The Road to “Euphoria” High

Costumers from “The Breakfast Club” to “Euphoria” explain the evolution of designing for high school characters.

If you’re watching “Euphoria” for the first time with no context, you might think it’s about college students who go to the artsiest of universities, overindulge in glitter and compete for who can wear the least amount of material that still passes as clothing. You would be wrong. 

HBO’s hit show actually follows a number of teenagers as they navigate the trials and tribulations of suburban high school life, including struggles with addiction, unplanned pregnancy, questioning sexualities and abusive relationships, to name a few. The clothing and makeup are eccentric, to say the least, and characters show up to school in skin tight dresses with glittered faces — something I imagine does not pass a typical high school dress code. Many viewers have teased the show for being unrealistic. 

So how did we go from classic portrayals of high schoolers, like the jocks and cheerleaders that graced the screen in John Hughes’ films like “The Breakfast Club,'' to the glittery, high fashion madness of “Euphoria”?

One of the first and arguably most iconic portrayals of high school students, “The Breakfast Club'' tells the coming-of-age story of five students from different backgrounds who come together in detention. The characters fulfill all the archetypal high school roles: a jock, a popular good girl, a nerd, an odd goth and a criminal. 

Designed by Marilyn Vance, their outfits echo their personalities and have inspired many designers in the 37 years since the film’s release. Andy Clarke, the jock, dons a varsity jacket while Claire Standish, the good girl, wears a head-to-toe Ralph Lauren pink and brown leather ensemble. Perhaps the most interesting character in the film is rebel John Bender, who sports a plaid T-shirt over a white long-sleeve paired with black jeans and utilitarian boots. And of course, he rocks fingerless leather gloves. 

“In dressing them, I didn’t want to be on the nose of fashion,” Vance tells STITCH. “Each [character] had a title, so I took everything [Hughes] said and thought about how to dress them individually.”

Each outfit, Vance says, was specifically color-coded to each character’s personality. Standish’s was brown and pink, Bender’s was multi-colored, Clarke’s was varsity blues and yellow, nerd Brian Johnson’s was khaki, and goth Allison Reynolds’ was different shades of black.

As the film progresses, each character begins to shed a layer of their outfit. “Each layer is a little piece of the person,” Vance explained in an interview from 1999. “All their hang-ups are discarded as they start becoming relaxed with each other.”

For Vance, authenticity was essential. She says she wanted the designs to emulate the authenticity of the characters Hughes wrote and they didn’t need to be as “out there” as some designs are today. Each design had meaning, but was simple.

Since Vance created the blueprint for how high school students are depicted in media, costume design in the genre has veered from stereotypes to more unique takes.

Lest design get too basic — as if! — the next major blockbuster that defined high school fashion was 1995’s “Clueless.” 

Designer Mona May’s styling of Cher, the naive diva who rules her Beverly Hills high school, is nothing short of iconic. May strays from the stereotype of a perfect princess and puts Cher in more unique outfits, most famously a plaid yellow set featuring a blazer and mini skirt. At one point in the film, Cher, much to her father’s chagrin, comes out in a slip dress. 

Cher’s best friend, Dionne, also shows up and shows out, pulling up to school in a white top hat fit for British royalty. “Clueless” marked the beginning of costume designers taking risks and creative liberties when dressing high schoolers, pushing the limits of what the average high school student might wear to class. 

The mid-2000s saw more mainstream outfits for the time, ranging from the preppy, lavish outfits that graced the Upper East Side in “Gossip Girl” to the trendy outfits one would actually see in their classrooms — maybe sans the stilettos — in “Pretty Little Liars.” 

While the designs in these shows were not something most viewers could relate to, they weren’t entirely inaccurate for the populations they represented. 

They did, however, set the stage for the outrageous outfits seen in “Euphoria.” 

Designer of the hit show Heidi Biven tells STITCH she found inspiration from outfits she’d see on the street and, notably, not from past TV shows and movies depicting high schoolers — except to see what she “didn’t want to do,” she says. 

Each character has a set of “rules” that Biven develops based on the script for their likes, how much money they spend on clothes and where they shop. Since the first season, Biven says each character’s fashion has progressed in respect to their personal growth. For Hunter Schafer’s Jules, this manifested in a transition from brighter, happier clothing to darker, more somber ensembles. Meanwhile, for Jacob Elordi’s Nate, Biven elected to keep his outfits more subdued with little change as he suppresses his emotions and resists growth. 

Many “Euphoria” viewers make fun of the show on platforms like TikTok, making spoofs where people pretend they are going to "Euphoria high school" and dress in very revealing clothing, lampooning the designs of the show. This, however, only amuses Biven.

“The show obviously is not meant to be funny in the same way, but it’s important to be able to find the humor and not take yourself too seriously,” she says.

And frankly, the reality of what high schoolers are wearing today doesn’t really affect her decisions in designing, she says.

At around the same time as “Euphoria,” “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” took an entirely different approach. Where “Euphoria” leaned into the eccentricity and aesthetic that the show called for, “HSMTMTS” looked like it raided actual teenagers’ closets and pulled out all the micro trends that it could find. Back were the classic jock looks, denim jackets and color blocked sweaters. 

Blair Levin, who designed “HSMTMS,” says she used the very blueprint Vance set, along with inspiration from “Clueless,” to design the high schoolers’ outfits. For her, the challenge in designing for a teenage age group lay in portraying the characters in interesting, fashion-forward ways while also remaining accessible and age-appropriate. 

“I want their personality to read through the clothes, I don’t want the clothes to read them,” Levin tells STITCH. 

When designing, she used a mix of her own original designs, inspiration from the actual outfits worn in the original Disney Channel movie “High School Musical” and a variety of items from a number of different clothing stores. She even replicated the varsity jackets the original Wildcats team wore in the first three movies. 

“High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” in many ways feels like a callback to the days of “The Breakfast Club.” It celebrates high school for what it is and uses its Disney platform to target a younger audience. “Euphoria,” on the other hand, airs on HBO, a service for much more mature audiences.

The difference between these two channels could contribute to their vastly different takes on high school — neither of which are necessarily accurate to what high school looks like for students today.

While costume design went into different avenues from 1985’s “The Breakfast Club” to 2022’s “Euphoria,” each designer has stuck to their own intuition for what feels right for the characters they’re dressing.

“It’s an instinct and a feeling … and affinity for aesthetic storytelling that leads me to the decisions I make for the show,” Biven says. “I rely on my gut to steer me.”