How Rory Gilmore Went From a Deeply Hated Character to the Fall Fashion It Girl of 2023
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Currently the Rory Gilmore hashtag has 7.3 billion views on TikTok, with videos using #rorygilmoreoutfits racking up 10.5 million views. For scale, Gossip Girl's Blair Waldorf, the long-reigning queen of fictional teenage fashion icons, has fallen behind with 6.6 billion views overall and 8.1 million views on #blairwaldorfoutfits. Suddenly, celeb ’fits are being dubbed “Rory Gilmore coded” (yes, I know I wrote one of those articles), and Vogue is publishing a 22-year-old’s take on their first Gilmore Girls binge watch.
The simplest explanation for this would be the Netflix effect. As we've already seen this year with the Suits renaissance, the streaming service's binge model can spike fresh interest in a series that has long been off the air. Gossip Girl, for one, was all over many TikTok users' For You pages throughout the early days of the pandemic before it was removed from Netflix on the last day of 2020 in advance of its HBO reboot. But here's the thing: Gilmore Girls has been streaming on Netflix since 2014, so why is this happening now—and why Rory?
It all circles back to the current fashion landscape. In fall 2023, Rory “Who Cares If I'm Pretty If I Fail My Finals” Gilmore is not a “bad” dresser, as one journalist wrote for InStyle in 2021; she's utilitarian and timeless.
“I never thought that Rory was a trendy person," Gilmore Girls costume designer Brenda Maben told Fashionista in 2016. “[She has a] good, solid, classic style that you could wear from year to year and not look outdated.”
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Such is the mantra of “quiet luxury,” which favors understated yet high-quality items over too much personal expression. The term has had social media in a chokehold since the spring of 2023.
I've always found it somewhat odd that the generations that proudly chant “eat the rich” went all in on a style philosophy that's often directly associated with the morally bankrupt über-wealthy characters. They lust after the fashion of the characters on Succession and celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow (whose civil courtroom ensembles made headlines in late March).
Perhaps Rory Gilmore is another example of this apparent disconnect, though her unfussy looks are at least more relatable to teens and 20-somethings—as are her so-called crimes against humanity. For every few TikTok videos of Rory Gilmore–style dupes, there seems to be at least one denouncing the character as insufferable. In the case of fashion, likability and influence do not have to intersect.
In one viral clip from the show's pilot episode, Rory jokingly describes herself as “unbelievably self-centered” during a conversation with her first love interest, Dean. (It's also worth noting that the tomato red turtleneck from that scene is very in style right now.)
