Travel Tales: Finding the Perfect "Gilmore Girls" Outfit
Because having the perfect photo shoot outfit is important
Me being super cool in my “Gilmore Girls” outfit at the café in Washington Depot, CT.
When I went to visit the real life versions of “Stars Hollow” (the town in Gilmore Girls), I wanted to dress the part (and by dress the part, I mean wear something that I think Lorelai or Rory would wear).
Given the fact that my wardrobe is not picked out by professional costume designers, I didn’t have much to work with. But if I could figure out what to wear, I mean, there was plenty of time to go shopping for something suitable!
For some reason, I had this picture of Lorelai Gilmore wearing a denim jacket and a fun scarf in my mind. I don’t know if she ever really wears scarfs (I didn’t pay that much attention), but the denim jacket is easily understandable, since that’s what she’s wearing on the cover of Season 1 (for those of us who are cool enough to own the actual discs and not just watch them on Netflix!).
The scarf, I already had, as well as the perfect shirt to wear under the jacket. Of course, you can’t really see it very well in the pictures, but my t-shirt says “A Film By Kirk.”
Most people are just baffled by this shirt.
I was at my aunt’s house the morning we left for Connecticut, and I came out wearing this shirt. She stared at me oddly for a moment (which, coming from her is not a good sign!), and then walked around to stare at my back.
She walked all the way around me, and then said with a confused look, “Ok. I don’t get it.”
But if you’ve seen Gilmore Girls, you get it.
Me standing in front of the bookstore trying not to look too conspicuous as Jason sneakily takes my picture on his cell phone. What? No, I’m not an overly obsessed fan who doesn’t know how to live in the real world!
So I had my shirt. I had my scarf.
I had dragonfly earrings and socks with doughnuts and coffee on them.
I had everything but a denim jacket.
“Jason, I’m going shopping!”
“For what?”
“Oh, you know…clothes.”
“What clothes do you need?”
“Oh…you know… a denim jacket I can wear for our trip to “Stars Hollow” and then never wear again because really, I don’t do denim jackets.”
Well, I went to the new stores and the used stores. I looked all over for a denim jacket that was also affordable because again, I was really most likely only going to wear it once.
Well I couldn’t even find any! Apparently denim jackets are not in season in September.
I even checked through the sample sale that we had at work the week before we left for our trip. No jackets.
It’s a bit embarrassing how disappointed I was that I didn’t have the “perfect” outfit for our trip. In fact, I couldn’t even figure out what else I was going to wear!
I was glum and miserable (that’s a slight exaggeration) two days before we left. Even if I ignored my practical, frugal self and found one on Amazon and got free two day shipping, it still wouldn’t arrive on time, because we would be leaving in the morning before it had a chance to arrive!
There was just no way I was going to get my denim jacket.
So I prayed.
I mean, for real. Because my mama taught me to pray for everything. Can’t find your keys? Pray. Can’t find the “pi” button on your ginormous graphing calculator in the middle of a trig test and start to panic? Pray (Seriously—right after I prayed I found the pi button…).
I mean, I really didn’t expect it to actually be answered.
It wasn’t like a real, hard, Oh God, please please pleaaaase prayer. Just a simple, hey, I know this is silly, but this would really mean a lot to me, sort of prayer.
And then life went on…
The next day, the last day before our trip, one of my coworkers was walking around the office, handing stuff out to people (as she often did). She was the type of coworker who always had chocolate when you needed it, and was never too stingy to share.
And apparently, she had gone into the sample sale and grabbed tons of items off the racks, thinking they were just too pretty to throw away, and someone would want them!
So here she was, walking up to people with a shirt or a pair of pants in her hands and holding them up. “You would look great in this! Do you want it?”
And then she walks by me with this jingly, overly decorated, absolutely perfect denim jacket.
“Does anybody want this jacket? Look how cute it is? Julia! Do you want it? No, you probably don’t want it.”
And she starts to walk away.
No, no! I do want it! I mean…normally, that is definitely not my thing. But for Lorelai Gilmore, the weirder, tackier and more jingly, the better!
And just like that, I had my outfit!
Whether it was an answer to a silly prayer, or just a coincidence, well you can decide that. But as for me, I was perfectly happy to take silly cell phone pictures of myself all over the pretend “Stars Hollow” towns.
And I still have the jacket in my closet (and have never worn it again!).