Miss Congeniality’s Makeover Still Works Because It Was Never Really About the Dress

When Miss Congeniality hit theaters on December 22, 2000, it landed right at the height of the rom-com makeover era. This was during a time when shopping montages ruled the silver screen, a new hairdo could literally change your life, and Sandra Bullock was Hollywood's most effortlessly charming leading lady.

The film introduces Bullock as FBI agent Gracie Hart, a gloriously awkward, no-frills cop who wears “really masculine shoes” and battles her microwave while cooking Hungry-Man dinners. By the final act, she’s gliding across a beauty pageant stage in sequins and heels. Yet somehow, she never loses the endearingly scrappy spirit that made her compelling in the first place.

Costume designer Susie DeSanto, who also worked on another Y2K rom-com classic, 13 Going on 30, approached Gracie’s pageantry makeover through a classic storytelling lens. There was, she tells The Zoe Report, “a little bit of that Pygmalion thing,” with Michael Caine essentially playing Professor Higgins to Bullock’s Eliza Doolittle.

The appeal wasn’t just the visual transformation, but the dramatic contrast of it all. "Gracie fights it tooth and nail all the way — she's kind of cynical," says DeSanto. "But what she ends up finding out is who she really is, and she comes together as a whole person. It's really about self-discovery, and she finds the value of friendship, female friendships, and that the world isn't so black and white."

That evolution is reflected visually—Gracie’s world shifts from the stark black-and-white palette of her FBI uniform to one filled with color once she enters the pageant world as her undercover alter ego, Gracie Lou Freebush. Rather than plunging her straight into stereotypical pageant brights, DeSanto leaned into lavender and soft lilac tones.

"It was sort of a more feminine version of gray," DeSanto explains. The color felt emotionally right for the character and flattering on Bullock. Lavender allowed Gracie to move toward femininity without abandoning her core identity. It also subtly connected her to Candice Bergen’s pageant director, who lives in similarly muted pastels.

The first time we witness this lavender revolution is when Gracie walks out of the airport hangar, post-makeover, wearing the iconic lilac Hervé Léger bandage dress. Like Jenna Rink's color-blocked Versace, Cher Horowitz's red Alaïa party dress, and Andie Anderson's yellow Carolina Herrera gown, the reveal of Gracie's dress is burned into the minds many.

For DeSanto, the choice was deeply character-driven. "What is the most absolutely uncomfortable, ridiculous thing that Gracie Hart would never, ever, ever, in a thousand years, put on her body?" she recalls asking herself. "It had to be that." She tried other bodycon dresses, some even in white, but the light purple Hervé Léger ultimately felt right for the scene.

Two and a half decades later, the look has come full circle. Hervé Léger dresses have surged back into the cultural conversation amid the Y2K revival, proof that the silhouette DeSanto once used as a punchline has once again become a fashion statement.

To design the pageant looks, DeSanto watched real-life competitions, like Miss USA, and consulted people from that world, but quickly realized that authenticity had its limits. Real pageant gowns, she admits, were "kind of cheesy" and lacked the movie-star quality the film demanded.

Instead, she sourced many of the beaded gowns from a Los Angeles vendor who specialized in pageant wear, then elevated them to feel more cinematic. The same logic applied to footwear. While real contestants often wear clear platform “posing heels,” DeSanto opted for Stuart Weitzman shoes.

"They gave us all these beautiful shoes," recalls DeSanto. "It was one of those things where I thought, hmm, [the clear heels] may be more real, but we're not making a documentary, we're making a star-driven, Warner Bros. film, so let's uplift this visually."

That philosophy extended to the film’s elaborate group numbers, including the Statue of Liberty routine, where contestants donned layers of blue-green chiffon dresses and crowns designed by one of DeSanto's good friends, propmaster Trish Gallaher Glenn. You'd think a group of women dressed as Lady Liberty would be easy to caricature, but it felt cohesive instead.

One of Gracie’s most memorable moments comes during the talent portion of the pageant, where she performs on the glass harp, an instrument made of water-filled wine glasses, while wearing a traditional dirndl-inspired look. The costume, meticulously constructed by a former Bolshoi Ballet stitcher, was built like a ballet costume itself, sturdy enough to support slapstick comedy and withstand Gracie’s physical chaos.

"It was kind of her I Love Lucy moment," says DeSanto. "Plus, the comedy of that situation is pretty hilarious. That is actually one of my favorite scenes in the movie." The look also served as a nod to Bullock’s mother, a German opera singer, grounding the gag in something meaningful.

Finally, there's Gracie’s final pageant look: a white silk gown, hand-beaded and embellished with sparkling Swarovski crystals. It's elegant and glamorous without erasing the woman underneath. In many ways, it encapsulates what Miss Congeniality is all about.

Looking back, DeSanto credits the film’s longevity to the convergence of performer, material, and moment. "A different actor would never have been able to pull off what she pulled off," DeSanto says of Bullock. "You give somebody the right piece of material, one they know what to do with, along with the right director and the right situation, and that's when the stars align."