Since its debut last fall, Gossip Girl has always been more than a television series about its overt subject, the social machinations of Manhattan private-school students.
It has also presented a cavalcade of fashion, its primary viewership of teenagers and young women tuning in not only for the plots, but also to render judgment on the clothes. The extravagant wardrobes of the stars — a clash of piped blazers, tiny kilts, dueling plaids and festoons of jewelry — have inspired countless posts on fan Web sites, and magazine features about the female leads.
Now the show’s sense of style is having a broader impact, in the retail marketplace. Merchants, designers and trend consultants say that Gossip Girl, which is in summer reruns on the CW network before returning Sept. 1, just in time for back-to-school shopping, is one of the biggest influences on how young US women spend.
Fans stride into boutiques bearing magazine tear sheets that feature members of the cast and ask for their exact outfits. Or they order scoop-neck tops and hobo bags by following e-commerce links from the show’s Web site.
“The show has had a profound influence on retail,” said Stephanie Solomon, the fashion director for Bloomingdale’s, adding that it appeals not just to teenagers but also to women in their 20s, the daughters and the younger sisters of the generation that made Sex and the City requisite viewing for aspiring glamoristas.
Although the series has had only middling success in the ratings, in stylistic terms it “may well be the biggest influence in the youth culture market,” said Stephanie Meyerson, a trend spotter for Stylesight, a trend forecasting company. The show has given an unexpected mass appeal to patrician staples like crested blazers, layered polo shirts and kilts. When cooler days approach this fall, some retailers are predicting a run on argyle sweaters, knee socks and high boots.
Thanks to the point-and-click shopping on its Web site and the fees it charges some brands to be featured in the series, Gossip Girl has been able to profit from its power to generate trends. It is not the first show to collect revenues from product tie-ins, but it probably is the first to have been conceived, in part, as a fashion marketing vehicle.
“We tried to launch trends from the get-go,” said Eric Daman, the show’s costume designer, whose resume includes a stretch working with Patricia Field on costumes for Sex and the City.
Now some fall designer collections will also bear a Gossip Girl influence, a trend first seen in February on the New York runways, when the series ignited “a pretty huge resurgence of ritzy, preppy and collegiate looks,” said Amy Astley, the editor of Teen Vogue, citing punky school-girl styles from Marc by Marc Jacobs and Henry Holland, and crested blazers at Ruffian, among others.
Stefani Greenspan, a New York designer whose youth-oriented line, Priorities, is sold at Macy’s, Dillard’s and Bloomingdale’s, acknowledges that Gossip Girl was “definitely part of my inspiration” for a line of trim blazers lined in men’s tie fabric, oversize cardigans and ruffled plaid shirts with gold buttons.
“I like that whole upscale collegiate feeling, mixed with a pair of Louboutins,” Greenspan said. Sales at her eight-year-old company have doubled in the year since Gossip Girl made its debut, she said.
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