is marking a moment in the story of Grease, but it’s also a fashion statement. “ was a time when women were wearing pinafores and flares. “It throws us into the bold, empowered dressing of ,” she says. Kate Bailey, a senior curator at the V&A in London, who works on costume, believes the outfit was, at the time, a glimpse into the future. “ Newton-John plays that role with a tongue wedged firmly in her cheek … she looks to her friends for directions on how to drop the cigarette, for example.” “You could read that final scene as her moving from one stereotype to ,” he says. Photograph: PictureLux/The Hollywood Archive/Alamy The simplicity of the outfit – black trousers, black top, red lipstick – has assisted its staying power, says Kate Bailey. “Perhaps there’s something so at odds and so polar opposite about Sandy’s final look that gives us a jolt. But, he says, it also provides dramatic effect. “It feels wrong to me that someone should change themselves for another person to gain their affection,” he says. Colin Richmond, costume designer for the London stage show Grease the Musical, is uncomfortable with this element. “One rip and disaster.”īut there has been feminist critique of Sandy’s transformation, because it is she, not Travolta’s Danny, who changes – he does turn up in a geeky cardigan to show his love, but it is rapidly ditched when he sees the all-new Sandy. “They were so old, and there was just one pair, so there was no room for error,” she wrote. As Newton-John relays in her 2019 autobiography, the zip was broken and she was sewn into the trousers each morning. “The idea was easy because she had been so girlish, so you had to go the other way – totally tight and sophisticated.” While Wolsky made Newton-John’s outfits for most of the movie, the infamous top and trousers were bought vintage. “It was very clear from the beginning that she would have to change,” says Grease’s costume designer, Albert Wolsky. “ transforms from a shrinking violet … just totally becoming a different character, remaking yourself.” “It seems to have a way of representing dreams of everyone,” says Oliver Gruner, who edited the 2019 book Grease is the Word. In the final scene, Sandy – previously painted as a square in the cutesy poodle skirts and pastel colours of the 1950s – is transformed into a “bad girl” in figure-hugging black and leathers. The continued impact is partly thanks to the outfit’s place in the film. In the final scene of Grease, Sandy’s style is transformed from the cutesy poodle skirts and pastels colours of the 1950s.
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