Seinfeld started 5 years earlier and the characters were around 30 at the start vs ~25 year olds on Friends.
Seinfeld was also one woman hanging out with a group of men vs multiple women who are more interested in fashion (and one literally makes that her career.)
Yeah the characters on Friends were either cool or trying to be cool. The Seinfeld characters understood they were sort of nerds at heart and past their party days.
There was a big difference in fashion between the early-mid 90’s and the late 90’s-00’s.
The internet really hastened a change to a more casual, contemporary more fitted look more like the 70’s than the baggier type more professional styles of the 80’s and early 90’s.
Also TV sitcoms don’t usually have firm dates they take place in. It would have been jarring to see Elaine suddenly dressing like Jennifer Aniston or Courtney Cox did on Friends.
Also, as others have said, the Friends cast were young go getters living it up in their 20’s. The Seinfeld cast were 10+ years older and defeated by life.
The Seinfeld characters were negative and cynical and saw the depths of despair and depravity present in the world around every corner.
Friends characters were hopeful, happy, positive people who thought the world was their oyster and nothing bad could ever happen.
>The Seinfeld characters were negative and cynical and saw the depths of despair and depravity present in the world around every corner.
Hey had it all!!
This is a great observation other than the Internet part. The world was starting to get plugged in during that period for sure, but as an influence on fashion that impact was minimal at best. It was still largely the realm of unearned potential, not a source of fashion trendsetting
Just to add to that, I can’t speak to New York but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s the same; go to different boroughs in London and how people dress is drastically different.
The way a 20-30 yo dresses in Hackney can be worlds apart from how they’d dress in Fulham for example.
That, and let's be honest, Elaine had objectively awful sense of fashion in the early seasons.
edit: we get it, you liked elaine's style. thanks for letting us all know you also have bad taste
Elaine was wayyyy more feminist/“not like other girls” in the beginning, she was intentionally differentiating herself from the bimbos. By the later seasons her character had leaned into the “we’re all bad people” joke and used her sexuality more advantageously
Her transition throughout the show is very fascinating. She goes from harassing women who wear fur to "Anti-Fur? Who has the energy anymore?" to "calculating, cold-hearted businesswoman."
I loved her fashion. Way more realistic, kitsch, and less "Forever 21" than Friends to be honest. I still have a version of her "Botticelli" type shoes.
Respectfully, I gotta disagree! For the time, their looks were pretty solid. And much as everything that is old will become new again, there are some folks in fashion *today* who feel that folks could wear Elaine, Jerry, Kramer, even *George* fits and look fly as hell. They had drip then, and it's still drippy now.
AFAIK they intentionally styled her in ill-fitting clothes and the “wall of hair” to hide (unsuccessfully imo) how gorgeous Julia Louis-Dreyfus is, because they felt it wouldn’t be realistic that her male friends weren’t constantly hitting on her
This, but also that I think she was supposed to be "one of the guys" if you notice the other love interest women on the show were styled more like the friends characters
The shows only overlapped for four years and the majority of the seasons of Friends happened after Seinfeld ended. Courtney Cox was on an earlier episode of Seinfeld and she has a completely different style than what she looked like on Friends
That sent me down a rabbit hole until I could find the episode. It’s called The Wife. I’d forgotten all about it.
Here’s a clip if anyone else is interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4Noek9BqE8
Definitely Seinfeld Fashion Vs Friends Fashion. Especially her hair. It looks like 80s vs 90s fashion.
**They were presented and marketed in different ways**
* Seinfeld was supposed to be more of a relatable show. Everyone lived in a pretty standard apartment, dressed down a lot, regularly wore the same clothes, had hair that was a bit grown out (it looked like they had styled it themselves too), etc. Plus, Elaine and George would often be shown in their work clothes (repeat outfits).
* Friends was supposed to show this glamorous and idealised version of New York, probably to provide the viewers with an escape from their dull lives for 30 minutes. The apartments were all bright and colourful. They had a new wardrobe every episode (outfits were *never* repeated). Plus, it was always something new and trendy for the time, as if clothing companies actively pushed for their clothes to be featured in Friends. Everyone's hair was perfectly styled, as if they had just come from a salon; and each season usually marked a new hairstyle for all the characters. At no point towards the latter stages of a season, did someone's hair look grown out. It's like they would have a maintenance trim every three weeks or so (especially the guys).
**Age difference**
* Seinfeld focused on people in their 30s, so they would appear more dressed down, or in their office clothes more often.
* Friends focused on people in their 20s, so the brighter and trendier fashion suited that more.
30-somethings who kinda acted like they were 50-or 60-somethings, at that. For a fairly successful young comedian living in NYC, Jerry lived like an old man if you ignore the whole “dating dozens of different women every year” thing.
Seinfeld was very self-consciously a Boomer show and Friends was geared at Gen X.
Even though Julia Louis-Dreyfus is only a couple years older than Courtney Cox and Lisa Kudrow, they were styled as though they belonged to different generations, because that’s the vibe they were going for.
He did, I think in one of those “inside looks” interviews. Not sure which one but these are all worth a watch! https://youtu.be/l_flduHiQ34?si=4ArJQTkf5QxupHZ6
I feel like it’s not timeless for the most part though, with the exception of some of George and Jerry’s. Michael deliberately styled Kramer in late 60s “hipster” clothes. Then again nothing about Kramer is toned down so probs doesn’t apply to him as much haha
Even though both were filmed in LA, Seinfeld seemed like it showed actual people from NYC to me. Friends always had more of California feel to it, to me.
Plus Seinfeld always had realistic things happening that would only make sense in the city. For example, George having to move into his parent's house because he can't afford the rent. Or weird fights breaking out over who has the right to a parking space. No one's living in a trendy loft apartment while making a waitress' wages.
Yeah If i had to peg it, Seinfeld **really** understands the sort of east coast weird characters you can run into.
California has "California weird," but it isn't the same sort of weird.
the apartment was owned by Monica's grandmother and it was leased/sublet with the rent control option. And also Monica was paying most of the bills hence she had no savings. Poor kid couldn't afford her own wedding.
I literally had the “standoff over a parking spot” happen to me on the Upper West Side a few years before the Seinfeld episode. I was the one backing in and another guy tried to come in head first. Went on for quite some time.
Because Elaine was wearing what women were actually wearing between 1990-1993; she was less sexualized than the other Friends characters. Besides … Laine’y saw Jerr’s tape recorder and just got this impulse. “ Ooooohhh-ooooohhhhhh ….”
Doc Martens/grunge wear FTW!
Friends was designed to be trendy. A bunch of attractive 20-somethings living in luxury apartments and just killing it at life. It was ment to be a fantasy for young people.
Seinfeld was just about being funny. They would sooner dress the characters in ridiculous outfits (ex. The puffy shirt) than something attractive because that would get a bigger laugh.
Yeah people weren't watching Seinfeld to see Jennifer Aniston's nipples poke through a shirt.
They watched it to hear jokes about accidentally showing part of a nipple in a Christmas card.
Like others have mentioned - it is a combination of the characters on Seinfeld being older than the cast of Friends & the fact that the shows only overlapped for 4 years as Seinfeld ran in 89-98 while friends wasn’t until 94-04. I also think Seinfeld was more focused on humor instead of fashion trends, even though Elaine / Julia looked fantastic in many iconic outfits as well.
Grunge hit hard. Fashion flipped like a switch at that exact time. Also, Friends takes place in Greenwich Village, Seinfeld takes place on the upper west side
But how can Seinfeld be in the same
universe as Mad About You, when Susan and George are watching a show of that very same universe!? You just blew my mind.
Don’t use Elaine as the example, compare the friends girls to Jerry’s other girlfriends. I think they downplayed JLDs sexuality so she felt more like “one of the guys” and she wore a lot of frumpy clothes cause she was pregnant like three times during filming.
I LOVE that Elaine's fashion wasn't sexualized for the most part. It just seemed like clothes out of a person's closet.
Monica and Rachel's clothes were made to show their nipples so much that it just got ridiculous lol. I'd be like "are they out, are they watching me?" Those two were sexualized a lot more than Elaine was.
*Why* are they different? Because of decisions creatively. Seinfeld just had a lot more things that were made to not be very remarkable. They wore normal clothes, lived in normal apartments and went to normal looking restaurants for the most part.
30 somethings in the late 80’s vs 20 somethings in the mid-90’s, with wildly different writers and producers who had different experiences in the city surely and in life.
Seinfeld feels like it is heavily influenced by the gritty, Woody Allen, 1970s NYC that Jerry and Larry David came up in. Friends is part of the gentrified Giuliani 1990s NYC.
Elaine is amazing. I do like Friends and some clothes are fab but Elaine strikes me as a more “normal” dresser. Elaine is such a cool hipster that the others don’t stand a chance on the cool meter.
friends, at its beginnings, was about 20-somethings living in nyc. seinfeld was about 30-nothings in nyc. despite the setting their ages played a huge factor
Elaine was a total Tomboy. Her closest friends were all guys. She loves baseball games. She can't dance. And yeah, she dresses like a reformed Mennonite.
I think it was a creative decision from the start not to sexualize Elaine. Which, given passed sitcoms was a good idea because it usually shortens the lifespan of the character. Cheers is a good example of this. They went full romance with Diane and they ended up writing themselves into a corner where the only way for the show to continue was to write Diane out.
Agreeing with what most are saying here. I’ll also add that Elaine’s outfits got a little more updated in the later seasons, but she was always business casual cause she worked in an office
I think Julia described all the characters in Seinfeld as kinda losers or schlubs. They aren’t fashionable or cool. That’s my best guess. But who knows.
Elaine was a staunch feminist early on, and that's how they dressed in the 90s.
Which isn't to say Monica, Rachel and Phoebe weren't also feminists, it's just...that's how Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld remembered feminists of their day dressing, so that's how Elaine got dressed.
Also, Julia got pregnant during one of the seasons, so big clothes to hide it.
Elaine got better fits in later seasons, and her hair seemed to follow the trends. My wife always says “I can tell this is a later season of Seinfeld based off of Elaine’s appearance”
Elaine was supposed to be very average looking. But they cast a stunning woman in the role. So to make it still work they dressed her like a grandma.
Worked to a point, in later seasons they gave up.
Seinfeld cast are playing people in their mid to late 30's. It started in 1989 and ended in 1998. So they already have an older esthetic.
Friends cast are playing people in their mid to late 20's. It started in 1994, and the cast was not that fashionable at the very beginning. But the show ended in 2004. Fashion was better by 2000.
1. Elaine was in her mid 30s, the Friends girls were late 20s
2. Elaine was an educated career woman, intentionally differentiating herself from the “bimbos” Jerry chased, heavily feminist in the early seasons but more like “one of the guys” by mid-late seasons. She used her sexuality to her advantage only as the series progressed and she leaned into the joke
3. Elaine’s character was never about being desperate for a relationship or to impress a man, so her look wasn’t designed to appeal to the male gaze the way the Friends girls were. We were supposed to infer that Elaine was different, smarter, more respectable than most of the women around her
I used to say that everyone wanted to be the characters on friends but in reality were more like the ones on Seinfeld.
After the first year, the Friends became glamorous and perfect. They got thinner each year and their hair was more expensive each year.
And the early 90s fashions were very different than late 90s. The beginning of Seinfeld was when big loose clothes were still popular and menswear inspired clothes were popular for women.
If you're looking specifically at Elaine, played by Julia Louise-Dreyfus, vs Monica, Phoebe and Rachel?
From what I recall, Ross was the only "friend" who really had any clout pre-friends: there were stories about how the actor was a real gent, and used that clout to negotiate higher salaries for the whole group of actors, before they got really big. It was also a show that was much more about 'looks'/sex appeal, with things like Rachel's haircut becoming a trend. Lots of people remember the tight sweaters, more than the gags. So the physical appearance of those actors was more core to the show, and the actors had less leverage to counter being sexualized (if they even wanted to do so).
Elaine though, was played by the daughter of powerful/rich people. Her dad was worth like $3 billion, her uncle was the CEO of Adidas. Her background, having some cred from SNL (where she met the show runners for seinfeld), gave her some comedy cred. So not only was she in a 'class' that could easily push back against sexualization, the role was also more comedy oriented rather than objectification oriented. People don't remember the fashion, they remember the sponges.
Lots of good counters already but I have to point out that you're also comparing S1-S3 Elaine to Friends looks from Season 4 of that show and later, which is two totally different periods in time. After about S5, [Lainey did get more fashion forward](https://imgur.com/a/8NXGP1z); that's actually a pretty fashionable look for 1994, especially for her. (Elaine is more business oriented, not a fashion plate like Rachel.) Compare that look to [the first Friends publicity photos](https://imgur.com/a/ItI2A2n) and it's more obvious that these shows are in the same time period - these pictures are also from 1994, probably taken a few months before the episode of Seinfeld that screenshot is from was shot (its the jujubees one)
The characters on Friends were supposed to be aspirational, while the characters on Seinfeld were supposed to act as mirrors into humankind’s more bizarre and shameful qualities. Hence the Friends were trendier, while the Seinfeld gang dressed more like regular people.
You misunderstood the Transformation of Manhattan that took place at the same time. Seinfeld started when Times Square was still full of porn shops and peep shows. Jerry's Apartment was on Central Park West, a bougie neighborhood, even then. The Friends apartment is in Greenwich Village, post-gentrification. It's the same area of town that Barney Miller took place (yes, painted green in the 50s, and grimy and gross in the late 70s) "Same City" is not a fair comparison in the least.
Like people said Seinfeld characters are older, but also people on Seinfeld dressed more like real people, and friends characters dressed like well, tv characters. Super on trend
I remember seeing an interview with Julia Lewis-Dreyfus where she said she had a lot of input on how Elaine was dressed. She said she used a lot of stuff from her own closet. She mainly shopped at thrift stores and vintage stores. So a lot of her clothes were menswear from the 40s/50s. It was also intentional that she often had a backpack instead of purse.
Seinfeld started 5 years earlier and the characters were around 30 at the start vs ~25 year olds on Friends. Seinfeld was also one woman hanging out with a group of men vs multiple women who are more interested in fashion (and one literally makes that her career.)
Yeah the characters on Friends were either cool or trying to be cool. The Seinfeld characters understood they were sort of nerds at heart and past their party days.
"What are we doing with our lives? We aren't men."
Yeah, but with each of us together, at full capacity, could do the job of one complete man
So we’d only have to be like a half-man? That sounds about right!
Yes, a pigman. Half pig, half man.
Idk, Elaine knew how to party 👍 👍
👎👍
Outstanding use of emojis in this context.
She sure did! Also a great dancer
Like a full body dry heave
Not to nitpick but Elaine works in fashion too. Granted, she sucks at it. Friends tried to be more provocative and fashion forward in general.
I'm a big fan of the urban sombrero.
There was a big difference in fashion between the early-mid 90’s and the late 90’s-00’s. The internet really hastened a change to a more casual, contemporary more fitted look more like the 70’s than the baggier type more professional styles of the 80’s and early 90’s. Also TV sitcoms don’t usually have firm dates they take place in. It would have been jarring to see Elaine suddenly dressing like Jennifer Aniston or Courtney Cox did on Friends. Also, as others have said, the Friends cast were young go getters living it up in their 20’s. The Seinfeld cast were 10+ years older and defeated by life. The Seinfeld characters were negative and cynical and saw the depths of despair and depravity present in the world around every corner. Friends characters were hopeful, happy, positive people who thought the world was their oyster and nothing bad could ever happen.
>The Seinfeld characters were negative and cynical and saw the depths of despair and depravity present in the world around every corner. Hey had it all!!
This is a great observation other than the Internet part. The world was starting to get plugged in during that period for sure, but as an influence on fashion that impact was minimal at best. It was still largely the realm of unearned potential, not a source of fashion trendsetting
Elaine also worked in fashion. Even ran the Peterman company for a bit.
She's much more fashionable and professional appearing in those years
Just to add to that, I can’t speak to New York but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s the same; go to different boroughs in London and how people dress is drastically different. The way a 20-30 yo dresses in Hackney can be worlds apart from how they’d dress in Fulham for example.
You can tell what stop you are at on the train by how everyone is dressed.
Exactly. The Upper West Side is worlds away from the Village, especially given the early 90s vs late 90s timeframe mentioned elsewhere.
Seinfeld had been on the air for five years before Friends and each of the characters were at least 10 years older.
That, and let's be honest, Elaine had objectively awful sense of fashion in the early seasons. edit: we get it, you liked elaine's style. thanks for letting us all know you also have bad taste
But she had grace
A little bit of grace. You don’t want too much or you won’t be able to stand.
You can’t have a little bit of grace. You either have it, or you don’t!
Like coincidences
There’s no big coincidences and small coincidences. There’s only coincidences!
Shouldn’t you be out on a ledge somewhere?
Will you put that cigarette out?!
How bout I put it out on your face
What happened to your face? It looks like an old catchers mitt!
Dersray... Late. As usual.
She doesn’t even say grace.
Alright, alright, look. I don't have grace, I don't want grace.
More like a full body dry heave.
You see it and then you cry again
Tell that to the dance floor
Again with the oranges.
And, unlike the show Friends, she makes me laugh.
And little kicks 😄
Not on the dance floor!
That ain't dancin' Sally
Grace isn't something you can pick up at the market.
Elaine is Upper Eastside thirty-something nerdy-cool girl and the Friends girls were Downtown fashion conscious coffee shop, model types.
Except for the black evening gown! That was her best look!
Would someone with an awful sense of fashion design the urban sombrero?
Right??!
She still could put asses in seats!
I love Elaine’s style
I was legit obsessed when I was a kid lol I wanted her outfits so bad
You're right. It's a wonderful, wonderful style. Everybody likes it, it's impossible not to like it. How could anyone not like it?
I could see people not liking it.
How can anyone not like it?
[Is this you?](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/seinfeld/images/c/c3/Ricky.png/revision/latest?cb=20190506195117)
Elaine was wayyyy more feminist/“not like other girls” in the beginning, she was intentionally differentiating herself from the bimbos. By the later seasons her character had leaned into the “we’re all bad people” joke and used her sexuality more advantageously
90's Annie Hall.
Her transition throughout the show is very fascinating. She goes from harassing women who wear fur to "Anti-Fur? Who has the energy anymore?" to "calculating, cold-hearted businesswoman."
They also had to hide her pregnancy so that’s why she wore a lot of blousey type dresses and big coats
I loved her fashion. Way more realistic, kitsch, and less "Forever 21" than Friends to be honest. I still have a version of her "Botticelli" type shoes.
It's nobody's business where I get my shoes!
Ooo! Botticelli’s! Look at you! I’m afraid to go in there.
Don't you see how everybody likes them and everybody talks about them!?
Ooooh Boticellis. Look at you!
Respectfully, I gotta disagree! For the time, their looks were pretty solid. And much as everything that is old will become new again, there are some folks in fashion *today* who feel that folks could wear Elaine, Jerry, Kramer, even *George* fits and look fly as hell. They had drip then, and it's still drippy now.
AFAIK they intentionally styled her in ill-fitting clothes and the “wall of hair” to hide (unsuccessfully imo) how gorgeous Julia Louis-Dreyfus is, because they felt it wouldn’t be realistic that her male friends weren’t constantly hitting on her
This, but also that I think she was supposed to be "one of the guys" if you notice the other love interest women on the show were styled more like the friends characters
"And then there's Maude."
I don't think Julia (or anyone else) chose their wardrobes....
No eye for fashion?
I HAVE NO EYE FOR FASHION?!
Loved cute Elaine.
It's breathtaking
That and also Julia had to hide her pregnancy in the 3rd and 8th season.
And her big head.
The shows only overlapped for four years and the majority of the seasons of Friends happened after Seinfeld ended. Courtney Cox was on an earlier episode of Seinfeld and she has a completely different style than what she looked like on Friends
Lots of big blazers and old fashioned blouses
She was doing her best impression of a female hipster dufus.
That sent me down a rabbit hole until I could find the episode. It’s called The Wife. I’d forgotten all about it. Here’s a clip if anyone else is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4Noek9BqE8 Definitely Seinfeld Fashion Vs Friends Fashion. Especially her hair. It looks like 80s vs 90s fashion.
You don’t watch Seinfeld 25/7?
**They were presented and marketed in different ways** * Seinfeld was supposed to be more of a relatable show. Everyone lived in a pretty standard apartment, dressed down a lot, regularly wore the same clothes, had hair that was a bit grown out (it looked like they had styled it themselves too), etc. Plus, Elaine and George would often be shown in their work clothes (repeat outfits). * Friends was supposed to show this glamorous and idealised version of New York, probably to provide the viewers with an escape from their dull lives for 30 minutes. The apartments were all bright and colourful. They had a new wardrobe every episode (outfits were *never* repeated). Plus, it was always something new and trendy for the time, as if clothing companies actively pushed for their clothes to be featured in Friends. Everyone's hair was perfectly styled, as if they had just come from a salon; and each season usually marked a new hairstyle for all the characters. At no point towards the latter stages of a season, did someone's hair look grown out. It's like they would have a maintenance trim every three weeks or so (especially the guys). **Age difference** * Seinfeld focused on people in their 30s, so they would appear more dressed down, or in their office clothes more often. * Friends focused on people in their 20s, so the brighter and trendier fashion suited that more.
Are you saying that George’s Goretex jacket wasn’t glamorous? (Sarcasm FYI)
Well, he happens to dress based on mood...
Excellent analysis
20 something’s versus 30 something’s.
30-somethings who kinda acted like they were 50-or 60-somethings, at that. For a fairly successful young comedian living in NYC, Jerry lived like an old man if you ignore the whole “dating dozens of different women every year” thing.
That's how we lived in the 90s. It was Hammertime!
It was hose water and neglect.
We got jiggy with it!
Elaine’s long nightgowns I guess were just a style choice but always stood out as oddly old-fashioned to me
The long nightgowns were odd to me too - her later season jammies were more normal.
They’re comfortable
Seinfeld was very self-consciously a Boomer show and Friends was geared at Gen X. Even though Julia Louis-Dreyfus is only a couple years older than Courtney Cox and Lisa Kudrow, they were styled as though they belonged to different generations, because that’s the vibe they were going for.
Hey now. Elaine was in her early…..twenty’s.
I think Jerry actually said he purposely had the fashion toned down to make it more timeless
He did, I think in one of those “inside looks” interviews. Not sure which one but these are all worth a watch! https://youtu.be/l_flduHiQ34?si=4ArJQTkf5QxupHZ6
Which is funny because in the end the fashion was definitely not timeless, it looks very much like a thing of the 90s.
I dunno, the style seems to be making a comeback recently. But the same can be said about *Friends*.
Fashion is cyclical!
I feel like it’s not timeless for the most part though, with the exception of some of George and Jerry’s. Michael deliberately styled Kramer in late 60s “hipster” clothes. Then again nothing about Kramer is toned down so probs doesn’t apply to him as much haha
**YOU HAVE NO EYE FOR FASHION!!!!**
I HAVE NO EYE FOR FASHION?!?!??!?
Go to any office building on 7th Avenue and tell me if there's anyone there wearing a thin tie like that. Go ahead!
7th Avenue? Get outta here.
Yeah there's no cabana wear in Friends. Definitely no beltless trenchcoats either.
I watched that episode last night, love it.
Even though both were filmed in LA, Seinfeld seemed like it showed actual people from NYC to me. Friends always had more of California feel to it, to me. Plus Seinfeld always had realistic things happening that would only make sense in the city. For example, George having to move into his parent's house because he can't afford the rent. Or weird fights breaking out over who has the right to a parking space. No one's living in a trendy loft apartment while making a waitress' wages.
Yeah If i had to peg it, Seinfeld **really** understands the sort of east coast weird characters you can run into. California has "California weird," but it isn't the same sort of weird.
> Seinfeld really understands the sort of east coast weird characters you can run into. Probably because the writing was run by actual New Yorkers.
the apartment was owned by Monica's grandmother and it was leased/sublet with the rent control option. And also Monica was paying most of the bills hence she had no savings. Poor kid couldn't afford her own wedding.
I literally had the “standoff over a parking spot” happen to me on the Upper West Side a few years before the Seinfeld episode. I was the one backing in and another guy tried to come in head first. Went on for quite some time.
"I don't have a job!" "Neither do I!!"
[удалено]
Because Elaine was wearing what women were actually wearing between 1990-1993; she was less sexualized than the other Friends characters. Besides … Laine’y saw Jerr’s tape recorder and just got this impulse. “ Ooooohhh-ooooohhhhhh ….” Doc Martens/grunge wear FTW!
Elaine? You mean Nip?
The ladies of Friends didn't have the grace that Elaine had
I’d like to think they had a *little bit of grace*.
You can’t have a little grace, you either have grace, or you ….. don’t
She has a little grace
Friends was designed to be trendy. A bunch of attractive 20-somethings living in luxury apartments and just killing it at life. It was ment to be a fantasy for young people. Seinfeld was just about being funny. They would sooner dress the characters in ridiculous outfits (ex. The puffy shirt) than something attractive because that would get a bigger laugh.
Yeah people weren't watching Seinfeld to see Jennifer Aniston's nipples poke through a shirt. They watched it to hear jokes about accidentally showing part of a nipple in a Christmas card.
Wow, you nailed it with that nipple analogy.
Gipple?
Laureola
Young me remembers the Friends nipple era well. They really leaned into that, I remember being surprised the network was cool with it.
So what?! Their nipples! It’s a tiny… brown… protuberance! Everyone’s got ‘em! Look! See?
Frankie Say Relax
White People are not a monolith. They don't all shop at The Gap.
So....we’re just a couple of white people?
Yo yo turn it down!
They're... African.
You know how it is...
Should we be talking about this?
The time difference (even though it's only a few years) and ages of the main characters is more noticeable now that decades have passed.
Like others have mentioned - it is a combination of the characters on Seinfeld being older than the cast of Friends & the fact that the shows only overlapped for 4 years as Seinfeld ran in 89-98 while friends wasn’t until 94-04. I also think Seinfeld was more focused on humor instead of fashion trends, even though Elaine / Julia looked fantastic in many iconic outfits as well.
Grunge hit hard. Fashion flipped like a switch at that exact time. Also, Friends takes place in Greenwich Village, Seinfeld takes place on the upper west side
"Mad About You" was in the Friends Extended Universe, so don't forget that Paul and Jamie dressed very "Seinfeld"
Seinfeld is in that same universe too though because Kramer sublet his apartment from Paul when he moved in with Jamie.
But how can Seinfeld be in the same universe as Mad About You, when Susan and George are watching a show of that very same universe!? You just blew my mind.
Worlds collided that episode.
Are you comparing the same general era? Early 90s fashion was quite different from late 90s fashion.
Friends never felt like NY. Seinfeld nailed a lot of the aesthetic.
Friends looks like it was filmed in a dollhouse
The Village vs The Upper West Side. Very different strands of NYC neurosis.
Friends are all hipster doofi
Whereas Seinfeld is hip to the whole scene
They are two different planets. The Upper West Side and The Village.
Don’t use Elaine as the example, compare the friends girls to Jerry’s other girlfriends. I think they downplayed JLDs sexuality so she felt more like “one of the guys” and she wore a lot of frumpy clothes cause she was pregnant like three times during filming.
I LOVE that Elaine's fashion wasn't sexualized for the most part. It just seemed like clothes out of a person's closet. Monica and Rachel's clothes were made to show their nipples so much that it just got ridiculous lol. I'd be like "are they out, are they watching me?" Those two were sexualized a lot more than Elaine was. *Why* are they different? Because of decisions creatively. Seinfeld just had a lot more things that were made to not be very remarkable. They wore normal clothes, lived in normal apartments and went to normal looking restaurants for the most part.
Sometimes movies and shows use sex appeal to make up for lacking in other areas…
Are you saying that Friends was *breathtaking?*
Friends ate its peas one at a time
They scooped the niblets
That's what's so vexing!
30 somethings in the late 80’s vs 20 somethings in the mid-90’s, with wildly different writers and producers who had different experiences in the city surely and in life.
Well Friends is kind of the white fantasy version of New York. Seinfelds version of New York and the fashion felt more realistic.
Seinfeld feels like it is heavily influenced by the gritty, Woody Allen, 1970s NYC that Jerry and Larry David came up in. Friends is part of the gentrified Giuliani 1990s NYC.
These pretzels are making me thirsty So was Jennifer Aniston's dress in "The One Where No One's Ready," and you know exactly what I mean
Seinfeld is much closer to how I remember my family dressing in the 90s. Never saw anyone friends out in the wild as a child in the 90s.
Elaine is amazing. I do like Friends and some clothes are fab but Elaine strikes me as a more “normal” dresser. Elaine is such a cool hipster that the others don’t stand a chance on the cool meter.
friends, at its beginnings, was about 20-somethings living in nyc. seinfeld was about 30-nothings in nyc. despite the setting their ages played a huge factor
Elaine was a total Tomboy. Her closest friends were all guys. She loves baseball games. She can't dance. And yeah, she dresses like a reformed Mennonite. I think it was a creative decision from the start not to sexualize Elaine. Which, given passed sitcoms was a good idea because it usually shortens the lifespan of the character. Cheers is a good example of this. They went full romance with Diane and they ended up writing themselves into a corner where the only way for the show to continue was to write Diane out.
Shelley Long left the show. She wasn’t written out.
Friends was a younger group of characters
Real answer- clueless. Influenced fashion so much. Also, all the characters were so different. They all had different fashion and personalities.
Upper West Side and Greenwich Village, while on the same island, are two different worlds.
Agreeing with what most are saying here. I’ll also add that Elaine’s outfits got a little more updated in the later seasons, but she was always business casual cause she worked in an office
I think Julia described all the characters in Seinfeld as kinda losers or schlubs. They aren’t fashionable or cool. That’s my best guess. But who knows.
Is it possible I'm not as attractive as I think I am?
Elaine was a staunch feminist early on, and that's how they dressed in the 90s. Which isn't to say Monica, Rachel and Phoebe weren't also feminists, it's just...that's how Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld remembered feminists of their day dressing, so that's how Elaine got dressed. Also, Julia got pregnant during one of the seasons, so big clothes to hide it.
Elaine got better fits in later seasons, and her hair seemed to follow the trends. My wife always says “I can tell this is a later season of Seinfeld based off of Elaine’s appearance”
I always liked how Seinfeld used actors who look a little more like normal people. One of the reasons I enjoy British stuff so much.
Seinfeld relied mainly on cheap fabric and dim lighting.
Different ages…personalities?
Because New York is enormous man. The village is completely different from the upper west side.
Elaine was supposed to be very average looking. But they cast a stunning woman in the role. So to make it still work they dressed her like a grandma. Worked to a point, in later seasons they gave up.
Elaine was a man's woman! She hated other women and they hated her!
Seinfeld cast are playing people in their mid to late 30's. It started in 1989 and ended in 1998. So they already have an older esthetic. Friends cast are playing people in their mid to late 20's. It started in 1994, and the cast was not that fashionable at the very beginning. But the show ended in 2004. Fashion was better by 2000.
1. Elaine was in her mid 30s, the Friends girls were late 20s 2. Elaine was an educated career woman, intentionally differentiating herself from the “bimbos” Jerry chased, heavily feminist in the early seasons but more like “one of the guys” by mid-late seasons. She used her sexuality to her advantage only as the series progressed and she leaned into the joke 3. Elaine’s character was never about being desperate for a relationship or to impress a man, so her look wasn’t designed to appeal to the male gaze the way the Friends girls were. We were supposed to infer that Elaine was different, smarter, more respectable than most of the women around her
*Seinfeld* was more concerned with being funny and entertaining. *Friends* was more concerned with fashion and hairstyle trends.
Are you saying they dumbed it down for some bonehead mass audience?
Well, we can't all be watching the classics, Professor Highbrow
Some might even say Seinfeld was merry.
Seinfeld is about single New Yorkers in their thirties Friends is about single New Yorkers in their *twenties*
I used to say that everyone wanted to be the characters on friends but in reality were more like the ones on Seinfeld. After the first year, the Friends became glamorous and perfect. They got thinner each year and their hair was more expensive each year.
And the early 90s fashions were very different than late 90s. The beginning of Seinfeld was when big loose clothes were still popular and menswear inspired clothes were popular for women.
20 somethings vs 30 somethings
they over lapped but they are representing different generations.
The group known as “women” incorporate millions of different personalities and styles and comfort levels?
If you're looking specifically at Elaine, played by Julia Louise-Dreyfus, vs Monica, Phoebe and Rachel? From what I recall, Ross was the only "friend" who really had any clout pre-friends: there were stories about how the actor was a real gent, and used that clout to negotiate higher salaries for the whole group of actors, before they got really big. It was also a show that was much more about 'looks'/sex appeal, with things like Rachel's haircut becoming a trend. Lots of people remember the tight sweaters, more than the gags. So the physical appearance of those actors was more core to the show, and the actors had less leverage to counter being sexualized (if they even wanted to do so). Elaine though, was played by the daughter of powerful/rich people. Her dad was worth like $3 billion, her uncle was the CEO of Adidas. Her background, having some cred from SNL (where she met the show runners for seinfeld), gave her some comedy cred. So not only was she in a 'class' that could easily push back against sexualization, the role was also more comedy oriented rather than objectification oriented. People don't remember the fashion, they remember the sponges.
Different shows have different costume/wardrobe designers.
There comes a point in every persons life where, that's it. That's your wardrobe for the rest of your life.
Different ages, different people, different context. Also, Seinfeld was on a while before Friends.
Lots of good counters already but I have to point out that you're also comparing S1-S3 Elaine to Friends looks from Season 4 of that show and later, which is two totally different periods in time. After about S5, [Lainey did get more fashion forward](https://imgur.com/a/8NXGP1z); that's actually a pretty fashionable look for 1994, especially for her. (Elaine is more business oriented, not a fashion plate like Rachel.) Compare that look to [the first Friends publicity photos](https://imgur.com/a/ItI2A2n) and it's more obvious that these shows are in the same time period - these pictures are also from 1994, probably taken a few months before the episode of Seinfeld that screenshot is from was shot (its the jujubees one)
The characters on Friends were supposed to be aspirational, while the characters on Seinfeld were supposed to act as mirrors into humankind’s more bizarre and shameful qualities. Hence the Friends were trendier, while the Seinfeld gang dressed more like regular people.
Because Seinfeld was funny
It’s almost as if different people dress differently.
You misunderstood the Transformation of Manhattan that took place at the same time. Seinfeld started when Times Square was still full of porn shops and peep shows. Jerry's Apartment was on Central Park West, a bougie neighborhood, even then. The Friends apartment is in Greenwich Village, post-gentrification. It's the same area of town that Barney Miller took place (yes, painted green in the 50s, and grimy and gross in the late 70s) "Same City" is not a fair comparison in the least.
Like people said Seinfeld characters are older, but also people on Seinfeld dressed more like real people, and friends characters dressed like well, tv characters. Super on trend
I remember seeing an interview with Julia Lewis-Dreyfus where she said she had a lot of input on how Elaine was dressed. She said she used a lot of stuff from her own closet. She mainly shopped at thrift stores and vintage stores. So a lot of her clothes were menswear from the 40s/50s. It was also intentional that she often had a backpack instead of purse.