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Miss Congeniality fans know all too well that April 25 is the perfect date. So does Miss Congeniality costume designer Susie DeSanto, who created, curated, and sourced the film’s iconic looks for Sandra Bullock’s lovably tough FBI agent, Gracie Hart.

April 25th also marks the start of the film’s 25th anniversary celebrations (it was originally released on December 22, 2000), which is both appropriate and totally surreal, especially for DeSanto.

“I can’t believe it’s 25 years,” says DeSanto, who was also the costume designer on 13 Going on 30, One Fine Day, Hope Floats, and most recently, Hulu’s Good American Family. “It’s so funny because I remember so much of it like it was yesterday. It was such a vibrant experience.”

Benjamin Bratt, Michael Caine and Sandra Bullock.

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

The film shot mainly in Austin, Texas, and DeSanto tells Glamour there was approximately eight weeks to prep before filming commenced. “Since we weren’t in L.A., I had to have full-time shoppers and pullers sending me stuff all the time because you just don’t have the resources that you do in New York or Los Angeles,” DeSanto says.

It was the costume designer’s second time working with Bullock (their first film was 1998’s Hope Floats), and she has nothing but praise for the Oscar winner. “She’s got such range, and she’s proven that over and over again,” she says. “But her comedic stuff in Miss Congeniality…she was the right person with the right material at the right time in her career, and that’s when it all comes together.”

However, DeSanto adds that it was Bullock’s demeanor off-screen that also helped the film work so well. “Everybody really got along,” she says. “It was a very relaxed and fun set. Everybody was super supportive, and that all came from Sandy. She set the bar, so everybody was like, Okay, this is what we’re doing behavior wise. And so, it was really fun.”

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

As for the success of the film at the box office, which grossed over $200 million worldwide at the time, DeSanto wasn’t surprised.

“Reading scripts is a big drag to me, but when I read that script, I was like, ‘Oh, this movie is going to be really funny,'” she says. “When she is banging with the bouquet, and it’s the bomb, and she’s ripping the crown off and running…that was so hilarious to me. It still is hilarious to me, that whole climax of the film. And the thought of that happening at a beauty pageant just added to it.”

Speaking of beauty pageants, DeSanto says that folks from actual pageants were in attendance for some of the film’s pageant scenes, adding, “They take that stuff real seriously. They were really happy to help and participate, but if we ever pushed the envelope too far to made too much fun of the girls or the whole thing, they could get a little brisly.”

DeSanto says Bullock completely immersed herself in the world, which comes across in the film. “She was in that role with such ease, and it was so in her wheel house,” she says. “Everything we did circled around what her performance was going to be and how to serve that, which is your job as a film designer.”

In honor of the film’s 25th anniversary—and the perfect date, of course—DeSanto, who next reunites with Jennifer Garner for Peacock’s The Five-Star Weekend, opens up about Miss Congeniality‘s most memorable looks and the secrets behind them.

The Herve Leger lavender dress

Michael Caine and Sandra Bullock.

©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

“We probably tried five or six dresses [before finding this one]. I pretty much knew I didn’t want to use pink. There was a lot of conversation, because it needed to be something—whether it be a color, a style, a silhouette, a look—that Gracie, as an FBI agent, would never go near. It had to be that big before and after picture. So that lavender Hervé dress…it’s its own thing. You see it, you know it. And at the time, those dresses were very cutting edge. That was when they were first hitting people’s consciousness fashion-wise. I love that lavender color, and I love it on her. But it was something Gracie would never go near in her real life.

Sandy, on the other hand, was really focused on [Gracie in that scene] looking good. She knew that that was the assignment. Sandy is very smart. She also wanted to make sure the dress was going to work for her pratfall. She wanted the laugh. Sandy is a very talented physical comedian. You don’t really see her hit the ground—it’s almost like she’s falling off a pair of high heels.”

The movie poster look

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

“We made that dress just for the poster. She never wore that dress in the movie. We talked about not wanting to see Gracie in pink, but red felt predictable to me. The hot pink felt a little bit unpredictable. It was a super simple design that was really all about the fabric. I called one of my favorite fabric places in New York and said, ‘I just want to do a really simple sheath dress, I want it to be long, and I need the most amazing piece of sequin fabric you have that has shape.’ And he said, ‘I know I what to send you.’ And now, it’s my favorite piece from the film.”

The talent competition costume

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

“Sandy had a real affection for that look. It was built by this Russian guy who used to work at the Bolshoi Ballet. How he got to Austin, Texas, I have no idea. The ensemble was constructed like a ballet costume, which is very intense construction because ballet costumes are workhorses. They require a lot. The internal construction of that costume was very intense, which was great. Sandy wanted that whole [scene to be like an] I Love Lucy comedy bit. So we started thinking about all the stuff that Lucille Ball used to wear. Sandy was also thinking about the waitresses that worked at a Mexican restaurant that have to wear a [certain] uniform. And also, Sandy’s mother is a German opera singer. So, somehow between the Mexican restaurant, the German opera singer mother, the guy who worked at the Bolshoi Ballet, and the I Love Lucy of it all, that’s how we ended up with that costume.

At first I was like, ‘Oh, Jesus, this is too much.’ But you know what? She pulled it off. She made it work and was so funny in that scene. Also, it was so hot that day. We were in San Antonio at the Alamo, and it was 9 billion degrees. And we couldn’t leave the hotel that day because the Backstreet Boys were in town for a concert, and their tour buses were in front. Literally, we were going to be late to work because of the Backstreet Boys.”

The Statue of Liberty gowns

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

“I love those. We had those built in John Hill’s workroom in Los Angeles. We had to have a commitment from the workroom that they were going to produce those dresses for us in the time we needed them, and all that fabric came from New York. There were three, four layers of different colors of that blue-ish, green-ish chiffon. It had some body and texture to it, so it was a little thicker material. I had a prototype dress that I had found, and then we just made adjustments to it. And then, John Hill’s workroom manufactured the dresses in about three different sizes, which was very intense because 50 dresses are a lot of manufacturing.

The headdresses were made by one of my very closest friends, Trish Gallaher Glenn, who was the prop master on the movie. Sometimes the relationship between a costume designer and a property master can be a tricky one, because they intersect in a lot of ways. But Trish has brilliant taste, so it was really fun to collaborate with her on that.”

The sequin finale dress

Michael Caine and Sandra Bullock.

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

“My L.A. shoppers found this guy who is one of the people where those women get those dresses for those beauty pageants. Sandy loved that dress. When she put that dress on and we did that fitting, her sister was also there, who she’s very, very close to. When she stepped out of a little fitting area of her trailer, everybody went, Ohhhhh. She was like, ‘Okay, this is the dress.’ We had to have a big finale moment.”

The tailored suit

Benjamin Bratt and Sandra Bullock.

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

“This one fit Gracie, as opposed to not fitting her [like her previous suits]. I think it was a Calvin Klein suit that I got at Neiman Marcus Last Call in Austin. I knew what it had to be, so we made sure that it fit her really well, and it was cut very well for her body shape. A lot of it, I think, had to do with her hair and her attitude to it. But it was really about the fit more than anything.

The message of the film is about being true to yourself. Gracie’s journey was to become the person that was always in there to become. That’s when everything starts to click for her, and then she finds love and happiness. That message of being true to yourself is a really important one.”

In honor of 4/25, Miss Congeniality—and Miss Congeniality 2—is now available to buy or rent for $4.25 (and you can also get a Miss Congeniality replica sash).