‘Gilmore Girls’: Why Lauren Graham Didn’t Wear Lorelai Gilmore’s Pink Coat in ‘Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life’
Lorelai Gilmore’s pink coat is a piece of clothing the coffee-obsessed single mom reached for again and again on Gilmore Girls. So much so that it became almost as memorable to fans as Luke Danes’ (Scott Patterson) flannel shirts and backward baseball hats. So why did Lauren Graham, the actor who played Lorelai in the original TV series, not dust off Lorelai’s pink coat and wear it in the 2016 Netflix revival?
Lorelai Gilmore’s pink coat became a wardrobe staple in later seasons
Gilmore Girls ran for seven seasons from 2000 to 2007. During that time many characters became synonymous with certain items of clothing. For Lorelai’s daughter, Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel), it was her blue Chilton school uniform and yellow backpack. Meanwhile, Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop) often wore luxurious blazers while Jess Mariano (Milo Ventimiglia) regularly sported a leather jacket.
As for Lorelai, her style evolved over the course of the series. But one piece of clothing stuck with her in later seasons and that was the pink coat. As early as Gilmore Girls Season 5 Lorelai’s pink coat became a staple. She wore it over and over whether she went antiquing with Jason Stiles (Chris Eigeman) or to the Gilmore house for Friday night dinner. Lorelai’s pink coat continued to make on-screen appearances until Gilmore Girls went off the air and, by that time, it had long since become one of the most memorable pieces in her wardrobe.
Lauren Graham wore a similar version of Lorelai Gilmore’s pink coat in the Netflix revival
When much of the Gilmore Girls cast reunited in 2016 for Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life Graham didn’t wear Lorelai’s memorable pink coat. According to the Netflix revival’s costume designer, Brenda Maben, who also worked on all seven seasons of the original series, the only option was to wear something similar.
The coat in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life is “not the same,” Maben told Vanity Fair in November 2016. Why isn’t it the same? Because, like fans of Gilmore Girls who may have embarked on a search for the exact pink coat, she came up empty-handed.
“Trust me; I tried to find it. It was nowhere to be found,” Maben said. “I would have loved to find the original one because I feel like that was the coat. You know how there was just one coat?”
As for the pink coat Graham wore in the Netflix revival Maben settled on a similar version from Guess.
The ‘Gilmore Girls’ Netflix revival didn’t have access to the cast’s original wardrobe
Maben spent a lot of time recreating classic looks for Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Why? Because she didn’t have access to the original costumes.
Years earlier the clothes had become the property of Warner Brothers. So when Netflix greenlit the revival the original clothes worn by Lorelai, Rory, and the rest of the characters on Gilmore Girls weren’t available for Maben’s use.
