As a kid, I lived directly across the street from my elementary school, leaving me ample time to watch TV directly before and after school. Pre-homeroom, I’d turn on TNT to catch reruns of Charmed while I ate breakfast. Following the last bell, I’d race home to watch Gilmore Girls on ABC Family Freeform. The latter, to this day, is my comfort watch — I’ve probably seen every episode more than a dozen times. And though the show is more flawed in my 25-year-old mind than it was when I was 11, a few things about Gilmore Girls have held up: (1) Jess Mariano (played by Milo Ventimiglia) in a band T-shirt (preferably worn with short shorts), and (2) Lorelai Gilmore’s (Lauren Graham) underrated sense of style.
While I’ve always been a fan of Lorelai’s quirky, early aughts wardrobe, it only hit me recently how many of her pieces live inside my closet — fitted graphic tees, cut-offs, and cowboy boots. But while previously combining a bandana, a baseball tee, and sunglasses with colored lenses would have been outlandish for me (to wear in Manhattan at least), after spending the last year at home alone, I’ve found myself trying new combinations style-wise, and taking more risks than I would have pre-pandemic.
That’s how I found myself in the “laundry day” outfit, famously worn by Lorelai on Rory’s first day at Chilton (Season 1, Episode 2). I wasn’t intentionally copying her look; instead, after a day of work, I looked in the mirror and noticed how uncanny the sartorial resemblance was. My version included a slightly too small Connecticut Huskies T-shirt with jean shorts, and black, knee-high boots. After observing the likeness to Lorelai’s iteration — her shirt was pink tie-dye and she wore it with a long, black coat — I slipped on a coat of my own, for good measure. Wondering if the look was recognizable to anyone else, I posted it on Instagram stories, asking my followers if it looked familiar. To my surprise, at least a dozen people responded — some even calling out the exact episode she wore it in.
In an attempt to determine if years of watching Gilmore Girls reruns had actually left a mark on my personal style, I looked at the clothing already in my wardrobe to see if I could recreate any other outfits. And, after a few days of experimentation, it was Lorelai’s weekend looks that I discovered were most in sync with my own wardrobe. Shrunken T-shirts and worn-out jeans are my go-to for a Saturday afternoon. Sound familiar? Add a corduroy, leather, or, dare I say, Juicy Couture jacket — tried-and-true picks for Lorelai — and I’m off, looking like a carbon copy of my TV mom. (Admittedly, her choice of accessories, which often included belts, bucket hats, and headbands, were a bit too kitsch for my taste.)
My attempts to recreate her signature Friday night dinner ensembles, however, were met with more resistance. Spaghetti strap dresses and shrugs don’t make frequent appearances in my day-to-day life, nor do silky blouses and slacks. Still, a recent slip dress purchase seemed like just as good an opportunity as any to try, so I dug out a ‘90s white button-up that I stole from my aunt and a to-go coffee mug (obviously). Unlike the time Lorelai had to get rid of a spider the size of a Buick, my venture into her dressier side was another surprising success.
It would be naive of me to give full credit to my favorite childhood television series for my sudden urge to wear bandanas, baby tees, and cut-offs with boots. Trends from the ‘00s — trucker hats, low-rise jeans, heeled flip flops, and more — are rising in popularity. Still, since her outfits truly live rent-free in my head — years of re-runs will do that — something about Lorelai’s takes on the trends feel especially stylish.
Given that Gilmore Girls was up against style-forward shows like Girlfriends, Ally McBeal, and Sex and the City, Lorelai’s nonchalant, yet totally over-the-top looks never quite acquired the kind of following her Go-Go’s T-shirt collection deserved from the fashion world. This is why it’s now time to recognize Lorelai Gilmore as the early-aughts fashion muse that she was. I’ll wait — there’s plenty more in my closet.
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US First Lady Jill Biden waves as she greet members of the West Virginia National Guard during a trip to Charleston, West Virginia, on May 13, 2021. (Photo by Oliver Contreras / POOL / AFP) (Photo by OLIVER CONTRERAS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Last week, while boarding a plane in Colorado Springs, Dr. Jill Biden was photographed with a brown Valentino bag. As pointed out by CNN White House Correspondent Kate Bennett, the Garavani Rockstud tote featured hand-painted drawings of the First Lady’s First Dogs, Major and Champ. The addition of the two German Shepherds, who marked the return of White House pets after a four-year hiatus, made the already chic accessory tenfold more covetable, not to mention personal. The leather bag also showcased Dr. Biden’s initials in white letters.
The First Lady’s tote was illustrated by Riccardo Cusimano, as part of Valentino’s Pet-Ã -Porter collection that allows shoppers to customize the totes with a painting of their four-legged friend(s).
A member of the staff holds US First Lady Jill Biden’s personal bag with a picture of the presidential pets, German Shepherds named Champ and Major, as she prepare to board a plane in Colorado Springs, Colorado, May 6, 2021. (Photo by CARLOS BARRIA / POOL / AFP) (Photo by CARLOS BARRIA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
There to celebrate Military Spouse Appreciation Day at Fort Carson, an Army base, Dr. Biden paired her custom bag with a regal purple skirt suit, with a white blouse underneath, and tan heels. She accessorized with a light pink, satin-y face mask, pearl stud earrings, and a green, flower-shaped brooch that she pinned to the lapel of her jacket.
That same day, she also traveled to Nevada, to surprise Las Vegas educator Juliana Urtubey with the award for 2021 National Teacher of the Year, as well as to attend a National Nurses Day event at University Medical Hospital, thus making her Valentino carry-on a travel must-have.
If Valentino isn’t in your budget — the custom Rockstud totes start at $1,900 — fashion brand STAUD also can customize its best-sellers the Mini Moon Bag ($350) and the Shirley PVC tote ($310), among others, with your pup’s face on them.
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It’s no small job to try and capture the legacy of a figure like the fashion designer Halston in the span of a five-episode series. An Iowa-born milliner-turned-fashion designer and mainstay of disco-era New York nightclub Studio 54, the late Roy Halston Frowick changed the face of American fashion in the ‘70s. His bias-cut, glamour-forward designs were worn by fashion icons like Liza Minnelli, Elsa Peretti, Pat Cleveland, Anjelica Huston, and Bianca Jagger. But while hedonistic excess is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of Halston, severe minimalism and luxurious fabrics were the touchstones of the brand. And that’s exactly what Jeriana San Juan brought to life when creating the costumes for the Halston series.
“As a costume designer, I had to give a bit of a fashion education, so that people really got the context of how amazingly revolutionary and forward-thinking Halston’s clothes were in their times,” she says. In addition to looking at old photographs of the people portrayed in the Netflix mini-series, San Juan also researched fashion from the ‘60s to late ‘80s. “Studying the fashion from all of those different times was a joy. I went to places like Women’s Wear Daily and the Conde Nast archives at Vogue, and studied old columns that were talking about society at the time, the music that was playing on the radio, and the circle of artists and friends that Halston was surrounding himself with,” says San Juan. “It never really felt like work, it felt like a celebration of fashion.”
The series focuses on the pivotal looks of Halston’s career — the pillbox hat that Jackie Kennedy wore to John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, the rise of the Ultrasuede wrap dress the designer became known for, and the Battle of Versailles fashion show, the legendary event where five Parisian couturiers (Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Cardin, Emanuel Ungaro, Christian Dior’s Marc Bohan, and Hubert de Givenchy) competed against a quintet of American designers (Halston, Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Anne Klein, and Stephen Burrows).
San Juan recalls going into “full-on Carmen Sandiego” mode, studying photographs from the 1973 show and watching the Battle at Versailles documentary, which she found so helpful she made it a “homework assignment” for the entire team. “I found myself as a private investigator at first, gathering whatever images I could find and sort of piecing a puzzle together in what he showed while at Versailles. Then I needed to find a way to do it somewhat accurately, and also somewhat cohesively, because it was still a TV show,” she says. After deciding to focus on eveningwear looks, she found a vintage Halston caftan that she then used as the cornerstone of the scene.
“There’s a photograph of [American model] Karen Bjornson wearing this really beautiful plunging V-neckline gown that is like a blush pink clear sequin. And so I recreated that one, because it was so gorgeous, and also kind of married the vintage caftan I was able to find,” she says. “I also wound up paying tribute to this gold chiffon, sort of Greek goddess dress that Pat Cleveland wore, and then sort of build out and also take creative license, so that all of these dresses when seen together on stage, would really feel cohesive and harmonized.”
While San Juan tried to remain as authentic as possible, she did change Minnelli’s costume for her dance number at Versailles, opting for a sequin vest and pants that the Cabaret star wore for a different occasion in real life. “Because we were condensing our experience of Versailles, and what we were able to see into that world, I really wanted to do a performance costume for her, that she would be able to dance in and perform in, and something that felt quintessentially Liza of that period,” she says. “I just felt like it was a real iconic look for Liza that really spoke to Cabaret, which she was sort of hot on the heels of that fame. It just kind of felt like the right thing.” It’s this type of artistic license that allows for the full scope of Halston’s design creativity to come throughout in the 45-minute episodes that focus largely on his personal life, which was marked by drug use, and bad business decisions.
One of the things that San Juan wanted to stay true to was Halston’s attention to fit and fabric. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the tailored looks seen on Ewan McGregor, who plays the designer. Even when donning his signature look — a black turtleneck with matching pants, a white jacket — McGregor’s clothing exudes the kind of luxe, textural artistry that has solidified Halston’s legacy in the fashion world. “I had to ensure that all of the fabrics that he is wearing were exquisite, and that was vital in telling his story authentically — ensuring that the jackets were real cashmere, because they are truly going to drape and hang on his body and photograph in a different way,” says San Juan. “I wanted to do that all as accurately as I could.” That said, she also wanted to challenge the notion that these were the entirety of his wardrobe: “I really wanted to show him as three-dimensionally as possible, and not get too caught up in something that would feel almost like a uniform.” To ensure that, she added dashes of scarlet red and pieces like a leather trench coat (top photo) to his looks.
Halston’s most fanciful creations come to life in the 1968 fashion show the series uses to portray the start of the creative’s illustrious career as a clothing designer that features the tie-dye caftan collection. After finding two original tie-dye pieces — one from a vintage curator, the other from her friend’s private collection — San Juan once again built the rest of the line around them. The result is a color-filled runway performance full of dancing looks that make it easy to imagine the world falling in love with Halston right at that moment. “His tie-dye caftans feel so of that period, sort of iconic for that point in time, when [the] hippie [aesthetic] had sort of taken a flip from being a youthful rebellion movement to being a fashion movement,” San Juan says.
But while the tie-dye caftans do feel of the designer’s time, they are also perfectly on-trend today when the pandemic has caused a resurgence in the DIY print. “The whole relevance of tie-dye right now is kind of wild,” San Juan says. “He was such a forward thinker… Halston really was so timeless with his clothes. They’re very hard to date, because the look feels so eternal, and that, I think, that’s part of the reason why we all love Halston.”
Halston is out on Netflix on May 14.
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