Did the costume designers for Pretty in Pink mean to make Molly Ringwald wear the most hideous dress in creation? Or did they actually think that monstrosity was attractive? I know it was meant to look amatureish but did it have to be so shapeless and fugly?
Seriously.
Maybe the dress just didn’t age well. In the 80’s maybe it looked good to the average teenage girl viewer.
Or reflect her eclectic style. 
I saw P in P in the '80’s, at a time when I was thinking about my own prom dress.
It was fugly then. It’s fugly now. I remember being horrified that Molly took the lovely vintage dress given to her by whats-her-name and hacking it into that abomination.
It made her look like a sausage, and I swear the girl only weighed 98 lbs.
FUGLY!
I didn’t watch Pretty in Pink until quite recently, so I have no idea whether that dress would have been horribly uncool in the 80s or not. It is, however, devastatingly ugly now. I can’t believe she destroyed a lovely vintage dress for that absolute monstrosity.
But I don’t think it was meant to be ugly in the context of the film. All movie long, we’re told what a sharp dresser Molly Ringwald is, and how cool she is for being able to design and make her own clothing. I think they honestly wanted that to be the coolest, freshest, hippest prom dress ever. Apparently, they failed.
I caught this on cable last night also.
I was just waiting for Charlie Sheen to walk in on a scene, smack Duckie in the back in the head and say “Alan, what the hell are you doing!” and drag him home.
Naw, he was in a police station at the time, hitting on Ferris Bueller’s sister.
And, yeah the dress is ugly now and it was ugly then. I was 16 at the time, so I know. Other than the prom dress, I loved her clothes and I wanted Duckie to be my boyfriend. Too bad he was closeted (which I can’t help but think after a recent viewing, anyway).
Others agree on the dress being ugly!
And for so long I’ve thought that I was the only one who was repulsed by that boat anchor of a dress! The chains have fallen from my limbs!
BTW, Ringwald (alledgedly) designed the dress herself, demonstrating why her fashion design career hasn’t flown any better than her acting career. There were truely some fashion disasters in the Eighties, though, so I’m sure it looked good to someone at the time.
Totally off-topic, but waybackwhen in college I had a roommate whose television would buzz obnoxiously whenever Miami Vice (repeated incessently on the USA Network) was on and Don Johnson came on-screen in some of the eye-poking pastel pyjamas he wore. We got quite a few laughs out of that (and it was the only reason to watch the show) before the TV finally gave up the ghost. Talk about your hideous fashions.
Stranger
this is the best thread EVER. first of all, i still listen to the pretty in pink soundtrack. i have it on cassette. wa BAM.
if it’s true that molly designed that dress, no wonder she stuck with acting. I thought the original prom dress before she hacked it all up was fine.
okay, i’m off like a dirty shirt!
Anyone got a JPEG of this horrid dress?
Well, a GIS for “pretty in pink” gave some very interesting (NSFW) results, but no pics of the dress.
The Ministry of Information seems to have eliminated all photographic evidence of the dress, as no search engine is turning up any positive results.
Stranger
Here it is, second image down on the left.
Here’s the trailer. Can’t watch it at work, but the dress seems to be in evidence.
Here’s a screengrab. No full-length shots.
My google-fu indicates that the dress is almost universally hated.
Eh, it was the 80’s. People wore some fugly-ass shit back then, especially to prom. I don’t remember thinking it was especially atrocious for the period when I saw the movie.
I watched the trailer. If it’s the same one, you only get to see about the upper 2/3 of the dress.
Good god, I see what you mean.
Is she by any chance wearing it inside out or backwards or something?
Thanks for the sound warning!! The first link contains really loud terrible midi.
I was a teenager in the '80 and saw the movie when it came out. I thought the dress Annie Potts gave Molly Ringwald was gorgeous. I stared in horror as she cut it up into the ugliest thing I’d ever seen.
I’m sorry, I probably had the sound muted on the work box. I fucking hate web page with sound
Actually, I’m at home now and I’m not getting any sound (or anything else) out of the link.
OK, when I was Googling around for a full-body shot of the Dress of Fug, I found this.
Could it be true??
