Silberman: We all knew how to be authentic about female friendship. We didn’t want this to be “female Superbad,” with women just saying things men say. We wanted it to be kind. People think comedy can’t be nice or earnest because you’ll lose the humor, but we set a challenge for ourselves—we wanted to make it funny without there really being a bad guy.
Courtesy of Annapurna Pictures
Yeah, there’s a girl-on-girl revenge or clique v. clique dynamic that just doesn’t exist in this movie. That’s another hallmark of the high school movie Booksmart discards.
Dever: It asks the audience to maybe judge people a little less, and to treat each other with kindness and compassion. You never know—the popular kid might not be mean. The party girl might not really want to be a party girl. There’s always more to a person.
It feels like Booksmart is hitting at this moment where we are seeing, more than ever, female friends being outrageously supportive of each other onscreen. It fits nicely with Broad City, Insecure, PEN15, The Bold Type…
Feldstein: And Playing House [the USA series starring Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair]! That’s an obsession of mine.
Dever: A best friend relationship can be so intense, and reading this script and seeing that—it was so exciting for me, because I rarely get sent a comedy for young women. Now I’m hearing girls who have seen Booksmart say that it makes them feel very seen. I think people are craving stories like this.
Silberman: What I love about so many shows and movies like that is that real friends—like Abbi and Ilana in Broad City or Maya and Anna in PEN15—make them. It’s not a coincidence that those friendships feel so lived in and authentic.
How did you create that kind of real-friend vibe on set?
Feldstein: Kaitlyn and I lived together [before and during the shoot]. We had a two-bedroom rental in West Hollywood. We wanted to be at a point where we had our own jokes, our own rapport, our own snacks. By the time we were filming, we were like, “It’s time for her to have her iced tea!” “Oh, I know where she is, she must be in the bathroom!” We were so connected. I would have been devastated if I watched Booksmart and found out that me and Kaitlyn weren’t friends. So, the good news is: It’s a very real love.
Megan Angelo is the author ofFollowers, which will be published in January 2020. After watching Booksmart, she tried to pull off this blue jumpsuit, but ultimately was unable to do so.
These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Now that Classpass-ready athleisure has sunken its spandex and sneakers into every element of modern dressing, fashion waves are starting to be made by clothes informed by more extreme, if not exposed forms of movement: less pilates, more mountaineering, fishing, skiing, and camping.
Moving beyond track stripes and other obvious athletic elements, designers are zeroing their focus on hiking straps, reflective tape, and utility pockets—details you’d more likely come across at your local outdoor good store than fashion boutique. Sartorial values once preached The Good Word of comfort; now, they’re in full tilt toward roughing it. In other words: “Gorpcore” is not a trend to sleep on.
PHOTO: Christian Vierig
North Face jackets spotted during Fashion Week.
PHOTO: Melodie Jeng
PHOTO: Christian Vierig
The function-first origins of these high-performance materials stem from the normcore crowd. Once they abandoned the dad gear, they gravitated towards slightly more element-braving garb. Designers followed suit, collaborating with outdoor brands more closely associated with catalogues than fashion spreads—Columbia (Opening Ceremony), the North Face (Sacai and Supreme), Moncler (the Genius Collection) and, most recently, Fjallraven (Acne Studios). And with every experiment in Gore-Tex and neoprene since, they’ve become emboldened to incorporate survivalist accents into their collections.
The shift towards gorpcore isn’t simply a fleeting fashion trend—rather, it’s representative of a market-wide phenomenon that has its roots in the outdoor space.
According to the Outdoor Industry Association, outdoor recreation accounts for $887 billion in annual spending in the United States, accounting for 2.2% of the GDP. “The outdoor recreation economy is growing faster than the economy as a whole,” says Marisa Nicholson, vice president and show director of Outdoor Retailer, the stalwart industry quarterly convention and conference. The fastest-growing demographic within that market is women’s, she adds.
PHOTO: Ignacio Torres
Looks from Opening Ceremony x Columbia’s Fall 2018 collection.
PHOTO: Ignacio Torres
Through Instagram groups and hashtags, and a dizzying number of outdoor retreats, women in the outdoors have more visibility than ever before, making up 46% of all outdoor participants. But performance-based brands were slow on the uptake: “The fashion world was cannibalizing us,” says Nicholson. The approach to selling to female consumers the normally brown and beige utilitarian garb, she recounts, was to “shrink it and pink it.” Not ideal.
To close this gap, the outdoor industry started to bringing more women to the table, particularly in executive positions, making room in the C suites at Merrell, Burton, and REI. And companies began seeing a return: After CEO Rose Marcario joined Patagonia (originally as its CFO), sales tripled. Put simply, “women working in those leadership teams helps products become better for women,” Nicholson says.
PHOTO: Dvora/REX/Shutterstock
A guest wears a Patagonia jacket during Haute Couture Fashion Week.
The fashion world, meanwhile, was in a state of flux. The element of surprise that was so ingrained in the runway show experience had disappeared. Yet another permutation of sleeve and sparkle felt passé. So, in an effort to revive that sense of wonder, designers began turning to the most ordinary, ubiquitous wardrobe elements and making them extraordinary. Demna Gvasalia did that with T-shirts bearing the logo of shipping company DHL. Sandy Liang, meanwhile, looked to tech fleece on the sales rack at Modell’s.
“I wore a zip-up fleece because it was a hand-me-down from my brother. I didn’t like it. It was not cool or interesting,” remembers Liang of her childhood outerwear. “But by changing a trim or elevating another detail, you can make what was once an afterthought a showpiece.”
PHOTO: Courtesy of Sandy Liang.
Fleece looks from Sandy Liang’s Spring 2019 collection.
PHOTO: Courtesy of Sandy Liang.
PHOTO: Courtesy of Sandy Liang.
And that’s exactly what she has done: Liang’s Patagonia-but-make-it-Fashion jackets have become staples in the wardrobes of every cool person from Instagram, selling at a cool $400 more than its ski shop counterparts—same goes for the mylar survival blankets turned open-back dresses at Raf Simons’ Calvin Klein, Prada’s above the knee all-weather rubber Wellington boot, and Kim Jones’ final Louis Vuitton menswear collection with its rainproof monogrammed coats.
“A fleece is classic in it’s own way. It’s never gone out of style. It never really changes, it’s constant,” says Liang. “The people who appreciate it always appreciate it.”
California-based designer Jesse Kamm was trusting similar instincts while creating her most recent fall collection, which is inspired by the camping lifestyle documented in the movie Valley Uprising. “I was thinking about the girl I want to be—camping on the weekend, pulling up in the parking lot on Monday morning in a good-looking jumpsuit and a little dirt under your fingernails,” she says. “Instead of hanging out, consuming new goods, I’m going to get into nature.”
The resulting ready-to-wear-and-tear knits, jumpsuits, and overalls struck a chord with her cultish clientele (Think L.A. creatives.) Through this tumultuous period of political and social movements, there’s not really a place for sexy, delicate clothing in Kamm’s brand. “How can I build clothes that feel right in this environment? I’m not making silk dresses to wear to the club,” the designer says with a laugh, revealing the real luxury of every protection-against-the-elements, handbag-free, utilitarian-pocketed piece popping up in Dover Street Markets and REIs near you.
These are clothes that women can literally do anything in and survive anything in. At the moment, what could be more stylish?
It might not surprise you to learn that lingerie in 2017 looks a little different than it did in the 1920s—OK, really different. Undergarments have evolved over the past century to highlight women’s bodies in different ways: with various materials, shapes, and patterns. And the decade-by-decade transformation is truly fascinating.
Back in the 1920s, it was all about a shapeless look, with thin fabrics like satin, silk, and later lace draped over the body. By the 1930s, a curvier silhouette became popular, so underwire and “falsies” were introduced to bring attention to the bust. Slips emerged as the lingerie of choice in the 1940s; while high-waisted bottoms were all the rage in the 1950s, as the hourglass figure became more desirable. The 1960s saw the rise of the matching set, many of which were embellished with trends of the time, such as ruffles and geometric patterns. By the 1970s, these got a lot more involved, with all-over fringe and tassel trims. Once we get into the 1980s, we see the influence of Madonna, with fishnets, leather, and other bold materials being woven into lingerie. By the 1990s, people were mixing and matching their separates, pairing leopard prints with silky yellow bras. (Very Spice Girls, if you ask us.) We saw more ready-to-wear trends bleed into the realm of lingerie in the 2000s, when Hervé Leger-style undergarments were prevalent. And now? Folks aren’t afraid to show off the details on their bras and undies.
To see how lingerie evolved throughout the 20th century up until present day, see Glamour‘s full visual history, above. You’ll be surprised at just how on-trend some of the older styles feel today.
