The Misinterpretation of Euphoria’s Cassie Howard’s Style and its Meaning
HBO’s hit and impactful teen drama series Euphoria is a tapestry of tears, parties, journies and identity, as liaised through the visual composition of cinematography, costume and make-up, sending viewers into a wave of acclaim and replication for both current seasons. One central character on the show who communicates compelling and somewhat empathetic concepts through her altering style is Cassie Howard, a seventeen-year-old student played by the talented rising star Sidney Sweeney. Cassie is characterised as a conventionally attractive girl (white skin, blonde hair, slim build with an overly “blessed” chest) who holds emotional distress through her broken home, absent father and devastating experiences with misogynistic men who prey on and heavily objectify her for her appearance.
This inner turmoil is centred as the main drama in the second season, where the character descends into a hyperactive state of hysteria when she begins a sexual relationship with her best friend’s (Alexa Demi as Maddy Perez) abusive ex-boyfriend, who she allows to control her as a means to obtain the illusion of love and security. Viewers find themselves watching the character’s persistent crying and outbursts as this draining situation taxes her emotional well-being.
As mentioned, Euphoria employs its costume department as a perceptible representation of the characters’ experiences, emotions and personalities. Sweeney’s role is one of the most insightful, interesting and layered embodiments of the show’s presentation of aesthetics to convey tones and themes. One pivotal factor is her wardrobe changing dramatically in the second season to depict how Cassie is so anguished to have Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi) notice and love her that she transforms her look several times, even stealing Maddy’s style through a gruelling beauty regime in hopes of attracting him. One day the character wakes up at four in the morning to dress in a chic pink jumper cropped perfectly to tease her midriff, and the next, she dons a country girl look after the previous attempt fails. This popular sequence exemplifies the lengths Cassie will go to through her exterior to appease the fractured interior, as tied with male attention and validation crucial puzzle piece of her overall character. Cassie’s costume reflects her experiences of girlhood, mental well-being and understanding of herself, with the latter reacting mostly to outside perceptions rather than her aspirations of where she stands.
“I’m always looking for a way to communicate the story through costume,” costume designer Heidi Bivens told Variety magazine, explaining her objective of experimenting with narrative processing through visual composition. “After I read the scripts, I’m trying to empathize with the characters, put myself in their place, and imagine what it would be like to feel what these characters feel.”
Euphoria’s fans have taken to social media platforms such as TikTok and Youtube to dissect and explain Cassie’s everchanging looks as aligned with her story arc and personality. This is executed all in an effort to understand why she does the questionable actions that progress a significant proportion of the second season’s drama and events. However, most of the conclusive readings of her initial style, as seen in the first season and the beginning portion of the second before she changes for Nate, fall short of wholly elucidating her characterisation as relating to her situation of being over-sexualised and judged as a female. To elaborate, these constant interpretations of Cassie’s early wardrobe comprised of baby pink and blue shades embedded on knitted cardigans, jumpers, casual tops, and jeans cite her as simply a “super basic” and, by default, a boring character whose style matches.
As allegedly communicated in her simple outfits, Cassie can only be perceived as a clean slate that is strikingly unexceptional. Hence, any male she is romantically involved with can shape her into whatever he wants through outer appearance. This is evident in Nate dressing her up in the clothes he chooses, similar to a visionary painter approaching a blank canvas to give it life or purpose. Essentially, these initial interpretations situate Cassie as someone who only cares about male opinions and validates herself on them alone. This explains the accusations that she possesses no identity in her style and validates interpretive arguments that Sweeney’s character exists within the show’s multistrand narrative to appease the male presence through complete (and disturbing) submission of self.
As logical as this may seem at first glance, I propose it lacks a more objective and considerate thought line. It’s understandable that Cassie’s clothes suit citations of basic. She isn’t as bold as Maddy or experimental as another character called Jules (Hunter Schafer), both of whom Nate becomes romantically or sexually interested in.
Despite this, I interpret her style palette as connotating interior and aura-based tones or ideals that assess the constant objectification she experiences into a deeper level of tragedy and unfairness. Cassie’s style of soft cardigans, gentle colours and flowy dresses mirror who she truly is. She’s feminine, girly and cute, super soft in her looks, pure and pretty. The character is quintessential girl-next-door in her outfits. Her loose blonde girls and soft blushy make-up, signalling innocence and delicacy, radiate a calming and comforting aura as her style is comfortable. To think of someone so gentle and sweet in looks and personality being broken down into a state of emotional distress and immoral actions elevates the heartbreak that infiltrates Cassie as a character. So how did this cognitive dissonance in her style and how she is perceived and subsequently acts come to be?
To be as frank yet respectful, despite her gentle style as expressive of her sweet nature, Cassie (through the casting of actor Sweeney) has a large bust size. As a result, due to the patriarchy and the oppressive power of misogyny, she gets persistently sexualised and reduced to lower-value physical terms such as hot or sexy, which can come across as shallow and restrictive given who she truly is. Her body type fractures her other qualities through the narrow-minded eyes of the sexist males she is forced to endure, as a tunnel-vision emphasis on her chest fails tremendously in representing the character’s true image and aura. Essentially, Cassie is cute, not hot. She doesn’t dress in tight or revealing clothes, which connotates a sexier or edgier image, as that isn’t the persona she wishes to give off.
Interestingly, Maddy aligns more with the hot aesthetic as her original and bold style (which many fans replicate) is built from cut-out, tight-fitted straps and darker shades, accentuated by bold, sultry makeup looks. Maddy’s wardrobe is arranged to suit her personality and impact ideally because she’s assertive, fierce and sharp. Demie’s role is the hot one with a raging edgy style that complements who she is; a confident and strong young woman who persists no matter the situation. Subsequently, the image of Cassie and Maddy together encompasses various presentations of feminity, with TikTok citing them both as the poster child for the light feminine and the dark feminine, respectively. Additionally, this showcases how two separate young women who have diverse styles and personas can still come together as friends. This element makes the breakdown of their friendship due to a male all the more upsetting for the show’s female audience.
Coming back to this gross misinterpretation of what she has to offer on the male characters’ part, what haunts Cassie’s daily life and psyche is an emotional and psychological pull and push between who she is and how she expresses that through clothes against what misogynistic males think when they see only one part of her body. This fracture between Cassie’s personality, which she tries to embody through her style, and how, no matter the efforts, she is reduced to her looks sexually, is a crucial component to understanding her character and the emotional breakdown that leads to her betraying her best friend (which is still a grave wrong on her part, no matter the reasoning). The character’s style represents Cassie’s restless forage for grounded identity, perception and understanding, as her introductory presentation is overshadowed by the male gaze on account of her physical features. To be consistently judged and misread by both additional characters and audiences orchestrates a harrowing and emotionally draining ordeal, evident in Cassie’s physical outbursts, which have become synonymous with her character following the second season’s explosive conclusion.
It’s disgusting and heartbreaking to register that these shallow men brainwashed by patriarchal ideals base Cassie’s entire worth or purpose on one immediate part of her whole being, representing an issue that overpowers and oppresses countless women who can see themselves in Sweeney’s role no matter if they match her style or not. Cassie’s arc in Euphoria allows these women to be seen and heard. It is significant that Cassie’s physical and emotional realms are dissected and understood to the best of the audience’s abilities. This involves consistent consideration that whilst it is immoral that she engaged sexually with her best friend’s abuser and damaged that friend emotionally in exchange for alleged acceptance from the abuser, the process that forced her into that action has to be explored to achieve critical objectivity. From this interpretation, Cassie’s character embodies visual exposition to portray psychological and societal subjects, varied and debated in audience reception and analysis. Despite being constructed within an originally written storyline and image, the role communicates a unified experience that combines young women from various walks of life through the show’s use of costume and make-up with a design that reflects personality and emotional reactions.