Where You Lead

An Introduction to Volume Three: Gilmore Girls

Originally published on Letterdrop 6/30/2022

It feels strange talking about Gilmore Girls in the summer. If Gilmore Girls got its colors done, it’d be an autumn—golden leaves and turtleneck sweaters and freshly cracked books. There’s a certain coziness and comfort built into the show, the idea that someone will always be there for you, that they’ll always follow where you lead.

The opening title card

Of the three shows I’ve discussed in this newsletter, Gilmore Girls is the least soap-y (though later seasons beg to differ) and perhaps the least teen-y. After all, two-thirds of the Gilmore girls—and yes, I count a third Gilmore girl—are adults.

Lorelai Gilmore was not supposed to get pregnant at sixteen. She was not supposed to leave her parents’ staid Hartford mansion for the tiny, colorful town of Stars Hollow, her infant daughter, Rory, in tow. She was not supposed to start working as a maid at the Independence Inn, one of those historic New England hotels that George Washington probably slept in. She was supposed to marry her high school boyfriend, Christopher Hayden. She was supposed to go to Yale, enter WASP-y society like so many Gilmores before her.

And yet, almost sixteen years later, Lorelai has worked her way up to manager, and Rory is as much her best friend as her teen daughter, their speedy pop culture references fueled by innumerable cups of coffee. They rarely see Lorelai’s parents, Emily and Richard; they have their own family, a quirky mix of Stars Hollow townies. Only Rory’s acceptance to an elite—and expensive—private school drives Lorelai back to her parents’ home, in the very first episode of the show.

Gilmore Girls will always hold a very tender place in my heart. I started watching the show on DVD in middle school, and Netflix streaming be damned, I will never relinquish those box sets, with their little “Guide to Gilmore-isms” booklets. Hell, I even facilitated a Gilmore Girls–themed book club for four years (still very much alive and well at WORD Brooklyn!). Rewatching the series was like meeting an old friend and understanding that, while I still loved them, I’d matured a lot more than they had. (The newsletter Gilmore Women delves more deeply into what’s wrong with the show in 2022—fatphobia, transphobia, and homophobia framed as humor; abusive boyfriends presented as “good.” Oh yeah, and abortion never being shown as a legitimate option for the show’s many unplanned, unwanted pregnancies. Timely!)

Is that white pleather??

Still, the show’s costume design remains consistently right—though that’s not to say it all ages well (my god, Lorelai, why this hat??). Rather, the costumes do what all costumes should—facilitate our understanding of the characters: their circumstances, their evolutions, and their relationships with one another.

The costumes’ success, of course, should be attributed to Gilmore Girls’ longtime costume designer, Brenda Maben, and her predecessors, Caroline B. Marx and Robin Lewis West. Maben worked on all seven seasons (on the first few, as a costume supervisor) and the revival, her philosophy always “character-driven,” as she told Euphoria:

You’re representing, building, and growing a person on paper to a three-dimensional, living, breathing human being. A lot of the time that is expressed in what they wear. Just think of yourself, what is it that you do a lot? Do you always wear earrings? Do you always wear pearl earrings? Do you wear little diamond studs that your grandmother gave you and they’re precious to you and those are the only earrings you ever wear? That gives somebody a backstory on why you do what you do.

Because the costumes, and the show itself, are so character- and relationship-driven, this volume will go season by season. I won’t cover the costumes in every single episode (I wish I had the time for that!), but I will highlight the most important ones—in fact, at the end of each post, I’ll tell you the essential episodes to rewatch for the next issue, in case you want to follow along.

I’m currently planning to end with season seven. Frankly, I have mixed feelings about the 2016 revival, A Year in the Life—though, to be fair, my skepticism is saved for the story choices, not the costumes. Still, I’m open to adding an issue on the revival if there’s interest; let me know in the comments or reply to this email!

The first issue, on season one, will drop on Thursday, 7/14. Until then, get your Pop-Tarts plated, your “lalas” warmed up, and your jeans boot-cut!

Essential Viewing for Season One

1.1: “Pilot”

1.2: “The Lorelais’ First Day at Chilton”

1.6: “Rory’s Birthday Parties”

1.9: “Rory’s Dance”

1.18: “The Third Lorelai”