A Look Inside A ’90s Teen Fashion Icon’s Closet With The Star And Costume Designer Fr

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On July 5, 1990, NBC introduced viewers to a girl named Blossom Russo, soon to become an important and influential television character. It was on that date that the pilot for Blossom aired; however, when the show was picked up as a midseason replacement in January 1991, her family looked considerably different. She went from having a mother and father on the brink of divorce to simply having a hip single dad who was caring for her and her two brothers — one a recovering addict and the other a young, dumb hunk whose catchphrase was “Whoa.”

We covered the family dynamics and the brave, bold storytelling of Blossom earlier this year, when we spoke to creator Don Reo, as well as Mayim Bialik and most of her television family. And yet there is so much more to Blossom than just the way the character and the actress who played her inspired and affected girls across the country at a time when role models were mostly superficial. Behind Blossom Russo was the woman responsible for cultivating a sense of style that was unlike anything else on TV at that time: Sherry Thompson, Blossom‘s costume designer.

When Reo gave Thompson the job, she had already briefly worked with Bialik on a previous series. As with Michael Stoyanov (Blossom’s older brother, Anthony Russo) and Ted Wass (Blossom’s father, Nick), the actress had some influence in who she’d be working with on her new series. However, Reo made the designer’s job as simple as it was important by giving her one instruction.

“He just said, ‘Do whatever you want. We want people to tune in to see what the girls are wearing,’ and nobody ever says that,” Thompson laughs. “Honestly, I just worked with Mayim, and her mom was at every fitting and had a lot to say about all aspects of the show, but particularly the wardrobe. I’m pretty sure I took photographs, Polaroids at the time, and showed them to Judy [Allison], Don’s wife, just so they’d know. Back in the day there was such a thing as a dress rehearsal for a sitcom, which they never do anymore, so that people could see not only the clothes but also the shots, fix the dialogue, and all that stuff before they actually taped it. That’s when I saw how the clothes worked on camera and could make any needed changes.”