I touched on this a bit in my post about rag & bone’s show, but I played hookie from fashion week this time! My blog is about my life and inspirations in Chicago, it’s not about all the celebustylists and mega-editors at fashion week. I go to New York Fashion Week to have fun. There are plenty of blogs that cover them, and much better than I ever could. And runway shows? You’re better off checking Style.com, unless you want my personal take on them, which is cool. I’m not pretending to do reportage. I’m a girl with a blog. After shooting street-style outside fashion shows at every fashion week since February 2011, the experiences frankly left me with a bad taste in my mouth. There’s nothing worse than feeling like paparazzi when really, you’re just so blissfully inspired by the beautifully dressed creatures dashing across Manhattan that you want to capture the sublime moments. If I’m stressed out or getting pushed to the ground by aggressive photographers (it’s happened three times), then really, what’s the point if I’m not having fun?!
I already wrote about my Thursday adventure, now it’s time for Sunday. I started off the day with plans to visit the American Museum of Natural History with my cousin Kip, who lives in the city and interns at the museum. I absolutely love that when I travel to New York fashion week, I get to stay with my aunt Lisa and cousins in Morningside Park. In a way, it feels like I’m coming home. There’s nothing better than kicking off my shoes after a long day of street-style hunting and eating a home-cooked meal. Kip and I saw a planetarium show about the history of the universe, wandered around an exhibit on bio-luminescence (which was apropos considering a shot street-style outside of Alexander Wang’s glow-in-the-dark bonanza) and marveled at pieces of Mayan temples brought from Mexico.
My old neighborhood
Several hours later, my partner-in-crime (and newly minted New Yorker) Rhianna met up with me at 81st and Central Park, we took the subway down to Greenwich Village. It’s become something of a pilgrimage site for me to go see my old apartment building. Mentally I know it’s not healthy to play the “what-if” game, but I can’t help but wonder what my life had been like if my family stayed in New York. Growing up in Arkansas, it felt like life was playing a cruel joke on me. Bright city lights, the energy of urban life, and gritty industrial sprawl are things I’ve always felt myself drawn to. It’s as though I had an intellectual romance with the idea of city life. Part of me wonders if it’s precisely because I was removed from the city at an old enough age to understand what I was missing that I became so enamored with city life. Kind of like unrequited love, only better because I finally fell into the arms of an even better lover, Chicago! Ok ok, I’ve taken this analogy too far (as I often do hehe) but you get the picture. I LOVE CITIES!
Later that afternoon, Rhianna took me to a fashion gem nestled on a tree-lined street in the East Village named Tokio7. I’ve never been to a consignment store that had Rodarte, Suno, Balmain, oodles of Alexander Wang and Helmut Lang, plus stage costumes worn by Lady Gaga herself. I may or may not have walked out with my own personal holy grail, a woven sweater by Rodarte from their Fall 2008 collection. Magic happens when you least expect it, since it was 1/10 of the price it must have originally retailed for. Thrifting and vintage my friends, it’s all about the thrifting and the vintage! We hit up a few more consignment shops, and I walked out with a fierce pair of black metallic Siwy snakeskin print pants and a J.Crew cashmere sweater.
We made our way to the Subway and sped across the East river to Brooklyn, where I thrifted the most incredible pair of daisy print heels. They’re a bit unwalkable and wearing them feels like standing en pointe, but that’s the price we pay for fashion I suppose. I ended up wearing these to my Nicole Richie party a few days later at Macy’s, which is exactly what I had them in mind for when I bought them. I was a bit burned out, and tired, so Rhianna took me to the East River State Park. Marvelous doesn’t even begin to describe the view of Manhattan from Brooklyn. We sat and talked about life in a totally predictable move, as though all of Sunday had been my own personal ‘coming of age’ movie. Only this was REAL LIFE.
Playing hookie from New York Fashion Week on Sunday recharged my batteries in a deeply personal way. It’s difficult to articulate, but the act of freeing myself from my own expectations about this blog and my identity as a street-style photographer allowed me to once again see running this blog as a CHOICE I make, not an obligation. Sometimes all we need to do is let something go, before it flies back into our arms a thousand times enriched.
Editor’s Note: This post went up prematurely on Monday, I meant to save it as a draft. Now it’s complete!
This Proenza Schouler video distills the essence of what fashion truly is – the spirit of the times – into a Youtube video, which in itself is apropos for the times. What do Spongebob Squarepants, JonBenet Ramsey, and arms full of PS1 bags have in common? Proenza! Even just five years ago could you imagine a luxury fashion brand creating (gasp!) a Youtube video featuring memes? Much less in the style of a viral video with crude special effects and shaky, low-tech cinematography? Back in the day (aka the 90s) when I was growing up my memories of fashion ads were TV commercials with overwrought music, soft lighting and dramatic narration like this, this, and ESPECIALLY THIS.
It seems to me (and just a reminder, this entire blog is just my opinion) the key to Proenza Schouler’s success is how the boys continually tap into what’s cool. How do they do that? Cathy Horyn concluded her article on Proenza Schouler for the New York Times with Lazaro lamenting his inability to boil the Proenza girl down into three concise words. But actually, it makes perfect sense. The idea that an abstract creative concept could ever be defined in three words reveals a lack of understanding about the seismic shifts in meta-culture since the dawn of the 21st century. The Proenza girl is so post-post-modern she exists in the plural abstract form – there’s an infinite number of Proenza girls with limitless permutations. Her identity is entirely fluid and radically shifts between collections. One season she’s an urban prep schooler in paint splattered jeans, the next she’s a Googie statuette before again morphing into a karate kid. Proenza is the first 21st century luxury fashion house to come of age in the era of globalization with a post-post-modern customer.
To illustrate what I’m trying to describe about meta fashion and Proenza, just think about brands with a crystal clear visual alphabet as a contrast. Phoebe Philo’s Céline, Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel, and now Alber Elbaz’s Lanvin. The clothes – and the girl – are instantly recognizable, and therefore those designers have less latitude to radically change the look, especially when holding companies and private equity firms have stakes in the business. Remember what happened to Paulo Melim Andersson? If you were to eliminate tweed from Chanel, would it still be Chanel? Hmmm… you’d have to wonder. I’m not saying that having a clear archetype a bad thing – in fact, in most cases it’s a very good thing (especially where profits are concerned) and keeps customers returning. Proenza Schouler might be the only design house to have a giant question mark at the center of the business where the customer belongs, and where nearly every other fashion brand has a very clear photo of who their girl is. Instead of being restricted by the customer, Proenza has complete freedom to create their customer from season to season. Jack and Lazaro have the power to explore new terrain every time. Each Proenza collection has a fresh new vocabulary and is a self-contained world unto itself. Very few brands can reinvent themselves regularly, and do it well year after year. Just look at Proenza’s last three fall collections. How is the same woman buying Fall 2010 also buying Fall 2011 and Fall 2012? It’s perplexing to the people who study the industry. Even Cathy Horyn was stumped.
Photos via Style.com
Women are drawn to the magic of Jack & Lazaro’s imagination, not seeing their mirror image in the brand. Proenza customers aren’t looking for something that already exists (themselves) in the clothing, they’re looking to be transported by the unadulterated fantasy of fashion. The moment that Proenza becomes predictable – or that the girl becomes pinned down – is the moment it loses its hypnotic quality. After all, the secret of the Proenza girl is that she can be anyone, anywhere, anytime.
How’s that for three words?
Fashion is such a small world. During my brief time at Opening Ceremony’s FNO party, one of the people I met was Kerrin of the blog CATiD. I had no idea that over the past few months she’s become pals with my close friend Rhianna. Her name should be in hypertext, but I can’t link to her anymore because one of the internet’s greatest tragedies took place: last year she deleted her blog Breakfast at Barneys. Upon hearing the news of her misguided decision, I promptly pulled a Dawson.
Pulling a “Dawson”
Believe me when I say Rhianna had one of the best written blogs that ever existed. Think Susie Bubble, but with bombastic wit, a solid grounding in literary studies while set in the city of Chicago, along with extended layovers in in Paris and Marrakech. Rhianna now works at one of the hippest places in New York. I’m not just saying that because she’s my friend, although I do think all my friends are amazing people. Oh so what, the ACNE flagship in Soho isn’t cool enough for you? I’ve berated her enough in private about starting a new blog. Kerrin, maybe you can convince our beautiful friend that she must – once again – share her brain juice (and killer style) with the world?
We all know that fashion is an incestuous world run by gatekeepers, so it’s really mystifying when these types of synchronicities happen to me. I can’t be that cool, I live in Chicago! Just kidding… but not really. There’s still a strong stigma against Chicago that I encounter every time I go to New York fashion week…
