While street-style hunting on Michigan Avenue yesterday I was excited to spot Andrea Kerbuski’s massive blond head of hair from down the sidewalk. I ran along the Magnificent Mile, right along the John Hancock Tower plaza, to catch up with her and her friends, Karyn Dethrow and Merl Kinzie. Halfway during my dash I decided to scare her, so I ran up and threw my arms around her from behind. My plan succeeded and I scared the shit out of her! My friends do that to me all the time if they see me out street-style hunting since I always have my headphones on and it does always scare the shit out of me.

Rather than take their photos individually as I normally do, I thought it’d be better to take them all at once. Why split up a great group of friends, especially when they illustrate so perfectly how you don’t have to dress identically to be pals. In fact, all of my fashion friends have completely different looks than me. Isn’t that the point of individual style? So often I think, especially in fashion, people fall into this rut of wanting to look like everyone else or believing that their friends must have the same look. My close friends are very different from me in a number of different ways, not just dressing, but it’s because I think we learn more about ourselves as people and as dressers if we seek influence from those perspectives that are not our own. How cute are these girls together!?