This is So Chic, Very Chic, PAPER’s examination of Bravo’s sprawling cohort of fashion obsessives. From haute couture to TJ Maxx, they’ve literally worn it all. Sometimes they stunt, sometimes they turn the look, and sometimes they burn holes in retinas my ophthalmologist says might never heal.
When recovering from surgery, they tell you about all the wonderful things you’ll be able to do with your newfound free time.
Think about all those video games and books and movies and TV shows to catch up on! Pick up knitting or meditation or stretching or staring at the ceiling for long stretches while weighing the cost-benefit of getting up from your temporarily cozy spot on the couch to schlep upstairs and pee. Jokes on my doctors and friends and Reddit users, because over the last two months I haven’t accomplished much of anything, save co-ordinating rides to numerous follow-up appointments and managing to scrounge up multiple meals a day for myself. I also rewatched Girls in its entirety in exactly two weeks.
How am I feeling in the aftermath? Shoshanna sums it up to Hannah succinctly, while fighting in the infamous Beach House episode: “Mentally ill and unstable.”
The show, which I watched in real time as a college student and eventual professional adult writer, is like a poison that seeps up through the floorboards in obscure Japanese horror cinema. It coats everything in grime and nostalgia and memories of screaming at friends outside clubs while on too much molly in 2016. Memories of showing up to fuck guys as unstable as me on futons after shift work at a grocery store and failing at the first leg of my career and getting married at 25 and divorced at 28 for no reason and the incessant, maddening chatter of my burgeoning cohort of online layabouts. It’s also made every conversation I’ve had over the last few days slowly transform into a discussion about which of the people in my immediate vicinity is a Marnie, a Jessa, a Hannah or a Shoshanna. Even the television I watch! After the most recent episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Drew is definitely a Marnie.
Shall we talk about it?
The Real Housewives of Atlanta
Drew Sidora
If there’s one thing Drew was put on this earth to do, it was to put on funky little dresses and be very good at reality television. This is the second denim dress we’ve seen in the booth this year, but the first to include an appliqué along the bust line. If only it was pleasing to look at! The color of this hair is a nice touch, even though it’s in a bizarre fashion too reliant on a deep side part. I’m sorry! I genuinely want to like the way Drew puts herself together. There’s a fabulousness to her spirit held back by being on this show. That sounded like another snide remark, so I should probably quit before I dig myself a hole too deep to keep writing from.
I’d just finished the episode of Girls where Marnie gets married, and there’s a cameo in that episode from comedy icon Bridgett Everett as a rock-and-roll makeup artist gone rogue on Marnie’s face. Weirdly, when I saw Drew here in this confessional look later that night, I felt the gears of the universe click into place for me: She’s a Marnie. I mean, she’s an aspiring singer crawling out from the wreckage of a relationship with a chaotic, unstable man. She’s roundly mocked by castmates for being a cringe try-hard. She’s earnest and sensitive and addicted to bad choices. She also chases trends, which aren’t actually trends, just the kinds of clothes she saw in a Guess ad on the side of a bus.
She also debuted a new cross necklace this week! If there’s anything I can count on this show to provide me, it’s weird hats on Brit and big cross necklaces on Drew.
Porsha Williams
I can’t make heads or tails of this outfit. Is it a top, dress, a curtain of beads? Maybe it’s all three, or none at all, but it did leave me guessing for longer than a look this dreary deserves. Porsha, as always, radiates beauty. Kudos to the glam team, because they really turn this lady out every week. But these beads? I’m just not sure about them. It’s not entirely her fault, considering editors on this show went overboard on the color correction, or white balanced off one of Drew’s many cream dresses. Everything just blends into this too-warm mess that washed out these women’s features and clashes with their clothes. Perhaps, in another lifetime, I’d learned to love the beads. Just not this one.
Speaking of silly cross jewelry, Porsha pulled out a necklace this week I can only describe as having been imbued with “the deep magics.” There’s a photo on my camera roll of a shoot I styled in 2017 with my best friends where one of us has on this exact diamond choker, sans the cross. Thanks for the memories, babe!
Kelli Ferrell
Speaking of diamond chokers, here’s Kelli in a fascinating dress with a roped and bedazzled chest harness. Don’t forget the fur shawl, of course, that’s the most important part! I say this with actual love and fondness in my heart, but she’s dressed like one of the girls Nichelle Nichols yells at during her iconic monologue in Truck Turner: “And those two bitches that left…they better learn to sell pussy in Iceland…because if I ever see them again I’m gonna cut their fucking throats!” Now I’ve got important business out there, Kelli, so I’m going to have to move on. But thanks for the giggles! (And I’ll stop quoting Truck Turner now.)
Summer House
Summer House
Ciara Miller
When Ciara sprawled out on this chair I actually gasped. There’s a power to her body language here, having just flirted with Jesse before ripping into Imrul. The shorts and closely cropped top help the look, as does the two inches of visible underboob and accompanying body chain. I love everything about this and think it’s a look she should lean into more. And not just because I’m still looking at the underboob.
On the less successful side of things is this look, which isn’t bad, but isn’t great either. I’m a bit bored with bra tops in the booth, as I am with this specific stretch fabric. I do love the braid and under-eyeshadow, though, which is my attempt at showing Ciara I’m still on her side despite the bra top.
Paige DeSorbo
I’ve ragged on Paige for some time now, if only because I want her to take that burgeoning access to fashion and fame and totally run with it. While we’re still not at the end of that race, this Coperni top is a good start! It’s absurd enough to make me chuckle every time it pops up, definitely, but also so absurd that it circles around to chic.
The Three Fates (from Greek Mythology)
I love to overuse the word banal, which signals at times an over-reliance on my own positioned detachment from the world of reality television. A casual observer merely recording history — not living history. But if there was ever a time to use the word banal, it was here, looking at these three in matching bleach jobs, injection sites and lip liner pencils.
The Valley
Zack Wickham
Far far away, on the opposite side of the country, Zack Wickham rolls out of bed and chooses another funky bomber jacket to wear in the confessional booth.
Photos courtesy of Bravo/NBCUniversal