This '90s Rom-Com Is My Ultimate Autumn Style Inspiration, Here's Why It Should Be Yours, Too

Confession: I’ve watched Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail about 200 times. It is the only movie saved on my laptop. I can quote more lines from it than are probably useful, though, like most Nora Ephron oeuvres, it can come in handy when struggling with everyday dilemmas (“leave the gun, take the cannoli!”)

A proper You’ve Got Mail rewatch has been my autumn tradition since my mom bought it on VHS in 1999. I get lost in the language. Words like thither.

Lately, though, I’ve been getting even more lost in its ’90s style choices—specifically Parker Posey as Patricia Eden.

Contrary to many who seek inspiration in Meg Ryan in, well, any of her ‘80s and ‘90s classics, it’s Parker Posey in You’ve Got Mail that is my forever back-to-work autumn inspiration—particularly where fashion is concerned.

Millennials like me will probably be able to picture her character, Patricia Eden—Tom Hanks’s pre-Meg Ryan girlfriend. But I doubt a Gen Zer who hasn’t gone on a recent Parker Posey deep dive thanks to The White Lotus can necessarily call her up from their brain files.

So, as a person who can quote almost the entirety of this film (along with most of When Harry Met Sally and several chapters of Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck), allow me to explain.

Parker Posey as Patricia Eden

We first meet Patricia—or “Patricia Makes Coffee Nervous”, as she is mostly lovingly described by her boyfriend—in a breakfast scene. She storms into the kitchen in search of coffee, talking a mile a minute to a bewildered Tom Hanks, dressed in all black, her hair pinned back with one of those deeply ’90s tortoiseshell clips that, when styled together, is so perfectly evocative of the high-powered, cultured ’90s New York woman that it almost feels like costume shorthand. Except it would look ideal on, oh, say, a 30-something fashion journalist running around Paris today. It’s the kind of don’t-mess-with-me elegance that is totally transportable, through time and space. Costume designer Albert Wolsky, it quickly becomes apparent, knew exactly what he was doing.

The best Patricia scene in the whole movie takes place at an apartment cocktail party. Here, while coiffing vodka tonics and spitting truths to inadvertent literary people, she wears a Mandarin-collared black jacket (velvet, I think), which is much like those viral versions from Róhe and Zara. She accessorises this with dark red lipstick and that same clip situation in her perfect black bob. In case you were wondering, I’ll be imitating her outfit exactly like this at cocktail parties come October.

A lovable, though admittedly slightly ruthless character, I once came across a deep-internet ‘Justice for Patricia’ contingent, to which I definitely adhere; she’s simply just cooler than Meg’s character. But regardless of whether you agree or not, Patricia frankly does not give a tortoiseshell barrette what you think of her, and that’s what makes her so brilliant. Plain-speaking Patricia knows who she is and what she wants. Be it the perfect leather gloves or getting her eyes lasered.

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Meg Ryan as Kathleen Kelly

Now, children, lest you think Meg Ryan is being rudely overlooked, I am not pooh-poohing her excellent cardigan-clad silhouettes in this epic either.

There is definitely more naivety to Kathleen Kelly’s clothes, as there is, perhaps, to Kathleen herself. But they—like her—are the definition of charming, right down to her wispy, tousled bob, which is considerably less polished than Patricia’s glossy blunt cut.

Ryan’s most iconic looks in the film are arguably those she wears while sitting at her laptop, engaged in the then utterly cutting-edge and mysterious activity of chatting to a stranger online. A “total stranger”, as she bemuses. (Or not??)

Kathleen’s purported naughtiness is juxtaposed rather wonderfully with her innocent, elegant sweater sets, which I would frankly be thrilled to wear today to do something vaguely naughty myself.

There is also the scene in which she argues with her boyfriend Frank about his obsession with buying vintage typewriters. (Yes, you can, apparently, own too many typewriters.)

I love her in this scene, and I love her fitted roll-neck layered under a (suede?) “jumper dress” (as the ‘90s called it). In fact, throughout the autumn scenes, Kathleen seems to be wearing a black or navy roll-neck under just about everything—a key cold-weather dressing habit I myself have been known to engage in.

Not to be overlooked: one brilliant scene in The Shop Around the Corner, Kathleen’s children’s bookshop, provides not only a lot of laughs but a masterclass in clean, understated late-’90s shirting.

Kathleen wears a crisp white button-down with a pointed collar underneath a fitted black V-neck sweater vest. It’s practical, polished and slightly menswear-inspired—the kind of outfit I imitate whenever I’m feeling particularly nerdy (often).

Meanwhile, her employee Christina Plutzker (Heather Burns) wears a soft, fluid silvery-grey blouse with a dark, tie-like neck detail and a high-waisted black bottom. It’s somehow both extremely ‘98 and something I would happily put on tomorrow. I can’t believe I haven’t tried imitating it yet.

Join me.

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