with" – among them a high school senior, an old high school crush, and an alcoholic – prior to dating Chandler, and of the show's six main characters maintains the highest total of serious relationships. Cox described Monica as goofy, angry, and sarcastic, while referring to her as the show's most sexually active character despite her "goody two shoes" image. Out of Friends' female characters, Monica's style took the longest to establish. InStyle wrote that Monica's combination of short, wavy hair and dark lipstick evoked "a '90s take on '40s style." Ashley Hoffman of Styleite believes that her character initially "dressed like a tourist trying to look like a New Yorker", frequently sporting jeans, overalls, and cargo shorts. With a wardrobe comprised almost equally of dresses and pants, Monica's fashion sense, much like Rachel and Phoebe's, "was a little bit normcore, a little bit corporate-casual." Elle's Mahalia Chang observed that Monica did not follow trends of the time as much as Rachel, preferring to boast mom jeans, "boxy" sweaters, sneakers and flannels. Critical reception Four months before its premiere, Friends failed NBC's confidential research report, which cited the unlikeability of its six main characters as a possible factor. Although the report acknowledged Monica as the only character with whom test audiences identified somewhat positively, NBC admitted that reception towards the character was "well below desirable levels for a lead" nonetheless. In retrospect, The New Republic's Andrew Harrison believes that although Monica and her friends "were superficial, self-absorbed and at first difficult to like ... in their solipsism and neurosis they reflected and sent up the world emerging around them ... far more accurately than any conventional gooey-hearted family sitcom", ultimately "creat[ing] a coffee-scented cocoon that millions wanted to enter". Reviews gradually improved; an early critical evaluation of Friends, which had pegged Cox as the show's star, read, "As Monica, [Cox] came across as charming, attractive, confident, and motivated – the leader of the group". While men found the actress attractive, women appreciated her sense of humor. When Friends premiered in September 1994, critics initially perceived Monica as the show's main character; Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker attributes this to the fact that Cox was the show's most famous cast member at the time. The actress has garnered largely positive reviews for her performance, with Tucker concluding that Cox "plays straight woman ... with alluring modesty". Tony Scott of Variety commended the