Kate (Portia Doubleday) goes by the alias of Nate Ganymede while working at Kassell disguised as a man. This is a reference to William Shakespeare's "As You Like It," where the female character Rosalind masquerades as a boy named Ganymede.
When Richard grabs a dress and dances around the room, he quotes the Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts movie Notting Hill (1999) when he says, "I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy."
The movie shares its title with the most successful song of its era, published in 1891 and written by Charles K. Harris. The middle initial "K" stands for "Kassell", the name used for the fictional fashion house where the movie takes place.
Kate's family name and the name of her family's clothing business is Kassell, which is a play on the word 'castle'. It is a nod to the Cinderella subplot as Kate and her friends talk about "going to Kassell", "sending Kate into Kassell", etc.
Is a modern retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale.