What is Suds?
Suds unpacks costume design on teen soaps. The first volume explored the costume design on Gossip Girl through profiles of the main characters, interspersed with shorter tangential issues. The second and third volumes, on Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls, are available on my website, and future volumes will be launched there. If you subscribed on Substack, not to worry! I will carry over your email.
When does it publish?
Suds publishes every other Thursday.
Why teen soaps?
Like most things targeted at women, soaps, and especially teen soaps, are often stereotyped as silly, superficial, ephemeral; the clothes just frosting on already sugary cake. In reality, teen soaps often deliver some of the most interesting, sophisticated costume design on television; like the shows’ plotlines, the clothes explore gender, sexuality, race, class, and social status.
And who am I?
That’s one secret I’ll never tell.
No, but really, I’m Chrisinda Lynch (she/her), a writer and costume design enthusiast. I’ve been watching teen soaps and reading about costume design since I was a teen myself. Though I’m self-taught on both subjects, I like to approach my costume design writing the same way I once approached my English lit papers: with a focus on textual support and character analysis, and an eye for motifs and symbols. Scholars have spent decades attributing all kinds of meaning to Daisy Buchanan’s green light, so why not Blair Waldorf’s headband or Chuck Bass’s scarf?
