Light spoilers ahead for Netflix's A Different World. Proceed at your own risk, sis.
Hey Huetiful,
If you were anywhere near a TV in 1987, you remember Hillman.
Netflix brought it back on September 24, 39 years to the day after the original first aired. And girl, I'm here for it.
Can we start with how they did it? Just enough nostalgia for us Gen X girls to catch every hidden gem. The Pit. Mr. Gaines' picture on the wall. Familiar faces popping up when you least expect it. I kept pausing to say "wait… WAIT" to nobody. A quick trip down memory lane, without getting stuck there.
Now, the headline: Whitley Gilbert is a beauty mogul.
Of course she is. Was she ever going to be anything else? This is the woman who treated a dorm room like it had a dress code. The woman who could make "good morning" sound like a compliment and an insult at the same time. Of course she built a beauty empire. The only surprise is that it took Netflix this long to tell us.
And not for nothing, Whitley was a Richmond girl. Marla René is Richmond too. So was I ever going to stay quiet about this? No.
Seeing her there hit different. For a lot of us, Hillman was the first time TV showed Black women in college being smart, ambitious, funny, and put together, all at once. Whitley made "bougie" look like a goal. Some of us are still working on it.
Now here's the grown-woman part. Whitley and Dwayne, the couple we all rooted for, are going through it. Separated. Talking about divorce. Thirty-some years, three kids, and still figuring it out.
I haven't finished all ten episodes yet, so don't you dare spoil it for me. But I'll tell you where I stand: I'm a hopeless romantic. Life happens. Kids, careers, thirty-some years of it. And I'm holding out hope that their college love can stand up to whatever life throws at it.
Come on, Dwayne. Come on, Whitley. Let love win.
Meanwhile, their baby girl Deborah (it's Deh-BOH-rah, don't play) is a freshman at Hillman, trying to step out of her famous parents' shadow and build something that's hers. Which, if you think about it, is what a lot of us are still doing at 45.
So of course, I had to do the thing. If the women of Hillman shopped Marla René, here's what their space would smell like:
Whitley → White Ambergris. Bright bergamot, orange blossom, warm ambergris. It smells like your favorite hotel lobby, and Whitley would accept nothing less. Expensive-smelling without trying. Well, without looking like she's trying.
Freddie → Loft 9. Sea salt, wild lavender, dark musk. Free spirit, clean and open, nobody telling her what to do. Freddie's a professor at Hillman now, and I just know her office smells like this. (And yes, this one's mine. More on that in a minute.)
Jaleesa → Second Set. Toasted amaretto, tonka, aged oud. Grown, warm, a little dark. She's lived some life, and it shows in the best way.
Kim → the shower step. Dr. Kimberly Reese does not have time. She had a shift, a lab, and a test to study for. In-shower body serum, before the towel, done. Soft skin in the time it takes to rinse.
And Deborah? She's a freshman. She's still figuring out her scent. We'll give her a semester.
So now I have to ask:
Which Hillman woman were you? Whitley, Freddie, Jaleesa, or Kim? And which one are you now?
Me? I'm a Freddie. Always have been. Artsy, creative, a little all over the place, and completely sure everything's going to work out. Some things don't change after 40. They just get better lotion.
Take it to the group chat. And if you haven't watched yet, what are you waiting for?
xo, Marla
