“There’s Something Nice About Simple Cloth”
Costume Design on Season Five of Gilmore Girls
Originally published on Letterdrop 10/20/2022
Season five starts as it will end, with Rory and Lorelai on the outs. In between, a slow drift: Rory experiments with the wealth and privilege Lorelai rejected, dating a boy her grandparents adore. Lorelai goes all in with Luke, even as her parents—most especially Emily—barely tolerate his baseball cap–wearing, pickup truck–driving ways. Gilmore Girls, of course, has always been about class, but never have its couplings—and the costumes they wear—shown this so clearly.
Louis, the only man never to let Emily down (5.1)
Emily and Richard begin the season apart: They separated toward the end of season four and finally admitted it to Lorelai at the Dragonfly Inn opening (4.22). The Gilmores return home that night with Emily in a fury (5.1): She’s decided to go to Europe for the summer, and she won’t wait another moment to take her European luggage—Louis Vuitton, naturally—out of storage.
“I’m going to have two glasses of wine at lunch every single day,” she tells Richard.
“Only prostitutes have two glasses of wine at lunch!” he blusters.
“Well, then buy me a boa and drive me to Reno,” Emily replies, “because I am open for business!”
Emily and Richard (5.1)
The basement door locked, Emily crawls out of a window, shucking her skirt when it catches on a nail. On the lawn, she’s clad in only pantyhose and a pink cardigan that just reaches the tops of her thighs. A few security officers arrive to check on a “disturbance,” and soon they’re writing up a report—sure to be published, Emily frets, in the police blotter.
“If nothing else, this display tonight demonstrates clearly that you are no longer the woman I married,” Richard says.
“The woman you married was your partner,” Emily replies. “You listened to her. You consulted with her. You respected her. So you are right, Richard. I am definitely not the woman you married.”
She’s an icon, she’s a legend, and she is the moment (4.16).
Altogether, the scene reminds me of episode 4.16, when Emily lounged around her house in a floral robe, smoking, drinking, and reading The Crimson Petal and the White—a novel about two Victorian women, one an “angel in the house” and the other a sex worker (Madonna/whore, anyone?). In the Gilmores’ world, women must not step over the thin line between decorum and impropriety, between the best woman WASP society can imagine—a dutiful wife—and the worst—a “prostitute.” Any divergence from proper dress and behavior, any display of true feeling, and Emily is suddenly unrecognizable to Richard. Emily herself happily scandalizes her husband in private but balks at the thought of her society friends reading about her in the police blotter.
Emily and Rory in Rome (5.2)
Even thousands of miles away, Emily doesn’t diverge from the expected: staying at the usual posh hotels; avoiding the more unconventional sights, like the Catacombs of Rome. She seems to have a European wardrobe to match her European luggage, the below brown brocade suit and pale green purse never to be seen in Connecticut.
Man, I wish Emily had come back with a young, hot boyfriend (5.2).
Rory joins the trip to escape her affair with Dean—and the fallout with Lorelai. Like her grandmother, she seems to have a new European wardrobe, her many printed sundresses and little cardigans likely bought by Emily. Even on vacation, the Gilmores must maintain their formality.
The brooch in 5.3 . . .
. . . and 3.8
At home, Richard lives in the pool house, while Emily remains in the mansion. Without Richard around, she plays different music, changes up her dinner menu—but her jewelry still wistfully calls back to their relationship. Take this gold flower brooch from episode three. We last saw it in season three, when the Gilmores visited Yale and Richard fondly recounted his proposal to Emily (3.8).
The vest that spirals . . .
. . . into a panic room (5.5).
Emily is certain she can no longer rely on Richard, and in 5.5, she buys a panic room. (Earlier in the episode, she was horrified to find a sequined “party vest”—actually, Richard’s barbershop quartet costume—in the pool house.) Emily thinks she has to be the “man” of the house now: her white button-down and pearl lariat evoking a shirt and necktie.
I want a Richard and Emily Gilmore “Open Door” tour (5.9).
When Emily decides to date again (5.9), she summons a reluctant Lorelai for fashion advice. Lorelai arrives to find Emily’s walk-in closet in disarray, clothes strewn everywhere. “I have no idea what’s appropriate to wear on the first date,” Emily says, a black slip under her robe.
“Just tell him you’re obsessed with BUtterfield 8 and go like that,” jokes Lorelai (the show linking, again, this new, independent Emily to a sex worker).
Decisions, decisions (5.9)
Emily holds up two similar skirt suits, one black and one burgundy, and asks Lorelai to pick. “They look exactly the same,” Lorelai protests—a wink, perhaps, to Emily’s penchant for buying her favorite styles in multiple colors. Lorelai chooses black, but Emily wears burgundy: Both mother and daughter often need the other to remind them what they don’t want in order to pursue what they do.
Thanks to a bout of jealousy from Richard, he and Emily reunite in episode twelve with absolutely none of their underlying issues resolved. To hell with growth, says the show, we want a big vow renewal for our hundredth episode!
Miss Celine and Emily (5.12)
The Gilmores’ wardrobe consultant, Miss Celine, returns to style the bride. Though Emily has racks of traditional white dresses to choose from, she ultimately picks a silver brocade skirt suit, more befitting to her everyday style and a second-chance ceremony. But as Emily tries on wedding dresses, she notices Lorelai admiring a gown and realizes how serious Lorelai is about Luke.
Things were going so well (5.13).
To the vow renewal, the remaining Gilmores all wear touches of silver (5.13): Richard and best man Rory in silver neckties, maid of honor Lorelai in a silvery-blue spaghetti-strap dress and pink-sequined shrug. Together, our core four look more cohesive than they ever have, and in Lorelai and Rory’s metal, too; Emily and Richard usually favor gold over silver. Maybe the Gilmores are finally united. Maybe everyone will be okay.
Note the blue shirt and necktie on Chris: He’s asserting his connection to Lorelai as he swears they “belong together” (5.13).
Or not! Like many things in Emily’s life, her bridal party is all about presentation. She’s invited Rory’s father, Chris, to the ceremony, intent on breaking Luke and Lorelai apart. When Lorelai finds out, she declares herself “done” with Emily for good.
Oops (5.3)
But let’s step back, for a moment, to Luke and Lorelai. After four years of buildup, they start quietly dating in episode 5.3 . . . well, as quietly as they can once Lorelai stumbles into the diner in Luke’s flannel shirt, its blue plaid a union of their costume motifs—Lorelai’s blue and Luke’s plaid.
Even Luke’s sheets (and the curtain above!) are plaid (5.3).
Lorelai’s love and work lives are finally blossoming, and with them, her costumes. As part owner of the Dragonfly, she has more freedom with her work wardrobe than she did at the Independence Inn—and so do Michel and Sookie.
Flowers on flowers (5.12)
Obsessed with this shirt and tie combo (5.2)
Look at the lil dragonflies on Sookie’s bandanna (5.1)!
For Lorelai, this means choosing printed dresses over solid pencil skirts and blouses; for Michel, mixing his shirt and necktie prints; for Sookie, trading her solid smocks and bandannas for printed versions. Among the eclectic decorations and bright wallpaper, our trio looks at home.
Lorelai, Emily, and Luke (5.7)
Luke and Richard (5.7)
Lorelai hides her relationship from her parents for a few episodes, but even she can’t stop Hurricane Gilmore (5.7): Emily invites Luke to dinner, and Richard takes him to the golf course—each in their domain and with their weapons. Emily wields a backhanded dig at Luke’s zip-up jacket—“I like this coat of yours. There’s something nice about simple cloth”—while Richard blindsides Luke with a plan to franchise his diner.
Unlike his estranged wife, Richard believes Luke can be legitimized through business—and perhaps a “straight razor shave.” You can see their different strategies in their own zippered jackets: Emily lords over Luke in an elaborately trimmed suit jacket while Richard stoops to Luke’s level in a simple cut.
This outfit looks familiar (5.13) . . .
. . . right (4.22)?
Luke reluctantly agrees to attend Emily and Richard’s vow renewal—though Lorelai’s outfit should’ve sworn him off (5.13). The day before the ceremony, Lorelai is wearing a black sweater with a dragonfly and a black-and-green-striped blazer: a variation on the black dragonfly shirt and mint-striped blazer she wore in 4.22. The outfits are bookends to this chapter of Luke and Lorelai’s relationship: the first, a sweet beginning, and the second, an ominous conclusion. After the renewal, Luke and Lorelai break up (5.14).
Lorelai alone in 5.15 . . .
. . . but with Luke a few scenes later: See how their outfits complement each other’s?
Heartbroken, Lorelai shuts out her mother and cocoons herself: turning to neutrals and solids instead of her usual poppy colors and playful patterns. Only once Lorelai and Luke are in close proximity again—as they stand backstage watching a creepy rendition of “Do You Love Me?”—does Lorelai turn to bright, romantic red (5.15). By the next episode, they’re back together.
Rory in 5.16
Rory, too, is furious with Emily, but unlike Lorelai, she’s obligated to attend Friday Night Dinner. In 5.16, Emily and Richard host their first dinner post-honeymoon, and Rory shows up in Lorelai’s clothes—borrowed, as all of Rory’s are in the wash. “That’s an interesting outfit you have on,” Emily remarks as Rory sheds her coat.
Rory is not having it (5.16).
Throughout dinner, Rory is cold with her grandmother and exuberant with her grandfather. Finally, Emily snaps: “This isn’t you, this attitude of yours. This is your mother.” Emily sees Lorelai in Rory, right down to the “interesting” outfit: Rory’s pink jacket mimics a fan-favorite coat Lorelai frequently wore in season four, and Rory’s black-sequined shrug and floral dress evoke Lorelai’s maid of honor look, right down to the dress’s mermaid hem.
But underneath Lorelai’s clothes, Rory’s feelings are genuine: By hurting Luke and Lorelai, Emily hurt Rory, too.
Lindsay in 4.18
Rory, of course, has been dealt her own romantic mess this year: Dean and his wife, Lindsay.
Geez, this picture makes me sad (5.1).
In past seasons, Lindsay’s style was nice, if nondescript, like Lindsay herself: jeans, T-shirts, a quilted or cargo jacket. But this season, her clothes take on new meaning. In episode one, after Dean and Rory sleep together, Lindsay is shown twice in pale pink: as she waits for Dean to get home late from “work,” and as she serves him dinner.
Note the plaid shirt: It will come up later (5.1).
Pink both calls back to Rory’s dress from her night with Dean and emphasizes Lindsay’s youthful innocence. She is not the shrew Dean made her out to be; she doesn’t know her marriage is over. She’s just a girl who made a big decision too young, who thinks cooking a roast beef will make her husband love her again.
In a better world, Rory would dump Dean . . .
. . . and befriend Lindsay (5.2).
Rory tries to break off the affair with a letter, but Lindsay finds it in Dean’s pocket (5.2). Their marriage collapses—loudly, messily. Afterward, Rory and Lorelai run into Lindsay and her mother in the town square. Lorelai defends as Mrs. Lister attacks—the Gilmores united in warm pinks and oranges, and the Listers in cool blues.
Dean in 5.4
Paris is just as confused by Dean’s presence as I am (5.4).
As Dean and Rory start dating again (5.3), he begins wearing a lot more plaid—and for a couple reasons. First, the pattern marks him as Rory’s small-town first love, a “farmer boy,” to quote Paris (5.4). Never mind that Dean moved to Stars Hollow from Chicago in season one—he’s just simple country folk! He can’t keep up with Rory’s new, wealthy friends, in sophistication or money.
In episode eight, Emily and Richard throw Rory a matchmaking party, under the guise of a Yale alum event. They’re hoping Rory will trade Dean for one of their circle’s Ivy League sons: among them, Rory’s classmate Logan Huntzberger.
Rory in 5.8
Rory arrives in a black crepe party dress, expecting to duck out for a date with Dean. Instead, Emily sweeps her upstairs for an updo; makeup; and a diamond pendant, earrings, and tiara. “You look like a princess,” Emily gushes—one who’s about to be paraded in front of dozens of eligible princes. In truth, Rory looks more like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s—a fitting reference, as Miss Celine once compared Rory to Audrey in Sabrina.
Dean in 5.8
When Rory spills out of the mansion at the end of the night, the Yale boys in tow, Dean is waiting by his pickup truck. “Is that a new shirt?” Rory asks to his stone face. “Cause I like it.” Dean and Rory are finally grasping what his new shirts have been telling us for eight episodes: He doesn’t “belong here, not anymore.” Emily and Richard want “more for [Rory]” and Dean can’t provide that.
Dean’s outfit in 5.18 is almost identical to his breakup look in 5.8—he just can’t let things go.
Which brings me to the second reason for Dean’s plaid: The pattern intertwines him with another small-town, pickup-driving, plaid-wearing love interest, Luke. In episode eighteen, Dean tells Luke that he won’t be able to offer Lorelai “more” than life in Stars Hollow—and like Rory, she will want more. Frankly, it’s an unfair comparison, made by a bitter twenty-year-old divorcée, but it still shakes Luke. After all, Dean is wearing a plaid shirt, just like him.
For Rory, “more” is, in part, Logan and his world. He’s the son of a newspaper mogul—smart but undisciplined, charming but careless. Though he’s a good writer, he spends little time at the Yale Daily News, preferring, instead, to plan elaborate stunts for one of Yale’s secret societies, the Life and Death Brigade.
Logan in 5.6
Logan and Rory (5.7)
Logan favors leather jackets or blazers over T-shirts or turtlenecks, always in neutral—and often monochrome—colors, like gray and brown. Though his clothes are likely expensive and carefully chosen, they’re always a bit rumpled or frayed. I imagine that’s a little on purpose—part of his devil-may-care, fuck-my-rich-father attitude.
Nope, not the start of a horror film (5.6)
Rory is drawn into Logan’s circle in episode six, when she pursues a story on the Life and Death Brigade after seeing one of its members in a ball gown and a gorilla mask. The brigade is known for wearing gorilla masks to hide their identities—I suspect as a play on “guerilla” (or maybe even as a reference to the Guerilla Girls). In truth, the brigade’s privileged members are about as establishment as they come. What’s more conventional than a bunch of rich white kids doing things because they can?
So much white (5.7)
Logan and Rory (5.7)
Rory accompanies the brigade on an Out of Africa–inspired camping trip (5.7)—think Melania in Kenya. The next morning, the members dress in black tie and ball gowns to complete daring acts like jumping off scaffolding and moving their money to offshore accounts. Logan gifts Rory a gown and a wrap, both in blue. She’s leaping headfirst into the world her mother rejected, and in her color, too.
Rory loves a boat-neck top in season five (5.7).
Back at home, Rory still favors the collegiate button-downs, sweaters, and skirts she wore in season four, but with a subtle shift. Costume designer Brenda Maben saw Rory’s first time with Dean and subsequent relationship with Logan as “important moment[s]” in her costume design (Observer). As Rory starts exploring sex, she also experiments with showing a little more skin, in shorter skirts and more open necklines and collars (Page Six).
Props to the casting director for the Huntzberger family (5.19)
After a few months of casual dating, Rory and Logan become monogamous in episode nineteen. Logan’s sister, Honor, insists they both attend a Huntzberger family dinner; she’s planning to announce her engagement and worries the family won’t react well. Like her brother, Honor favors a simple, monochrome look—though her pearl studs and necklace add a touch of prep.
Rory happily agrees to dinner—surely twenty years of the Gilmores have prepared her for one evening with the Huntzbergers! Outside the Huntzberger mansion, she tosses off many unseen Friday night incidents: “Remind me to tell you about the time my mom wore a shirt with a rhinestone penis on it and my grandma had her car towed.”
Ah, sweet summer child Rory: The Huntzbergers are not the Gilmores. You’re in a whole other league.
Logan in 5.19
Honor and her fiancé, Josh (5.19)
Inside, Rory and Logan join his sister and her fiancé, his grandfather, and his mother; his father, Mitchum, is yet again running late from work. The room is already tight with silence: Both Logan and Honor brace for a blowup in all black, Honor’s diamonds hinting at her engagement. When she finally announces her impending marriage, her grandfather and her mother are surprisingly nonchalant. They’re more worried about Logan’s newfound commitment to Rory—and the thought that he will one day marry her.
Elias in 5.19
Elias and Shira each represent a different generation of the Huntzberger clan, but they’re united in their protection of its lineage. Presumably, Elias once ran the Huntzberger newspaper empire, and he still dresses as he likely did for the office: businesslike but old-fashioned in a brown tweed jacket, blue-plaid waistcoat, red necktie, and white shirt. Of course, he sees marriage into the Huntzberger family as “important business.”
Shira in 5.19
Shira is much more casual: white pants and a sheer white blouse with rhinestone embellishment. She’s a woman of extraordinary wealth and leisure, as women in all white often are (just look at CeCe from Gossip Girl or Celeste from Veronica Mars). Shira doesn’t work because the wife of the Huntzberger patriarch has other expectations in society; that’s what makes an aspiring reporter like Rory so undesirable for her position. “A girl like Rory has no idea what it takes to be in this family,” says Shira. “She wasn’t raised that way, she wasn’t bred for it.”
Rory in 5.19
Lorelai in 5.19
Rory sits in disbelief: How could she—the granddaughter of Richard and Emily Gilmore, a descendant of the Mayflower—be so unsuitable for the Huntzbergers? Shira may claim their disdain for Rory isn’t “at all about her mother,” but in part, it must be. Rory is wearing a blue dress, a pair of diamond studs—a symbol of engagement, yes, but also the same earrings Lorelai wears throughout the series. When Rory calls Lorelai later that night, she answers the phone in blue—and her diamond studs.
Mitchum in 5.19
As an apology for the disastrous dinner, Mitchum offers Rory an internship at his newest acquisition, the Stamford Eagle Gazette. She takes it—not understanding, until it’s too late, that Mitchum is no different from the rest of his family. He may claim to all business, in his power suits and neckties, but when it’s all about business, then it’s almost always personal.
Rory in 5.20
For her first day, Rory chooses a classic black skirt suit and white blouse. She wants to look “professional but not too Lois Lane-y” and not like a “college kid” (5.20). And yet, as Rory gets more comfortable in the internship, she starts to dress more casually—thinking, perhaps, that she’s proven herself to be more than a kid.
Before (5.21)
After (5.21)
When it comes time for a one-on-one with Mitchum (5.21), she sheds her navy jacket, revealing a mint-green knitted tank over a white T-shirt. The top is soft, vulnerable—even with the T-shirt, verging on inappropriate for the office. Of course, this is the moment Mitchum goes for her underbelly: He claims Rory doesn’t have what it takes to make it in journalism.
Honey, no (5.21)
Devastated, Rory leaves the office for Honor’s engagement party—on the family yacht, naturally. Rory wants to get away, to lash out, and so she convinces Logan to steal one of the other docked boats. Her coat is mint green, like the top she wore earlier: cause and effect.
A divided front (5.22)
Logan and Rory are arrested, and Rory decides to take time off from Yale—believing, as Mitchum told her, that she needs to choose a new path. After Lorelai finds out, she goes to her parents for backup (5.22). Between the three of them, she thinks, they can convince Rory to stay in school. Emily and Richard agree, only to renege after Rory comes to them. What seemed a united front was always divided: the grandparents in touches of red, and Lorelai in its opposite, green. Rory will live in the pool house while she takes time off—our Gilmore girls, yet again, separated.
Favorite Line of Season Five
Every issue, I’m providing my favorite line(s) from that season. This exchange comes from one of my favorite kinds of TV scenes: Two long-running characters finally meet. In this case, Paris and Stars Hollow’s resident man-child, Kirk:
Paris: How old is he?
Rory: You’d have to cut him open and count the rings.
If you enjoyed this post, I’d love if you’d like it, comment on it, or share it! Stay tuned for season six on Thursday, 11/10.
Essential Episodes for Season Six
6.2: “Fight Face”
6.8: “Let Me Hear Your Balalaikas Ringing Out”
6.9: “The Prodigal Daughter Returns”
6.13: “Friday Night’s Alright for Fighting”
6.17: “I’m OK, You’re OK”
