Jenna Lyons’s RHONY Outfits Are So Good, I'm Rethinking My Personal Style

In the first episode of the Real Housewives of New York reboot, fellow housewife Erin Lichy introduces Jenna Lyons: "Most girls in this group think that Jenna Lyons is a total enigma. She does weird, quirky things — like she doesn’t like dill but loves parsley. She loves olives but not the black ones. She’s a little bit of an oddball." 

One of Andy Cohen’s TV magic tricks is extracting moments of accidental profundity from Bravo cast members — who aren’t known for their firm grip on reality — and placing them in exactly the right place at the right time. Lichy, a sassy real estate agent, native New Yorker, proud mom, and RHONY cast member, is by far the least “fashion” of the group. She’s not a model like Ubah or an influencer like Sai. She has no publicity background like Brynn, and she’s certainly less connected to it than fashion PR vet Jessel. Still, she manages to deliver the most succinct line about what it means to be fashion icon, former J. Crew creative director, and current Housewife Jenna Lyons.

Of course Lyons has extremely specific preferences about bar snacks. Her entire career was built on picking fashion favorites (be it colors, materials, or silhouettes) from the proverbial jar of olives. She has to have strong feelings… even about dill. This is the woman who made her friends wear black, gold, and khaki (remember: it’s a color, not a material) to a casual charcuterie party. This is the force that brought J. Crew back from the dead in the 2000s. She’s the fashion phoenix who, after a brief hiatus from public life, rose from the ashes and managed to make being a Housewife cool again. She’s got taste, duh, and she can’t help but use it.

Whether or not you’re conscious of it, Jenna Lyons decided what’s hanging in your closet. (Cue the Devil Wears Prada cerulean speech.) The influence of her years at J. Crew cannot be overstated. Do you have a sparkly pencil skirt? You can thank Lyons for that — she made sequins daywear. Harbor strong feelings about statement necklaces? She is single-handedly responsible for their mid-2000s ubiquity (your girl loves a big, adorned collar). Blazers as a women’s wardrobe staple; the color olive (callback intended) styled as neutral; colorful, cool-girl power suits for nights out… the list of Lyons’s greatest hits goes on. 

With RHONY, Lyons and her singular taste are back in the fashion limelight — and thank god for that — with a cacophony of enviable ‘fits and a tour of her drool-inducing closet. From her first confessional appearance, wearing pearls under a collar and over a tie, I unironically thought I want what she has. 

Literally, none of it was my style, but watching Lyons in paint-splattered jeans and a cropped top confidently drag a clothing rack to organize captured my imagination for the better part of a week. My thoughts while watching the season ranged from the whimsical (“Should I start wearing ties with pearls?”) to the unhinged (“I can totally pull off a blazer with nothing underneath at a work event”). The way she styles capital “F” Fashion with casual wear like denim, her knack for using the perfect amount of contrast (high/low, masc/femme, hard/soft), and her unparalleled eye for color make her outfits addictive. I couldn’t stop looking. 

Generally, the things Jenna loves — red lipstick, colorful suits, funky glasses, skinny jeans — are on my fashion no-fly list. But that’s her power: Jenna’s vision is so original, so constant, so eye-catching it made me temporarily forget my own taste.

Case in point, Lyons’s RHONY reunion outfit. For the non-Bravo obsessed, here’s a little background: There’s an unofficial dress code for Housewife reunions. Over the years, cast members use filming as an excuse to pull out their fanciest, sparkliest, most eye-popping gowns (no doubt to outshine their social rivals), upping the ante with each season. You can expect to see ballgown skirts, fluffy shoulders, sparkle, and lots and lots of color. Lyons, however, showed up in jeans.

Granted, these weren’t any jeans. They were the perfect blue straight-leg jeans, expertly paired with a boyfriend blazer, tie, tennis necklace, and fully see-through top. It was unlike anything a Housewife has worn in the almost two decades and 11 franchises since the series began. The outfit was so wholly unexpected, so classically Jenna Lyons, you couldn’t help but smile. She beat the Bravo system, immediately standing out amongst her gorgeous and stylish (but, frankly, overdressed) castmates by simply wearing a slightly souped-up version of what she’s always worn.

This, more than any other moment on RHONY exemplifies what’s so special about Lyons. Her style never changes. She’s been doing the same genius high-low mix since the Y2K era, and it somehow still looks fresh. Check out old photos of her on the red carpet (unlike Brynn Whitfield, I’ve looked); the outfits hold up. She was doing the same off-kilter styling and genius power clashing at the 2012 Met Gala (attending that event in a jean jacket with a hot pink satin skirt is an unforgettable stroke of fashion genius) as she is now.

That inner style compass was no doubt honed through her years of industry experience and access to the best clothes in the business. But by her own admission, Lyons also built her personal aesthetic from the ground up to act as armor rather than decor. That signature super low-cut blazer with nothing underneath? She admits to loving that style because it shows off the area of her body without any skin scarring from incontinentia pigmenti. Those big glasses? She turned a necessity into a statement accessory, making them the focal point of her look, not an afterthought. Her style is a testament to individuality, to turning insecurities into power, to following your own weird preferences wherever they take you, and to choosing your olives wisely.

The real fashion lesson here isn't going out and copying Jenna’s personal style with a few new cool-girl power suits (although I will be wearing pearls under my shirt collars for the foreseeable future). It’s a reminder to hone your own unique perspective on clothing and build a wardrobe to match it. And I’m not talking about investing in an all-beige capsule collection (although I guess if that’s your thing, go off). Jenna’s looks are never boring. Forget what the style influencers will tell you. Everyone’s ideal wardrobe is different. You don’t have to wear striped shirts and trench coats on repeat if you don’t want to — I certainly won’t. The goal, for me at least, is a carefully considered, fully-my-own collection of things I truly love. If Jenna Lyons is any indication, they will stand the test of time. And, the weirder, the better!