To All The Boys I Loved Before, when all I wanted was an off-the-shoulder Fair Isle sweater from Limited Two, but my mom didn’t believe 9-year-olds should own $50 shirts (fair). To All The Boys I Loved Before, when I was wearing a pistachio-color terry cloth Juicy Couture tracksuit I bought with my bat mitzvah gift certificates. To All The Boys I Loved Before, when I went through a long phase of thinking that wearing sweatpants with visible period stains was an important part of feminism.
I spent my early years fantasizing about boys while wearing cheap synthetic fabrics, usually stained, sometimes by my own blood. Lara Jean Song Covey (Lana Condor), the heroine of the 2018 Netflix romcom To All the Boys I Loved Before, wears perfectly tailored coats, designer Mary Janes, and the occasional ballgown. We are not the same. In the movie’s sequel, To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You, out Wednesday on Netflix, Lara Jean’s style is more obscenely adorable than ever before: rhinestone-encrusted collars peek out from under marigold backpack straps; a pale-pink mohair coat slides over a puff-sleeve minidress. On Valentine’s Day she wears, essentially, a high-school-appropriate sexy-nurse costume, and she casually rocks a traditional Korean hanbok to brunch. Her relaxation wardrobe and her hair accessories collection are unparalleled. In one scene she wears what I can only describe as a lounging headband.