Because of the sheer number of costumes needed, television shows can be a huge source of inspiration. Centered around charismatic stars with enormous personality gravity, fashion supernovas like Carrie Bradshaw, Blair Waldorf, Olivia Pope, and Emily Cooper have emerged in the 21st century. If you’re looking for modern tv shows for fashion inspiration, look no further than these iconic programs.

Modern TV Shows for Fashion Inspiration

Sex and the City

Thanks to its premiere date of June 6, 1998, Sex and the City technically qualifies as vintage. However, thanks to Patricia Field’s aggressively fashion-forward vision, SATC fashion transcends the era as much as it exemplifies the era. The series focuses on four women in their 30s in New York, all professionally successful, all upper middle class, all totally fabulous. With silly moments (like Carrie’s mysterious floating belt) mixed in with timelessly iconic (like the Dior newsprint dress) the creative inspiration from the show is practically never-ending. While Carrie get most of the attention for her style, every character has their time to shine.

Costume designers: Patricia Field and Molly Rogers

Gossip Girl

The CW epitomizes TV networks that lionize hot teens, and no teens were more lionized in the mid-00s than the Upper East Siders depicted on Gossip Girl. Despite its absolutely absurd details (there’s no way a 16 year old would be a regular at an expensive bar – no bar that nice would risk the liability), the show thrived as a teen soap thanks to the over-the-top glam. Blair’s headbands in particular had a chokehold on the preppy teens and tweens of the aughts. While much of the fashion seems painfully outdated as of this writing, mark my words, this show will reach fashion icon status in no time. The 2021 reboot focuses just as much on fashion, but unfortunately doesn’t include the campy sense of fun that makes the original so iconic.

Costume Designer: Eric Daman

Scandal

Costume Designer: Lyn Paolo

Scream Queens

If Scream Queens had premiered just a few years later, it would still air on all of our screens. The show perfectly blends humor, camp, and horror in a surreal show massively ahead of its time. An anthology series, Scream Queens follows a fluid group of wealthy and rotted young women as they’re pursued by a serial killer through a variety of settings. The show has gained attention online for its fashion-forward costume design that perfectly weaves back and forth across the line of fabulous and freaky.

Costume Designer: Loy Eyrich and Rebecca Guzzi

Killing Eve

Spy dramas rarely make it to lists of fashionable shows. Apparel choices for covert ops trends towards the sturdy and serious. Think lots of black, navy, and olive leather, denim, and polyester. Killing Eve breaks the common format of spy thrillers in more than one way – and fashion contributes majorly. Charming and enigmatic assassin Villanelle (Jodi Comer) explodes off the screen in ever more attention grabbing outfits. Witty, twisty, and unendingly entertaining, four seasons of the show barely scratch the fun fashion itch.

Costume Designers: Phoebe de Gaye, Charlotte Mitchell, and Sam Perry

Euphoria

Euphoria is to 20s teens what Gossip Girl was to teens in the late 00s. Much like its teen show predecessors, the kids on Euphoria dress much more provocatively and in a much more aesthetically cohesive way than any teen I’ve ever met. But the way the costumes draw from contemporary trends while expanding and creating new trends equates fashion-forward brilliance. As a bonus, Euphoria’s makeup design bursts with creativity and fun in subtle, recreateable moments.

Costume Designer: Heidi Bivins

Emily in Paris

Considered the spiritual successor to Sex and the City (likely because they share a creator, Darren Starr) Emily in Paris leans into its romantic surroundings via over-the-top fashion. The elfin star of the show, Lilly Collins, lends a doe-eyed eagerness to every colorful, carefully tailored garment on the show. Much of the show is too painfully unserious for me (why did it take her too long to start to learn French? why is she so good at marketing but spends absolutely no time at a computer? why didn’t she ask her boss the start time on her first day?!). That hasn’t stopped me from eagerly devouring fashion recaps every time a new season launches.

Costume Designer: Marilyn Fitousi

White Lotus

More than almost any show on television, White Lotus perfectly captures the spirit of both the characters and the absurd fashion strata of the wealthy on vacation. As the somewhat aimless Gen Z assistant Portia, Haley Lu Richardson made a splash when she revealed that some of her most controversial outfits came from her own closet. Best of all, thanks to the subject matter, men in the show get as much of the fashion treatment as the women, making for seriously diverse fashion inspo.

Costume Designer: Alex Boviard

Hacks

Within me there are two fashion wolves, and Hacks typefies both of them. Sometimes I want to be Debra (Jean Smart) – clinging to the somewhat tacky but always fabulous idioms of the Vegas elite. Sometimes I simply wish to look cute in overalls. Fashion lives in the background of Hacks – it’s a constant source of comedy in a show about two diametrically opposed yet oddly symbiotic female contacts. It also shores up the underlying story present in every episode: how does presenting as a woman effect your standing in a male-dominated field? Also, I don’t know what it says about me, but I actually love the yellow dress.

Costume Designer: Kathleen Felix-Hager

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After you’ve watched all of these modern TV shows for fashion inspiration, make sure to check out some exceptional vintage TV shows and historical TV shows to up your fashion game!