25 Years After Legally Blonde, Selma Blair Reveals How Much Has Changed

Selma Blair is looking back at her Legally Blonde press tour style as the movie heads toward its 25th anniversary, and she is hilariously honest about how low-key it all was. Also: she just dropped a pajama collab, and yes, a 'bed jacket' is now on my wish list.

Back when premieres were DIY

Blair, now 53, says that during the 2001 promo run for the Reese Witherspoon-led hit, she did not even think about hiring a stylist. She would either buy what she liked off the rack or literally ask the store to dress her. Makeup for a premiere? At the time, that felt over the top. A few years later, she realized, right, actually, makeup helps on a red carpet. When she did do her own makeup for the big premiere, it felt like a whole production.

As for the fits: in June 2001 at the Los Angeles premiere, she wore a red-and-navy striped halter dress. The next month in Southampton, New York, she switched to a black Ralph Lauren dress. Simple, unfussy, very early-2000s actor- on-the-rise energy.

'Everyone has a stylist. Crazy. You don’t even get to keep the clothes.'

She laughs now about how much the industry has changed. These days, stylists are standard, and you often borrow looks you will not own later. And when it comes to gowns, a stylist is not a luxury so much as how the whole machine works — buying a red-carpet gown outright would be brutal on the wallet.

The closet clean-out (and one lone beret)

Blair says she held on to pieces from Legally Blonde and The Sweetest Thing for years. Nothing from Cruel Intentions made it home, though. Over time, she gave most of what she had to fans or to teens she met who were going through rough patches. The result: she is basically empty-handed now, aside from a single beaded beret. Considering she occasionally battles moths in her closet, she is oddly at peace with it.

From red carpets to bed jackets

Her current fashion staple: a bed jacket. That ties right into her new limited-edition pajama capsule with Kansas City-based lifestyle brand MERSEA, called Sea La Vie, built around the idea of sleepwear as modern self-care. Blair connected with the women-owned label years ago when she was not doing well with multiple sclerosis — she was diagnosed in 2018 — and a care package from the brand made a real impact while she was spending a lot of time in bed.

These days, she jokes she owns more pajamas than most people, and she loves that she can throw on a bed jacket and still look pulled together if she goes out.

A nod to her mom

Blair co-designed The Molly Bedcoat with MERSEA, partly as a tribute to her mother. Her mom had four pregnancies, and bed jackets were a thing in the late 50s and 60s. Blair inherited some of those and became attached to them early. When she first moved to New York with basically one bag, she even wore one of her mom's bed jackets out to a nice dinner — nothing underneath, paired with sharp pants and heels — and the memory stuck.

Sea La Vie: what you can buy right now

The collection dropped Tuesday, April 14, and includes two colors for the bed jackets — 'Starry Navy' and 'Ballet Pink' — plus a full lineup of mix-and-match pieces. A practical note with a good cause: 10 percent of profits go to the American Brain Foundation, where Blair now serves as Global Ambassador and National Chair for Brain Health.

• The Molly Bedcoat (bed jacket), in 'Starry Navy' and 'Ballet Pink'
• Selma Jumper
• Runaround Button Down Top + matching Playground Pants
• Drive Thru Shirt + coordinating Chill Out Shorts
• Boyfriend Button Up Shirt + matching Beddy-Bye Shorts
• Accessories and additional matching sets

All told, it is a very Selma Blair arc: DIY premieres, a black Ralph Lauren moment in the Hamptons, one survivor beret, and now a cozy capsule built from real life. Bring on the 25th anniversary nostalgia — preferably in pajamas.