The Costume Designers Behind 'Legally Blonde' Prequel 'Elle' On Dressing a Future Icon

In “Elle,” Prime Video’s eight-episode prequel series tracing Elle Woods' life before Harvard, we meet the perpetually peppy protagonist of “Legally Blonde” as a high school junior forced to relocate from California to gloomy Seattle after her plastic surgeon father botches a client’s nose job. This version of Elle (played by Lexi Minetree) isn’t yet the self-assured, lawyer-to-be made iconic by a young Reese Witherspoon, but a plucky teen still trying to find her place in the world—and have her first kiss. 

While most costume designers start with a blank page, for “Elle,” Sophie de Rakoff—who built the original “Legally Blonde” wardrobe more than two decades ago—and Sara Byblow, it became a case of working toward a fixed destination—almost like, as Byblow puts it, turning a completed jigsaw back into pieces. “We know where she ends up,” Byblow says. “So it was like, we had the picture and we now had to find the puzzle pieces to create that picture.”

Together, the two of them set about building Elle’s origin story while honoring what de Rakoff established back in the early aughts. “We had two weeks together, just the two of us at my office with our references, sketching, talking, exploring, and examining,” de Rakoff recalls. Byblow adds: “Before we even touched clothing, we were trying to get into the mindset of the characters. And then we really just kind of hit the ground running.” 

The first thing the two designed together was the “Sweet 16” party dress that younger Elle wears in the first episode—a hot pink, spaghetti-strap, bow-topped mini finished with a diamond-encrusted pink heart. They sketched roughly five different dresses before converging on the one they knew carried the impact to be a memorable character introduction. The bow alone went through multiple custom-dyed fabric tests before they landed the exact shade of pink that worked, while the heart— replicated on Elle’s heels and Bruiser’s collar in later scenes—was cast from molds the team built themselves to get the size and clarity exactly right. "There was nothing about that dress that just came about that we were like, ‘Sure, that works,’" Byblow says. “Every last bit of it we just put so much love, care, and consideration into.”

That same meticulous attention to detail can be felt in de Rakoff and Byblow’s approach to costuming not just the rest of Elle’s wardrobe, but the rest of the cast too. As well as unearthing yearbooks from 1995 and archival copies of magazines like Elle’s beloved Cosmopolitan, the pair worked to create a bigger picture of what a girl like Elle would have been exposed to. "We were thinking about who Elle idolizes and what's happening culturally around her," Byblow explains. 

Alongside names like supermodel Claudia Schiffer, activist Jane Fonda, comedian Goldie Hawn, and media mogul Anna Wintour, de Rakoff says that one particular iconic ‘90s blonde ended up being a reference for Elle once in Seattle. “I see a lot of Gwen Stefani in it,” she says of Elle’s attempt at dressing for a local underground concert in episode two. It’s not exactly what the other kids are wearing—pink pants with a white belt, and a heart-printed halterneck top—but, as Byblow says, “we didn't want her to all of a sudden be dressed in a black plaid shirt and a band tee. That just wouldn't be true to our character, but our surroundings do form who we are, and these are such formative years. So Seattle is slowly taking on Elle Woods and Elle Woods is slowly taking on Seattle.”  

Meanwhile, de Rakoff and Byblow had fun turning the trope of the easily identifiable high school cliques on its head. From the jocks to the nerds and the cheerleaders, everyone at Elle’s new school dresses in a uniform of plaid shirts, dark jeans, and muted tones, making it impossible for Elle to work out where people sit in the social hierarchy. “Grunge was so prominent in Seattle in the ‘90s, and we wanted to sell these contrasting worlds,” Byblow says of the approach. “Elle is a fish out of water here, and actually each character does have their own identity, but to Elle’s eyes it feels very much the same. She’s looking around and it's just a sea of gray and plaid to her, but as the series goes on and she starts to get to know these people for who they are we do see their individualities come out.”

Devoted fans of “Legally Blonde” looking out for Easter eggs may be disappointed to hear that de Rakoff intentionally didn’t want to overload the series with too many nods to Elle's future. For her, any sartorial connective tissue between the two projects was chosen for the story, not nostalgia. “She is her own thing and this is a different world,” she says. “So there were a few Easter eggs, but it was always done in service of the character; it was never done for the sake of repetition.” The clearest example is the red Bottega Veneta purse Elle's mother, Eva (June Diane Raphael), carries in the pilot, also seen in Witherspoon in the 2001 movie. “Fashion is a bond that they’ve shared, and so this bag is something that her mother would have passed down to her,” de Rakoff says of the reason behind the inclusion. 

As for the legacy of the movie and its stranglehold on pop culture, de Rakoff is still struggling to wrap her head around it. It was only her sixth costume design gig, and not only launched her as a name to know in the space but kicked off a lifelong working relationship with Witherspoon (she was called up to design the wardrobes of the 2003 sequel, as well as Witherspoon's movies “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Just Like Heaven,” and, more recently, “The Morning Show”). “We did not know that that movie was going to be that movie. I just went in and did my job and created this character.” As for which costume from “Elle” that they can see taking on a life of its own the way many of the looks of “Legally Blonde” have, both de Rakoff and Byblow are in agreement. “The Sweet 16 dress,” Byblow says definitively. “That is the moment.”