Ashley Tisdale Still Has Her High School Musical Wardrobe: ‘I Invented Some of Sharpay’s Outfits’

Ashley Tisdale has always had a knack for fashion. From her days dressing her High School Musical character to her trendy stage moments during her performances, style has always been a big part of her career. And now, the 30-year-old star is teaming up with Signorelli, the L.A.-based T-shirt label, as its creative director to launch her very first clothing line!

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For Tisdale, joining the Signorelli team as its creative head this fall was a no-brainer. In fact, the star says it was such an organic collaboration that she didn’t know why she hadn’t teamed up with the brand before now.

“It’s funny because I’m a fan of Signorelli and for about three years, I was really focused on doing a clothing line, and it was such an easy fit for me,” she told PeopleStyle. “I was like, ‘I want to do T-shirts, I want to do graphics, I want to do cool clothes,’ and it was just so crazy that Meredith [Garrett] and I met through my agents. We just literally and organically fit perfectly together.”

The Ashley Tisdale x Signorelli collection — which has about 25 pieces ranging from slouchy neutral-colored T-shirts to tanks covered with cutesy sayings and graphics — was inspired by Tisdale’s everyday life.

“We have a design team who helps create the graphics, but I get inspired by Instagram stuff, I get inspired by stuff in everyday life,” she said. “For example, I recently had a girls’ dinner and I was like, ‘There’s something about rosé and I was like, ‘Oh my Gosh, that’s such a T-shirt, I have to put that on a T-shirt!’ We collaborate and talk about what the themes should be, then you go from there.”

And it doesn’t hurt that Tisdale went in with an already extensive collection of tees in her wardrobe.

“It’s great, I love it because T-shirts are a staple in my clothing, and so I love that you can just dress down being casual or you can also dress it up with leather pants or skirt, flared jeans like I’m wearing. I’m a big jacket person so I love a good T-shirt underneath my jacket.”

Even with the high Los Angeles temps, Tisdale finds a way to dress up her casual, slouchy tees.

“For me, I’m definitely more of a pants girl, so I’ll usually do like a leather pant with a high heel, or even just like a skinny jean and a high heel — and always with a belt,” she said. “It’s really the trick of making a T-shirt go from casual to more dressed up, it’s really just tucking in your shirt with a belt.”

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Courtesy Signorelli

“I have a pair of flared Abercrombie & Fitch jeans that still fit me from high school. Double zero, guys, double zero,” she told PeopleStyle. “I don’t know how I fit into them, but it’ll be a sad day when I can’t fit in there anymore. They’re almost my favorite pair, and I don’t shop at Abercrombie & Fitch anymore, but those jeans, back in the day, were so good.”

Aside from her Signorelli tees and her Abercrombie jeans, there’s one part of her closet dedicated to her High School Musical character, Sharpay Evans’, wardrobe.

“I have [Sharpay’s] whole first wardrobe from the first [High School Musical] movie,” she told PeopleStyle. “Because I was just so into clothes, for some reason, I thought I’d wear her clothes again, which I never did.”

It turns out that most of Sharpay’s out-there ensembles were styled by Tisdale herself.

“I invented some of [the outfits] in the movies — I would take a skirt and wear it as a tube dress, and it became a staple outfit, which is so crazy,” she said. “I created the character was through her clothes. I wore the dress with pants underneath and a belt and it was this one specific moment in a movie. It’s so funny how the stuff that you have so much fun with in a fitting actually happens and it becomes a part of a culture phenomenon; it’s so weird.”

Now, though, Tisdale says she’s excited to see where Signorelli takes her. Since she’s joined the brand, the star has helped to expand its T-shirt offerings to include more pieces in the line and has plans to eventually add athleisure-inspired options to the collection next year with Garrett, Signorelli’s CEO.

“It’s a natural extension for a T-shirt line to go into athleisure, but that’s where we’re really going to stand out,” Garrett said. “We’re going to go into sportswear and true woven layering pieces, like bombers and leather, and really expand all the fabrications and styling.”

She added: “It’s really going to mimic Ashley’s style and it should be really unique because there’s not a line out there that’s really cool, casual T-shirts that also has the sophistication with the layering pieces. The idea is a whole lifestyle collection around it.”

Tisdale’s Signorelli tees will retail for $39 to $49 each and can be found at Nordstrom stores beginning February 2016. And if all goes according to plan, Signorelli will make its runway debut next year too.

“We’re hoping,” she said. “Meredith and I, how we are together, we’re all about momentum and getting shit done, so taking it to the runway? It’s happening.”

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Are you excited for Ashley’s upcoming collection? Will you be adding any of the tees to your closet come February? Share below!

–Sarah Kinonen
Follow @sarahkinonen