have the original, I think it would still be what it is. For example, the winter talent show where the girls are dressed as handsome Santa Clauses; those costumes have been updated and changed, but they are still trendy Christmas costumes. We’ve changed and updated them, but they really refer to the original ones. These are made of glitter, not latex. We strive for a version that is similar, but also different from.
Are there any other Easter egg costume moments you can look for?
The thing to keep in mind is that a lot of scenes from the original film were left out because it is now a musical. But Tina Fey is wearing a vest in one of the scenes, and we referenced that idea for today because this teacher might still be wearing a vest. We also paid tribute to the final polka dot blouse she wears in the original, for the great room scene at the end. This character would still have the same aesthetic today.
So it was very important to update it before 2024. Is Gen Z fashion a big part of the film?
That was one of the things that the directors were really excited about: this has to happen in 2024, and this is a high school in a suburb of Chicago. This is not a Euphoria high school or a Gossip Girl high school – those shows are beautifully designed, but that’s not it. Mean girls is its own Gen Z thing, with lots of gender fluidity, athleisure and lots of vintage and second-hand thrifting. Strangely enough, a lot of Gen Z fashion references the Aughties and Y2K. It’s interesting how much fashion references that period, but it just fits better now. And now there’s also this focus on sustainability and how things are made.
The ’90s have been trending in fashion for years, but it finally feels like Y2K fashion is creeping back in.
There’s that Juicy Couture thing, that trucker hat thing. If you look closely, it’s there and it’s 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 from Salt burn, set in 2006 and 2007, she said the Aughties are difficult to dress up because that fashion hasn’t fully reached 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.
Absolutely. Betsey Johnson, Caché, Bebe! We shot in New Jersey, so we did a lot of great things 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 that way anymore. Children shop from their phones. So we did a lot of shopping on Instagram. I was shopping on Instagram 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 reimagine the story from Janis and Damian’s perspective. Each character is guided through their eyes. And for this film, those new actors [Auliʻi Cravalho and Jaquel Spivey] bring their own life to these characters, and it was very important, because they are different from the originals. So it was super important to get the main characters right – Janis, Damian, Regina, Cady, Gretchen and Karen. We had to make Janis feel like he was a Janis from 2024, not a Janis from 2004.
What a challenge: to make these characters immediately recognizable through the lens of how we already know them, but also to create space for the new actors to bring their own twists.
Janis in particular is queer and lesbian, and there is no queer coding in this film. It was super important for us to reflect her creative life as a musician and artist. She creates this yarn art that becomes a key moment in the film, and that was very important to the textural sense of her character, with that layering. High school is a tough time: one day you put on clothes to feel like one person, then you come home and think, I’m not really that person, and the next day you put on something else and rearrange it A different kind of . So towards the end, Janis is stripped of all this decoration and extra stuff, and we see her simply in her lilac tuxedo. She no longer has to hide behind her eclecticism. She presents herself exactly as she is, and that’s really powerful.
Given your background, busy Saturday evening live, which is known as hectic. I’m curious how you felt about working on a film.
Working on a movie is like, “We did that How long?!” And for SNL Normally I have twelve hours. We shot [the new Mean Girls] in 32 days, which is still very fast. But what I love about this is that there is a storyline that you can share through the clothes, as you… S.N.L., it’s really just creating a situation so you can listen to the jokes. And this movie goes from a few days before school starts all the way through prom, so we get to see these really full character arcs.
Was there something from your costume department that the actors tried to steal?
I’m not going to say that! But there were five people who said, “I’ll take this!” And I was like, “Okay, but if we reshoot, I know where to find you!” One of them was actually really nice and said, “I want to take some of these things with me because this is the first time I’ve been on a shoot where I really love my wardrobe.” A person can get warm in a paper bag and make it look great, but if he wears the smallest swimsuit and doesn’t feel comfortable, he won’t get or feel 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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