In a Sea of Neutral Tones, a Real Housewife Chooses Color
The addition of Bronwyn Newport to the cast of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” has added a maximalist approach to a series known for its understated aesthetic.
By Jessica Roy
When Bronwyn Newport, a fashion blogger, joined the cast of Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” for its fifth season, she immediately caused a stir among a cast of compelling reality TV veterans, and not just because she was quickly drawn into the drama.
The typical Salt Lake City fashion aesthetic is relatively casual — one popular uniform is jeans, a neutral-colored sweater and a designer bag — replete with “Utah curls” in which waist-length hair is styled into beach waves. With her dark, blunt-cut bob and her loud, whimsical outfit choices, Ms. Newport couldn’t have blended in among her Salt Lake peers even if she wanted to (she didn’t, of course).
“I just think that — almost to a fault — my goal is to look different,” Ms. Newport, 39, said in a recent phone interview. “When people don’t get it or don’t like it or look at it weird or misunderstand where I’m coming from, from a style perspective, it almost spurs me on in a really immature way.”
Ms. Newport’s maximalist approach to style has its roots in the Netherlands, where she lived as a child, as well as in the rest of Europe, where she says fashion leans architectural, edgy and is less directed at the male gaze. She considers every day an occasion for dressing up — ordering Chinese food calls for pajamas printed with Chinese takeout containers, for example — and would not be caught dead in jeans.
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“If you see me in jeans, you should be concerned,” she said jokingly. “We’re at the beginning of a spiral of some kind where I am unwell, mentally or physically or emotionally somehow.”
Ms. Newport favors designers who aren’t afraid of color, like Christopher John Rogers and Christian Siriano, and calls her own aesthetic “pageantry and ridiculousness.”
Though she may not dress like it, Ms. Newport is no stranger to Salt Lake City. Raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she attended Brigham Young University but was forced to leave before she graduated after getting pregnant with her boyfriend at the time. After years spent working in the Bay Area, she returned to Salt Lake City, where she lives with her 18-year-old daughter, Gwen, and her husband, Richard Todd Bradley, who works in private equity.
“Utah is very different than it was,” Ms. Newport said. “Everybody always says — me included — that Utah is 15 years behind every trend, and I don’t think so. But I think there’s definitely an aesthetic that I don’t fit in with.”
Her style is so specific, and so polarizing, that her TV debut immediately caught the attention of online commenters. Some have said they enjoy her fun, campy approach to dressing, and others responded with derision.
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Ms. Newport’s sartorial choices also quickly became a topic of conversation among her fellow cast members. In her first episode, she showed up to a Valentine’s Day party wearing a $15,000 heart-shaped fur Saint Laurent coat made famous by Rihanna, and was immediately accused by a fellow partygoer of wearing a “costume.” “That’s fighting words,” she retorts. “This is not a costume.”
(Not that Ms. Newport doesn’t love an actual costume. In fact, one of her favorite pastimes is showing up to the airport to pick up loved ones dressed as an inflatable shark, or a giant mushroom.)
Ms. Newport represents a new type of “Real Housewives” star: one who doesn’t just buy and wear designer clothes, but actively participates in the fashion industry. Housewives like Ms. Newport and Sutton Stracke of Beverly Hills sit front row at couture shows, seek out unique and rare pieces (Ms. Newport has an extensive collection of Judith Leiber bags), and — in the case of Jenna Lyons of the franchise’s New York edition — even have day jobs in fashion.
Ms. Newport said she believed that when the franchise of shows first started in 2006, the stars wore silky tops and jeans to their reunions, and there was an idea of “truly being yourself and not dressing for the cameras.” But as the show gained popularity, the pressure to perform sartorially — and not necessarily in an authentic way — grew, and “Real Housewives” fashion became all about who could layer the most labels.
When she joined the Salt Lake edition of the show, “I had an idea of what I didn’t want to do, which was change personally or sartorially for the cameras,” she said. “And I think when you see somebody like Jenna, wearing jeans or a men’s button down for a press day or for a reunion or for an appearance, that’s truly who Jenna is. And I love that shift back to this idea of reality in reality TV.”
She said that in anticipation of joining the show, she bought almost nothing new, and instead focused on shopping from her own closet, because then “I was really being myself.”
Ms. Newport is fully aware that her style is polarizing.
“I’m torn between wanting people to understand that I feel like I’m in on the joke,” she said. “Sometimes it veers into ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ territory, yes, and I know that. I know it’s ridiculous to buy an expensive hot dog outfit, right? But at the same time, I’m also like, no, if you don’t like it you don’t have to worry about it.”
“I vacillate between defending it and being like, no, the cheese stands alone,” she added. “And I would definitely wear a cheese dress.”
A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 17, 2024, Section
