Emily Cooper Has Reached Her Final Form
Vive le pantsuit!
There are a few things we know for certain about Emily in Paris’ Emily Cooper: She’s weird on Instagram. She has questionable decision-making skills. And finally, she is equal parts driven and delusional. In Emily in Paris season 4, our titular PR exec (played with loveable pep by Lily Collins) has found the perfect costumes for her defining qualities: an array of pantsuits.
ICYMI, Netflix dropped part one of the dramedy’s fourth (?!) season on August 15. The series, which has been critically lambasted since it first invaded our screens in 2020, has somehow become one of the biggest cultural TV forces du jour — sparking perfumes, candles and ice creams inspired by the show. It’s a glamorously empty romp, full of sexy characters, Parisian scenery and offensively saccharine styling. Watching it is a widely agreed-upon waste of time. Naturally, I binged the new release in one sitting.
Let’s address the unimportant stuff first: the plot. In Emily in Paris season 4, Emily Cooper has still not learned French. She’s still working at marketing agency Agence Grateau. And she’s still besties with Mindy (played by former FASHION cover star Ashley Park), while being caught in a love triangle with Alfie (played by another former FASHION cover star Lucien Laviscount) and Gabriel (Lucas Bravo). That’s all you need to know about this story, which revels in a delicious lack of logic. Even self-proclaimed fans admit to not knowing what’s going on. You see, chérie, coherence takes a back seat in this realm. What really matters are the costumes.
In season 4, Emily Cooper enters a business-minded dressing era. While her style has long been known for its feminine silhouettes and exaggerated romantic pairings, season 4 adds some grown-up qualities to this oeuvre. In episode one, she sports a striped white and red suit to attend the French Open. She accessorizes her tennis-watching look with a wide-brimmed straw hat, which ushers this look into barbershop quartet territory and establishes a masculine side to her style.
In the following episode, she dons a bright purple suit to track down frenemy Camille, who is MIA after a fiasco in season 3. Later, she steps out in a cobalt suit that can only belong to a woman who keeps her inbox at zero.
Now, this is not the first style shift we’ve seen from Emily. Over the years, the American has tried her hand at a variety of trends while attempting to find her way in the French city. In season 2, she had an inexplicable affinity for fingerless gloves. In season 3, she chopped her hair into bangs to signal a fresh start. Now, her wardrobe rotation is being updated with trousers, blazers and crisp collared shirts.
The best part of this fresh fashion formula? It always has a characteristically off-kilter twist. She’ll wear a white shirt and tie with a massive fabric rosette slapped on. She’ll layer a purple striped button-up with an argyle print sweater vest. Heck, she’ll step out in a yellow plaid structured set with a clashing mustard-coloured bow as the centrepiece. Corpcore, for Emily Cooper, is still silly.
According to costume designer Marylin Fitoussi, her grown-up shift this season represents her increased control at work. “She’s really part of the business now,” she told Fashionista. Has our beloved expat matured greatly in her personal life? To put it frankly: Bien non! Her communication skills could use work, and she has yet to meaningfully attempt to learn the language. But that doesn’t mean that growth isn’t on the horizon. If nothing else, her current aesthetic shift is a wholehearted embrace of who she is — cringe and all.
In a post-girl-boss world, it can sometimes feel uncool to try hard. Emily Cooper, in all her unwavering ambition and whackadoodle workplace ‘fits, is grinding to an almost camp extent. It only makes sense that she would sport an array of business-appropriate, if visually confusing, pantsuits.
Despite the little access we have to Emily’s inner thoughts, we do know that she cares a lot. She stands on business while being deeply unserious. She starts spectacular fires and then puts them out with polish. We routinely watch her solve PR crises by simply exclaiming an idea, but we never witness her do any grunt work. That’s the magic of the show!
As per usual, I’m not quite sure what Emily in Paris is trying to sell us this season, but once again, I think I’m buying it. At the very least, I’m buying a pantsuit.
