There’s really no arguing that Vanna White has an enviable job on Wheel of Fortune. Her letter-turning gig is pretty low-stress; she’s said to make about $3 million a year; and up until he retired this June, she got work alongside the much-loved Pat Sajak. In fact, on a recent episode of Watch Watch Happens Live, she told host Andy Cohen that she and Sajak were known to enjoy a lunchtime margarita together during tapings. But some might argue that the best part of the job is getting to wear all that famously fabulous clothing, which begs the question: Does Vanna White get to keep her dresses? On her WWHL appearance, White told all about the 8,000+ gowns she’s worn during her 41 years on Wheel.
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“Fans quickly became obsessed with your wardrobe choices when ‘Vannamania‘ started,” said Cohen, referring to the years that followed White’s Wheel debut in 1982. “How much say did you have in your styling in the early days?” he asked her.
White explained that the process has been the same for all these years. She tries on about 50 dresses at one time, and she and the stylists pick out the top 12 or so that she’ll wear on the show.
But does she get to keep the dresses?
She shared, “I don’t get to keep the dresses,” to which the audience gasped.
“I’ve worn over 8,00 dresses,” she responded, laughing. “Where would I wear these dresses?”
However, White said the show sometimes lets her borrow dresses for special events.
As for the shoes, she shared that she wears a mix of her own shoes—”I still have shoes there that I use because they’re my favorites and comfortable”—and new shoes that the Wheel team brings in.
In a 2017 interview with People, White shared that her favorite gowns are the “comfortable ones.”
“The ones that are stretchy … I’ve started wearing a lot more cocktail dresses and I like that too because I don’t have to worry about the hem or tripping over it in my 5-in. heels,” she said. (She revealed that all her heels have a two-inch platform at the toe, so it feels more like wearing three-inch heels.)
She also explained how certain dresses are actually not suited for Wheel: “There are some that are extremely tight and off-the-shoulder, so it’s very hard sometimes to reach to the top row and turn the letters.”
The show’s key costumer, Kathi Nishimoto, told People that strapless gowns are also a big no-no. “She moves around so much and they slip, and on camera you can’t keep tugging at the top of your dress.”
When Portland Monthly interviewed White in 2012, she did admit that she hasn’t liked every dress she’s worn.
“But, I feel like I have to have variety. Just because I don’t love it, doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t. I try to be open-minded about that,” she said, adding that over the years, they’ve introduced a larger variety of designers.
And with all those gorgeous gowns, there’s only been one time when White wore the same thing twice, which happened in 2020. “It was just a mistake,” she told TV Insider then.
“I don’t know how it got lost in the shuffle because we take a picture of every dress, and we have a…list of everything, and somehow, I don’t know if the description was different than the other description, but it was the exact same dress,” she explained.
