First came the headbands. Suddenly, no outfit I owned seemed complete without one. My new best friend Rachael and I bonded over our unquenchable thirst for college boys and Blair-style bands. They were hard to come by in those Season 1 times (headbands, I mean–headbands)–I’d walk to Newbury Street after class in search of them: Bows, feathers, glitter, plaid; I secretly cried when one of my friends stepped on and broke my favorite faux-pearl adorned headpiece. Really.

Once I rode the train 45 minutes specifically to raid an old Tupperware container of my aunt’s ’80s hair thingies which had somehow migrated to my basement. Bows for days.

But headbands were only half the story.

Rachael and me in our headband heyday