Subsequent to Nate Archibald’s secure collegiate prep and Dan Humphrey’s forgettable checked flannel shirt schtick, Bass’s penchant for shiny, rakish style felt intoxicatingly flagrant. The Higher East Aspect’s reply to a modern-day Beau Brummell, with a touch of flashy Wall Road swagger thrown in for good measure, Bass pioneered a model of “hateable fuckboy billionaire” earlier than its time, channelling a narcissistic hedonism that was delightfully uninhibited.

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Invariably flamboyant, with a pink argyle sweater vest from Brooks Brothers right here and his trademark J Press silk scarf there (“Don’t mock the headscarf, Nathaniel, it’s my signature”), Chuck’s dastardly model felt all of the extra masculine for its derring-do. Within the course of, he subverted conventional masculine codes of fashion and supplied viewers with a brand new imaginative and prescient of what it meant to “gown like a person”.

Anybody who pays consideration to the pink carpet will know that menswear has more and more taken centre stage lately, and homages to Chuck Bass – intentional or not – are all over the place. Younger males equivalent to Timothée Chalamet, Lil Nas X, Harry Kinds and Ezra Miller have been experimenting freely with style, unbothered by conventional notions of masculinity and eager to subvert. However the place would they be with out Bass? The black and clear beaded crystal smoking jacket by Costume Nationwide that he wore to the Snowflake Ball in season two, as an illustration, got here effectively earlier than Timothée Chalamet’s glittering Louis Vuitton harness-bib on the Golden Globes in 2019. And Harry Kinds’s sheer Gucci shirt on the Met Gala 2019 won’t have been doable with out Bass’s limitless lavender formal shirts – most frequently paired with lavender fits and candy-pink pocket squares, no much less. 

It’s a far cry from 2007, when Gossip Woman first aired, and males within the public eye had been principally carrying penguin tuxedos to pink carpet occasions. The Bass proclivity for shiny and daring menswear, nonetheless, confirmed us one thing new. Previous the “Pitti Peacocks”, the colourfully tailor-made tribes of males that stalked the piazzas in Florence to the Pitti Uomo commerce exhibits all through a lot of the previous decade, Chuck’s dandyish method to dressing ushered in a brand new age of sartorial experimentation the place males may concurrently flout and uphold custom in favour of one thing extra daring.

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And it labored. Right here was a womanising straight man safe sufficient in his machismo to don a silk jacquard gown (whereas getting a pedicure), put on striped pink pyjamas to mattress whereas he slept with a duo of his father’s lodge maids, and ultimately tie the knot in a white swimsuit accessorised with a bedazzled powder-blue bowtie that just about upstaged wife-to-be Blair. Stealth wealth it was not. As a substitute, Chuck believed in flaunting what he had, investing in the perfect high quality fits, shits, ties and footwear. He was equally dismissive of those that didn’t match his sartorial thrives. “Who let the Sasquatch in?” he says at a season-one social gathering, in reference to wealthy kid-turned-backpacker Carter Baizen, who’s wearing a swamp-coloured Baja hoodie. “Anybody who trades their belief fund for a fanny pack flies within the face of all that’s holy to Chuck Bass.”

Put collectively by Eric Daman, the costume designer who made his title on the present (and who by the way had a stint working with Intercourse and the Metropolis and Emily in Paris’s legendary costume designer Patricia Discipline), Chuck’s pinstriped Paul Stuart fits, Banana Republic blazers – and the memorable white Maison Margiela tuxedo he wore to the White Occasion – took excessive style and American formalwear, and used it to push the menswear envelope in an thrilling new route. Daman has acknowledged a number of instances that Chuck was his favorite character to decorate, as a result of he supplied him with a possibility to do one thing totally different with a distinguished male character. And the Chuck Impact has endured. Although it’s been eight years for the reason that closing episode of Gossip Woman aired, something actor Ed Westwick posts on Instagram is inevitably flooded with feedback of his most well-known one-liner: “I’m Chuck Bass”.

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2021 will see a a lot buzzed-about reboot of Gossip Woman that guarantees to be extra various and inclusive. Early paparazzi photographs of the collection being filmed present male solid members with pink buzzcuts, pairing limited-edition streetwear with tractor-soled Gucci loafers and their regulation St Jude’s chinos. However the brand new characters have some massive Tory Burch flats and Armani loafers to fill once they stroll down the steps of the Met.

Daman is, because it occurs, slated to return as costume designer. Whether or not he can create a brand new Gen-Z wardrobe that rivals the unique stays to be seen, however the present’s sartorial historical past will certainly assist: in different phrases, Chuck’s pink cravat walked in order that Evan Mock’s pink buzzcut may run. You realize you liked him, XOXO.

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