Costume designer Sara Byblow, who worked on the Vancouver-shot series Elle, the prequel to the Legally Blonde movies, described the opportunity as a dream gig. “Yes, is the overwhelming answer,” said Byblow, whose credits include Fire Country, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist and Charmed. “To be able to step in and help tell the story of such an iconic character, I mean grateful doesn’t even begin to describe it.”
Clothes as Storytelling Tools
Byblow emphasized that fashion is central to the narrative. “It doesn’t matter how many hours I am in that fitting room for. We get to play every single day, and the fact that it comes with a lot of pink and sparkles and fun things just makes our days even better,” she said. The series, now streaming on Prime Video, follows a 16-year-old Elle Woods, played by Lexi Minetree, as she moves from Bel-Air to Seattle in 1995 after her cosmetic surgeon father’s botched surgery forces the family to relocate.
Byblow co-heads the wardrobe department with Sophie de Rakoff, the costume designer on both original Legally Blonde films. “Our No. 1 goal in this was to let each other do what we’re both great at, and that’s being mad scientists,” Byblow explained. The duo met in Los Angeles before production began, spending two weeks discussing and sketching Elle’s world. “We came together, just started discussing and started looking at the world in general around Elle,” said Byblow. “We like to step into the mindset of the character and kind of see what would have inspired them at the time … what posters were on her walls. What was she looking up to at the time, and then from there, we kind of had that world built around her.”
Elle’s Feminine Feminism
The original film showed that femininity and intelligence are not mutually exclusive, a theme the prequel explores as Elle discovers her determination is her superpower. “I think that’s the timeless allure of the character,” de Rakoff said of Elle’s feminine feminism. “Women and girls respond to her and see something in her, and I think they respond at different points in their lives. Twenty-five years ago, these were different conversations, and now it is a much more nuanced, much more specific conversation. Feminism has changed in different generations, it’s meant different things, because we’ve all lived at different moments in time. But the idea of female empowerment now has a language around it that includes the fashion, the colour, the silhouettes.”
In the series, Elle stands out as a pink fish out of water in grunge-era Seattle. A mean senior girl tells her, “Pink is not a personality.” A key scene shows Elle, wearing a pale pink halter dress, entering a cafeteria filled with students in dark plaids and bulky hoodies, visually underscoring her clash with the Seattle aesthetic.
Behind the Scenes in Vancouver
The series was shot in Vancouver, with Byblow drawing on the city’s resources. “We get to play every single day,” she said, highlighting the joy of working with pink and sparkles. The prequel stars Lexi Minetree as Elle, with Tom Everett Scott and June Diane Raphael as her parents, Wyatt and Eva. The show is now available on Prime Video.
