Looking Back At Office Space: A Snapshot Of Cubicle Dressing
Costume designer Melinda Eshelman puts the cast of the '90s movie in cuffed shirts and suspenders with little room for flare. Archaic? Yes, but the film's commentary on office culture still rings true.
By David Kobe
Published
Soft Focus is a monthly column about how clothes make a movie. For each installment, David explores how wardrobe contributes to a film’s impact, mis-en-scene, and culture at large.
After spending nearly ten days on the Côte d'Azur playa acting as a figure in a Slim Aarons photograph with close friends and mon amour, I decided to watch 1999’s Office Space. What better way to induce an extreme episode of of Sunday Scaries? As the sunshine of France faded from my heart, I could absorb Peter’s nihilism, internalize Milton’s timid anxiety, and soak myself in Division Vice President Bill Lumbergh’s micromanage-y leadership style.
With Labor Day and summertime in the rearview, the back-to-school energy emanates from the city streets. As summer’s optimism evaporates, it is more important than ever to consider how you will manage the rest of the year. How do you reconcile your two selves: the shark inside of you who has aspirations and goals (Emily Blunt in The Devil Wears Prada) and the easy, breezy sun-kissed girl with perfect clarity after two glasses of white wine on their Mediterranean vacation (Dua Lipa on Instagram)?
At its core, Office Space is a satire of that exact internal struggle: finding some semblance of balance in a banal world. Directed by Mike Judge, the film stars Ron Livingston and Jennifer Anniston, whose costume reflects that conflict and the universal challenge to hack it or, as Peter (played by Ron Livingston) puts it in Office Space, to “work just hard enough not to get fired.”
The film follows Peter, a young man early in his career, after a hypnosis session for anxiety goes wrong and causes him to lose concern for his job. As he ironically fails upwards at work following the appointment, his friends Michael and Samir are on the chopping block. As payback, they create a not-so-elaborate scheme to steal from the company, and hijinx ensues.
Judge’s film is a time capsule and a timeless expression of the American workplace. When the film came out in the late 90s, the office park reigned supreme as a post-NAFTA American workforce moved from an industrial economy to a service economy. The protagonist’s mortal enemies are their cubicles, the copier, and nosey consultants. The closest thing they have to a neighborhood bar is a casual dining chain restaurant, Chotskie's.
Melinda Eshelman’s costume design emphasizes the film as a perennial representation of American office life. The snapshot she designed is peak normcore, littered with slightly absurd costume choices that enhance the inanely comical doublethink and depressing culture of Initech. The protagonists and the other office dupes, the pseudo-hot shot upper management stiffs and the menacing consultants looking to make cuts, are distinguished by their differences in attire.