When Eric Daman, costume designer for Gossip Girl, made an appearance at a Teen Vogue event in Orange County, California, last month, ’tweens lined up in droves to solicit wardrobe advice from the TV fashion guru. And not a single one begged him to pass a note to a member of the show’s genetically blessed cast.
“They were there to get advice on how to wear certain items together—I didn’t get any of that star stuff,” said the mild-mannered wardrober, who cut his teeth under über-costumer Patricia Field on Sex and the City. For the show’s giddy fans, Daman—and his flirty aesthetic—are stars in their own right.
And in the post- Sex and the City era, fashion-forward Gossip Girl on the CW may be TV’s most influential runway, leading the charge in a lineup of one-hour dramas on the young-skewing network which, taken in total, turn the tides of teen and twenty-something fashion more commandingly than a risqué Abercrombie & Fitch ad ever could.
From the high fashion of Gossip Girl and new soapy melodrama Melrose Place to the nonthreatening getups on One Tree Hill and 90210, we dissect the sartorial stances of CW’s prime-time players.
