'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' Are Literally Broke

This is So Chic, Very Chic, PAPER’s examination of Bravo’s sprawling cohort of fashion obsessives. From haute couture to TJ Maxx, they’ve literally worn it all. We've just got two questions. Is it so chic? Is it very chic?

What does it even mean to be broke anymore?

In my life I have sold plasma to a degree that should have concerned the nurses taking it for some unknown purpose. There's all sorts of warnings they give you about that sort of thing, but they were never that worried when handing over the $300 I'd walk to my landlord's office with shaky hands and a crumpled up envelope. I mostly lived on gas station food in those days, specifically from the 7-11 down the street in Ingleside, in San Francisco.

This was back when techies were still a minority faction in the city. We'd laugh at them in Dolores Park and chase them out bars with their Google Glasses on. (Or, in rare instances, beat them up.) 7-11 had this 2 for $2 deal, where I could get a blueberry muffin and any size coffee for exactly $2. That would be the morning calories, and then I'd grab some taquitos to heat up for dinner and swipe a pair of Skittles in case my blood sugar ran low.

In those days, Grubhub was the only takeout app in the city. Suddenly there was Postmates, seemingly overnight, and they promised free moped lessons and a hundred-something dollars for new drivers. My roommate and I would sign up under different emails to steal the snacks from their office and re-collect the cash bonus. It seems most people our age were doing this, and they began to require ID verification, effectively busting our underground snack and cash tip smuggling ring.

There were other opportunities too. Like the rich men with millions overnight who'd take you to soulless bars in the Financial District for a few hundred dollars. They were never good for anything more than bad conversation and boxed leftovers, but I got to hear all about the scams they were running on the city. Apps that told you the time in new ways, or business that sold apps to other businesses, or credit cards with chips in them and even weirder, credit cards that went on your phone. I'd sit there in my Zara dress with my hair straightened, smiling and nodding for my money and leftovers, wondering if their moms were proud that they were paying some girl to pretend to be their girlfriend for the night.

When we got bored of that, we'd pay our bills with the odd jobs these men's startups would post on Craigslist. Like copywriting at an e-commerce website selling recycled luxury clothing, or manning a rentable wedding photo booth. Jobs that signaled: I am broke. I am 20-something and I have a nothing-burger degree from the worst rated public college in California. The only college, I'd add, that'd take a near-high school droup out who'd briefly been addicted to NyQuil, smelled like cigarettes and experienced a mental breakdown and trashed her grades in the final semester of senior year.

Broke. What a familiar word, like a blanket with knitted cats on it, or thrifted pair of threadbare jeans. It's a word they're similarly obsessed with on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Except, none of these women are selling plasma or dating rich men for money — as far as I'm aware. No, on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, broke means that you spent $3000 at Love.Shack.Fancy and made all your friends worry.

Funny, how one word can mean so many different things to so many different people. Shall we see what these broke bitches wore to their latest reunion?

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

If there was a theme this year, I'd be the sale rack at Nordstrom. Not that these are very cheap dresses, but they do look like the type of gowns they put up after Christmas on a rack near the back, where the discarded holiday 'fits go to waste away before they're bundled and sold to a TJ Maxx somewhere in Thousand Oaks.

Sorry, that's rude. These gowns are absolutely being bought by some housewife in Redwood City to wear to her husband's annual Christmas party for an AI startup that teaches babies how to rap Run DMC songs, and the other wives at that Christmas party will comment how champagne is such a pretty color and it goes perfectly with that housewife's Apple Watch band.

Rachel Zoe

At the very least, Rachel Zoe looks rich. Here is a woman who is not broke, as evidenced by her platinum dresses and lily-white teeth. I'm never much a fan of the glam, but it is signature Zoe, and therefore, I die. References to her once popular reality television show out of the way, this is one of the better gowns we've seen come rocking down the Beverly Hills reunion stage. While I'd not wear it myself, it does have a point of view. Money can't buy you class, or taste, and Rachel Zoe is proof of it.

Bozoma Saint John

Speaking of class and taste, here's the classy and tasteful lady herself. If there's ever been a more vocal critic of the overly large gowns Boz is so fond of, I'd like to meet them. But wow! This is such a gorgeous work of genuine art. She is, in full sincerity, the most fabulous woman sitting on that stage short of Jennifer Tilly and her her oversized wig topper. I just can't stop staring at this dress! Wow!

Bozoma Saint John and Rachel Zoe

There's a subtlety to the taste levels here that I really enjoy, and if these two were to form some new core of the franchise, I wouldn't really be mad. But I would need friction. I would still need Kyle Richards lying about her sexuality and Erika Jayne sulking about like a cat that has just been sprayed with water. I would probably not need Dorit or her squawking but I would need a motivational guru scamming her loyal followers out of thousands of dollars. I would not need Kathy Hilton and her sinister energy.

So it is written, so it shall be.

Jennifer Tilly

See on Instagram

Jennifer Tilly is the most fabulous bitch this side of the Mississippi River. She is also the most fabulous bitch on the other side of the Mississippi River too. Really, she is the most fabulous bitch to ever be a fabulous bitch, and I am just so thankful she's here to be fabulous for the sake of being fabulous. She's not just fabulous, though. She's fab — fab as fuck, I'd even go so far as. to say.

Eat your heart out, Kylie Jenner!

Sutton Stracke and Erika Jayne

Does anyone watch that program about mothers and daughters with toxic, co-dependent relationships? There's always the mom who used to be skinny and severe and in cheer. She married her high school sweetheart and popped out a demon who's never been married, despite pushing forty. She was also in cheer, just like her mom, and now has a job teaching it to bratty little 11 year olds whose moms wish they'd never gone home with that used car salesman. This mom and daughter have names like Misty and Trish, or Stacey and Katelyn — just Katie, except when her mom's mad.

The thing that always distinguishes them is an almost childlike-like quality to the daughter. Like she'd just sprung to life in a blow dry bar, or gained sentience inside an irradiated Build-a-Bear Workshop. It's what makes them such prime subjects for a TLC docu-series that re-runs after My 600 Pound Life, or accurate comparisons for these outfits Sutton and Erika have on.

Kyle Richards

Here's a list of things I texted my best friend about this outfit: Me when I'm a waitress on a cruise ship who moonlights as a magician's assistant. Me when I'm the general manager of the cruise ship magic lounge. Me when I'm a styling victim at a hair convention. Me when I lie about sleeping with women. Me when I pretend I'm not dating Morgan Wade. Me when I'm late for my shift at the blush factory. Me when the blush factory fires me and I have to pick up shifts at the Kylie Lip Kit factory. Me when I run the Kylie Lip Kit factory and have to lay off the entire workforce. Me when I'm a Kylie Lip Kit. Me when my buns are tight. Me when I'm going to make a joke about my tight buns. Me when my Gen Z intern doesn't know the Mariah Carey song. Me when I'm Kyle Richards. Me when I clock in at the bisexual factory. Me when the bisexual factory explodes.

Dorit Kemsley

One more text: Me when I'm my Gen Z intern and my editor just told all of PAPER's readers that I didn't know about a Mariah Carey song.

Miss Thing

Miss Thing here has been extremely consistent this season: Not only is she committed to this dusty blonde lob and red lipstick, but she has stayed put in a dress shaped like a jellyfish that can kill you shortly before it washes to shore on a beach in Australia, prompting some drunk men to pee on each other because they read about it one time in an article they can't really remember all that well.

Images courtesy of NBCUniversal/Bravo