Penn's Pate
Yeah, so this isn't even as bad as it looks on actual TV. I know he grew out his hair to play Jeff Buckley, etc., but couldn't they just have put Dan in a series of hilarious hats? Or at least made his hair a plot point? Blair Waldorf would never run her fingers through that. In part because I think they'd get stuck in the glue he's using as pomade.
Blair
This was Blair trying to go incognito while she fled the country to get a cheapie divorce. (That's not a tutu; it's her wedding dress in her hand.) Do not get used to the sight of Blair Waldorf in a t-shirt and hoodie. It will never happen again.
Blair
After Blair got roped into staying with the hateful Louiiiiiis anyway, she went insane and started layering vests over her day dresses. Actually, this is probably part of the dress. And actually... I don't hate it. In fact, she looks great. In a "don't try this at home" kind of way. That dress, with that overlay, doesn't leave room for my daily sandwich. Nor my burgeoning port wine habit but let's not talk about that.
Serena
This dress reminds me of back when I would occasionally shop at Forever 21 -- back before it was laughable that I was anything even adjacent to 21 -- and I would see things and they were all stretchy and tight and itchy and short enough that I legitimately couldn't tell if they were dresses or sweaters. Serena has never met a sweater she didn't want to turn into a dress, though. It's a good thing she didn't exist in the 90s, when sweaters were cropped at the waist.
Blair and Dorota
Blair was trying, briefly, to get Serena and Dan together again. It is SO Blair to have her own opera glasses for this purpose, and of course she would not spring for Dorota to have a matching pair even though she does almost more lurking and watching than Blair does. However, I must note that on GCB, Cheno's were Swarovski'd, and in that sense Blair has allowed herself to fail. I'm sure she'd think that was tacky... but only because she didn't think of it first.
Blair
When I'm getting ready to go out, usually I wear a button-down flannel (because I don't care if I get makeup on it and I don't have to remove it over my head). When Blair gets ready to go out, she puts on a poncho-based peignoir set. That seems about right.
Serena and Blair
This was from Valentine's Day. Blair, in her plot to get Dan and Serena to rediscover their love, made Nate throw a Come As You Were-themed high school throwback party but she dragged Serena to her random other ball first (as you do). The hilarious part is, Serena walked in all horrified, like, "I feel uncomfortable that I'm dressed like this," when in fact, she is dressed like that all the time for no good reason.
Serena
AND THEN. Serena, who is mad at Blair for blah blah blah Dan Humphrey isn't worth all this sniping, pops up wearing this as pajamas. Well, hang on, perhaps I'm being too generous in assuming Serena would only wear a romper indoors; it's possible she's on her way to Zabar's for some tapenade, and that's exactly the kind of tomfoolery she'd pull. But the scene is shot as a nighttime faceoff, which means it's entirely likely Serena is getting ready to climb into bed wearing a sequined vest. Maybe she just bought the vest at Barneys, and wanted to pet it before she fell asleep? Otherwise this is totally ridiculous. First, what if she has to use the bathroom in the middle of the night? Having to fully undress in there at 3 a.m. is a chilly prospect. Also, IT'S A VEST. YOU ARE NOT A CATER WAITER IN VEGAS. Also, does she still have a job? It's so strange that this show, whose main titles still revolve around her photo and someone whispering about where Serena went, has totally shoved her to the side. They're just not inVESTed and neither are we. HAR.
Blair
Like, when BLAIR has more normal PJs than you do, it's time to re-think. Blair, who gets dressed up more between outfits than half the people do in their ACTUAL outfits.
Blair and Serena
Serena, being mad about how she's in love with Dan "Here Is where I put the 'Humph' in" Humphrey and Dan is in love with Blair, knocks into Blair and makes the lipstick trail on her cheek. If only Blair could somehow fix that, with some kind of magical solution that removes makeup. As for the clothes, I will never understand the laws of mixing patterns. I sort of see that the colors play with each other, but she just kind of looks like somebody's old mood board.
Serena
"Let me out of here! I forgot my Hot Oil treatment!"
Blair
At least Blair has a coat for every outfit. The nice thing about this show acknowledging seasons is that the coat porn is amazing; the depressing thing is, it means we can't ogle enough the insanity happening underneath it.
Serena
I do like the sweater-sleeves on that jacket, I think. And it's so moving that Serena is wearing black leather gloves -- like a nod to Gossip Girl: Psycho Killer, in which she willfully murders half of her high school (and somehow that's not even a spoiler). I really do think that when this show reaches the end of the road -- methinks after next season, when everyone's contracts expire -- they should go that way unrepentantly. I want to see how Eric Daman dresses these people for MUUUUUURDER.
Ivy
Never wear wallpaper to a funeral, on the offchance they're going to read the will IMMEDIATELY and it turns out the wacky old lady who knew you weren't really her granddaughter leaves you every last damn thing she owned. Be vigilant.
Blair
That is a lot of lacyness, Blair. Perhaps just one or the other. I know you're mourning the fact that you were dumb enough to marry a guy you didn't love -- COME ON, Audrey Hepburn would never have done that, and also, don't you watch TV EVER? -- but you don't have to accessorize as if you are really made of widow's weeds.
Georgina
Fortunately, this set of episodes gave us a Georgina arc wherein she was stirring up trouble as the new Gossip Girl while giving her delightfully dim baby-daddy a hard time. This is what she's wearing to crash the funeral of her former BFF's grandmother. She looks like a cross between a Robert Palmer girl and a Kardashian.
Georgina's coat
However, throw on the Burberry metallic trench we saw the next night on Ringer (or at least a great facsimile), and we're in the business. I love this coat. You totally wear this coat to throw things in people's faces and to dance on their graves or light them on fire (which I don't approve of in real life, obviously, but which does not happen enough on TV). It's been a boring four episodes, fashion-wise, and story-wise -- except for setting the table for Ivy to rule the Van Der Woodsens with an iron fist, while Real Charlie Rhodes finds out she's actually Serena's half-sister by Billy Baldwin -- but at least the outerwear never disappoints. Next time: underwear. As in, the stuff Blair wears to try and seduce decent sex out of Dan. Good luck with that. Put him in a hat, honey.