On White Lotus, You Either Dress Like Your Friends or Like You Hate Them

The show’s costume designer warned me about Jaclyn’s leopard print power grab.

The White Lotus is back and I, like everyone else, am endlessly entertained by the fashion on the show. It always ends up being such an important part of the storytelling and so I’ll be here, discussing it every week. Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out!

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When I interviewed Alex Bovaird, the costume designer for The White Lotus, she told me she particularly loved dressing Laurie, Jaclyn and Kate this season. “They're more like my Sex and The City characters, because they're dressing for each other,” she said. And so when I asked if she had a favorite piece, I assumed it would be worn by one of them and it was: Jaclyn’s leopard print Valentino swimsuit and matching cape, which she throws on before she jumps in the pool with the mostly naked Russians and Laurie.

This is prime main character dressing. And Jaclyn will always dress for that part, even on a vacation from her life as an actress.

At the time I had only seen the screener for the first episode, and Bovaird herself had no idea if the piece would make it into the final cut. I barely knew anything about Jaclyn but Bovaird gave me context. “At that moment she’s really trying to one up her friends and take control and get all the attention,” she said.

When the time finally came in episode five—her favorite look indeed made the cut—I felt the shift Bovaird warned me about. Jaclyn is no longer dressing for her friends, she’s dressing for the Jaclyn show.

The blonde blob. Look at how they’re lovingly gazing at each other. Right from the get-go you just knew that wasn’t going to last.

The way the girls have been outfitting themselves all season has fascinated me because we’ve all either witnessed from afar, suffered under the reign of or been included in a friendship group that looked just like them. Despite being in their 40s, they’re so evidently still girls deep down, dressing like one another and projecting an insecurity and uncertainty of their own individual identity that feels so evident to everyone except themselves.

When you see them on the boat arriving, in their coordinating bright patterned dresses and fancy bags, they fade into one another. It’s hard to tell where Kate ends and Jaclyn begins. They merge into one blonde blob of sameness. It’s why for weeks I could barely remember their names, a joke that I kept seeing resurface on TikTok and Twitter after every episode. The fuck ass bob, Carrie Coon, and the actress. The republican, Carrie Coon, and Jaclyn.

But that’s the point. Their outfits really didn’t feel like who they were, but who they wanted to make each other believe they were. Kate wants so badly to be memorable. Laurie wants to feel like she isn’t a third wheel in the trio. Jaclyn wants to convince herself she isn’t the kind of celebrity who feels superior to her childhood friends because she made it big. And the result is all of them looking vaguely like one another.

Kate is 100% the friend who puts on pajamas at her party when she wants to let you know it’s time to go.