Makeover Montage: A Fashion in Film Podcast · Marie Lodi and Blaire Bercy

Gunne Sax Gowns and Saddle Shoes in The Virgin Suicides (2000)

December 13, 2024·1 hr 1 min·4 clips

Lux writes Trip Fontaine’s name on her underwear, and the hosts call it her most famous costume moment.

1. Makeover Montage’s Duncember episode focuses on The Virgin Suicides and Sofia Coppola’s 2000 debut. 2. Marie Lodi, a Kirsten Dunst fan, and Blair Bursey, her co-host, frame the episode around costume design and fashion-film influence. 3. The episode asks why The Virgin Suicides still shapes fashion, and the answer centers on its clothes, soundtrack, and girlhood imagery. 4. Marie names Tavi Gevinson and Sandy Liang as people who were influenced by the film. 5. Blair links the film’s mood to Air’s soundtrack and compares its atmosphere to “background music for cool” in the late 1990s and early 2000s. 6. Marie says the movie’s look kept showing up in Mark Jacobs, Urban Outfitters, book covers, and Tumblr-era imagery. 7. Blair calls the film a “fever dream” and says the visual language spread across beauty and clothing campaigns. 8. The hosts describe the Lisbon family as five sisters, ages 13 to 17, living under strict Catholic parents played by Kathleen Turner and James Woods. 9. Marie says the girls are seen as a collective through the boys’ point of view, which makes the costumes feel uniform and controlled. 10. Blair contrasts the Lisbon house with teenage freedom, saying the sisters are effectively stuck inside their home. 11. Marie highlights Nancy Steiner’s quote that “costume design can be very psychological.” 12. Blair notes that Steiner asked actors what music their characters listened to and had directors make playlists for departments. 13. Marie says Steiner based the girls’ hair and clothing on William Eggleston, Joel Meyerowitz, and Brigitte Bardot. 14. Blair points out that the sisters’ dresses were built from one fabric in three colors and four pattern variations. 15. Marie says Cecilia’s white party dress was imagined as a vintage teenage dress from her grandmother’s attic. 16. Blair says Lux stands out through midriff tops, tank tops, and the underwear with Trip Fontaine’s name written on it. 17. The episode moves in a conversational, joke-heavy style, with rapid sidetracks into other Sofia Coppola films and Josh Hartnett commentary. 18. Marie and Blair sound casual and specific, often pausing to connect costumes to memory, fandom, and late-1990s fashion culture. 19. People who like costume analysis, Sofia Coppola, and 1990s fashion history. 20. Listeners wanting plot analysis without costume detail.

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