Blake Lively's 'It Ends With Us' Press Tour Fashion: Floral Maximalism

... and also the behind-the-scenes drama

I’m not going to pretend to be a Colleen Hoover fan. I’ve never cracked a spine on one of her books and I generally consider the ‘romance’ genre to be a black hole in my literary interests. The single exception that’s escaped the gravitational pull of my disinterested nothing-ness? Emily Henry, natch. 

But what I am is a Blake Lively fan. And a Blake Lively fashion promo tour is a great way to get me interested in pretty much anything. But this particular movie tour has been different - and for a number of reasons. 

Firstly there’s the gossip fodder that, on the surface, makes it seem like a sequel act to the Don’t Worry Darling (backstory here) shit storm that made for a promo tour-within-a-promo tour when the film made more headlines for the purported feuds between co-stars than for the plot. But where Darling had hard (juicy) evidence of the drama that was going on behind the scenes that propelled so much interest in the real life kerfuffles of its cast, It Ends With Us has turned up sparse. And where there is an evidential vacuum of information, social media will fill in the gaps. And the lowest hanging fruit is often a female lead.  

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🎾 ICYMI my Challengers press tour fashion coverage is here.

Bring me up to speed on Blake Lively

Since I was a teen, Blake Lively as a fashion icon was what I came to gather as an understood fact. Death, taxes, Meryl Streep’s cerulean speech in The Devil Wears Prada, and Blake Lively’s fashion were all unfettered universally iconic truths I had come to know, accept, and revolve my life around. 

In modern times I’ve seen her turn out on the Met Gala red carpet. But I’m of the age where Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants gave me the perfect blend of female friendship surrealism. The kind that suspended reality just enough to make me believe that friendships can survive on the magical contortions of a single pair of denim to morph onto the bodies of four differently-shaped women. If you’ve ever stepped into an Abercrombie you know Sisterhood is a tangential fantasy book because it’s hard enough finding a pair of jeans that fits your own body let alone you plus your three besties. It’s particularly funny in this day and age of baton passing between friends of the “Sorry for my late response!” text that we’re doomed to send every 2 weeks until we die. 

I was also at the tender age where CW teen dramas ruled my weekday evenings and double fisting Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill was one of my only methods of escape from the unrequited crushes and emptied hallways of my high school experience. 

I have a great appreciation for Blake’s genuine love of fashion, as seen in the way she has openly and defiantly always been her own stylist. She’s one of the few people who uses fashion as an expression of fun and genuinely seems to enjoy playing with it. Her signature style is deliciously tacky and over-the-top. Her love of colour, patterns, cartoonishly proportioned Lorraine Schwartz jewels, and method dressing (See: A Simple Favor tour) have long made her a favourite for me and, until recently, most people. 

So what is “Blake-lash”? 

The It Ends With Us promotional tour has been punctured by a strange insidiousness.