Weekly Inspiration: Lorelai Gilmore

This week’s fashion inspiration comes from the star of the Gilmore Girls herself, Lorelai Gilmore, who is played by Lauren Graham. Lorelai’s character is very personable, outgoing, witty, and energetic. These characteristics are often perfectly reflected throughout her outfit choices, as she typically puts a bold twist on comfy and casual outfits. How she does this best, is through a very large T-shirt collection that she uses to both dress up or down her outfits.

With the weather getting nicer, I figured now would be the perfect time to recognize Lorelai’s clever utilization of the T-shirt. T-shirts on their own are a fairly basic clothing item that have the ability to be styled in a variety of ways. It is typically thought that t-shirts are meant for more casual instances and appear less professional, but Lorelai’s outfit choices challenge this assumption and prove this sort of standard to not necessarily always be true. Her character makes the best of both worlds in terms of being able to style a t-shirt in both professional and bold looks, along with casual. A large portion of her collection includes many different graphics and texts/sayings on the t-shirts. From bands and movie characters, to goofy sayings and phrases, Lorelai’s t-shirt choices break the typical everyday “boring” plain tees and allow for them to be a focal point of her outfit. While still maintaining a comfy/casual look, these graphic tees alone are able to leverage her more subtle outfits and make them unique.

In terms of styling a t-shirt with a more professional look, Lorelai too embodies this challenge well. As the manager and owner of an Inn, Lorelai always has a more professional and put together appearance when she is at work. In many cases throughout the show we see Lorelai wearing a t-shirt with a blazer or a more sophisticated looking coat, typically paired with a skirt or more formal dress pants. These countless looks prove the versatility of the t-shirt and how at the end of the day it is not a clothing item that is limited to one specific attire.

Complementary accessories are also a great style tool that Lorelai utilizes within her outfit choices to make her look more distinct and different. Rather than lots of jewelry, Lorelai typically utilizes other fashion accessories such as purses, handbags, sunglasses, scarfs, hats, and hair accessories such as bandanas. Each accessory choice helps aid the portrayal of her character through her appearance, as well as elevate her more simple looks.

For this week, I challenge you to channel your inner small town Stars Hollow fashionista and try to style a t-shirt in a way that you don’t normally do. Whether that looks like pairing the shirt with a blazer or a skirt, wearing a graphic tee that adds personality to your look, the possibilities are endless! Oh, and don’t forget your accessories! Some of the looks that I have put together through the inspiration of Lorelai Gilmore include the use of graphic baby tees, and my personal favorite, a blazer paired with shorts, a mock turtleneck tank, and cowgirl boots! You can check out some of these looks below…