Mise en scene through costumes: Main character Dariah

 Mise en scene through costumes: Main character Dara

For Dariah, I wanted to contrast her appearance from the 3 main antagonists by having her wear muted colors, like beige and light wash denim. In terms of mise en scene, beige symbolizes calmness and simplicity which represents her new found character, and starkly contrasts the power and attitude that the mean girls represent. I also had the costumes be baggier compared to the antagonists, who wore more fitted clothing. Replicating the outfit Cady wore in mean girls was not ideal as the difference in outfit trends is huge between now and 2004. So we used this picture as inspiration and utilized  clothing that would be worn nowadays.

            

                           A screenshot inspiration Mean girls           The implementation in our film

Mall Montage scene:

Another outfit we had to consider for Dariah was for her mall montage scene. I wanted her to wear something completely opposite from the outfit she wore for Scene 1, 3 and 4. Rather than muted neutral colors, I wanted her to wear a bright color, so I opted for hot pink. In mise en scene, hot pink represents femininity, innocence, and beauty, which describes her past lifestyle (besides the innocent part). In comparison to the baggy clothing, I wanted her to wear something more fitted, preferably with a brand name for her to show off. 

A still of Dariah's contrasting outfit

A still of Dariah shopping in Lululemon

I really wanted to advantage of the fact that there is Lululemon store in the mall that we went to, which was convenient for us because the brand Dariah wore in that scene is Lululemon, so it makes it seem like she constantly shops in that popular store.

Even for the old friend, casted to be with Dariah for the mall montage, matched her by wearing Lululemon, which signifies that she has similar taste and status as Dariah.

A still of Dariah and Old friend shopping in Lululemon

House party scene:

The last costume I had to create for Dariah was for the house party scene. Because Dariah is showing a different "rebelling" side to her in this scene, I wanted her to wear something somewhat similar to the mall montage outfit but to also go with the "party" vibe. I believe bold text on her top would really catch the audience attention, so I opted for a top with words "wet" in bold caps. I came to find that the word played perfectly for the scene because another definition for wet is to show a lack of strength or to be feeble and weak, which is essential the state of a person under the influence. I still wanted to add a lot of color so I decided to have her wear a multi-colored sweater to tie it all together.

A still of house party scene outfit