The Othering of Vanessa Abrams

Part Two of Two

Season Two, Continued

For the remainder of season two, Vanessa’s story lines, and wardrobe, revolve around her relationship with Nate and his rekindling feelings for Blair. In episode fifteen, her new peacoat makes its first appearance, worn with a striped skirt and scarf, leopard tights, and embroidered cross-body bag. She’s picking out candy for Nate at Dylan’s Candy Bar, so naturally, her outerwear reflects their new relationship, this time in solid black—unusual for a character that wears lots of bright colors and patterns. In the candy store, Dan tells Vanessa that he and Serena share a half brother, a fact that will become very important for Vanessa in season three.

Indeed, the central conflict in Vanessa and Nate’s relationship (much like in Dan and Serena’s) is their class difference: she’s a self-supported Brooklyn barista and he’s an Upper East Side legacy whose family just got their fortune back. In episode sixteen, Vanessa buys them nosebleed seats to the opera, not knowing that Nate was planning to invite her to the Archibald family box. For this scene, Vanessa wears her black peacoat with a solid gray sweater and jeans, her repeat cross-body bag. As earlier in the season, her clothes are becoming simpler, her jacket mirroring Nate’s own navy peacoat. She’s blending into the Upper East Side, while still asserting a little control over how she does so.

To the opera, Vanessa wears a crushed red velvet gown, almost as if she’s trying to become the opera house itself—her dress like a stage curtain.

Their theatrical adventures continue in episode eighteen: The senior class is putting on a production of The Age of Innocence, Vanessa filming it for a documentary. She loves Innocence, but despite her encouragement, Nate hasn’t bothered reading the book or watching the Martin Scorsese adaptation—a rift that grows into a full-blown fight once Nate suspects that Vanessa is more intellectually compatible with the play’s director. By the end of the episode, Vanessa arrives at the Archibald townhouse in her black peacoat and finds Nate watching the movie—each making concessions for the other.

In episode nineteen, Vanessa and Dan support Nate reuniting with his grandfather, William van der Bilt—a reunion that Vanessa comes to regret after Nate chooses a mayor’s office internship over a summer backpacking with her. I explore this episode’s costumes in greater detail in Nate’s profile, so I won’t rehash them here but rather summarize them as such: Vanessa tries, even harder, to fit into Nate’s world through her wardrobe, but Blair, more than anyone, knows exactly what to wear and how to wear it.

By episode twenty, Vanessa and Nate haven’t talked for a week, and Nate and Blair are having breakfast together every morning—a fact Vanessa only learns after Chuck sends a fake email from Nate’s account, luring her to the Upper East Side at exactly the right time. “When you’re ready to do something about [Nate and Blair’s relationship],” Chuck says, “you know where I am.” In this scene, Vanessa again wears her black peacoat, this time with gray jeans, her favorite cross-body bag, and fringed boots. She even keeps the coat on when she meets Nate at a café later that day—holding on to the hope that they’ll stay together even as Nate breaks up with her. 

When Nate won’t admit to his renewed feelings for Blair, Vanessa goes to Chuck. Together, they attend Jenny’s birthday: Vanessa without a coat, just a purple halter-neck dress with heels and pearls. This time, Vanessa is one corner of a love quadrangle, her outfit mirroring both her date, Chuck—purple is his signature color—and her rival, Blair—Vanessa almost never wears pearls, but Blair frequently does.

Vanessa’s attempt at making Nate jealous only drives him closer to Blair and herself to Chuck; by the end of the episode, Vanessa and Chuck have had a one-night stand.

The season ends with Vanessa and Nate reconciling at his graduation—but only as friends. To the ceremony, Vanessa wears a bright blue moto jacket over a printed dress, her jacket almost the exact shade of the boys’ graduation gowns. After Nate quits his internship, he and Vanessa renew their summer backpacking plans. 

Season Three

In the third season, Vanessa begins college at NYU, along with Dan, Blair, and recurring villain Georgina Sparks. As quoted in part one of this profile, costume designer Eric Daman describes her collegiate style as such: “Gone are the Brooklyn barista and hip-hop fashions of seasons past. We will see a more refined adult and fashion-forward Vanessa than ever before. [She’ll be] retaining her cool, eclectic vibe, but taking it to the next level with some new designer duds, statement necklaces, and bright ethnic prints” (Elle). Now, other characters’ styles do “mature” with a move to college—after two years of school uniforms, how can they not?—but I find it significant that Vanessa’s growth and “refinement” are defined by an embracing of Manhattan and designer clothes, and a move away from Brooklyn and hip-hop-inspired pieces. The implication being, of course, that outer boroughs and hip-hop style are unrefined, immature.

But Eric, I thought her season one style was inspired by the Lower East Side??? Sigh, let’s roll the tape.

In the premiere, Vanessa and Dan grab coffee, catching up after a summer apart. Upon returning from backpacking with Nate, Vanessa started hanging out with a fellow NYU student, Scott. Little does she know, Scott is Rufus and Lily’s long-lost son, aka Dan and Serena’s half brother. In this scene, Vanessa wears a few hallmarks of her new style: a beaded tank, printed shorts, gold chain necklaces and earrings.

The Humphreys have moved from their Brooklyn loft to the van der Woodsen penthouse, and Dan is enjoying the “good life” a little more than Vanessa would like. At Scott’s suggestion, she attends a polo match—Scott, naturally, cares more about meeting his father than repairing Vanessa’s relationship with Dan. For the match, Vanessa chooses a patterned strapless dress, the tans and blues coordinating with the light-colored suits and shirts of all three Humphrey men: Dan, Rufus, and Scott.

For her first day at NYU (3.2), Vanessa dresses in a yellow top, denim shorts, feather earrings, and beaded necklaces. At the campus bookstore, she and Dan run into Georgina, who claims she’s ready to start over after two seasons of lying and scheming. Vanessa takes pity on her, and it’s easy to see why. Georgina is skilled at using fashion to construct her latest persona; this season, she’s darkest-timeline Vanessa: a beaded tie-dye tank, ripped skinny jeans, and gold chains. Georgina realizes, much sooner than Blair, that a “boho” Brooklyn filmmaker like Vanessa will be more popular at NYU than a preppy Upper East Side queen bee. While Blair is throwing a sushi and sake party for their dorm, Georgina is ordering pizza and screening Vanessa’s documentary on “this community garden in her neighborhood” (a documentary, I should note, that was never before and never will again be mentioned—after all, it isn’t about the Upper East Side).

Over the next few episodes, Vanessa and everyone else learn that Scott is a Humphrey and Georgina is still, well, Georgina. Scott’s presence is so sleep-inducing that I accidentally typed his name as “Cot,” so let’s move on to a slightly more interesting character: Vanessa’s new roommate and Dan’s new love interest, Olivia Burke. Olivia, played by Hilary Duff, is the star of a Twilight-like franchise, Endless Knights. Like many movie stars before her, she’s come to NYU to escape fame and get an education.

Naturally, fame follows her. In episode six, Olivia, Vanessa, and Blair compete for the same honor: the Parents’ Weekend freshman toast. Olivia is a contender for her stardom, Vanessa for a recent article about her vague activism, and Blair for sheer force of will. The episode opens with one of Blair’s Old Hollywood nightmares: Vanessa is Eve in All About Eve, accepting an award while Blair’s Bette Davis stews. The hair and costuming is inspired by, though not a direct copy of, the movie’s: Vanessa in a cap-sleeved ivory gown; Blair in an off-the-shoulder black gown. 

In real life, Vanessa has invited her parents, who disapprove of private colleges, for the weekend. She’s desperate to give the toast and prove to them that she belongs at NYU. After Olivia accepts the toast, Vanessa tries to manipulate her roommate into not attending, all while Blair schemes to knock them both over.

Once Vanessa’s mother, Gabriela, arrives, Vanessa’s changing style becomes a little more meaningful, a symbol of her desire to both emulate and distance herself from her mother. To visit the Humphreys, Gabriela wears a printed tunic and skirt, layered gold and turquoise necklaces, all pieces that would fit into Vanessa’s current wardrobe. Vanessa, however, wears a pleated orange dress and only one pendant—her outfit almost blending in to the penthouse wall behind her.

Vanessa’s father, Arlo, stayed in Vermont to “finish installing the solar panels on the chicken coop at the co-op”; they’ve been busy, Gabriela notes, “organizing the local 72, the union of the Burlington cheesemakers.” It’s like the writers threw a bunch of crunchy words in a bag, pulled them out at random, and assembled them into some attempt at a joke. Solar panels! Co-op! Organizing! Activism!! To Rufus and Lily—and even Vanessa—Gabriela is puzzling and painfully honest, most especially when she remarks that “knowledge should not be for sale.”

At the freshman dinner, Vanessa learns that Blair is giving the toast and pleads for her to reconsider. Blair refuses: “Some people are simply better than others.” A microphone tucked behind her huge NYU purple clutch, Vanessa asks Blair to explain why she’s better and broadcasts her racist reply: “Generations of breeding and wealth,” says Blair, “had to come together to create me. I have more in common with Marie Antoinette than with you. Granted, you may be popular at some Ivy safety school, but the fact is that the rabblers still rabble and they need a queen.”

Though she successfully embarrasses Blair, Vanessa doesn’t earn her mother’s respect. “I think it’s time,” Gabriela tells her, “to consider who this place is turning you into.” As earlier in the episode, Gabriela wears a printed halter dress and layered necklaces, while Vanessa favors solids and simpler jewelry—a color-blocked dress and matching statement necklace. The necklace is an exact match to the earrings Lily wore to her wedding with Rufus—proof, as she tells Dan and Olivia, that Vanessa would rather have Rufus and Lily as her parents.

By episode nine, the next Endless Knights movie is greenlit and Olivia must leave NYU to begin filming. Vanessa and Dan send her off by checking off a college bucket list, ending the night with the last item: a (drunken) threesome. Unfortunately for Olivia, the director backs out and the movie is off again. The three friends must reckon with their newfound intimacy.

In episode ten, Vanessa sees Dan for the first time post-threesome; she’s wearing a plaid blanket coat. Vanessa rarely chooses plaid, but Dan wears the print constantly. Her employment of it now, and in a blanket style, is a symbol of the new sexual dimension to their friendship.

Vanessa, Dan, and Olivia agree to do a cabaret show together, but not without tension—their threesome revealed Dan and Vanessa’s feelings for each other. Olivia exits in the middle of their cabaret performance, leaving Vanessa to assume her role. Dan’s character kisses Vanessa’s, but the emotions behind the gesture are as real as the outfit she’s wearing; Vanessa had no time to change into costume and entered the scene in her street clothes: a blue tunic and black leggings.

Olivia leaves NYU for a different movie role, and Dan and Vanessa orbit each other for a few more episodes, finally kissing again at a beach-themed party in episode 3.14. Vanessa’s Ikat-patterned tunic almost perfectly matches the backdrop, leaving the viewer to wonder if it’s a sunrise or a sunset, if this is the beginning or end of something.  

They debut their relationship at a Humphrey breakfast (3.16), where a conversation with Serena convinces Vanessa that she and Dan are already in a dating rut, doing the same things they did as friends. To break out of their routine, she dresses up like Grace Kelly in Dan’s favorite movie, Rear Window, even kisses him awake, as Kelly does to Jimmy Stewart. Like her Eve look, her outfit is a homage, not an exact copy, of Kelly’s outfit: a black blouse, black-and-white-printed skirt, pearls, and long white gloves.

I discussed Kelly’s character, Lisa Carol Fremont, in Lily’s profile, comparing (in the words of costume designer Edith Head) her “sophisticated society girl” to Lily, and Stewart’s “scruffy photographer” to Rufus. I think the comparison is worth reiterating here: Vanessa is trying add a spark to her relationship by dressing up as a beautiful, wealthy, “untouchable” woman—a figure much like Serena is to Dan. Serena plants the idea for something different, so it’s no surprise that Vanessa chooses Upper East Side drag. 

As the season wears out, so does Dan and Vanessa’s relationship. Both apply to Tisch, but only Vanessa gets in, the imbalance tipping their once supportive partnership. In episode twenty, Vanessa is offered a CNN internship in Haiti, and she almost turns it down for Dan, not wanting to be separated for three months. He encourages her to accept it, her last appearance in a printed dress in the same neutrals as Dan’s outfit. Despite their complementary colors, Vanessa was right to be wary about her absence: by the season finale, Dan kisses Serena, and Nate sends Vanessa the Gossip Girl post as proof. Even thousands of miles away, she can’t escape Gossip Girl’s reach.    

Season Four

In the premiere, Vanessa returns from Haiti and finds Dan at the loft. He’s been quiet all summer, helping Georgina take care of her baby, who she claims is his. Vanessa’s style remains the same as season three’s: blue-and-green-printed tank, yellow shorts, coral necklace.

The next day, she and Dan meet up for a walk and talk, Vanessa wearing one of her cheekiest outfits: denim shorts, heeled clogs, chain earrings and necklaces, and a tank top that proclaims “PEACE.” Her ex-boyfriend has a baby, but she’s taking the high road! 

Vanessa’s red cross-body bag is similar to the one she carried in season two, and I wonder if Daman is trying to connect this scene to the season two visit to Dylan’s Candy Bar: the last time Dan and Vanessa talked about a secret love child. 

After Georgina abandons the baby, Vanessa stays at the loft to help Dan look after him, eventually rekindling their romantic relationship thanks to some manipulation from Nate and his new girlfriend, Juliet. When Georgina returns a couple episodes later, she reveals the baby isn’t Dan’s and takes him back.

In episode four, Dan is reeling from the loss, and Vanessa calls in Rufus and Lily to help (uttering one of my favorite lines of the series: “I caught you watching Wild Hogs and laughing.”). For this scene, Vanessa wears an orange tank and shrug, turquoise earrings—a stone that both she and Lily favor. They’re united in mission and wardrobe, but they can’t make Dan confront his feelings; instead, he goes to Serena to avoid. Vanessa has to be the “shrill” girlfriend, while Serena gets to be the “fun” escape.

The next episode, Gossip Girl falsely posts that Serena has an STD, and when Vanessa sees a photo of Dan at a clinic, she believes Dan lied about not sleeping with Serena while she was away in Haiti.

Desperate for the truth, Vanessa turns to Juliet for help. (A big mistake, as Juliet doesn’t give two shits about Vanessa and Dan’s relationship; she cares only about taking down Serena, who she believes sent her innocent brother to prison for statutory rape.) In this scene, Vanessa wears a beige printed dress with gold jewelry, coordinating with Juliet’s usual chameleonic neutrals.

Vanessa and Juliet meet at a Columbia party and steal Serena’s phone; in her emails, Vanessa finds proof that Dan is telling the truth. Juliet pretends to check the phone, too, but instead sends an email to one of Serena’s Columbia professors, offering to trade sex for grades. Juliet slips the phone into Vanessa’s purse; when it goes off, all the blame falls on her.  

Vanessa’s outfit in this scene mirrors Juliet’s—a simple, solid dress and drop earrings—but while Juliet blends in beige, Vanessa stands out in teal. She even carries a large snakeskin purse, its open top much easier for sabotage than the other girls’ closed clutches.

Though Dan believes Vanessa didn’t send the email, his trust is irrevocably broken, and Vanessa moves out of the loft.

In episode eight, Vanessa teams up with Nate, who’s now convinced that Juliet has been lying to him. Vanessa bribes her way into Juliet’s apartment, where she discovers surveillance photos of Serena and her professor. Turns out, Serena has been having a flirtation with a teacher, and Vanessa decides to use the photos to take Serena down and restore her own reputation. Juliet is no longer interested in revenge; she makes up with Nate after telling him her big “secret”: she isn’t rich.

Vanessa makes her move at the opening night of the New York City Ballet, Columbia’s dean—and every main cast member—in attendance. For the event, she chooses a ruffled ballet slipper–pink dress and drop earrings, a style similar to the ones she wore the night of the stolen phone.

Vanessa manipulates Juliet into joining her: “I’ve been losing to Serena for three years,” Vanessa says, “watching her get away with anything and everything, and I’m over it. . . . Face it, at the end of the day, you’re an outsider, just like me.” Unluckily for Vanessa, her statement is a prophecy: the Upper East Siders—Blair, Nate, and Chuck—close ranks to protect Serena, leaving the humiliated Juliet and Vanessa to team up with Jenny for one final takedown.

Still, neither Jenny nor Vanessa knows the real reason for Juliet’s vendetta—her incarcerated brother—and neither expects her ultimate goal: drugging and dumping Serena in a Queens motel room. Serena is found on Thanksgiving and checked into rehab, her family and friends convinced that she’s gone back to her “old Serena” ways.

Vanessa is planning to have Thanksgiving dinner with the Humphreys, her outfit a Navajo-print jacket—a little subversion for the holiday?—with a red plaid tunic underneath. Once Vanessa learns what happened to Serena, Juliet encourages her to keep quiet. The Humphreys, she says, “will forgive [Jenny] eventually. She’s family. You’re not.” Through her plaid, Vanessa desperately clings to the Humphreys, hoping that by telling Rufus that Jenny is solely responsible for Serena’s state, she’ll remain part of their “family.” Jenny counters with the real story and gives all her proof to Blair; Vanessa once again leaves New York for her parents’ home in Vermont.

Vanessa returns in episode sixteen, wanting to apologize to Serena and make up with Dan. He turns her down, and she replies with what’s become her mantra: “I’m an outsider around here and always will be.” As she hails a taxi, Vanessa overhears Ben—Juliet’s brother, now on parole and dating Serena—admitting that he had Nate’s father beat up in prison. Vanessa almost blends into the night, in one of the most muted outfits she’s ever worn: a long gray coat and blue scarf; underneath, a gray sweater and dark blue top.

The “outsider” label sticks. In the five episodes Vanessa was gone, the show replaced her with the ultimate insider: Raina Thorpe, the daughter of a real estate mogul and Gossip Girl’s third recurring Black female character. Once again, the show makes no effort to write a nuanced character of color, instead giving Raina an identical backstory to her love interest, Chuck’s: they both grew up in hotels with absent mothers and are following in their fathers’ footsteps. They even favor the same bold primary colors and sleek business wear.

In the next episode (4.17), Vanessa tells Lily and Serena what she overheard. This time, she wears a navy coat over a turquoise top and necklace, bold against the creaminess of the penthouse and the van der Woodsens’ outfits. Serena refuses to believe her, but Lily does—hence the turquoise that again connects the two women.

By episode nineteen, Dan is ready to repair his friendship with Vanessa, their gray coats tying them together, even through the phone. But by the time they meet up, Dan has changed his mind. Turns out, Vanessa told Serena another overheard secret: Dan and Blair kissed. He ends their friendship forever, now stripped to his white button-down. Vanessa still wears her gray coat—sad, defeated, without its pair.

Before the season ends and she leaves to study abroad in Barcelona, Vanessa meddles in Dan’s life twice more: First, she offers advice to Charlie, Serena’s cousin and Dan’s emerging love interest (4.20). She hopes Charlie will be a good influence on Dan, “a girl won’t corrupt his soul,” as she thinks Serena or Blair will.

Charlie takes Vanessa’s advice and twists it to her advantage, telling Dan that Vanessa tried to sabotage her. “I’ve read Gossip Girl enough to know Dan can’t resist a damsel in distress,” Charlie tells her,” and you happen to make the perfect villain.”

In both scenes with Charlie, Vanessa wears bright yellow and gold jewelry, callbacks to her first appearances in season one, when Serena was her rival, not Charlie. Charlie knows exactly how to get Dan, and it’s not by being Vanessa; it’s by being his golden girl, Serena.

In the season finale, Vanessa completes her second bit of meddling: After finding the manuscript for Dan’s first novel at the loft, she tells him needs to publish it. When he refuses, worried the book would make him an “outsider,” she replies, “You know as well as I do that you can’t be an insider and make great art. You have to stand alone to observe it and not care whose feelings you hurt or what people think of you.” She steals the manuscript, ultimately selling it to Jonathan Karp at Simon & Schuster, her cream printed top picking up the colors from the cover posters and walls in Karp’s office. Season five is set in motion, but Vanessa won’t be there to witness it.

Season Six

In fact, Vanessa doesn’t appear again until the series finale, 6.10, in a montage of recurring characters reacting to Dan Humphrey being Gossip Girl. Vanessa sees his article while making a peanut butter sandwich in her kitchen. She wears a printed top, burgundy sweater, and jeweled earrings and necklaces—her season four style, but in more subdued colors and prints; her yellow kitchen cabinets brighter than her wardrobe.

It’s strange to see Vanessa, a regular for four seasons, responding to this revelation alongside a bit player like Juliet or, you know, Michael Bloomberg. After all, Vanessa was Dan’s best friend, his girlfriend for a good part of season three. He found his way inside, through Serena, through whiteness, and Vanessa is left on the outside, peering in through the window of her phone. She’s a “perfect villain,” an “outsider,” the show tells, over and over in season four, but it never bothers to ask, “Who made her that way?” Was it the world itself? Or was it the writers who created it, the viewers who consumed it?

[On Thursday, 3/11, I’ll be back with a profile of Gossip Girl himself, Dan Humphrey. In the meantime, thank you to everyone who has completed my volume two poll, still open if you’d like to fill it out. So far, Veronica Mars is leading as my next subject, and I’m very excited.]

DP on GG

My partner, Daniel, spent 2020 overhearing episodes of Gossip Girl from various rooms of our apartment. He still doesn’t understand the show and he doesn’t care.

DP: (lamenting) Vanessa is the Franklin of Gossip Girl.