Though we might consider Practical Magic quintessentially 90s today, the costume designer Judianna Makovsky was aiming for a timeless look when she worked on the film ahead of its 1998 release. “I tried to do something that wouldn’t age, so I stayed away from what I thought were trends,” she tells me. “I wanted the film to look like something you couldn’t buy. It was unique to the characters.”
Nearly three decades later, with its much-anticipated sequel arriving today and Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Stockard Channing, and Dianne Wiest returning to the cast, Practical Magic remains a beacon of style, its wardrobe influencing the bohemian, gothic-romantic, witchy tastes now rampant among Gen Z. Maisie Williams, one of the sequel’s young stars, even re-interpreted an original red-carpet look at the premiere last month.