Matching Underwear, Bondage Tops & Rodarte: Inside The Costumes Of “Forbidden Fruits”

Witchy-meets-mall baddie is a specific vibe, and it had to be both things at once, ritualistic and retail-ready. Costume designer Sarah Millman didn't just dress the Fruits—she conjured them through moodboards comprising thousands of images from her personal archive and Toronto's Reference Library, while using director Meredith Alloway's visual deck as a jumping-off point. "I looked at the classics, like Mean Girls, which we shot at the exact same mall. The Craft, Jennifer's Body, Jawbreaker, Heathers… and spent time rewatching just to get into the world," she says. From there, each Fruit got her own visual universe, with about 20-30 costume changes each.

For HWIC Apple, the north star was early Lana Del Rey and her penchant for accessible glam. "There's this interesting high-low there that she engages in, and we wanted that for Apple," says Millman. Another inspiration was '90s Rose McGowan, and a color story that leaned into deep reds and blacks to complement Apple's red hair. One of Millman's favorite Apple looks was a rubber bondage top with a super-low, plunging neckline that she wore with capris and heels, stomping through the mall. "To me, that look feels like the absolute embodiment of her character," says Millman. "True literal bondage. She is a dom. She is the baddest bitch."

Reinhart brought items from her own closet, including the blue apple-print Coperni knit set she wears in the film's opening scene, an asymmetric Jaded London tee that says "My Ex Loves Me," a pair of Miu Miu ballerina heels, and a Miu Miu crystal choker. "She brought a lot of little pieces, but that one I loved so much because it's like, Apple's just signaling," explains Millman. "She needs this mask for the world of designer [fashion]. She makes like $19 an hour. How is she getting this Miu Miu choker? She's stealing it or trolling The RealReal or whatever. But those kinds of fashion signifiers were important to her costuming since she's trying to make a smoke screen for what her actual life is."

New girl Pumpkin was earthier, more tomboy— ‘90s Devon Aoki energy with a girl-next-door sweetness that's hiding a more complex interior. Her hero piece is a red heart necklace from the LA jewelry brand Gemini Jewels, which she never takes off once she enters the Free Eden world. (You may have seen the same necklace on Olivia Rodrigo.) "The heart necklace is a hearkening back to her core family," Millman explains. "It's sort of like wearing her heart on her sleeve—or at her throat." For one look, Pumpkin pairs a vintage Missoni sweater with an American Eagle pleated acid wash skirt and charm-adorned sneakers. "She had her hair in braids. I just thought she looked very innocent and sweet, but also of the coven," says Millman. As for the red gingham dress Pumpkin wears during her Free Eden makeover, fans of The Summer I Turned Pretty will find it very familiar. However, Millman won't confirm a thing. "I will not confirm or deny if that's referencing anything, anyone, anybody," she says, with a sly smile. "But there's some stuff there."

Cherry went in a completely different direction. Early references included Anna Nicole Smith and Brigitte Bardot, before the fitting room steered things toward Cicciolina, the Hungarian-Italian parliamentarian and former adult star who was married to Jeff Koons in the '80s and '90s. In one scene, Cherry wears a magenta bustier, a massive scrunchie, and sweatpants with a rolled-down waistband and cherries down the sides. "It really reminded me of a Manet painting—Nana, or Olympia, or the bar maiden in A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. Just this courtesan, painterly... but mall." In the fitting room, Pedretti kept pulling the corset tighter, wanting the softest parts of her body on full display. "That was so thrilling for me," says Millman. "She was embracing and highlighting, being like, fuck yeah—she's leaning into the softness in that moment. And I just love a rolled-down sweatpant."

Fig was the mall goth, with "slightly nerdy layers" to show off her scientist's instinct. "She's not using the gaze and her body in the same way as Cherry and Apple," explains Millman. References ran from Aaliyah and FKA Twigs to Fairuza Balk. During fittings, Shipp would survey the rack, say "hear me out," and proceed to layer a dress, a bustier, a long sleeve, a coat, a belt, an anklet, and approximately "700 necklaces." Meanwhile, Pickle, a former Free Eden employee played by Emma Chamberlain, embodied the store's style most of all. "Pickle was really like a Texas ray of sunshine… she's the most sort of mall boho, just like earnestly into mall culture," says Millman. "She wore Uggs, and she has a progression where the Uggs needed to reflect the journey she'd been on, and at one point, Meredith was like, there should be a hole where the big toe is. So, we really put those Uggs through the wringer."

Millman's sourcing operation was a full-time job in itself—she wrote to over 100 brands to see if anyone would lend pieces to the production. Of those 100-plus cold emails, around 20 said yes. American Eagle came on as a sponsor, supplying all the denim in the film, and tanks and basics. Reformation sent a significant haul, while Agent Provocateur supplied bustiers and lingerie moments, and Susan Alexandra did the custom beaded bracelets that each Fruit wears. The bags the girls carry were largely vintage—Y2K purses, thrift finds, and a couple of Juicy Couture pieces thrown in for fun. No major it-bags. "I did a ton of thrift shopping on this movie," she says.

And then there was Rodarte—the white whale. Millman says Alloway, a former journalist who had once interviewed the Mulleavy sisters, mentioned Rodarte at their first meeting. She ended up reaching out directly, and the designers agreed to send over some dresses. They're seen during the first Paradise, where the girls initiate Pumpkin into the coven. Apple wears a plunging red dress with black bows at the shoulders, Cherry is in a peach ruffled satin dress, and Fig wears a long, lacy black gown. "We truly fell off our chairs," she says. "We just couldn't believe our luck."

Millman hid more than a few secrets in the wardrobe, and they're fun to spot. The most satisfying Easter egg is the t-shirt Apple wears towards the end of the film, printed with the words "Of the woman came the beginning of sin and through her we all die," which is the name of Lily Houghton's play that Forbidden Fruits is based on. The scene was originally scripted with the girls in slip dresses since they would look good wet, but the look morphed into a t-shirt and sweatpants. "How soggy that would be, coming out of the water and sopping," says Millman. "Just like the weight of being a woman." From there, the challenge was figuring out exactly what the graphic would be. After the first AD suggested a slogan tee, Alloway proposed using the play's name. Perfecting the typography took months and dozens of iterations before a graphic designer friend of Millman's finalized it while dialing in from an airplane. "Super simple is often the hardest thing to do," Millman says. "And she just, in two seconds, did the font. I was like, That's the damn t-shirt."

Other IYKYK details include the day-of-the-week underwear, hand-embroidered and custom-made, that all four girls apparently wore under their costumes throughout the film. We see Cherry's in a key scene, but they all have them. "It speaks to the relationship between Apple and Cherry, and Apple's control over Cherry," Millman explains. "She wears them to keep herself on track. To keep herself under Apple's thumb, right down to your underwear, right down to what we can't even see." In another scene, Cherry wears a white sundress with blue flowers, but Pedretti had pulled up the skirt in places, creating an almost bustle-like shape. They loved it, and then asked, how would she actually do this? "Cherry is the kind of person who would be bored on the sales floor and take the tagging gun—the thing they do the price tags with—and she would have done that to her own dress," says Millman.

This is what it looks like when a costume department is truly in it—when the details go all the way down, right to the underwear nobody sees. "It was the most collaborative film I've ever worked on," says Millman. And in Forbidden Fruits, that kind of devotion has a name. They call it a coven.