So Chic, Very Chic: RHONJ Cast Talk Finale Fashion

Another era of The Real Housewives of New Jersey is coming to a close. No, I’m not crying!

My favorite women on television experienced the most shocking upset in Real Housewives history this season, with the recent announcement there would be no reunion episode following the shocking events of the finale, in which a planned sit-down devolved into utter, glorious madness.

Here at PAPER, a deprivation of sequin gowns, big hair and expensive heels is considered a medical malady. One that, if not cured, could result in me standing around the Cherry Hill Mall in South Jersey for hours on end, touching expensive clothes in the Nordstrom while mascara runs down my face and sales attendants encircle me with worried looks on their faces. In the wake of the news, PAPER managing editor and resident New Jersey icon Matt Wille checked in on me daily, just to see if I’d totally fallen apart just yet.

Thankfully, our friends at Bravo could sense my distress over the unexpected turn of events — one of the few instances in the network’s history a mainline Real Housewives franchise went without a reunion — and connected me with my favorite women on television. Not only do we have exclusive photos of their final outfits to share, but a few even spoke on record about their feelings going into the finale, their fashion inspirations this season and more!

What follows is a very special edition of this column. Thanks to Bravo for hooking us up. Thanks to Melissa Gorga, Dolores Catania and Margaret Josephs for opening up about the season. And most importantly, thanks to The Real Housewives of New Jersey, for creating what is, without a doubt, my favorite show on television each year. Shall we?

Melissa Gorga

I’ve only ever been to the Towaco NJ Transit station once, when I visited a friend’s parents in the suburbs. Melissa is dressed appropriately for a jaunt on the train: sensible stiletto thigh highs, a mesh button-up skirt and a loose, collared shirt with sunglasses on. She radiates serenity in this outfit, like a woman who knows her whole life is ahead of her out past the horizon, where nobody is flipping tables or screaming about loyalty or siccing lawyers on each other over scuffles at a summer BBQ. Ironically, Melissa told me she also felt out of place in the fit at the final sit down: “Oh my God, I did not get the memo! They all walked in like it was the season finale of The Sopranos, and here I come in a white button-down and a brown leather skirt, with matching boots that I've had for at least five years! This is what happens when I don't wear clothes from my boutique, Envy. These girls were all going to a funeral, and I was going to a cute luncheon!”

You know that meme, where the woman in the little outfit and the thigh-high heels steps into the new year, casting off all that came before? That’s how Melissa is dressed. Can’t you picture it? The tiny little blocks say things like, “jealousy,” “resentment,” “Posche Fashion Show,” “sprinkle cookies.” She’s risen above such petty contrivances in her little mesh booties, onto bigger and better things.

Danielle Cabral

Speaking of Mob Wives, Danielle here is dressed like she’s about to step out on the Mob Wives Season 3 reunion stage. (RIP Big Ang!) Our girl loves herself a leather pant and bedazzled bodysuits, mesh tops, booties and big ol' belts. She also loves a good blowout and is a woman after my own heart in that way.

Truly, after the stellar performance she’s had this season, I have no complaints! I’m even a bit teary-eyed, knowing she won’t grace us with any other Jerseylicious pants, tops and booties this season. I’ve grown fond of her commitment to sparkling both in fit and personality. Alongside Rachel Fuda, she’s made a fabulous edition to this cast, and should the entire thing come crumbling down around these drama-obsessed women, I hope they find their own way to survive in the wreckage.

Viva la leather pant! Viva la bougie!

Rachel Fuda

Rachel Fuda doesn’t know me, but good God, do I know her! She’s the queen of my heart, adorned in yet another pair of leather pants. Unlike her comrade Danielle Cabral, however, she’s opted out of sequins and settled on 60 inches of jet-black hair and a trench that screams: “Don’t fuck with me, Teresa Giudice!”

Like this outfit, Fuda’s made quite the impression on me these past two seasons. This is perhaps the toughest cast to break into on Bravo, and here she is, clad mostly in black like Trinity from The Matrix, behind enemy lines. Well, Trinity if she knew about Bloomingdales, parking lot entrepreneurs and layered rhinestone belts. The entire thing is perfect for the final sit down of the season, and the sort of thing I’d expect the heir to a crime family to wear in a modern reboot of The Sopranos.

Dolores Catania

I cannot stop making references to Mob Wives,for good reason! Look at this excessively powerful woman, sat up on her throne, black lace on with the little stiletto booties like she’s en route to her fourth husband’s funeral in old Italian country.

Here’s what she told me about the fit: “I am wearing a Rabanne black dress, fitting for the current climate. Also, I pictured this as I was Don Vito Corleone calling all the heads of the families together for a truce. So I kept that in mind with my outfit: Italian mob boss funeral, channeling Sophia Loren hair ... anyway! I nailed it. I was thrilled with my look and my favorite Louboutin boots. I have four of the same pair in case they ever stop making them."

It’s a perfect thematic conclusion to Dolores’ role throughout her time on the show, acting mostly as a matriarch of sorts to the family they’ve curated on the show: a dysfunctional, often violent family but a family nonetheless. (Regardless of the state of Tre and Melissa’s relationship.) It’s just too bad about everything, you know? I would have loved to see what Dolores wore to the reunion, if this is the heat she brought to the final sit down of the season. It fits her beautifully, and she’s probably never looked better.

On her outfit inspirations throughout the season, she added: “My themes for this season are: I’m skinny. I could wear what I want. I am on Mounjaro. I am gonna spend a lot of money on my clothes, and I don’t care! However, I still have big feet. Mounjaro doesn’t shrink my feet, so I don’t buy new shoes.”

Margaret Josephs

Margaret is a personal favorite housewife for me, and I will sorely miss her when this show goes on hiatus until cameras pick back up. She’s witty, quick with her words, an expert scene partner and down to clown in ways that many are not. Consider her all-star move with Dolores and the text message from across the party earlier in the season. That’s the sort of play that gets athletes in the Hall of Fame or gold medals at the Olympics!

She was also incredibly forthcoming with me on her feelings about the above outfit, the finale and her feelings post-mortem. “The designers I wore were all European! Elisabetta Franchi trousers, Gauge 81 bodysuit, Gucci shoes, Louis Vuitton sunglasses. I put this outfit together with a funereal aesthetic in mind, in honor of the death of some people's dignity and others who bury their head in the sand. I definitely went for Hungarian assassin, sleek '70s vibe. Think Bond villain! As for my outfits this season, they all have a vantage point of view: Marilyn Monroe meets Bianca Jagger. I one hundred percent would wear this outfit again to the finale! I dropped the bomb and took the cannolis.”

Teresa Giudice

It’s the self-proclaimed Queen of Paterson herself, Teresa Giudice! The finale takes place inside what is essentially a meeting of the families, mob boss style, and she dresses for the occasion in slick, bedazzled leggings and a sensible platform heel. The hair is big like a lion’s mane, typical for Tre, and a more obvious allusion to her position of power on the savannas of North Jersey. Chanel and its logomania siblings are likewise a staple of the mob wife archetype, and the interplay between the large block of white with the graphic-esque font give it a street style edge.

Really, she’s dressed like if Michelle Pfeiffer’s Angela de Marco (shoutout Married to the Mob) discovered saksfifthavenue.com and blew up her husband’s black card on Chanel sweaters and Gucci belts before the feds descended.

Jennifer Aydin

Like her castmates — sans Melissa — Jennifer leaned fully into the mob wife aesthetic for the finale. The print is just about the most “Victoria Gotti” Aydin’s ever looked, and the Versace pumps with the Valentino bag are exactly what I’d expect from Giudice Crime Family’s Consigliere. Reader, I am not calling the Giudices criminals, in case the joke isn’t obvious enough. We’re still in the realm of make believe, where Teresa is a mob wife, and Jennifer Aydin is her strongarm second in command!

It’s just too bad we have to say goodbye, isn’t it? Who knows when we’ll see these women again. Just like the ending of The Sopranos! What happens after that screen goes black? Well, that’s up to us to decide. In my head, they all went back inside, figured it out, apologized, and went on to make another ten fantastic seasons of television together. Catfights be damned!

Photos courtesy of Bravo/ NBCUniversal Media, LLC