Zara Ellis in monochromatic yellow Carhartt tracksuit walking through a liminal corridor for the WhatSheStyled Backrooms fashion editorial

Trends · June 12, 2026

11 Backrooms Outfit Ideas We Styled After Seeing the A24 Film

"The Backrooms isn't just a horror meme anymore. It's a color palette, a lighting reference, and now — a full fashion edit."

Zara Ellis · Fashion Director

I saw it opening weekend. A24 gave a 20-year-old director a budget, and Kane Parsons made the most unsettling film of the year — the kind where you feel genuinely submerged in the liminal space, like the hallways are breathing. The production design is immaculate. The fluorescent lighting is perfect. You leave the theater and everything looks slightly wrong for the rest of the day.

I left the theater and immediately started pulling clothes.

That yellow-green hue. The water-stained walls. The way every corridor looked like somewhere you've been but can't quite place. It's a specific feeling, and it turns out fashion is really good at capturing feelings. The backrooms aesthetic has been circulating on the internet for years, but the film made it visceral in a way a Pinterest board never could. So I styled it — with some help from Camille.

Here are 11 outfits we put together in the weeks after seeing the film. Each one is a different interpretation of that same energy — some obvious, some oblique, all wearable.

Outfit #1

Cloud Sweater & Dark Denim

Camille in a scenic landscape knit sweater holding a point-and-shoot camera in a teal room with a cloud-painted ceiling

Camille bought this sweater the day after seeing the film — a landscape knit with rolling hills and clouds that matched the ceiling of wherever we ended up shooting. She brought her own point-and-shoot because the found-footage angle felt too right to ignore.

Outfit #2

Preppy Brown Uniform

Camille in a cream short-sleeve button-up with a loose brown tie and high-waisted brown trousers in a plain hallway

The tie was Camille's idea — she said the movie made her want to dress like she had somewhere to be, even if that somewhere has no exit. She brought the DVD box set herself. We did not ask.

Outfit #3

Yellow Carhartt Workwear

Zara in head-to-toe yellow with a Waffle House cap, Carhartt vest, pinstripe button-up, yellow trousers, and Converse in a yellow hallway

I refused to stop smiling for this one, which honestly makes it more unsettling. The Waffle House cap was a last-minute add — I said all-yellow needed a mascot.

Outfit #4

Clowncore Care Bears

Zara in a Clown Around graphic baby tee, denim shorts, and green fuzzy smiley-face slippers in a pink tiled room

We stumbled onto that pink tile room by accident — completely unplanned, perfectly wrong. The fuzzy slippers are her personal pair and she would not swap them out for any other shoe.

Outfit #5

Yellow Stripe & Floral Flares

Zara in a yellow-brown striped crop polo, dark flared jeans with floral embroidery, a star beret, and star accessories in a green liminal hallway

The flared jeans with the floral embroidery are giving 2003 thrift store find, which is exactly the right energy for this. She kept hitting the fluorescent light with her beret and refusing to take it off.

Outfit #6

Yellow Duster & Lime Green Set

Zara in a yellow sleeveless belted duster over a lime green lace bodysuit and wide-leg trousers, with a wide-brim hat and green clutch in a yellow corridor

Getting yellow over lime green was my call and honestly even I wasn't sure about it until I saw the photo. I sat down mid-shoot because the yellow boots were pinching — this is that exact shot.

Outfit #7

Clown Cardigan & Denim Mini

Zara mid-spin in a fuzzy dark mohair cardigan with a cartoon clown patch, denim mini skirt, and rainbow Converse in a birthday party room with a checkered floor

We didn't plan the birthday party room — she just ran in when we walked past it. The cardigan has a literal clown embroidered on it and I have never felt more understood by a piece of clothing.

Outfit #8

Yellow Carhartt Explorer

Zara in a monochromatic yellow Carhartt track jacket, crop tee, and shorts holding a yellow Instax camera in a liminal hallway

The only shot where I wasn't smiling, which required three takes. I held the camera up like I was documenting something real — very much giving Kane Parsons found footage energy.

Outfit #9

Brown Academic Layers

Camille in a cropped brown suede jacket, Fair Isle sweater vest, plaid button-up, brown tie, and corduroy trousers shot from above in a liminal stairwell

Camille shot this leaning over a stairwell at a 45-degree angle, which felt accurate to how the film makes you feel the whole time. She called the layering 'getting dressed for a building with no exits.'

Outfit #10

Library Core Pinstripes

Camille in a cropped pinstripe button-up and plaid tie in a vintage library with a CRT monitor and a sign that reads THE END

The sign that says 'THE END' was already on the wall when we got there. Camille found this library on Google Maps, drove there alone, and this was the only photo she took.

Outfit #11

Yellow Maximalist Fur Jacket

Zara in a bright yellow faux fur crop jacket, sheer bodysuit, denim shorts, yellow knee-high boots, and a yellow Balenciaga-style motorcycle bag in a yellow corridor

We didn't have to find a location for this one — she just walked into a yellow hallway, turned around, and said 'yeah, this is it' before I even raised my phone. That was the whole shoot.

The Edit

I texted Camille after the film and we both showed up to the office Monday talking about yellow hallways. Neither of us planned this as a formal shoot — these looks came together over three weeks, mostly in stairwells and borrowed locations that accidentally looked exactly right.

If you want to wear the aesthetic without committing to head-to-toe yellow: pick one thing that reads slightly wrong — a tie on a polo, a fuzzy cardigan with a clown on it, a landscape knit sweater in a teal room. The point isn't to look like you're in the film. It's to look like someone who hasn't quite left it yet.

All outfits styled by Zara Ellis and Camille Rousseau. Shop links and prices subject to change.

← Trends