The Perfection of Lily Rhodes

Originally published on Substack 12/31/2020

[This post contains discussion of suicide and sexual assault.]

Of all the Gossip Girl characters, Lily Rhodes has the most consistent style and the least consistent surname. For this piece, I chose to use her maiden name rather than one of the three married names (van der Woodsen, Bass, and Humphrey) that she uses during the series, not only because it was simplest but also because, at her core, Lily is a Rhodes: always in pursuit of the perfect exterior, even when the interior is crumbling. Her style, both on her body and in her penthouse, is her way of choosing the image she wants to project; the only time her wardrobe noticeably varies is in season one, when she frequently visits her old love, Rufus Humphrey, in Brooklyn.

Throughout the series, Lily’s style is grounded by tasteful, unquestionable pieces: She loves pairing a tailored jacket or blazer with a pencil skirt or dark-wash jeans, often with a bow blouse underneath (think Jackie Onassis, book editor). Satin is her favorite fabric, and turquoise is her favorite gemstone. Lily usually wears a statement necklace or earrings, though rarely both; a statement necklace is often accompanied by a pair of not-too-big diamond solitaires. She carries a classic luxury bag: an Hermès Kelly or Birkin in a neutral color. (Her actress, Kelly Rutherford, is a collector and used many of her own pieces on set.) Lily is even absent for an entire episode (4.21) because she is bidding on a vintage Birkin on eBay.

Still, the most important—though latest emerging—piece in Lily’s wardrobe is the “Lily dress”: a day dress, always fitted but never tight, short, or low-cut. She plays with “new colors, a new silhouette” (“5 Years of Iconic Style”), but the fundamental idea is the same: her dress says, “I am a woman of infinite, unshakable taste” and “I have other things to do.” The Lily dress evokes other wealthy, image-conscious women and their go-to pieces: in reality, Anna Wintour’s printed day dresses; in fiction, Emily Gilmore’s suits.

In total, Lily’s wardrobe pieces are meant to create an image of refinement, elegance, and grace. “[Lily is] so graceful,” says producer Joshua Safran. “That’s the word that always comes to mind. . . . She can just walk into a room and float through it. . . . She really is like Grace Kelly” (“5 Years”). More specifically, Lily embodies one of Kelly’s most iconic roles, Lisa Carol Fremont in Rear Window, “the Lisa Fremont,” Jimmy Stewart’s character says, “who never wears the same dress twice.” As the movie’s costume designer, Edith Head, explains in Deborah Nadoolman Landis’s Dressed:

Hitchcock told me it was important that Grace’s clothes help to establish some of the conflict in the story. She was to be the typical sophisticated society-girl magazine editor who falls in love with a scruffy photographer. . . . Hitch wanted her to look like a piece of Dresden china, something slightly untouchable.

Sub “musician” for “photographer” and you have the persistent conflict of Lily Rhodes. She is an Upper East Side WASP in love with a Brooklyn former rock star. She adores the trappings of an artsy, unconventional lifestyle when wrapped in the privileges of whiteness and money, and she will never relinquish the latter for the former. Take, for example, her penthouse—filled with expensive art, a Prada Marfa sign not far from a statue of Buddha. Considering Lily has never spoken of practicing Buddhism, I can only assume that she sees the statue as another piece of art, an emblem of her nonconformity amid her conformist life.

But let’s go back to season one, when the penthouse was being renovated and Lily and her children, Serena and Eric van der Woodsen, were living in the Palace. Like her temporary home, there was a certain transiency to Lily’s style then, an adaptability, an ease, that was lost in later seasons, as she became not just a Bass or a Humphrey but truly a Rhodes.

Season One

Lily first appears at the Waldorf party, where Serena finds her after returning home from boarding school; unbeknownst to the rest of the party, her little brother, Eric, is living at the Ostroff Center following a suicide attempt.

Lily wears a little black dress paired with diamond jewelry: earrings and a pendant necklace. The diamonds are classic Lily, symbolic of a woman known for regular engagements and marriages. The dress, however, has a similar neckline to the black dress Jenny Humphrey makes for the Kiss on the Lips party; significant, as it was Serena who told Jenny the dress would look better in black. Perhaps her advice was inspired by the most sophisticated Upper East Side woman she knows: her mother.

Serena is going to a Lincoln Hawk concert with Dan, the son of Lily’s former love and Lincoln Hawk lead singer, Rufus. When Lily visits Rufus’s Brooklyn gallery to warn him off, he remarks, “Are you shopping for some art to match your furniture?” (Stunningly accurate, as her first line in the series is “I don’t care if it’s Murakami. It clashes with my sofa.”)

In the scene, Lily mixes Upper East Side with Brooklyn: a gold scarf and trench, a brown Birkin, paired with jeans and a white cami. The juxtaposition is perfect for the scene, which lays out Lily’s dating history: after Rufus, she moved on to Trent Reznor and other musicians, then “switched up rock stars for billionaires.”

In episode two, we learn which billionaire: Bart Bass, the father of Chuck Bass and seemingly the richest real estate developer in Manhattan. Lily wants Bart to date her exclusively, and when she tells him so, she wears a little cream jacket with a jeweled collar, a pair of small, tasteful diamond studs. The jeweled collar becomes a Lily staple as the series continues: built into her wardrobe, just like her wealth and position.

By episode five, another signature Lily outfit emerges: a cream blazer over a green bow blouse, dark-wash jeans with an Hermès belt, and, of course, small diamond studs. She goes on a shopping spree to “think”: both Serena and Eric want Eric to come home from the center, but Lily isn’t ready yet.

That evening, Blair and Jenny break Eric out of the center, but Lily believes Serena is responsible. Because Lily insisted that Serena swap her brown hobo bag for a black purse, leaving her phone behind, she has no way of contacting her daughter and turns to Rufus for help.

For her visit to the Humphrey loft, she trades her blazer and blouse for a quilted leather jacket and gray T-shirt, her brown Birkin still swung over her arm. Since her gallery drop-in, she has grown even more comfortable in Rufus’s world, with his leather jackets and T-shirts; her necklace even looks like a (hawk?) feather. She tells Rufus about the Ostroff Center and Eric’s suicide attempt, information she hasn’t admitted to anyone outside her family, even Bart. By the time she returns to Manhattan and checks Eric out of the center, she has become a softer, more Humphrey-like parent, at least for now.

In episode seven, the gray T-shirt returns, this time paired with a camel trench, jeans, and diamond studs. A mistaken Chuck tells Lily that Bart is still dating other women on the side, and so she goes to the gallery to see Rufus. Unlucky for Lily, Jenny is just about to bring her mother, Alison, home from Hudson, and Rufus and Lily’s emerging relationship will be put on hold for Rufus and Alison’s last stab at saving their marriage. (Spoiler: it’s not successful.)

Lily’s mother, CeCe Rhodes, makes her first appearance in episode ten, her society-matron special (pale blue suit, draped scarf, large pearl studs, and half updo) contrasting with Lily’s simple gray sheath, brown Hermès belt and bag, gold studs, and loose hair. CeCe, the chair emeritus of cotillion, wants Serena to make her debut; once she reveals to Lily that she’s ill, Lily insists upon it, much to Serena’s chagrin.

CeCe doesn’t think Dan is a suitable escort for Serena, having, many years before, “told Lily to choose between [Rufus] and her inheritance.” Lily chose her inheritance, believing her mother “knew who [she] was much better than [she] knew [herself].” Two decades later, Lily is still following her mother’s advice, even rewriting Serena’s statement to conform to high society’s expectations.

At cotillion, CeCe is dressed in a black suit, trimmed in gold to match her granddaughter’s gown; pearls on her ears and neck. Lily wears a low-cut black gown and diamond studs, her pearl lariat covering her exposed breastbone and echoing her mother’s taste in jewelry. Unlike CeCe, she wears no gold, her costume mirroring the story line: Serena believes, initially, that her grandmother is on her side, that her mother only cares about her daughter’s reflection on herself. While the latter is often true, Lily didn’t master image from just anyone: her mother, after all, complains of having to clean up the Rhodes family name after Lily’s rock-and-roll exploits.

But here’s a love interest CeCe can approve of: on Christmas Day, Bart proposes to Lily, but Lily, still in love with Rufus, decides to run away with him instead (1.12). While packing jeans and gray tops for their weekend getaway, she wears an eggplant-colored blouse, her first lively color in weeks, a sign of her renewed happiness. Serena, however, is not jazzed by the idea of one day becoming her boyfriend’s stepsister and asks her mother to prioritize her daughter’s feelings. Lily agrees, and at the end of the episode, she celebrates her acceptance of Bart’s proposal in a mournful black blouse, pearl drops, much like CeCe’s, in her ears.

As the season continues, Lily begins her self-imposed march of wedding planning, dressed in various shades of black, white, and gray—a color she once wore when visiting Rufus, now sad and drab. Then, in episode sixteen, her wardrobe explodes into color: Rufus, seeking guidance on Jenny’s rebellion, accompanies Lily to her dress fitting, even helps her clasp a diamond bracelet. Beside him, she seems more relaxed, vibrant, forgoing her usual careful coordination: a tan-and-black jacket over a floral-printed yellow-and-white blouse, tucked into a green pencil skirt.

For a family dinner, perhaps buoyed by her successful parenting advice and interaction with Rufus, Lily chooses a bright-blue sheath with Van Cleef & Arpels earrings and a black Hermès belt. Her high, however, is cut short: When Eric is outed by Georgina, Lily reacts poorly and turns to Rufus for his own advice. At the end of the episode, she apologizes to Eric, and you know what, it’s actually quite sweet.

The next episode (1.17), Lily is back to black for the rehearsal dinner; to her, it’s a funeral, both to her own happiness and Serena’s reputation. She continues her newfound appreciation for Van Cleef’s Alhambra jewelry, pairing her black dress with an earring and necklace set. (The Alhambra line is inspired by the four-leaf clover, so Lily obviously thinks she needs some luck.) 

Earlier that day, Lily discovers what she thinks is a sex tape of Serena, then confronts her at the dinner, furious that her daughter has gone far beyond her old partying ways. “I always knew you had a wild side,” Lily tells Serena, “but how can you look at yourself? What have you become?” There’s pain in her words, a remembrance of her own wild-child, rock-and-roll days, her one true love, all pushed aside for her Upper East Side life. One wonders if Lily can look at herself, if she longs to remind Serena that she gave up her own happiness for a teenage relationship that’s now irreparably damaged.

Later, Lily is told the true story behind the tape and helps Serena come to terms with what happened, then takes her to find Dan at a Lincoln Hawk concert. Naturally, she sees Rufus there, and they sleep together.

The next morning, she almost breaks her engagement to Bart while wearing her first real Lily dress: a coral A-line number with diamond studs and a clear beaded necklace. Bart uses an extended real-estate metaphor to ask Lily to “let go” of Rufus, and she agrees. The bold color may signal her happiness with Rufus, but the silhouette and the statement jewelry show that she’ll soon leave him behind for her new life as a billionaire’s wife.

At the wedding, Rufus appears in Lily’s dressing room, fastens the same diamond bracelet she tried a few episodes before. He is prepared to help her call off the wedding, but Lily isn’t. They part ways, and Lily walks down the aisle in a strapless Vera Wang gown, one side blooming fabric flowers. In addition to the bracelet, she wears a diamond necklace and diamond flower earrings, orchids in her hair. She is embracing being Lily, or whoever she thinks that will be; if she doesn’t have romance, she’ll create it with as many flowers as possible.

Season Two

Lily is absent for the first few episodes of season two, returning in episode four from a vacation with Bart. She and Bart must’ve swung by Tiffany, because her diamond studs are noticeably bigger, a little more ostentatious: perfect for the new wife of New York’s most moneyed new money.

Unfortunately, her new diamonds are not big enough to fill her loneliness. Lily stops by the gallery, having traded her studs for a turquoise Van Cleef set, worn with a floral blouse, dark-wash jeans, and a Kelly bag. Like her outfits from the last few episodes of season one, the look is composed of her usual classic pieces, infused with bright color.

Lily and Rufus see a movie together, but by the end of the episode, Rufus has put a stop to her attempt at “friendship.” “You made a choice to be Mrs. Bass,” he says. “You need to go do that.” In this scene, Lily wears a black dress and her new diamond studs, a callback to the mournful color of her rehearsal dinner look.

By the next episode, Lily returns to vibrant color and an attempt at married life. Lily’s art dealer, Bex, says that Bart has found and purchased a (presumably nude) Mapplethorpe photograph of Lily that she’s been trying to buy. Lily finds the gesture terribly romantic: “That is the kind of husband I’ve always wanted.” She dresses up for him: a purple cocktail dress (purple, as we learn in season three, is Bart’s favorite color) and her larger diamond studs. 

Bart presents her with a different, unexpected gift: a honking diamond-and-emerald necklace. Apparently the Bass men’s go-to romantic gesture is a giant, expensive necklace, but unlike Blair’s birthday gift from Chuck in season one, this necklace doesn’t work with Lily’s neckline. Rather, the necklace is almost tie-shaped, evoking Bart’s favorite look.

Turns out, Bart bought the Mapplethorpe to “protect” their family after hiring a PI to investigate Lily’s past. Lily demands to see her file. “I may have concealed things in the past,” she says, “but not anymore. I want my children to know their mother.” She is taking a bold step, choosing to unearth her history after years of burying it to maintain her perfect image.

Bart counters with a mysterious document: “Is this something you’d want your kids to know?” Guess not, because by the end of the episode, Bart is clasping his present around Lily’s neck, the gems brushing awkwardly against her dress.

In episode seven, the Basses throw a party, Lily in a bright red dress with matching flower earrings. She looks more undone than she ever has: her chignon is messy; her dress is draped awkwardly and rumpled. Her lack of control in her wardrobe reflects the story line: Serena is rebelling against Bart and Lily’s new rules, ruining the party by bad-mouthing Lily to, um, InStyle. (I love InStyle, but Serena, a celebrity fashion magazine is not about to run some exposé on your wealthy family.)

Serena leaves the party and runs into Dan. “You ever think that your mom acts like she’s perfect,” he says, “because she’s too ashamed to acknowledge how far from it she’s really been?” Duh, Dan! And with that, Serena returns to the now-over party, where she and her mother make up, and everyone sits around the coffee table and eats cake.

On Thanksgiving (2.11), however, Lily is drawn back into the Humphrey orbit, again counseling Rufus on Jenny’s rebellion. Throughout the episode, she imitates the Humphrey neutral color palette, in this scene wearing a brown coat with the Van Cleef earrings she wore last season, when she was again falling back into Rufus’s family life. She also carries the brown Birkin from 1.5, when she visited the loft. Then, she was worried about Eric, and this time, Rufus is worried about Jenny. Lily and her children ultimately celebrate Thanksgiving at the Humphreys, having found Bart’s files on Serena and Eric.

Lily continues to shut Bart out until just before the Snowflake Ball (2.12); he apologizes and tells her he’s fired his PI. Though her coat and scarf are black, her bow blouse is purple, much like the dress she wore when she saw her own file. She’s still carrying his betrayal, but there’s a glimmer of acquiescence, a desire, perhaps, to return to something moneyed and known, rather than face another divorce and the unknown with Rufus. 

Lily decides to attend the Snowflake Ball with Bart but soon discovers that he hasn’t fired his PI. She cancels their plan and goes alone, wearing a white gown. The look is intentionally bridal: she pairs the dress with her wedding bracelet and diamond earrings that contain subtle flowers. Before Bart’s lie, the outfit symbolizes her willingness to return to him, to recommit to their marriage, but after, it reminds the viewer of the day when Rufus appeared in her bridal dressing room and helped fasten the very same bracelet. This time, she’s not leaving Rufus behind.

Unfortunately, she loses them both—Bart to a car accident and Rufus to a secret, revealed by CeCe: before Serena or Dan were born, Lily gave up her and Rufus’s child for adoption. Through the next few episodes, Lily largely wears black, out of mourning for the two men. After Rufus and Lily learn the fate of their son from his adoptive parents, they reunite, and Lily’s wardrobe slowly regains color.

As the season continues, we get fewer full looks from Lily; Kelly Rutherford was pregnant during filming, and so many of her outfits are designed to draw the viewer’s eye away from her growing belly: big scarves and coats, giant necklaces and earrings, even strategically placed handbags.

Then there’s a whole story line where Lily adopts her stepson, Chuck, and he stops her sexual assault by Bart’s brother, Jack. The show, per usual, does very little to examine this assault’s effect on Lily; she tells Rufus that she’s “okay” the next day, just as Jenny did to Dan. Rather, Lily’s assault is meant to redeem Chuck from his own assaults. By the transitive property, stopping someone’s rape forgives your attempted rapes!

In episode twenty-one, Lily attends the Waldorf-Rose Passover Seder, wearing a purple satin blouse, massive beaded necklace, and citrine earrings. There, she tells Serena of her college acceptance: “I could never think of you as a bad person. . . . You got into Brown.” Lily’s love for Serena, as seen in episode 1.17, is conditional on her daughter’s public image and meeting of certain milestones—in this case, acceptance to Lily’s Ivy League alma mater.

Lily seems to believe she is free-spirited (She went to Brown! She’s dating a former rock star!), but in reality, she has rigid expectations for herself and her children. Her image of herself, and of her rekindled relationship with Rufus, is best reflected by her increasing employment of minerals and “semiprecious” stones. The most notable, particularly season three onward, is turquoise, a gem long used by non-European cultures, including some southwestern indigenous tribes, and later appropriated by white counterculture types—hippies, artists, and musicians alike—as a symbol of their nonconformity. Like the Buddha in her penthouse, Lily’s jewelry says, “She’s not like these other rich white people. She’s a cool rich white person.”

Though Serena also wears turquoise jewelry, Lily gives her diamonds instead, in the form of her great-grandmother’s bracelet (2.23): “Serena,” Lily says, “you’re becoming a wonderful woman, and I want you to have something that represents that.” In this scene, their outfits mirror each other—shawl collars, cream tones, long necklaces—a symmetry that will soon be broken by Lily’s realization that her daughter, in fact, is not perfect. Serena’s boyfriend and her former friend have scammed Lily’s circle with a fake investment scheme, and Lily tries to set it right by quietly paying everyone, including Rufus, back with her own money. Otherwise, she tells Serena, “All anyone will think when they hear the name ‘Serena van der Woodsen’ is how you helped scam your friends and family out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.” When her daughter pushes back, Lily reports the bracelet missing and has Serena arrested, then refuses to bail her out as punishment.

Rufus decides to propose to Lily with a vintage ring—one that any regular viewer can tell is not Lily’s taste—but forgoes the proposal once he learns of Lily’s payback plan and Serena’s orchestrated arrest. Lily wears a brown sweater and necklace, fully committed to the Humphrey palette, but it’s not enough to convince Rufus. “This is the only way I could protect her,” she tells him, “from creating a scandal, from ruining her future and everything she’s worked for, [from] embarrassing me.”

“You just sounded exactly like your mother,” he replies.

The next episode explores this idea further: “Valley Girls” was a back-door pilot for a Gossip Girl spin-off about eighties-era Lily. The new series was never picked up, but the episode does give us greater insight into teenage Lily’s style: When we first see her, she is extremely preppy and coordinated, dressed in a tweed blazer, pastel argyle sweater and pants, and pearls. Even later, when she visits her estranged sister, Carol, and borrows her dress, she still wears it with gobs of pearls, tying her and her sister back to their pearl-loving mother. After both sisters are arrested, CeCe tells Lily, “If I was a better mother, I’d leave you in [jail]. . . . Lily, the hopes and dreams I have for you. An Ivy League education, life on the Upper East Side, married to the richest man in Manhattan.” Bingo!

By the end of the episode, thanks to the sepia-toned flashbacks, Lily has confronted her mother and apologized to Rufus: “CeCe’s never going to change, Lil,” Rufus says. “But you still can.” The season ends with Rufus finally proposing, this time with a Lincoln Hawk wristband; Lily accepts.

Season Three

Lily is gone for the first few episodes of the season, visiting CeCe, who is undergoing medical treatments. When Lily returns (3.4), she learns that Serena is delaying Brown for a year and blames Rufus for not telling her. The next episode, they make up and begin planning their wedding—which, naturally, causes more conflict, Rufus preferring an elopement, and Lily wanting something that reflects her status as “Lily Bass.”

Still, the ceremony ends up becoming a union of their desires (symbolized by the appearance of their shared child, Scott); Lily’s look, too: Designed by Jenny, the gown is nothing like the traditional Vera Wang that Lily wore for her wedding to Bart Bass. It’s a more formal version of the satin pieces she wears in everyday life with Rufus, the color magenta instead of white, the earrings blue. Her dress and the wedding are no longer for show; they’re a reflection of a real life together: “Marrying you,” she tells Rufus, “means finally giving myself a real partner, my children a real father, and finally letting myself truly love.”

Isn’t that sweet? Well, it’s not going to stop Lily from being Lily! On Halloween (3.7), Rufus wants to dress up and hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. Lily tries to explain that their fancy building never gets trick-or-treaters (accepting free food is for poors!!), and instead of just letting a grown man learn for himself, pays their doorman, Vanya, to bring kids up to the penthouse. Rufus dresses like a member of the Ramones, and Lily’s outfit might as well be a costume, too: she wears a camel suit, a little black bow on her bun, very CeCe-like—a mother indulging “childish” whims. 

Bubble Episode

For this profile, we’ll look closer at episode eleven, “The Treasure of Serena Madre.” “Madre” means “mother” in multiple languages, and so this episode is an excellent example of how Lily and Serena’s mother-daughter relationship manifests through clothing.

On first appearance, Lily learns that Serena isn’t coming to Thanksgiving: Serena says she’s volunteering at a soup kitchen along with newly elected, very married Congressman Tripp van der Bilt’s other staff, but secretly, she’ll be spending the day with just Tripp. Lily receives the news in a Humphrey-brown dress and little diamond hoops, an understated outfit for what she now believes will be a quiet Thanksgiving week.

Lily is no stranger to affairs, but Serena’s first look shows she takes a sloppier, less subtle approach: To meet with Tripp, she chooses Lily staples, a tie blouse and a bun, but both are messy and loose. Outside, Serena tops her outfit with a wearable Judy Chicago piece. (That’s a vagina joke. The coat looks like vaginas.) Tripp has promised Serena that he’s divorcing his wife, Maureen, though not for her, of course! For him (or something)!

Speaking of coats, Lily runs into Maureen on the street, and they’re wearing the same one, a brown tweed number with bracelet sleeves, paired with different scarves and gloves. While their identical coats will later lead to a mix-up, they also speak to these women’s similarities. They’re both highly controlled people, willing to maintain their image, money, power, to whatever cost to their relationships. Lily tells Maureen about Serena volunteering with the staff, and Maureen quickly understands that her husband is having an affair. When Lily invites them to their dinner, she accepts.

The day of, Lily chooses a black satin top, black-and-gold tassel lariat, gem drops, and brocade skirt, the lariat harkening back to the necklace she wore to Serena’s cotillion. Serena herself is again a messy imitation of Lily: a black low-cut jumpsuit, diamond studs, and a chignon. She thinks she’s making adult, responsible choices, not sleeping with Tripp until he’s separated, and yet her youth and naivete are obvious. She thinks she’s in control, but she’s not.

Notice how Maureen’s matched her floral dress to her husband’s shirt and tie

Maureen embodies true Lily style: a floral-printed dress with a black jeweled cardigan. She reveals the affair at the dinner table, and Serena, shamed by her mother, briefly ends her relationship with Tripp. Then, Serena finds a letter from her father, William van der Woodsen, hidden in the family safe. Lily, the letter says, was with William that summer, while she was supposed to be with CeCe.

When Serena leaves with Tripp, she hands the letter to Lily, saying she can never judge her daughter again. Lily, in a rush to hide the letter from Rufus, accidentally stuffs it into Maureen’s identical coat. Maureen had the power all along, and now she has the leverage to reclaim her marriage.

Following Thanksgiving, Lily’s looks suddenly become more casual, easy: loose hair, soft sweaters and jackets, almost as if she’s thinking back to her visits to the loft in season one. After Maureen gives him the letter, Rufus goes to Brooklyn, and Lily is desperate to bring him back. By episode fifteen, they reconcile, but Lily soon leaves for a secret six-month checkup with William—that summer’s treatments were for her, not CeCe. Serena finds her parents together and brings them home to finally tell Rufus the truth: Lily’s illness has returned, and she is undergoing another round of treatment under William’s care. (Honestly, I say “illness” because her diagnosis is never confirmed, though “vague cancer” seems about right.)

As the season continues, William becomes closer to his children and Lily, and insinuates himself further into their life, even subletting in their building (3.20). When Lily is informed of his new apartment, she’s wearing her smaller diamond studs and a typical Lily dress, with two important differences: First, her white undergarment shows in multiple shots. This may not seem unusual (other characters have visible bra straps), but for image-conscious Lily, it’s significant, almost vulnerable. Second, she’s wearing a pink bow on her bun, even bigger than the one she wore on Halloween in her CeCe cosplay. CeCe adores William, prefers him over Rufus, and now, he’s getting under Lily’s skin, too.

Later in the episode, William is honored as a distinguished alumnus at Columbia and makes a pass at Lily in his speech. When Rufus objects, Lily sends him back to the loft. For the event, she wears a gold dress, metallic like Serena’s; Rhodes women united around William.

In the next episode, however, Blair and the gang uncover William’s scheme: After falling back in love with Lily that summer, he decided to fake a recurrence of her illness so he could “save” her again and hopefully win her affections. This plan is obviously twisted, and so William is sent packing by the end of the season, Lily reunited with Rufus.

Season Four

At the beginning of season four, Lily has happily settled back into her marriage with Rufus and her usual wardrobe: brightly colored blouses and day dresses, turquoise jewelry and diamond studs.

In episode six, Serena asks Lily to borrow jewelry for a New York Observer party. (Ivanka and Jared make a cameo, and boy, does it age poorly!) Newly enrolled at Columbia, Serena is attending the party with her professor, whose class she is dropping so they can date publicly. All this is unknown to Lily, proud of her daughter for taking a difficult class in her first semester.

Oddly enough, Serena arrives at the party wearing not the big necklace or earrings that you’d expect her to choose from Lily’s jewelry box. Rather, she wears diamond studs with a low-cut black jacket, the combination evoking season three’s Thanksgiving outfit, the last time she disappointed Lily with her romantic choices. Lily herself is dressed in a simple gray sheath, clear beaded necklace, and the largest diamond-like studs she’s ever worn. Serena may borrow her mother’s earrings, but she can’t defeat the true master: Lily uses reverse psychology to convince Serena to remain enrolled in the class.

By episode nine, Serena’s relationship with her professor has been outed in the New York Post, and Lily is doing damage control. She believes this affair is part of a pattern and tells Rufus that Serena had a relationship with a boarding school teacher, Ben Donovan.

“Serena was just a kid,” Rufus says. 

“Serena was never a kid, believe me,” Lily replies. Yikes!

Throughout the episode, Lily wears a sheer printed bow blouse with a brown knit shawl over top—evoking, again, the scarf and coat she wore last Thanksgiving. Though brown is usually a Humphrey color, Rufus himself is in blue, signaling just how differently they view this situation.

Turns out, Serena never had a romantic relationship with the boarding school teacher, but Lily, convinced she did, forged her signature on an affidavit that sent him to prison. To obtain a copy of the affidavit, Serena disguises herself as Lily (4.12), her mother’s style so consistent that she can easily imitate it in a few pieces: a camel coat, gray sheath, jeweled bib, and chignon.

At a party later that evening, Lily tries to stop Serena from giving the affidavit to the press, as she has already made arrangements for Ben’s parole. In this scene, Lily is dressed in a silver satin gown, her neck draped with pearl tassels. Lily doesn’t wear pearls often, but when she does, they always tie back to CeCe, another mother who would do anything to maintain her family’s image.

Once Ben is released from prison, Lily sends him $30,000 and a note asking him to stay away from her family (4.13). When he returns the money and Rufus and Serena discover her attempted bribe, Lily wears a glittery silver jacket and gray slacks, the bigger diamond studs she often wore in season two. She looks like she’s been coated in diamonds, a symbol of the wealth she uses to try to buy her own security.

In episode sixteen, at Eric’s birthday party, Lily finally apologizes for forging Serena’s signature. Her look, a red dress with large studs, echoes the red dress she wore for the Bass party in season two, when she also apologized to her children. Like that episode, this one ends with the family eating cake around the coffee table, their happiness temporary.

After being blackmailed by a business associate, Lily turns herself in to the DA (4.17), wearing the same look she wore for a party earlier that episode: a beige dress with a matching coat and dangly diamond earrings. Her ensemble is not true white, the color of innocence, but the light color proclaims her wealth and privilege—only a rich person can wear this look without worrying they’ll have to clean it later. Unsurprisingly, Lily receives only house arrest. 

At first, Lily tries to maintain her social standing under house arrest, to the annoyance of her fellow society ladies. As Anne Archibald tells her at the Pink Party (4.19), hosted at the penthouse, “You shut me out when I called off my divorce. . . . There’s not a woman in this room who didn’t take some pleasure in your downfall, myself included.”

Lily decides to use her house arrest to “reflect on [her] actions” and disappears until the season finale, when her taupe blouse and pants almost blend her into the apartment.

Season Five

By episode three, Lily’s house arrest has ended, and apparently so has her reflecting time. In episode nine, CeCe is honored at the Studio 54 anniversary party—despite her frequent complaints about Lily’s and Serena’s wild days, she, too, was a wild child in her youth. For their party, the Rhodes women are all in sequins: CeCe, Lily, and Serena in shades of champagne and gold. Even Ivy, who’s impersonating Carol’s daughter, wears a gold-spangled dress, eager to be accepted as a Rhodes. Only Carol, the black sheep of the family (and their only brunette), wears black sequins, her bracelets like armor. She hired Ivy to obtain her daughter’s trust fund, and now she must maintain the lie to avoid being caught.

CeCe is sick again, unbeknownst to anyone but Ivy, who helps care for her. When CeCe is taken to the hospital, Lily and Serena are finally informed of her illness and Ivy’s true identity (5.16). In this scene, Lily’s outfit is plain, muted: a gray cardigan and jeans, a simple chain. The only exception is her diamond earrings, which have doubled in size. She will soon say goodbye to CeCe, but she won’t let some poor person take her mother’s money, too.

The next episode, Lily tries to arrange CeCe’s funeral, and she imitates her mother in dress: a black bow on her bun, small diamond studs, a fur stole with her black coat. Despite the outfit, Lily doesn’t know her mother very well: CeCe already made her own arrangements—an Irish wake (WASPs, am I right?) and almost all of her will to Ivy. Cece knew she was an impersonator and didn’t care. Ivy is now the legal owner of the penthouse, and Lily and Rufus are exiled to Brooklyn.

Lily reluctantly moves into the loft but tries to embrace it through her wardrobe: a plaid wrap sweater and jeans (5.18). Ivy throws a party for her newly established CeCe Rhodes Cancer Foundation, and Lily wears one of CeCe’s heirlooms to the event to remind everyone who CeCe’s “true daughter” is. Naturally, Lily’s representation of her relationship with her mother is a humungous diamond-studded necklace, which she pairs with a black dress. She’s still in mourning for her apartment.

Lily manages to get Ivy’s assets frozen, and with the promise of a check, tricks her into leaving the penthouse (5.19). When Rufus finds out, he’s disturbed that Lily lied to him, that she turned Ivy out on the street, and chooses to remain at the loft. In this scene, Lily is dressed in a black blouse and embellished skirt; her necklace enormous, its little bits of turquoise overwhelmed by black ribbon and gold. Combined with her other looks this season, the outfit’s meaning is clear: Lily has chosen the Rhodes money over love.

In episode twenty, Lily reconciles with Rufus, offering to sell her penthouse so they can buy an apartment that suits both of them. To the loft, she wears a Humphrey brown coat, its lapels hiding most, but not all, of her gold jewelry. With her coat off, however, we see the full outfit, the gold necklace, with the tiniest touches of turquoise, dripping over her tan dress.

In this look, Lily discovers that Rufus is paying for Ivy’s hotel and accuses him of using her money. Rufus replies that he used his own credit card, understanding passing across his face. Their arguments aren’t just about Ivy; they’re about what Lily views as hers.

The next episode, Lily pays CeCe’s nurse to say Ivy took advantage of CeCe, and CeCe’s money is hers and Carol’s again. As on the day of the wake, she wears a black coat and fur stole, her diamonds swelled a little bigger. Rufus is still living at the loft, but Lily seems unworried: “[Rufus will] come around like he always does,” she tells Serena. “My bigger concern is the public perception of this whole mess that Ivy caused.” Her solution is to call a family dinner and invite a reporter. Rufus, caring little about image, refuses to attend.

Before the dinner, Lily learns that Carol’s real daughter, Lola, is William’s, making her and Lily’s children half siblings. To receive the news, she reveals the dress under her coat: an uncharacteristic leopard-print sheath.

At dinner, she has Carol arrested in front of the reporter, Ivy earning immunity for testifying. Rufus visits her after, ready to separate from the woman who has finally shed her skin, revealing her true predatory form. Her dress is patterned like a deconstructed snakeskin, her diamonds still on.

“Where exactly are you going to find some other Upper East Side woman to take care of you like I have?” she asks Rufus.

“Spoken like a true Rhodes,” he replies.

In the finale, Bart returns, having faked his death in season two. Lily must now choose which marriage to annul: Bass or Humphrey. For her meeting with Bart, she selects a zebra-like bow blouse, little flowers poking through the print. This time, she’s the prey, not the predator.

Rufus doesn’t want to lose Lily to Bart, so he convinces Bart to sign annulment papers, telling him that Lily wishes to end her Bass marriage. When Lily receives the papers, she’s rattled, dressed in black sheath—almost mournful that Bart would end their marriage so quickly. Bart reveals Rufus’s lie, and Lily chooses to stay Mrs. Bass.

For her decision, she wears turquoise earrings and a multistrand necklace with a printed dress. There’s a strange symmetry to her choice, the same gemstone she wore throughout her happiest days in her Humphrey marriage, now weighing her down. In the next and final season, turquoise disappears from her jewelry collection. She’s finally chosen money and security over romance and rock and roll, and her gems are rendered useless, devoid of whatever nonconformity she once thought they imparted.

Season Six

Having renewed her vows to Bart, Lily attempts to patch up the relationship between her husband and his son, Chuck: a difficult task, as season six Bart is ridiculously villainous, rather than simply controlling and emotionally constipated. For brunch with the Bass men (6.2), Lily chooses a purple dress—their favorite color. Chuck is beginning to expose the illegal activity that sent Bart into hiding; Bart covers up any trail with a lie: he tells Lily that he had an affair during their first marriage.

His apology present, per usual, is a diamond necklace, one made of a million little solitaires. Unlike the emerald necklace, this one is eagerly received by Lily. The diamond strands match her studs and wink becomingly under her sweater.

In episode four, Gossip Girl reveals that Lily slept with Rufus the night before her wedding to Bart. Bart believes Chuck is behind the blast, but the source is actually Ivy, who is newly loaded and dating Rufus. (Lola signed over Carol’s share of the Rhodes inheritance to Ivy.) When Lily sees the post, she is wearing a bright plaid dress with emerald drop earrings: a little bit Humphrey and a little bit Bass.

As the season carries on, so does Lily’s war with Ivy and Rufus (6.6). The couple buys their way into cohosting Lily’s charity art auction, leading Lily to donate one of her most iconic art pieces, Richard Phillips’s Spectrum. Lily’s dress is graphic, the pattern almost mod, tying her to her painting’s blocks of color and sixties feel. Unlucky for her, Bart hid important records in the back of the painting, ultimately won by Ivy and Rufus. Ivy, we soon find, is only dating Rufus to take Lily down; she’s secretly in love with William.

By Thanksgiving (6.8), Lily finally realizes that Bart is up to no good. Though she destroyed the microfilm hidden in the painting, she still remembers most of its information: “I carefully read each film with CeCe’s jeweler’s loupe,” she tells Chuck. “She always said that was the best way to catch a husband in a lie. I know she was referring to low-grade diamonds, but still . . .” Isn’t it fun to bond with your mother over your lying bastard husbands? 

After Bart dies for real, William swoops in (6.10). He was playing Ivy the whole time, using her scheme to remove Bart and Rufus from Lily’s heart. Now, he tells Ivy, he can be with “the love of [his] life, the mother of [his] children.” Ivy tries to tell Lily the truth, but she dismisses her.

Five years later, Lily and William are together at Serena’s wedding. Like the rest of the main female characters, she wears a spangled dress; her color is purple, linking her to her adopted son and grandson. Did Lily ever realize the truth about William, or did she always know Ivy was right and just didn’t care? Perhaps she even found his scheme romantic.

No matter how awful Lily can be, her last appearance strikes me as a little sad: She’s back with the husband whom her mother loved best, their relationship built on a pile of manipulations and lies and fake illnesses. A true Rhodes, through and through.

[A profile of Rufus Humphrey is coming Thursday, 1/14.]

DP on GG

My partner, Daniel, spent 2020 overhearing episodes of Gossip Girl from various rooms of our apartment. He still doesn’t understand the show and he doesn’t care.

DP: I don’t know what to tell you. Everyone’s white and rich. There’s no stakes.