Everything Right About the Wrong Dress

John Hughes made Pretty in Pink in 1986 and handed Molly Ringwald a character—Andie Walsh, thrift-shop romantic, sewing her own clothes because she has no other option—who became a template for a certain kind of style that never really went away. The prom dress she assembles from two ruined ones is probably the most argued-over outfit in teen cinema: half the audience convinced it’s a triumph, the other half that it’s a disaster, both halves somehow right. That’s the film’s trick. Pretty in pink means trying too hard in exactly the right direction, and making it matter anyway.