Prompt #5- The 'Fashion Show' as depicted in Gossip Girl

 With its chartreuse Burberry scarves, limited edition Givenchy handbags, and iconic red bottom Louboutins, Gossip Girl is no stranger to high fashion. Blair’s mother, Eleanor Waldorf, is the acclaimed designer of Eleanor Waldorf Designs, a top-level, global fashion brand. Season 2 Episode 5 is centered on Eleanor’s annual New York Fashion Week show and the tremendous amount of aesthetic labor that goes into its preparation. Drawing on the argument in “The Fashion Show as an Art Form” by Skov et al., Gossip Girl depicts the fashion show as a controlled, idealized performance. All the major decisions that go into planning a fashion show are carefully calculated to achieve success. However, innovation and spontaneity still play an important role in the construction of fashion shows. 

The spatial framing of Eleanor Waldorf’s fashion show creates this distinction between the new (inner-world) and the old (outside world). Displayed in a private, windowless enclosed warehouse somewhere on the outskirts of the Upper East Side, the setting forces viewers to direct their attention away from the bustling New York City streets, towards the moving art-pieces on the cat walk. While the stage is not elevated, we witness a clear distinction between “those who look [and] those who are looked at” by the contrast of the models standing up and taking up space on the lighted catwalk and the audience members, sitting down in neatly arranged seats in the dark. This scripted decision is intended to focus the audience’s attention towards the models and away from the mundane, outside world. While an immense amount of labor goes into deciding the order of models, the sequence of fashion pieces, and the entire theme of the show, Skov et al. also brings attention to the controlled seating arrangements. As depicted in Gossip Girl, Eleanor Waldorf pays particular attention to placing the society girls, like Serena and Poppy Lifton, in the first row, as a way to attract publicity and prestige. There is even one point where Blair states that she purposefully avoided seating a photo editor next to his mistress art director, in order to avoid a showdown that would take attention away from the performance on the catwalk.

 

Socialites Serena Van Der Woodson & Poppy Lifton fill in as Eleanor's Models

In the Gossip Girl episode, we see evidence supporting the classification of fashion shows as controlled works of art because each decision made, no matter how miniscule, has a distinct purpose. However, I would argue that what separates a good fashion show from a phenomenal one is the designer’s ability to gracefully introduce elements of surprise into the show. Whether intentional or unintentional, these risk-taking decisions elevate a fashion show beyond just a mechanically prescribed performance. For example, when Eleanor’s models go missing, she makes the spontaneous decision to ask the front-row seated socialites to fill in, transforming the show into a smashing success. We see a similar phenomenon occurring in the documentary Unzipped, where the designer Isaac Mizrahi makes the intentional decision to include a transparent backdrop behind the stage, in order to showcase the ordered chaos that goes on backstage. While Waldorf and Mizrahi’s decisions are not conventional in nature, they both showcase the value of creativity and risk-taking within the ritualistic production of fashion shows.

 

Transparent "scrim" in Mizrahi's fashion show as depicted in Unzipped