Dawn's Divine Duds

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Another one of the Unsung Heroes (if I may borrow the title of TFE's series on this sort of thing) of Welcome to the Dollhouse (other than its music which I touched upon here) is the costuming. This was the very first gig for Melissa Toth, who's since gone on to design the costumes for You Can Count on Me, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche New York, amongst others; in theaters right now she's the one who put Bobby Cannavale in those spandex running pants in Win Win. So obviously, she is awesome. Where would Dawn Wiener be without her wardrobe of ill-fitting pink and purple and lime-green sartorial failings? I mean, the poster itself is basically just a spotlight on the importance of the film's costuming. Forthwith, a gallery! Here is every single outfit that Dawn wears. Behold the glory.

Where do you even begin? Chicken shirts, kitten sweaters, culottes, jumpers, footie pajamas... it's astonishing, the breadth of it. And this is without even touching upon other character's clothes - Steve's burn-out hippie threads, her mother's manic eyesores, or my personal favorite, Ginger.


Oh, Ginger. You angel. But what I think we can all agree that the most important piece of Dawn's costuming were the hair-balls, right?


I'd always thought she had a vast array of them in every color to match every outfit through the film, but now that I actually have checked I've discovered there are only three - purple, yellow, and white. But she manages to make them work with everything she owns. Girl is a trooper.
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