Cameron Diaz was very hands-on with her costumes in The Sweetest Thing

IMAGE COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES

Clothes on Film is a series in which we explore iconic looks from film and television that have stayed in our minds years after they first hit the silver screen.

In The Sweetest Thing [2002] Christina Walters (Cameron Diaz) has never been one to search for the perfect guy, but when she accidentally meets him in a nightclub, everything changes. After leaning on her roommate Jane (Selma Blair) for advice, she recruits best friend Courtney (Christina Applegate) for a road trip in search of her dream man. 

We asked costume designer Denise Wingate to share the juicy on-set details around creating iconic looks for these fun-loving women, but we couldn’t have predicted what she told us about Cameron Diaz’s DIY approach to her character’s outfits.

DENISE WINGATE: For The Sweetest Thing…I have to say, Cameron Diaz, she really has her own individual, iconic style. She loves fashion, and she loves to shop. We went shopping for the film and she loves trying different things and being edgy. There’s this scene of her dancing with Courtney (Christina Applegate) and she’s wearing these red silk shantung pants that are really low-cut. She originally had a pair of jeans that were sort of cut based on this and she was like “I love these pants,” and then we thought “Well, what about making them out of raw silk?” which is just so bizarre for a pant. She has an amazing sense of style, and was very hands-on.

We were getting ready to shoot a scene—I’ll never forget—and Cameron’s wearing this t-shirt, and she says “Do you have scissors?” And I was like, yeah, and she literally cuts the t-shirt up while she’s wearing it and the camera’s ready—which is the most stressful thing for a costume designer. And then she took it and tied it around her neck, almost like a choker and then tied another piece around her wrist, and I was just like “Oh my God, what are you doing?” But she owns it. She absolutely has such confidence in her own personal style that whatever she did, it just worked. I often deferred to her because she just had great taste.