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buffystylez-blog · 7 years

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Welcome to the Hellmouth

Original Australian air date: 3 December 1997

Directed by: Charles Martin Smith

Written by: Joss Whedon

Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Anthony Head, Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendon, Julie Benz, Kristine Sutherland, and David Boreanaz

Welcome to What Buffy Wore season one, episode 1, In which we meet our hero Buffy Anne Summers and are introduced to the Scooby Gang, Cordelia Chase, and season 1′s Big Bad - The Master.

A brief recap for the unfamiliar and let’s face it, if you’ve stumbled onto here you’ll be well-versed in the language of Buffy. But anyway, here goes. Buffy and her mother Joyce move to Sunnydale after Buffy is expelled from her previous school, Hemery High School in Los Angeles. The reasons for her expulsion are presumably related to the events of the 1992 film of the same name. Determined to make a fresh start, she’s horrified when she encounters new librarian Giles, who reminds of her destiny as the vampire slayer.

I was going to quote stuff here, but I can’t be bothered. Y’all know all of them, right? In this episode we have two main Buffy ensembles. I’m not counting her pyjamas - I’ll get into their cuteness later. The two main ensembles are her first day of school, and her first night at the Bronze. I believe I coveted one outfit more than the other at the time, but history is written by the winners. Or the older, wiser, more fashion-conscious.

So let’s do this!

Outfit 1 - First Day at school

Forgive the quality. I’m new to screen caps or whatever you kids call them. Let us marvel at a time when 4:3 was the only aspect ratio in town.

Buffy’s outfit is a white t-shirt and a-line miniskirt with knee high boots. She’s wearing a light blue short-sleeved cardigan over the t-shirt, prompting me to wonder throughout the episode whether the t-shirt was not in fact a singlet. And was the cardigan light blue or mint? I’m pretty sure it’s light blue.

I’d always assumed the skirt was a mulberry or burgundy colour but tonight’s viewing lead me to wonder if it wasn’t dark brown like her boots all this time? But I’m 97% it’s the berry colour I assumed as a 15 year old. I mean, 5 year old! ahem. In a later scene Buffy asks Willow to help her with school and it’s decidedly purple in tone. I always applauded this colour combination. I still do. The costume designer at the time was Cynthia Bergstrom and I salute her. She had me searching high and low for those white v-neck t-shirts she had SMG in all of the time.

The plastic rings were already a crucial part of the wardrobe along with varying shades of nail polish. I believe Buffy went with a pastel blue to match the cardigan and her second outfit. Makeup is a smoky eye with pinks and blues. And were we in a glossy brown/nude phase lipstick-wise? I can’t remember. It’s taken a good twenty years for me to actually wear lipstick on the regular and it’s always matte.

Buffy’s first outfit was a triumph for me. It still is. What may not be a triumph is the hair. Before SMG got this gig she had really long brown hair. For this role she went for a dark blonde shade with a shorter length and more layers. The bangs were wispy. I hate wispy bangs. I believe a terrible, life-ruining hairdresser may have tried to convince me its the only kind I could have. But I’m not bitter! The hair clip featured in Buffy’s hair above was one already in high rotation at my place.

I remember twin sets (knit top and matching cardigan) being the height of fashion at the time. I may have asked mum to purchase me a few. Being chubby and afraid of short skirts I probably went for a knee length version of the above. So when Buffy also moved to knee length skirts I was the praise emoji before I even had a mobile phone. Or the Internet.

But twin sets. I had a purple one I loved so much. The top was sleeveless and the cardigan long sleeved. There may have been some floral embroidery as well. I may have also paired it with a checked or charcoal bootcut pant. Are pants technically bootcut? Or is it just jeans? Either way, this was the land before the skinny jean or slim leg pant. That wouldn’t get to us until the mid-2000s. I know what you’re thinking: a land before internet, mobile phones and a skinny legged pant? How did you survive? Well, it was all we knew. We couldn’t know then what we know now and if we had, then perhaps things would have been different. Better, even.

Perfect segue to Buffy’s second outfit!

I’m still not quite sure what the above is. PVC little black dress? Some sort of corset? One of Julia Roberts’ prostitute dress from Pretty Woman? Don’t slut shame yourself, B. Wear whatever you like, because you’re a strong woman who shouldn’t be bound by cultural and societal notions of purity and femininity. But also, the dress is a no from me.

What has always fascinated me is her next option. Done with the whore, she tries the virgin and finds she doesn’t like that either.

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I’ve always wanted to know exactly what that floral dress looks like. Is it a maxi dress? High neck? There’s a tie - is it worn around the waist? Is it a pussy bow neckline? I MUST KNOW AND THE INTERVENING YEARS HAVE NOT REDUCED MY YEARNING.

So after apparently agonising over something that was second nature in her pre-slaying days, Buffy goes with the below.

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I mean, deal with that shirt for a moment. Much like the dude’s outfit she will use to identify him as a vampire, this outfit is not just dated, it’s carbon dated. I might have preferred whatever the black unknown was.

Eschewing dresses altogether for her first night out with the living - er, lively people, Buffy goes with a white singlet, blue shirt with one button done up like a jacket, black pants, and black boots. The boots are undoubtedly knee high. It was just a thing, guys. This was also before we had pants slim enough to tuck into said boots, remember? Dark days. What’s darker is that the pants, not satisfied to just be a type of bootcut monstrosity, are ankle length. Society will tell you that this makes a short girl look short, as though being short were the worst thing in the world. It’s not. I’m 5″2′ and I’m fine with looking every of inch of that. But these are... look, it’s not my favourite, ok? But what did I think of it then?

I remember loving her school outfit more. But does that mean I didn’t wear button up shirts as jackets over t-shirts and singlets? No it does not. Because I did it all the time. Because not only is it the perfect item for a balmy evening that may turn cold, it’s also great for girls too fat for most button up shirt offerings from Jay Jays, Kmart or Target. So, me. I think she also deserved snaps for her courageous decision to wear pants instead of a slinky dress, as a Cordelia Chase might. Or did.

From a logistical perspective it also makes perfect sense. Buffy will battle some members of the undead in this number later in the episode, so range of movement is essential. She can lose the shirt if required but it can also hide any potential bloodstains. The pants seem comfortable and the boot heel low enough that running isn’t out of the question. Her hair is up in a french roll so no need to worry about flyways or accidental self-scalping, a constant worry for me when people fight evil with their hair down.

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See?

With 90s fashion making a resurgence, the reappearance of ensembles like these seem almost inevitable. Just the other day I saw a young girl wearing a shirt I wore in the late 90s. This was not a new version or knock-off. No: this shirt had the unmistakable wear and tear of an original. Someone had, gulp, bought this secondhand. It may have even been marked ‘vintage.’ My only hope is that it was a low/reasonable price at Savers.

But would I wear any of this stuff now? Possibly. I’ll return to the boots later, much like Buffy does. And the pants. I would definitely wear the burgundy(?) miniskirt. But what about the others in the Buffyverse? Whose wardrobe might influence me today?

Darla’s ambiguous school uniform should seem out of place. There’s no mention of private schools in Sunnydale anywhere. Also she looks at least 26. Perhaps her cover is an adult entertainment venue and I’ve been thinking about this all wrong for 20 years.

At school Cordelia wears a sheer black shirt with lime pants in a fabric that surely must be the most evil to escape the Hellmouth. So that’s a no.

I think the guys were wearing cargo pants. Also no. David Boreanaz’s performance as Angel was too distracting. He too was fond of button up shirts and black pants. Why would you wanna wrestle with the undead dressed like you’re going to a job interview at Coles?

No, the wardrobe modern day me would most covet actually belongs to... Willow. Lose the white tights and chunky shoes and her tweed dress with white button up shirt worn underneath is a revelation. Mindy Lahiri would wear the heck out of that. And her floral dress and cardigan at the Bronze is cute as hell. Willow would go on to carve out a sense of style befitting her wonderful personality in later seasons but we can clearly see elements of it from the beginning. We were just too blind to see.

Up next will be The Harvest, technically part two of Welcome to the Hellmouth. I hope you’re as desperate for the next post as I was for the next episode. You’re probably not. But I’ll still do it.

Until next time, slayerettes.

#buffy summers #buffy the vampire slayer #buffyverse #buffyfashions #the slayer #television #fashion #popculture #joss whedon #whedonverse

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