Bravo's Best Fashion Moments in 2024

When I began PAPER’s Bravo fashion column “So Chic, Very Chic,” my dream was to take the clothes paraded around by the channel’s dilettantes seriously, or if I failed at that, provide some sort of visual archive of the many, many runway pieces and downmarket fashions that appeared onscreen each week. Witty commentary included, of course.

A year later, PAPER’s fashion editor Andrew and I have been subjected to glamor, depravity, total banality and occasional moments of shocking brilliance. I’ve tracked trends in fashion, charted Saks Fifth Avenue’s sale section like it’s the brave new world and scoured Instagram for stylist tags and brand mentions.

I’ve seen leopard and cyber dots and brown leather and Mugler bodysuits and Barbie pink and Renaissance silver come and go and then come back just to go again. I’ve lamented to my editor about Christian Siriano’s designs and seriously addressed my ambivalence to Dior and Bottega Veneta with psychiatric intervention. I’ve seen more of that one Toteme jacket than my own family, and I’m sure my friends are sick of me talking about the line between Balenciaga’s accessories turn in the last decade and the rise of Prada bag charms.

More than anything, I wanted to think critically about the presentation of clothing in a medium not widely regarded by the fashion press at large. If I have failed at that, then at least I’ve been lucky enough to report from the fashion frontlines of the Reality Von Tease scandal, Karen Huger’s arrest dash cam footage, the fall of Vanderpump Rules and so much more.

In honor of the New Year, I’ve selected my 10 favorite fashion moments on Bravo in 2024, in no particular order. Originally, they asked me for individual outfits, but there were simply too many. Enjoy!

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Portrait of Women in Crisis

The most memorable image of 2024 is not the glowing orb above Cherry Hill, New Jersey, or that guy with the weird glasses at the Olympics. It is not Ariana Grande holding Cynthia Erivo’s pinkie or Chappell Roan dressed as Lady Liberty. It is not the many photos police have failed to convince the public were all Luigi Mangione, though it could be his defiant stare at the paps while a small army escorted him back to New York City. No, for those of us cursed to understand the words “Monica used her husband’s TaskRabbit account to stalk the Shah Squad and build a dossier for the Instagram account Reality Von Tease,” the prestigious honor of the year’s best image is the above still. If Big Little Lies was real life, it’d be this.

Between Meredith’s trendy, pleated Philosophy Di Lorenzo Serafini dress and Lisa Barlow’s Alejandro Alonso Rojas fringe, Bravo fans just couldn’t get these ladies out of our heads in 2024. Even Whitney’s David Koma for FWRD dress adds to the glamor and mystique of the moment, try as she might to get a bargain on just about everything.

While we’re on the glittering slopes of Salt Lake City, I’d like to knock on those palatial doors to Angie’s home and let her know she is, by far, the most important woman in the entire world. A testament to a mother’s willpower and resilience, she clawed her way back from the brink of the cast call to become the most influential new power broker on Bravo: first chair at the reunion, prominently centered in the season’s promotional images and buzzed about in niche pop culture spaces everywhere there’s buzz to be heard. Did you hear she won an award from Las Culturistas? That’s sort of like the Oscars for gay people with enough disposable income to give podcasters money so they can afford to post for a living.

While her onscreen fashions popped for a second season in a row, it was her confessionals this year that really stole the hearts and minds of the Vulture commentariat. That pink blazer is Area, which broke through the downtown cool kid wildlife sanctuary and onto the collapsible racks of Bravo’s go-to stylists. The pinstripe with the rose is similarly chic, lending to her aura as a businesswoman and mogul who isn’t afraid to take her tits out sometimes. It’s also LaQuan Smith, if The Cut’s fashion team can believe it. As for her Albina Dyla original in white, I’ve come around to thinking it’s the best anyone’s ever looked on television. That, or these oversized shield glasses I bought on her recommendation have permanently damaged my vision. Either way, we love you Angie! We hope to see you on TV for another 100 years.

It’s not often that someone can be exposed, humiliated, dragged from high heaven down to hell, and still find themselves crawling back for more. But this is Bravo. Mary, who married her grandfather and was accused of operating a cult, is back as a full-time cast member this season. She's also done a complete 180 with her reputation, endearing fans and this very critic to her in ways I never thought possible. What's the recipe? Well, Mary is more vulnerable than she’s ever been, talking through her devastating relationship with her mother and family while her son openly struggles with drug addiction. Against this backdrop of familial legacies of abuse and trauma, she’s actually dressed the part of cult leader. From bizarre headpieces to larger-than-life statement jewelry, she tops the list of fashion moments for the sheer extravagance of her confessionals. You’d never guess she generally shows up to parties in ‘90s Chanel blazers (not the chic kind) and newsboy caps.

Chanel knows her way around a couturier. She also knows her way around a camera lens and cyclorama, judging by her modeling pedigree and penchant for opulence in the confessional booth. Were the clothes not enough, just check out the million photos behind her on the green screen of herself and her family. She’s used to seeing her face in different places and wearing clothes worth photographing! Worth noting: The bulk of these were made by Dubai ateliers.

Beyond the initial presentation, however, it’s also worth noting that for the second season running, she has the largest confessional looks to boot. As in, they physically take up so much space that The Real Housewives of Dubai producers specifically engineered the confessionals to feature them, alongside her castmates' attempts to clamber up onto Chanel’s pedestal.

Jenna Lyons is maybe one of the chicest women on TV. Conversely, she’s made a totally dismal reality star. That’s the duality of a woman who engineered the modern woman’s wardrobe and has since struggled to capture the relevance of an era when J.Crew was the most buzzed about fashion brand. Thankfully, the confessional booth on Bravo is the perfect place to relaunch oneself. Her time on the show might be dreary, but her outfits are anything but! Keeping the blazer and overshirt as the primary motif, she’s dressed up and dressed down everything from Simone Rocha to Saint Laurent. I appreciate the simple elegance and am confident that she’s the first person on TV to ever make a military green button down look fabulous.

If anything, she’s the textbook example of why a uniform is key to being a good dresser. Endless small variations allow her to set an expectation and then playfully subvert it, like when she deviates from the red lip.

Karen Huger is facing possible jail time. Karen Huger has humiliated herself on national television over a DUI arrest she thought she was too famous to be found guilty of. Karen Huger has never admitted wrong a day in her fabulous life. Karen Huger, 61 years old, looks more glamorous than she ever has in her entire life. Despite the shadow of her court trial looming over her all season. Karen marched right into that confessional booth with a goddamn mission: fashion or die. Or prison! But we’re still crossing our fingers that she’s slapped with community service and a five season contract with Bravo.

Keiarna here was cursed with a rather mediocre first season of The Real Housewives of Potomac, which isn’t really her fault. We have celibate church love, Karen’s arrest, Mia’s continued unwillingness to think about how her actions might affect her children and Gizelle’s perpetually nasty attitude. Thankfully, she’s made up for all of that with the fashion seen above. From Acne to Area respectively, she’s stepped out in fashions most of the women on this show would never dream of picking up off the rack. While Karen gives the tour to incoming freshman at the Grand Dame Institute for Potential Fashion Mothers, Keiarna is in the crowd, diligently taking notes.

Unlike The Real Housewives of New York, Miami survived its reboot and is, in fact, better than just about every other show on Bravo. The cast chemistry is unreal, the drama is deliciously shallow, the friendships are forged like steel, and fashions are the most consistently memorable. (Even if I spent 20-straight weeks calling Alexia the worst dressed woman on modern television, still memorable!) For their reunion, they coordinated in red, gold and champagne. They’re like the best of Dolce & Gabbana's ‘90s runways filtered through those fashion accounts on Instagram that post Linda Evangelista editorials without citations or sources. Out of context, each looks camp and comical, but together, the effect is totally sublime. Rarely do we see casts exemplify their chemistry through the clothing they wear together. As always, Miami beat the odds.

Despite the many, many disagreements I had with the cast and producers on the last season of RHOBH, the reunion looks were by far the best executed of the year. While they lacked the coordinated effort and sheer joy of Miami’s united front, the women showed up with something to prove. Despite being the most reviled women on Bravo for a few years running, they’ve remained the crown jewel in the yearly lineup for a reason: fabulosity and extravagance in spades, with Garcelle in Dolce, Sutton and Dorit in Schiaparelli and Erika and Annemarie in Balmain. Even Kyle’s Victoria Beckham gown looks opulent, while Crystal’s Yannick Machado Couture is beaded to total perfection, even if slightly outdated. Even when they falter, commit alleged financial crimes or dance around rumors about their queer situationship, I can always count on them to at least look hot and rich.

Summer House has, for better or worse, simmered under Bravo’s weekly lineup since it loosely spun off Vanderpump Rules all those years ago. Never quite reaching the heights of its older sibling, its cast of stalwart party animals has chugged right along as a cult favorite amongst those in the know. (And despite what anyone else will tell you, it’s always been the more talented sibling anyway.) Still, the fashions have always left much to be desired. Like Vanderpump Rules and Bravo’s stable of millennial offerings, the cast has generally shopped downmarket, in stores anyone could walk out with a proper haul from. But when lady luck intervened on them this most recent season, tearing enemies-to-friends-to lovers-to-friends-to-lovers Carl and Lindsay apart, the rest of the cast was similarly jolted back to life. Despite fraught relationships and breakups and interhouse political tensions, the women on this cast popped up at the reunion looking like the ruling class of socialite wives on Mars in 2048. Gag on it!

Photos courtesy of Bravo/NBCUniversal