So Chic, Very Chic: Then the Torture Started
BYJoan SummersJul 26, 2024
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.
I stayed up too late last night and now feel like I’m in an alternate dimension, and it’s ruining my life.
This is mostly my fault because nobody forced me at gunpoint to stay out in Bushwick ‘til past 2 a.m. at Jamie xx’s set at a club that technically doesn’t exist yet. I wanted to be mixy, and mix around I did, chatting people up and dancing under strobes and scoping generous girls with cigarettes in the back alley. By the time I crawled into bed with my best friend and closed my eyes, my alarm had already gone off, the deadline for this column beating my ass with the type of steel beam they use to build those ugly new apartments in downtown Brooklyn.
I’ve worked under pressure before. This is not the sort of job one takes if they like to move at a snail’s pace, and the torturous experience writing it truly had nothing at all to do with my lack of sleep or pounding migraine. The blame is not on me or PAPER or Jamie xx or anyone, except the television channel Bravo, which currently has on air three different Real Housewives franchises from three different planets.
Across the network this week, women paraded across my television screen in clothing that might as well have been designed thousands of years apart, in separate realities, in different pockets of the multiverse. Silver plastic mini dresses and Prada cardigans and couture and strip mall newsboy caps and motorcycle jackets and hair that seems to be made from styrofoam. It was a phantasmagoria of the senses in the absolute worse way, and my headache hasn’t recovered from the assault.
Once again, I’d like to make it clear that my current predicament has nothing to do with my own choices and everything to do with the TV shows I talk about for a living. Shall we?
The Real Housewives of Dubai
Caroline Stanbury
It’s actually spooky that Caroline Stanbury dressed up like me one year ago and in exact imitation of how I woke up this morning. Everything about this is funny, from the iPhone cable in the wall to the sleep mask, to the matching flannel pajamas she has with her husband despite it being 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Most importantly, however, is that she still has her Effie Trinket hair from the party in last week’s episode. Her stylist must have burnt another hole in the ozone layer for it to survive the night.
I ran out of room last week to talk about this look, which was a shame because she has continued to innovate what is possible with the human hair. It’s like she’s an anthropomorphic Polly Pocket doll, and her hair is a plastic cap she can switch around like her little plastic clothes. (The line would be discontinued quickly, though, because it’s a choking hazard for children.) Really, this hair almost defies the laws of physics. I need a trigonometry equation to figure out the curvature of it and how it actually makes that shape at the ends. Don’t correct me if that’s not how trigonometry works, I’m not in the mood.
Chanel Ayan
Chanel Ayan, you’ve done it again. In a sea of rather plain vacation clothes, in struts Ayan with a bedazzled bra and mini skirt, skin-tight thigh highs and coat too big to fit in the elevator. I’m not quite sure about how I feel concerning the ensemble as a cohesive look, but I applaud this woman’s imagination and want her to make the coats even bigger next season. I need them to rival Rihanna’s now infamous Met Gala look.
Caroline Brooks and Sara Al Madani
Brooks is inconsequential to this segment, mostly because I wanted to point out that Sara showed up in another Carmen Sandiego hat. It’s black this time but almost the exact same one she wore last week. I hope she has a hat for every outfit, and I hope she wears all of them for my cynical pleasure.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey
Rachel Fuda
At this point, my headache is nearly blinding. I’ve taken the requisite pills, laid horizontal on the couch and put on the soothing sounds of the Challengers soundtrack. No luck! This dress isn’t helping either, what with its blinding plasticity in conjunction with the hot pink lip and 100 inches of box-dye black hair. No shade, of course. Rachel is a real diva with these things, and I support the choice to look like this just not when I’m nursing a lack of sleep and too many strobe lights to the eyeballs.
The Real Housewives of Orange County
Tamra Judge
In another universe entirely, Tamra Judge walked into a motorcycle bar in this jacket with this glam. What a time to be covering the Real Housewives! To go from couture and metallic mini dresses to biker jackets with denim button-up shirts underneath. What a time!
Heather Dubrow
Miss Dubrow continues to dress like a villain on Desperate Housewives this season. Here she is in a little Prada button-up with contrast finishings and too much eyelash. Her commitment to the bit is admirable, if spooky, and I hope she continues to spiral deeper and deeper into the aesthetic until she’s literally the spitting image of Carolyn Bigsby. Remember Ms. Bigsby? She holds up a supermarket with her tiny little pistol and kills her husband’s mistress.
Detective Gina
Detective Gina is the main character of a brand new CBS pilot, Lady Detective, about a woman who fights crime and is also a single mom with a boyfriend that won’t do the dishes. It’s been received positively by execs, although they had to give her a talking dog sidekick that she imagines in her own mind because it didn’t perform well with the age 18 to 48 male test audiences who thought there should be a talking dog. One is quoted as saying, “I mean, I’m willing to believe a woman can fight crime, but what about her talking dog sidekick?” Costume designers want her to feel like a modern woman, so her wardrobe is full of checked suit jackets and Breton caps and Chelsea boots.
Photos courtesy of Bravo/ NBCUniversal Media, LLC
