Leandra Medine's Blog, page 662

The 70s? Not Here, Pal

Wes Gordon showed a series of slip dresses smartly laid out in thick enough fabrics to wear now on Friday morning. There were also chunky turtlenecks that surprisingly accentuated a neck’s length and a couple of high waist trousers shown in a light weight chambray that can pass for appropriate, though decidedly sexy, workwear. Through the overaching 90s motif was a light nod to the 70s in the case of a corduroy jacket and floral print, which was set in black, white and deep yellow.

I like Wes Gordon. He knows his clothes, which are sexy — and often dance along the fine like that separates the tasteful from what is less-than, championing the former. This season, with most heels supplanted by refined combat boots, ankle length skirts often equipped with thigh-high slits, cropped double breast coats and mink — a new fabric for the designer, it seems his biggest success was eliciting a large, collective “there’s nothing I wouldn’t wear” from the audience. Surely, a profound selling point.

The fabrics at Jason Wu are getting very technical. Wool isn’t just wool — it’s a finely torn print that envelopes the bottom of a dress that makes it impossible to reimagine these clothes at the hand of a super copycat like Zara. A fine but thick knit looks more like the ribbing on a deer’s neck when flexed. The fur is lush, the micro-beads are meticulously sewn to cover a t-shirt (and two dresses rendered in navy and white), and the draping is exquisite enough to make you wonder whether it is possible that a young man could understand a woman’s body better than she can. But that’s not even the genius of Jason Wu. There was a penultimate tuxedo that did not feature an actual tuxedo tie but went over no heads at all because when you’re Wu, you disregard a runway season’s narrative arc, build your own and watch.

And when you’re Adam Selman? You get to have fun. For fall, he channeled a 1950’s school yard with hair bigger than spray, scarves worn over it and several takes on the era so literal — gingham, mini skirts, shrunken sweaters and ankle socks — the show almost felt like a dress rehearsal. But underneath the jokes lain interesting and wearable clothes — cargo pants replete with knotted flaps on pockets, well fit suits, sewn appliqués and a couple closing gowns that might well grace the body of long time champion, Rihanna.

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Images via Style.com

 

The One Sentence Recap: Tanya Taylor, Zimmermann, Sally LaPointe & Rebecca Minkoff

Looking inside Tanya Taylor’s closet (legally) makes this collection so much clearer: the woman embraces color without fear while simultaneously keeping her cool, pairing cropped jacket/skirt combos with thigh high nylon socks under flatforms and stacked heels in an effort to keep her models warm.

If Zimmermann was a musical, it would be Annie Get Your Gun, Southern Hemisphere edition with its triangular neck scarves over signature chiffon paisley dresses, big-ass hats and overwhelming cut outs; although it might also fancy itself a loose meditation on the former half of the decade that shall not be named in some high waist skinny pants and Bianca Jagger-style coats.

Sally LaPointe was in no way military — though hers is a style that one could consistently tether “urban warrior” to — but it was impossible to not imagine the models as knights of the underground, stone-walled venue in which LaPointe shows, what with their chest shields of fur and tightly packed sequins that acted as armor rather than superfluous sparkle; and as for the tassels that swung from a skirt here, a shirt there (amid, of course, the sharp wool suiting and floor-length strapless tunics worn over trousers) they hinted, ever so subtly, at the fringe that hung from Prince Charming’s epaulettes. He was an officer, right?

If you’re not in the band but kind of want to be, appreciate deadpan fringe as much as Penny Lane did and know that the easiest way into fashion’s current heart is through the incorporation of at least one suede tuxedo, Rebecca Minkoff will speak to you like it is a dangnab Ted Talk.

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Vintage Image Shot By André Robé

Five Freaky Friday Things (Mostly Not Involving Fashion Fleek)

Happy Friday the 13th! In honor of this Freaky Friday, I’d like all of us to take a moment and reflect on the fact that there could be worse things than waking up in our mother’s bodies, or perhaps most notably, their jeans. Hope your mom is Barbara Harris or Jamie Lee Curtis!

Now let’s get news-ing:

I Don’t Want to Say Drake Copied Beyonce, But…

He copied Beyonce. And I am so glad! Last night he went, “SURPRISE!” and released an album on all of us fools. What did Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg in the Facebook movie say again? “A guy who makes a chair doesn’t owe money to everyone who’s ever made a chair”? Something like that. Meaning, Beyonce didn’t invent surprises, and Drake always makes it rain.

Kanye West’s Show Had the Best Front Row

The lineup was strong, but the real sweet spot was P. Diddy. Sean, where on earth have you been?  (Image via The Cut’s Instagram)

Raise Your Paddle: Fendi Gets (Extra) Funky at the Hands of Rihanna, Sarah Jessica Parker, Rachel Feinstein, Jourdan Dunn, and hmm, yea, I think that’s it. 

Just kidding! Leandra made one too!

The bags are one of kind — or two of a kind if you consider that each collaborator gets a version of her own, too: “Oh this? Yea, it’s just my best friendship bag with Rihanna.” The custom baguettes will be auctioned off to the highest bidder, and the proceeds will go to different charities of each of the five women’s choosing. [Fendi’s NYC 3Baguette Project]

Fifty Shades of Grey is Finally at That Theater Near You Tonight

You know you’re going to go see it so let’s just alllll throw in the towel, head to the comments at the end of the post and confess. What I want to know is: are you a popcorn-only kind of person, a candy cat, or do you mix your Sourpatch Kids and Reese’s Pieces into the popcorn then deposit into your mouth at once?

Smells Like Chanel Spirit

Looks like it, too.

Chanel has opened its first US boutique dedicated solely to fragrance, beauty and sunglasses in VEGAS. I think there’s a rule that you have to capitalize VEGAS. Inside you will find a “dedicated fragrance room [that] highlights an ‘infinite library'” of Chanel scents, plus all of the makeup and sweet shades your Sin City heart desires. And if you want to get your makeup done professionally, choose one of their Vegas themes: “The Star,” “The Jetsetter,” “The Natural,” “The Illusionist,” and “The Performer.” The Amelia. No? Whatever.

And If You Need Something To Do…

Confuse your friends by saying “the Marcia Bradys” instead of “the 70s,” and if you space out when they try telling you about their new bangs, apologize and just inform them that you were meditating.

If you’ve been wondering where else to wear denim, try your feet, and if you’ve been wondering where else to wear brooches, try your crotch.

Meanwhile, you can be in denial about the weather but not so much about the fact that it’s Valentine’s day, so the way I see it is that you have three choices: 1) ask a French girl how to deal with the weird ass text currently sitting in your phone, 2) indulge in whatever you want to indulge in — sans guilt — while waxing nostalgic on the glory days of rom com, or 3) use your left hand to scroll the Grammy memes while using your right hand to grab the remote and catch up on Girls.

Or you could just follow us on Snapchat.

 

The Guilty Pleasure is All Mine

On behalf of unbaked sleeves of Toll House cookies and the peroxided humanoid that is Guy Fieri, let me just say: I do not believe in guilty pleasures. The concept offends me. I don’t like how it’s used to explain urges to devour ice cream straight from the freezer and peanut butter spooned out of a jar and Joe Manganiello—no utensil necessary. I don’t like how it gobbles up things I enjoy in private and spits them out into the cold, harsh light of the day. It’s not that I’m some crazed hedonist. I’m too Jewish to do drugs or strangers with abandon. I really like steel-cut oatmeal. But I’m no ascetic either.

Neither is Julieanne Smolinski. As part of The Cut’s brilliantly titled “ME ME ME ME ME” series, the writer documented a week of unbridled indulgence for public consumption. Her account is a carnival of debauched behavior and wish fulfillment and porn, and it’s very fun to read. Like marathons of A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila or your refusal to share a giant funnel cake with your needy brother at Playland, the report is satisfying and selfish and somewhat sickening. It is a kind of delicious and a kind of terrible. It goes down very easy.

And yet after recounting seven glorious days of unchecked and unremorseful decadence, Smolinski arrives at an unexpected conclusion. The purpose of pleasure, she asserts, is “to distract from misery, and when pleasure is misery, there is no hydrating Gatorade, no Canyon Ranch, no methadone for it.” That is, there is no joy in the pleasure we seek to punish ourselves. So, why is it so hard to see that?

“Why do we abstain from things?” she asks. What motivates us to swear off what makes us happy or to (maybe rightly) limit our experiences of gratification? What is the value of abstinence? Do we hold ourselves to maybe unfair societal standards in order to protect ourselves from destruction? What makes it so hard to just accept goodness in our lives and in moderation? And why are we are so compelled to take something wonderful — like sugar or chocolate or Channing Tatum — and exaggerate it to the point of personal embarrassment? It all seems very American to me.

I suppose I am more curious in this season than I might otherwise be, because I suspect that too many of us (Hi, hello! Me!) have turned real love into a guilty, gross pleasure. In our age of cynicism and ennui, I worry we’ve made genuine emotional feeling into a furtive pursuit, a Hallmark-laced cliché.

So, why is sentiment such a guilty pleasure these days? Why do I apologize for it? Is it because Valentine’s Day encourages an excess of love and sweets? Is it because it seems silly to overdose on an emotion for a single day that we should be celebrating every morning and eve of the year? And how do you feel about indulgence in general? Let’s have a conversation heart (or a trillion) about it.

MR Crystal Ball: Fashion Week Edition

I don’t want to call us psychic, so perhaps a less egotistical word is prophetic. Maybe the best word is chupacabra, maybe it isn’t, but Leandra recently had a dream that I was a baby and she forgot me in a supermarket and then wouldn’t you know it, in between shows yesterday we stopped for prunes and cashews and she almost forgot me in a supermarket. 

If that doesn’t tell you that we know what’s next, then I don’t know what does. (Other than the fact that — guys, I just have to say it!!! — we’ve been shunning necks for a while and wearing bad pants since the cows came home. Ditto young celebration re: the era of Farrah and barrettes.)

So just trust us, ok? Trust us like we’re a guy named Jack holding you at the bow of a ship. Here’s what we predict for the week-cum-month of fashion:

Puffer Coats

I’m not so sure if you’ve heard but it’s cold as sharks, and because everyone would rather be walking around in a sleeping bag, puffer coats are the first best thing.

Long hair

Last winter everyone chopped their locks into lobs and bobs the builders. This winter, we believe that everyone took prenatal vitamins and biotin all fall in order to look like Sonny & Cher-era-Cher because it is officially the Age of Aquarius.

Beyond-the-Fashion Boots

We called this verbally before day 1 (counts because this game is like shot gun) and it’s already a reality: veteran fashion-weekers won’t give a what if it snows during shows and will opt out of heels in favor of duck boots, hiking boots, construction boots and lug soles. Someone will attempt Uggs. Men will wear lined-Crocs with socks.

Full bodied Ski-Suits

Practical, chic, impossible to pee in.

Selfie Sticks

Because getting a good shot of the runway is hard enough. Getting a good shot of yourself near the runway is impossible without what is essentially a Pinocchio’s technological boner.

Light Up Shoes

They’re the next wave of nostalgia-on-your-feet and slightly more season-appropriate (for now, though I am not giving up) than Heelys.

Red Paint Shortage in Manhattan

PETA will likely buy out every can of red paint this city has to offer by the end of today due to the abundance of fur. But IT IS JUST TOO COLD. It is so cold that if a bear offered to swallow me right now so long as it didn’t chew and allowed me to stick my head out its mouth during the Altuzarra show, I’d be down.

Face Snoods

Photographer Tamu McPherson wore a scarf around her head with a hat on top yesterday, and she looked awesome. Then I remembered Jil Sander’s Slim-Aarons-in-Gstaad Fall 2011 show, and now I’m just like: who the hell needs ears?

Socks-in-Slips

If the streets remain relatively un-sludged, we’ll for sure see shower slides and bedroom slippers with camp socks. THE shoe of she-who-braves it: Trademark’s red or navy felt-covered slippers from their first collection (pictured above).

Slip-and-Slides

Then there will be those in weather-denial. Bless their souls for demanding to dine al fresco in a wind tunnel and wear bare legs in a blizzard. They are nothing if not committed to the original outfit they had in mind and wear their open-toed espadrille wedges with aplomb. The thing is, even if their internal heating system is that of a hot baked potato, their shoes will definitely have zero grip. Hence, lots of this:

Who am I kidding. That’s gonna be all of us, no matter what. Happy fashion-weak-in-the-knee-ing. Now tell us your predictions.

Images by Tommy Ton, Charlotte “badass” Fassler, Anba Skiwear, Beyoncé, Refinery29, Jil Sander FW11, and Trademark

The Male Design Duos of Thursday Dress the Women of Next Fall

There is a lot of clutter to cut through at New York Fashion Week. Outside a show venue, you may be prompted to ask yourself whether the espadrilles walking across the same frozen concrete on which your boots stand are rendering a case of frost bite as they glide. From within the hollow walls that share a brand’s story, you may, unfortunately, wonder whether you’re looking at that story as told through fashion or just the latest in a cheap (though make no mistake, expensive) marketing ploy.

Of course, though, there are superstars. The designers who are capable of stringing together the kind of sentences that make you want to be a writer or more acutely, make you think differently, or want to go home and change.

Yesterday, among the shows that will demarcate the first day of fashion week from the rest of fashion week, two shows did both.

Often a bit dark, always with garments that force you to think, Shane Gabier and Christopher Peters’ Creatures of the Wind has evolved to share a narrative that is concise and impressively self-aware. It has championed the notion of pulling trends from the zeitgeist without actually embracing them and modifying their elements as evidenced by an opening cape, lain in a digital houndstooth, that features fringe that does not hearken back to Old-Western incentive. And per their take on the decade that has become an almost universal fashion-revival? Old news, novel result, specifically with a bravura in a trio of trenches featuring fur star-spangled stoles that won Instagram yesterday and no doubt made you think: I should go home and change.

But when you sit down to watch a show in a white puffer coat and green pants that could literally render you (the most awesome) cleaning prop, it takes an outfit either so fresh or so inconspicuously obvious to make you to think the aforementioned.

Yet, at another male design duo’s show, Tome – with its varying shades of stripes, poplin shirt dresses, evolved patent leather cropped jackets, blanket coats and sheer lace under-garments — that happened again. Of course, it wasn’t just the clothes; it was the way in which they were styled. The former shirt dresses were shown under wide leg pants. Those cropped jackets mirrored sweaters that fell below thigh length and arguably the wittiest detail to emerge was a series of wool chokers — knit turtlenecks detached from actual sweaters and often paired with plunging v-necks. This seemed to serve as a meticulous portrayal of the designers’ sense of humor further an important whimsy that fashion can be droll so long as it respects itself.

The One Sentence Recap: BCBG, Coach, Jonathan Simkhai, & Creatures of Comfort in a Rhyme

An opening fringe dress in tan officiated one more nod to the 70s for Fall at BCBG Max Azria, where turtleneck hair was practiced wisely and messy, Moroccan embroidery provided accents to offset the overwhelming black and beige, and capes with arm holes created the medically fascinating illusion of four armed women in fur.

Coach heard our plea for cool clothes that withstand actual weather — for shearling jackets and leather plackets, and boots that make just about everything better; and if you’re wondering why we’re rhyming in this space of one sentence reviews, mind your own business, lace up your ‘cherkiefs, sound the alarm and know once and for all, next winter will be no snooze.

At Jonathan Simkhai, as many cutouts, sheer panels, overlays, ribbed sweater-flavored sweats and grown-up-woman pencil skirts to sustain any man repeller who likes to show her curves.

At Creatures of Comfort, the 1940s and the 1970s* united, birthing an array of dangly ear magic, frayed hemlines, oversized knits and tailored suiting that erred toward the masculine while maintaining a relaxed femininity.

*Infraction pending

Images via Now Fashion & Style.com

Love Stories

On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 11:01 AM, Amelia Diamond wrote:

Darling Esther,

Agree or disagree: Rom-coms just ain’t what they used to be. When I think about Katherine Heigl and her 27 Dresses or that one with Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake that I’m pretty sure has the same exact plot line as that other one involving Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher (how did they get her to do that movie, by the way?) I am saddened and disheartened because I’m fairly certain that never again will we have Sleepless in Seattle or Serendipity, Say Anything, Love Story, When Harry Met Sally or 16 Candles.

And I guess I wonder…why? If we can appreciate remakes it means that there is some sort of nostalgia in the hearts of movie goers and film makers alike. Why can’t anyone capture the heart of early rom-coms today?

Standing outside your room as I write this with a boombox over my head in an A.P.C. trench,

Amelia

On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 12:59 PM, Esther Levy wrote:

Dearest Amelia,

I looked for you outside of my window but to no avail, and so now I am singing Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” to my own nude reflection. If this were an 80s rom-com I’d be a smart — but struggling — magazine writer whose roof shingles — while charming — were in need of a dire fix. The twenty-something construction man repairing said roof — think Harvard law dropout, dreamy eyes and Neitzsche quote dropper — would catch my birthday suit gambol through the marked open window I somehow hadn’t noticed.

I would blush.

We would argue over our fundamentally different world views; he Republican, I a lover of dachshunds.

It would ultimately take us seven days and one brush with danger to realize we’d fallen in love.

So goes the formula for most every successful rom-com made in the genre’s formative golden years (which were in my opinion) between 1983-1999. One of my favorite pieces on the rom-com genre is “Flick Chicks” by Mindy Kaling. She writes, “I regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world operates according to different rules than my regular human world.”

Admittedly, that is why we love them.

That being said, I’d have to agree with you. Rom-coms are not what they used to be. I always look to John Hughes and Nora Ephron as the genre’s most successful champions. As movies, 16 Candles and Pretty in Pink were cheesier than a Chicago deep dish, yes, but consciously so. They followed a model that worked, and they delivered. I think the problem with modern day rom-coms is that they seem to be shirking the stereotypes of the genre, while not really bringing anything new to the table. Does that make sense?

On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 2:00 PM, Amelia Diamond wrote:

My Sweet Esther,

I wrote you a letter every day for a year so I’m glad you finally got back to me.

Of course that makes sense. You’re saying that modern rom-coms — RCs — try not to follow what Ephron and Hughes and Cameron Crowe (and writer Erich Segal) originally laid in place, and yet in getting off the well-worn track they aren’t offering any new solutions. Right?

I sort of agree. I think modern RCs still follow a template of tried-and-trues: the meet-cute, the can’t-stand-each-other-so-it-must-be-love angle, the Shakespearian bait-and-switch — think the wonderful Some Kind of Wonderful. But they OVERCOMPLICATE things. I think the beauty of the Golden Age RCs (GARCS? You know I love an acronym) is that not too much happened in them. Or when things did happen, they occurred quietly, softly. No special effects, no dramatic, cinematic shouts to keep our attention. If iPhones were around when Say Anything came out, everyone would have missed the moment that Lloyd Dobler and Diane Court fell in love.

Do you think the real problem is that maybe, in modern RCs, there’s too much comedy — something I never thought I’d say — and not enough ROM?

And does that lead us into dram-rom?

I’d climb a ladder into your window in the un-creepiest of ways,

Amelia

On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 4:13 PM, Esther Levy wrote:

My love, my left bunion, Amelia,

My red Porsche 994 and I waited for you outside of your sister’s wedding, for three hours. I wore that sweater vest you love.

I think that the problem with modern day RCs is that the plots have become so convoluted, they’ve lost that “huh, this can totally happen to me!” sentiment. Take a modern RC like Silver Linings Playbook — although, can it even be categorized as such? When stripped down, the film follows the basic tenets of a RC plot. The characters are complex, but familiarly so. Both Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper essentially play grieving widows thrown together by the cosmos that be the archetypal best friend-cum-matchmaker who just wants to see ‘em happy. But the plot deals with so much more; a strained father son relationship, bipolar disorder, Sunday football. By the time the curtain falls over the will-she-or-won’t-she-dance-competition-finale, you’ve been put through the emotional ringer.

So yes, DRAM-ROM.

I think the important question to ask though, is, are RCs as they were in the age of Ephron still relevant today? The genre is certainly no longer reliable in terms of box office sales and hasn’t been for a few years now. Bankable actresses certainly aren’t knocking down doors to star in them. Perhaps that’s because the dating realm has changed so much? Or rather, the entire “trajectory of finding love” has been disrupted in the digital age. It’s true, movies like Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail evoke a strong sense of nostalgia, and lines like “I’ll have what she’s having!” will forever live in our hearts, but you have to ask yourself, would those movies ever get made today?

Then again, I’m not sure if I can handle 90 minutes of “left swipes.”

I think it’s worth looking to the indie RCs in this case. I saw The One I Love this Year — which was super dramatic, yes — but dealt with the complexity of modern romance in a completely nuanced and surrealist way. Maybe modern RCs have to broaden their prisms to survive? Or become something new all together?

I’ll scratch your back for your HBO GO password,

Esther.

On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 5:00 PM, Amelia Diamond wrote:

Oh Esther,

I knew you were the one ever since I watched you watching I Love Lucy and laughing despite that show being incredibly dated, not actually laugh out loud funny, at least not to me. You taught me how to laugh.

They HAVE become convoluted. Your point about Silver Linings Playbook is interesting, although part of me thinks the reason I liked that movie so much in particular is because it DID feel relatable in that everyone’s life is kind of messed up but there’s still beauty in it kind of way, but you’re right. It’s far more complicated than the RCs of the past. It’s also — if we’re counting Linings as a dram-rom, far more complicated than the RDs of past as well. (Think about Casablanca. That shit starts, middles, ends with very little blind-siding. Or Saint Elmo’s Fire!)

Your point about RCs in general no longer being relevant to our time of casual hook ups and swiping and digital liking may very well be the reason that the movies we once ate up with more gusto than Bridget Jones with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s are no longer being made. Are people getting cynical? Is it, as you pointed out, harder to relate? And is that because of the plot complications or because we’re literally unable to fathom that we, too, could meet the love of our life by happenstance?

Yes Love Actually is great. So was Crazy, Stupid Love and Juno and my favorite one to talk about that apparently no one except me ever saw: Dan in Real Life.

But still! You’d think that movie makers would then cater to our nostalgia! That they’d take a look at everything from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to — I don’t know, what was good just before the drop off? She’s All That? — and consider what it is that we used to crave. Besides The Notebook (which is weird as fuck, if you think about it) and Blue is the Warmest Color (which is actually quite a simple story line if you lay it out but too edgy/sexy/dram-not-enough-com to be considered of the former guard ) what love story is going to carry us into the next generation? What will stand the test of time? Why don’t they care? I want Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant and a small townhouse on Nottinghill!

Midnight in Paris was lovely and Wes Anderson can make me want to be a better person, but it’s not it. You know?

Or is it, and I’m being dramatic? Or just not watching indie-enough films?

What I do know is that I’m just a girl, emailing another girl, asking her to love me.

Amelia

On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 5:15 PM, Esther Levy wrote:

Amilly red beating hearts,

I’m going to get aggressive here and mark the drop off at How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003). Feel free to call “bullshit mama!” That plot had more twists than a BJs value pack of licorice. I guess we’re kind of in the age of the Judd Apatow RC right now, think This is 40 and Knocked Up? 

It’s interesting to consider Woody Allen when it comes to the RC genre. His films are known for their meandering scenes, digressions and intersecting plot lines, and yet in my opinion, he’s responsible for one of the best RCs of all time, The Purple Rose of Cairo. Mia Farrow is flawless as Cecilia, a clumsy and downcast waitress who looks to the cinema as a welcome reprieve from her dull and loveless life.

I mean, isn’t that kind of — more or less — why we all go to the movies? Furthermore, (if we’re being honest with ourselves) isn’t that why we see RCs specifically? Because — to echo an earlier sentiment — if two strangers can meet over the radio on a Tuesday, then what’s to say you and I can’t? Rom-coms are beloved because they give you something, or rather someone, to root for. It’s kind of like watching an old season of American Idol. You know Kelly Clarkson is going to win, but you enjoy watching her scratch her knee and get back up again before she does.

I think I’ve come to the conclusion that no, rom-coms aren’t what they used to be. The algorithm has been labeled contrived and trite, and perhaps it is because we’ve become too cynical. But maybe the answer isn’t to scrap the formula entirely, but to reinvent it. Sure, maybe nobody listens to the radio anymore. But Serial is pretty popular now. I bet there’s a great story somewhere in there…

I don’t mind standing everyday, out on your corner in the pouring rain,

Esther

On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 6:00 PM, Amelia Diamond wrote:

Esther,

I knew from the moment I saw you through the fish tank at that fancy gala you snuck into while wearing a hawaiian shirt that we wear meant to be.

You’re right. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with accepting that what once was can never again be. And maybe that’s ok. The present gave us Obvious Child, after all.

And like so many Ephron films pointed out before us: who knows what the future of love stories holds.

Ever thine, ever mine, ever ours,

Amelia

Kickin’ It with Mother Nature

Denial is a useful coping mechanism when it comes to winter in February. Just pretend it’s not snowing outside, or that the cold gray air isn’t sitting heavier on your shoulders than the papoose you’re carrying in lieu of a backpack.

Where denial will fail you is in the moment you escape your overheated apartment and get smacked in the face with reality (and frost bite) while slipping — banana peel style — with your feet up in the air and your back on the ice (saved by the papoose!) because, hello Al Roker, you did not check the weather, and guess what? The sky dropped enough powder to rival your own heavy-handed spray of dry shampoo.

Looks like both you and Mother Nature forewent showering last night, and only one of you is paying for it.

So, rather than pretending the weather doesn’t exist (you’ll note that running around in a swimsuit and bare feet is only fun for as long as it takes the adrenaline to wear off), find the loophole. Wear bright colors — you don’t always have to succumb to black. Draw freckles on your face and make people concerned you’re getting too much sun. Or wear a giant straw hat and say it’s because you were afraid you were getting too much sun. Carry a straw bag! Or harvest wheat, then dry it, which turns into literal straw. I don’t know.

Actually I do know. Wear sneakers!

“GOOD GOLLY, YOU ARE THE FIRST PERSON TO SAY SNEAKERS ARE A TREND.” —> I can hear you shouting this at me through your computer, FYI. But I’m not declaring sneakers as “a new trend,” Sarcastic Sam. I’m shedding light on the fact that the right pair can replace your winter boots.

I said: the right pair can replace your winter boots.

Not all sneakers can. Knit running shoes, for example, or the ones that are toe mittens and probably should not be called sneakers nor worn in public, are terrible ideas. And this won’t work when it’s blizzarding. But a hightop pair with a thick, elevated rubber sole in a flash dance of mixed media (like these ones by Aquatalia, which have a shiny toe that will fare well in the face of street salt and sludge puddles) will change the game.

Suddenly, you won’t feel like an ice fisherman when really, you’re just walking to the office. You won’t feel like getting dressed is a production, because everything is easier when sneakers are involved.

In fact, you might feel that long-lost spring in your step. You might make like a baby deer and kick your damn heels up. You’ll know it’s not April even though you’ll feel like it is, so we won’t call this denial — and it’s not DiGiorno, either.

It’s proof that a great pair of sneakers can change your purview; a textbook case of: if you can’t beat Mother Nature, join her.

In partnership with Aquatalia

Embracing Spring in Warmth

AccuWeather has unofficially marked the end of this week as one of the coldest we will see this winter. Temperatures will drop below zero and climb no higher than a stealthy 18 degrees. This will invariably prove frustrating for Fashion Week show-goers with profoundly colorful arsenals of not-quite-coats but not exactly jackets either. Wide-leg pants zealots will have to wonder what’s more important: the relinquishment of air ventilation through the bottom of said pants or potentially harmful frost bite that at least yields a really great photo. And those who renounce boots all together are more or less fucked.

Or are they?

The most important lesson in layering is that your layers are not otiose. You see, I have a theory about strategic layering that runs counter to what outerwear brands want you to think, which suggests that so long as your keep your hands, feet and head warm, the rest of your body is effectively fair game. You can even wear Spring.

So starting at the feet, let me suggest at least two layers of socks. (And thick black tights.) One of the camp variety and another of your choosing. This will make wearing sandals, like, say, the navy blue suede lace-up ones — a totem for Miu Miu’s resort season — in exhibit C more pleasant.

If you want to wear a spring suit but don’t know how to reconcile it, layer to the point of oblivion. Remind yourself that Uniqlo invented a little thing called HEATTECH. And that a pretty fat slew of brands across the board produce shirting that laughs in the face of oxygenation. Ditto that for sweaters, as evidenced in exhibit B.

As for exhibit A: There is a 60% chance you will freeze in the aforementioned not-coat-not-jacket, but with tights and socks and a turtleneck that effectively shoots steam out of your arm pits, I am confident you’ll do fine.

Also, get a pair of gloves — and those heat packs for inside of them. Then buy yourself a beanie!

Never mind, I’ll buy you one.