Favorite Character: Denise Huxtable (The Cosby Show)

I've been rewatching The Cosby Show and the spinoff A Different World and it made me remember how cool and quirky Denise Huxtable was. She's one of my favorite characters and I think what made her cool was that she wasn't trying to be, she just was. While Denise at times can be a little flighty, scatterbrain and disorganized, she's smart, outspoken, spontaneous, fun-loving, kind and always willing to help her family and friends.

As for her style, it was just as eccentric and bohemian as she was and included so many crazy combinations that she pulled off with total confidence. I noticed her style matured a bit after she got married. It still had that quirky vibe to it but a little more polished. Denise didn't shy away from keeping her wardrobe interesting from quintessential 1980's pieces to wearing 1920's inspired pieces, she wore it all. She was a true fashion and beauty icon because she didn't follow any rules. She wore her hair in multiple styles, from short and punk to long and curly, she even wore long dreadlocks as well as 1920's inspired finger waves.

I like that she was a little offbeat and weird which continued in the first season of A Different World where she attended Hillman college. In her dorm room, she had a kooky deer lamp which had light bulbs in the antlers sitting on her messy desk. Also in her room was a mobile of all her retainers that her younger sister Vanessa made for her. That's a unique gift and it shows that her sister really knew her and that Denise would appreciate something that was a bit on the unusual side.

(A Different World season 1 episode 2 Pilot)

Denise's strangeness is just a part of who she is, for instance in the A Different World episode My Dinner with Theo, her younger brother Theo visited her one weekend at college. He told her roommates Jaleesa Vinson and Maggie Lauten a story of how Denise once replaced her bed with a hammock. And she had gotten so twisted up that their father had to cut her out of it.

Denise Huxtable is fun, quirky and also spontaneous and impulsive because after two years of college she realized it wasn't working out for her and made the decision to leave. She didn't tell her parents until she was supposed to go back. And the thing is she had all summer to break the news but she waited until the very last minute to finally tell them. She wanted to take a break from college and work instead but when her parents asked her why she didn't try finding a job during the summer, she stated she was on her summer vacation. This is why I consider her to be absolutely quirky because who thinks like that.

Besides being quirky, Denise is also very spontaneous for instance she took a job traveling through Africa as an assistant to a photojournalist. And while there she would eventually meet and marry US Naval Officer Lieutenant Martin Kendall and became a stepmother to his three year old daughter Olivia.

(The Cosby Show season 6 episode 1 Denise: The Saga Continues)

Her getting married was rather spontaneous and yet again she didn't tell her parents until the last minute of her arriving at their doorstep with her new husband. However, despite being complete opposites this relationship worked. I think it took her a while but Denise did mature. She was still quirky but she was more settled and even re-enrolled at a local college to continue her studies until she moved with Martin who was stationed in Singapore. Denise Huxtable is one of my favorite characters because I like that she wasn't perfect, between her quirkiness and spontaneity she would never have a dull and boring life.