"Dirty Dancing" offers an array of outfits from the stylish sixties

The website Clothes on Film includes an article titled Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing: Baby Grows Up by Lord Christopher Laverty. The article begins with the following passages and photographs (I have added captions):

.... the most iconic moments in some of the best-loved films are defined in no small part by costume.

This can most certainly be said of Dirty Dancing in that classic scene where “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” Johnny Castle’s half-unbuttoned black shirt and equally rebellious leather jacket with up-turned collar define him as the bad boy ‘your Daddy would never approve of’, whilst Baby wears a floaty, pale pink dress that gives her the grace of a ballerina and the elegance of a dove reflecting her much purer nature.

... Dirty Dancing offers an array of outfits from the stylish sixties. Baby, who goes through the biggest transformation in the story, showcases her ascent to womanhood through wardrobe choices. At the start of the film, an innocent and quirky Daddy’s girl, she can be seen in a loose white blouse and knee-length denim shorts, hiding her personality and her figure.

In contrast to her fashion-conscious older sister, Baby explores Kellerman’s holiday resort and spends her first night on the tiles in a long pale dress with horizontal stripes and rows of delicate pink flowers, teamed with an over-sized woollen cardigan, ‘baby’ blue in colour and giving her a somewhat frumpy appearance.

Baby's pale dress with horizontal stripes
and rows of delicate pink flowers

Baby's frumpy, baby-blue, over-sized woolen cardigan

Overall this outfit, along with her bouncy, unmanaged frizzy hair, present Baby as being particularly childish for her age. One may expect an adolescent to be push boundaries a bit more.

In the scenes following the staff party (during which Baby famously carries a watermelon) a more daring side begins to surface, as we see her in a more fashionable red and white striped top. The red is brighter than the colours we have seen her wearing prior to this, and is perhaps there to signify that a more sexual side is beginning to emerge.

Baby’s outfits change more drastically when her dance lessons with Johnny commence, swapping frumpy cardies for blouses tied up to make crop tops and figure hugging white high-waisted jeans.

Baby's blouse tied up to make a crop-top

You can read the rest of the article on the Clothes on Film webpage.