Leandra Medine's Blog, page 747

What is New York Style?

They say style is personal and I agree, but it’s hard to refute the plain fact that different countries and more acutely, cities, develop and fine tune cues that become indigenous to their regions. These cues are often influenced by circumstantial details — a city that snows 200 days a year vs. A place where social culture depends on nightlife, or nature — and this circumstantial minutia ultimately becomes what separates your city’s style from another’s.

But in considering the style of a New Yorker, I’ve been having a hard time locating exactly what makes us, us. This problem has only been further propelled by the four days I spent alone in Paris last week.

Admiring thigh high Céline boots that could have been anything and still looked equally spectacular on one of the city’s denizens and the animal-friendly, blue and hairy Carven coat that cloaked her upper half, I questioned why she looked so Parisian when it seemed very clear that if I were to try my hand at the same outfit, I would look like I was trying too hard.

I surmised that this is simply because I would be trying too hard. For her though, it’s what was natural. And devastatingly French.

But what is devastatingly New York? I tried to come up with adjectives but realized that the qualities they evinced — effortlessness, that which is cool, dark, practical, sometimes simple and so forth — are actually attributes we’ve borrowed from elsewhere.

Black, for one thing, is not ours. It has been universally adopted as the anthem of fashion and if anyone has a true stake on the non-color, it is Emmanuelle Alt who is definitely not a New Yorker. On the other hand, “American style” doesn’t quite define us either. Sure, Ralph Lauren is local but his aesthetic reads more American than it does New York — which I’m coming to realize (with the help of one Rosie Assoulin) is a buffer that separates the rest of this country from Europe. But maybe then, our style can’t be classified by simply a selection of all-encompassing adjuncts or designers.

When it’s cold, it’s cold, and those multiple pairs of socks and neck-paralyzing scarves have a utilitarian function that transcend the boundaries of layering for the sake of looking cool, but still speak to our tendency toward irony because the fashion aspect of the total look doesn’t get lost on the spectator. And when it’s hot, we put to practice similar policies in the opposite direction and our blaring sense of the shifting, seasonal paradigm forces us to live with closets that could conceivably clothe a very broad selection of women.

In a transient city, we’re transitional individuals and as a result, dressers. One friend explained that she thinks “New Yorkers have a tendency to pack their schedules and often never get to go home and change.” The schedule packing equips us to dress in a way that teaches us to clothe ourselves like we are more volatile than our own city’s stock exchange. A morning at work uptown becomes a lunch in midtown and an evening in Brooklyn. With your in-laws — three dramatically different settings that beg one outfit to string them together and do it flawlessly.

Another friend put it to me this way, “What’s important about New York dressing is the New York girl.” If you were to look into the closet of any woman across America-and-beyond, you can rest assured you’d find at least an iteration of a pair of slim jeans, a white blouse, and an ankle boot. But what makes the New York girl arguably (though, of course, not always) more compelling to observe is the city she occupies and how those coordinates have forced the definitive yet elusive factors that make her style just…so New York.

Images shot by Tommy Ton

Well, It’s Official

I’m glad we’re not playing that game where you’re expected to take a shot every time Lena Dunham’s February Vogue cover is mentioned because you’d probably find yourself too inebriated to read this dispatch, which I’ll call the lucky number 101st nod to the aforementioned.

The rumors were true — she does cover the February issue and on it, she wears a buttoned-to-the-collar polka dot jacket. Eyes big and brown, she appears ready to attempt to explain why Charlie left Marnie over grilled pizza.

The spread features Dunham’s Girls co-star, a stoic Adam Driver, in three of the five shot-by Annie Leibovitz photos. In one, Dunham wears a pigeon above her head. Is it livestock? Or is it Maison Michel? A similar question arises when considering her Rochas feathered yellow footwear (are the shoes the victim of a recent Sesame Street amputation, or simply made by the anterior designer?). She looks spectacular — arguably better — in Céline than Philo’s own models do. This is an enormous coup as far as I’m concerned, but then again, were we to expect anything less than an aspirationally beautiful and put-together Lena Dunham from a seminal Vogue spread?

My real point of difficulty begins when considering the implications tethered to her cover.

Vogue is a magazine that unapologetically and in a streamlined, predictable-in-all-the-right-ways manner sells a lifestyle. Reading Vogue is not a pick-up-what-you-like-discard-what-you-don’t experience. It is an all-encompassing account that appeals to over one million readers (as evidenced by its current circulation of 1.25 million copies sold monthly) who have been carefully and strategically fed the concept of the Vogue Woman.

This woman experiences fashion not through the lens of a shopper who simply listens and puts into practice what she is told, but as an intellectual with the ideals of an individual who regards her body and that which she uses to cloak it as a critical detail that paints her projected personality. That her understanding of fashion allows her to cultivate a projected personality is another function of her character. She is independent, learned and curious outside the margins of fashion. Ask for her political opinion and she should retort with the same candor and passion that she might when discussing Jil Sander’s departure from her fashion house. Ostensibly too, she maintains the figure of a first class model.

What the traditional Vogue Woman is not is particularly funny. She’s not likely to be a flaming narcissist either, but if so there’s some self-awareness and attempts at course-correction. She’s not a bad friend, she doesn’t traipse through Brooklyn in dirty grey t-shirts long enough to be dresses, and she’d never have missed her first book’s deadline. Therein lies the disconnect.

Of course, the antithesis of a Vogue Woman described above isn’t Lena Dunham — it’s the character she created and embodies on Girls, Hannah Horvath. But divorcing one from the other isn’t as easy as a set of annulment papers. As the leading lady in her breakout series, Lena and Hannah have become so publicly intertwined (why, after all, would Driver be featured as a prop in the spread otherwise?) that it’s difficult to see the artist outside of her art.

Which is probably why long form articles like Vogue’s are so engrossing — we get a better sense of Ms. Dunham (just in time, too; Hannah’s becoming intolerable). And what’s more, a sense that she could, in fact, be the next iteration of the Vogue Woman. One who is equally as aware and inspirational in the realms of art, fashion and culture, but is also funny, human and vulnerable.

February’s Vogue cover makes me wonder: which side of the coin will this affect more comprehensively — the magazine or the lady?

Edited by Kate Barnett

Things I’m Still Not Over: Winter White

There are three things I believe are truly worth fighting for. The first is your mother’s affection because without it, doctor appointments will never be made. (What? I’m kidding). The second is an aisle seat on an airplane because the middle seat will typically position you between two strangers you will grow to hate simply by virtue of their large arms or tendency to read books audibly, while the window is too far from a port-a-potty excuse for a bathroom that my bladder demand I remain close to.

The third is a good deal. Which is precisely where this nod to winter white comes back into play to tell the tale of the Céline shirt that almost got away but did not because sometimes I act like a neurotic hawk who maintains the inclinations of a Jewish Persian woman — or in other words, my mother.

In 2011, this fancy-ass excuse for a blouse (it is actually the physical manifestation of a tooth fairy) first appeared with its horse hair and white poplin tail and sleeves. At a discouraging price estimation that ultimately became only a fraction of the cited price, I knew we’d never be together. And this was during a time before social proprietorship (you know, that thing where you want something so badly, you post it to all your social networks because even though you don’t have it, at least you can share with your following that you know what’s good), so I was out of luck. So much so that in a bout of protest, I remained naked for the greater half of 2012.

But then six Saturday nights ago, as I laid in bed, dozing off while watching my sweet, sweet iPhone screen project images from Yoox.com’s “Take an Extra 50% Off” sale, there it was. The horse. The hair. The poplin. The me? As is typically the case when an item appears 1431982% off on that website, I imagined the blouse to be either too small (fit for a lean seven-year-old) or too big (damn you, dad, with your large breasts and enormous stomach to fill the blouse spectacularly).

As fate and my recently refreshed PayPal account would have it, though, it was my size, which, of course, elicited the next string of events that went something like this: Oh-mah-gah. Add to cart. Oh-mah-gah. Check out. Oh-mah-gah. Pay. Oh-mah-gah. Wait! Rent. Oh. Mah. Gah.

End scene.

When it arrived on a Tuesday, it was declaratively well worth near sacrifing the roof atop my head and I’m pretty sure I heard Elton John sing to me in accordance. By Wednesday, I’d worn it three times which seems unusual given the short time distance but I am a woman of tricks that transcend the solidity of time.

Of course, you don’t need this blouse to make your favorite white jeans January appropriate — any cotton shirt should do (like, say, this $30 one from Zara).

But you will need a pair of black booties so we can dance along to Gavin DeGraw’s “Not Over You” in tandem.

Céline blouse, Blk Dnm jeans ($45 on Yoox, man!), Brian Atwood boots.

And It’s Here: Peter Pilotto for Target

I think I finally get it.

Cats are so well-liked and as a result, Internet-famous because they’re always dragging all this cool stuff in!

Today, for example, Tinkerblinkavaga, a progeny of an American Short Hair and Lithuania (as in, the country) dragged in a complete lookbook from the Peter Pilotto for Target collaboration. As we suspected it might last spring when we offered an unofficial dissertation on the manifold reasons a high-low collaboration with a brand like Pilotto might work (their widely accepted brand identity is such that a very strong, singular point of view is conveyed upon immediate contact, the way it might with an older house like Missoni), the collection looks remarkably good.

The silhouettes, for one thing, weren’t compromised. The peplums still pop, the pencil skirts are still tight, the uneven hems maintain their contrast and the draping remains     artful. The prints look pretty great too. Would you have even guessed that this were a Target lookbook if you weren’t predisposed to that knowledge?

Fabric is, of course, still a point to be canvassed but then again when you’re buying into a concept or a known design element that doesn’t see much permutation when considering fabric, does that really matter?

Frankly, I’m thrilled. But who cares! Are you?

The collection hits Target stores and Target.com on Feb. 9 with an assortment of the collection also available on Net-a-Porter.

Making the Case for Big Pants

Something happens to the way I feel about my closet at the same time every winter.

January rears its unapologetic head, the cold becomes insufferable and as a result, I can look only toward the warmer days of a pseudo-Spring and indubitable, distant summer. Of course, those days don’t just seem but are so far away, so I can barely wrap my head around whether what I see when I project is an inviting beach chair or a killer polar bear determined to crush my dreams of bare legs, and then I get frustrated.

My clothes don’t look right anymore. They’re staler than month-old crackers. My sweaters are pilling, my pants are perennially creased and my skin is just about to adopt its annual green glow. My mom will ask me if I’m sick the next time she sees me and in my most melodramatic tone I will say “only of the weather.” She will roll her eyes and I will bat my lashes, placing the front of my hand on my forehead like a high school drama student with subpar talent and then we will get on with our days. I will wonder how much longer I must wait before I can finally indulge in white cotton and yellow linen and straw and paper umbrellas again and then I remember: it’s still January.

Is this obsession with moving forward, with escaping the cold precisely what turns me off from my closet? A place I used to revere but now feel so overwhelmed with — namely by its failure?

And what’s the fix?

Simply, I have learned, to put one particular garment under attack. This is usually the one that I have exploited most comprehensively through the duration of the not-yet-over season and this year, I’m battling skinny pants. Why? Because they’re comfortable, they’re predicatable, they’re my default. They are almost always painted onto my legs and right now, I need to look different.

Enter my making the case for wide leg pants. (First up: THESE).

This is not to detract from the allure of skinnies, though. They look nice with boots and compliment long coats and large sweaters. I know plenty of women who would never give up slim pants but I suppose that what is perhaps most compelling about fashion and style is that one woman’s cigarette leg can become another’s lung cancer.

Wide leg pants offer promise. Of better, larger meals (thigh circumference be damned!), of cropped blouses and more interesting top-wear. Of short coats and a call to your most comfortable footwear (no one can see them and you know what they say: pics or it didn’t happen). That they should allow your legs to look 40% longer without calling to attention the height of your heels is another point of victory.

Of course, it’s only a matter of time before those become stale too and I must feel inclined to forgo their use in the name of something new. But hopefully by the time that happens we’re back in denim diaper season, paper umbrella floating romantically between the ice cubes of a refreshing Sea Breeze.

It’s The Year of the Horse

I would just like to begin my acceptance speech by thanking my fourth grade gym teacher who never thought it was strange that I insisted on running like a horse.

Thank you to my roommate for being such an amazing sport that one time you got hives when I forced you to come to the barn with me. A sarcastic thank you goes to my friends who never tire of singing that creepy R. Kelly song whenever I say I’m going riding. I’d like to thank Chinese Zodiac for finally giving my animal its time to shine, and last but not least, thank you Pre-Fall 2014, for validating my equestrian endeavors.

Design houses such as Hermès, Gucci and Ralph Lauren are known for their consistent reinterpretations of equine-inspired gear. Michael Kors and Chloé are never too far from a four-hooved nod, and the same could be said of Tommy Hilfiger’s Fall 2013 season. (The same could not be said of Hilfiger in the ’90s, but what a glorious and strange mash up that would have been.) It’s just that for a style so iconic, equestrian never seems to register as “cool.”

Until now, that is. Cue up your boombox to the party mixtape I made you then hold it over your head like you’re Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything, because it’s time to celebrate. What are we celebrating? Why am I giving a speech again? Oh, I don’t know, how about one fell swoop of a Pre-Fall season — and Chanel, Altuzarra, Alexander Wang and Band of Outsiders, for making the other half of my wardrobe a fashion statement rather than a horse joke. One small victory for man kind.

Now I can foot-gallop around the West Village with pride, daring the mounted police officers to give me tickets for A) topping the speed limit or B) looking too awesome. I can go directly from stable to table without being mocked from my less-than-equine-friendly-friends, and if anyone tries to come at me for wearing breeches to brunch don’t think I wont whip out a power point of the slideshow above to prove that all that neighs is absolute gold.

What’s important to note and I say this with indignation is that the Pre-Fall works because they’re not hyper-literal. It’s fashion out of context, comprised of nuanced cues from an English tack room: tweeds and tartan and buttery leather, but nothing so blatant that one could accuse the wearer of coming straight off a dismount. This is to say that I probably still can’t get away with passing off my barn clothes as an alternative to the Bowery’s all-black leathered uniform no matter how much of “a moment” this trend is having.

I have to interpret.

Do I wish I could walk around in my riding clothes and look just as cool as the models at Band and Altuzarra? Yes. Am I — despite earlier evidence to the contrary — aware of what is reality and what’s wardrobe fantasy? Yes. Fine. Maybe.

But does that mean I will ever stop fighting in the name of those who spend too much time around giant hay-eating mammals? No I will not, Pony Boy Curtis. And neither, I hope, will fashion. So, let’s shop.

The Psychology of Men and the Next-Day-Text

In my seasoned four years of life as a New Yorker, I have — between my friend’s stories and my own — scrutinized every dating scenario there is in the book of courtship. There have been numerous occasions where I’d rather slam my scalp into frozen sand than decode a three y-ed, pre-midnight “heyyy,” and yet I do it because my friends do it for me. By the end of our sessions, we usually feel like we’ve accomplished or established something. Like a riddle has been solved, order has been restored and life carries on.

But one feature of the dating game continues to stump us. It’s nearly impossible to decode and it is rampant in New York City. But it can’t be limited to this freaky island, so, I ask: why do men take our numbers if they don’t plan to ask us out?

In the name of all those afflicted, I enlisted the help of 30 heteromales. Some were my friends, some were strangers, one was an excuse to con a guy into asking for my number (JK! Or am I? I am! Am I? I am. Stop.) and the responses were overwhelmingly unanimous and as such can be fractioned into five succinct reasons.

1) Time and place should be considered

If a man gets your number midday after having met you in line at a coffee shop, he’s far more likely to contact you and set up plans than if he’d got your number during last call at a bar.

“You’re in much clearer headspace to tell if there’s a real connection or not,” said a friend we’ll call Montgomery. (Monty for short.) Apparently, men don’t typically peruse the waiting room at the dentist, hoping that the attractive girl reading a decaying copy of Highlights will go home with him. There’s no alcohol involved, no pressure from friends. Just him, you, and the receptionist who’s annoyed you showed up 10 minutes late.

“If we ask for a girl’s number during the day, we really want it. It took balls to ask. We saw something there, and we’re going to use it.”

So why are the stakes lowered at a bar? See number 2.

2) Sobriety Level

Every man, no exception, told me that when asking for a girl’s number out at a bar, there is a 100% chance they’ve been drinking and therefore a high likelihood that they won’t remember crucial details the following day to encourage a follow-up message.

Said one man who didn’t have a preference for his alias so let’s call him Bud Light, “It seems like a great idea at the time, then the next day, you can’t remember what you saved her in your phone as. Or a variety of other details that are usually deemed important when considering asking a girl out. Going on dates is kind of stressful. You want to be absolutely sure you like the girl. If you can’t remember stuff, it’s not worth the risk.”

3) The Getaway 

Some men said they ask for a number in order to end a conversation they don’t want to be having. “It’s an easy out, and you don’t look like dick.” When I said this was childish, one interviewee retorted, “How many times have you told a guy, ‘Be right back, I have to go to the bathroom or find my friend’ to end a convo, and then never returned?”

To which I said, “BRB gotta go to the bathroom. I think my friend’s in there.”

4) The Challenge

Several men said they enjoy the challenge associated with getting numbers. “Guys are going out to meet girls, for sure, but we’re not on the hunt for relationships. Getting a number is like a bit of validation — it says you still have the charm. You’ve got game.”

But to further said game, why don’t they use it?

“It’s sort of like when a dog is chasing his tail. If he caught it, he wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

5) The Fear

On a less chauvinistic plane than point number 4, some men admitted that they’re afraid. Bolstered by liquid courage the night before, they’re back to normal come morning, and just like the rest of us, doubtful and insecure. “What if a girl just gave you her number to end the conversation? To be polite because I asked?” one friend who I will call Ryan Gosling since I’m feeling generous today said. “I mean what if she actually hates me? Or what if I do ask her out, she says yes, and turns out to be a dragon?”

The aforementioned Monty (Montgomery for long) explained that when he does use a woman’s number, he means it. Many of the interviewed agreed, which is simply to say that, we continue to inhabit a city of big green avocados.

Photo via Tommy Ton for GQ

One Denim Jacket, Three Ways

Will I ever get sick of denim? It seems like a fat chance. Even beyond prosaic, straight blue jeans — what has become a dual-gender wardrobe “staple” — it occurs to me almost every time I wear it that denim, like the model co-worker, will never let you down. It will collaborate with you, often hide your blunders, and sometimes even cover your ass.

This theory was only further cemented when I set out to make like Man Repeller (the site, not person) and wear my denim jacket three ways. By placing it over my shoulders and calling it a “a way,” I could have easily cloaked an avalanche of different outfits but this is about utilizing the jacket creatively. Like it’s not just a jacket. It’s a passport. One that officiates your stance as a global citizen of a world made from study cotton twill.

In look #1 I wore the jacket as a blouse buttoned to its collar. Then I popped them collars and placed an ivory double breasted blazer over the jacket and allowed for the denim to peak out of the sleeves. I tucked the front into these crazy-ass peplum pants because they are black, kind of big and baggy at the top and therefore created no such illusion of questionable vagina junk. Then I walked across the same quarter of a sidewalk for about 15 strolls so that you could get a whiff of the outfit’s movement. In the event you’re curious about the pants: they are Miu Miu and I found them at a consignment shop for (drumroll! Please!) $44.

Blk Dnm blazer, Acne jacket, Miu Miu pants, Charlotte Olympia heels.

In look #2 I am not just wearing the jacket as a jacket but as an integral part of The Canadian Tuxedo at large. Paired with meme colored denim pants, a striped sweater and a beanie, I am almost your younger brother. But with the inclusion of lipstick, a bright multi-color neckerchief, a wooden clutch that features many crystals and some white Ferragamo flats, I am either your little brother, an understudy for CATS with very chapped lips, or, you know, just myself.

Acne jacket and jeans, striped sweater, Hermes scarf, Devi Kroell clutch, Ferragamo flats, Steven Alan beanie.

And in the final look, I am the kind of woman who throws a denim jacket over her shoulders like it is fur or something equally as polarizing to reveal details about where she is going. This, of course, is to a black tie event as the silk gown skirt and dramatic winged top would suggest. The way I see it, we live in America, people, and if ever there is a societal rule that mandates one should not to wear denim is the most salient excuse to get the shit out of there.

Acne jacket, Peter Soronen skirt, Rosie Assoulin blouse, Chanel shoes, The Row handbag, Lionette ring bracelet and Monica Sordo choker.

Running My Mouth

I have seen The Atlantic article, “Everyone You Know Really Did Just Get Engaged“, get shared approximately 8,000 times in the last minute on Facebook. With my below-average eyesight and medium-range pattern recognition skills, I also saw that many people did put a ring on it between November twenty-something and January-now. And I congratulate those people. But there is something far more prevalent and alarming than engagements permeating social news feeds that I feel I must address:

When the fuck did everyone I know suddenly becoming professional runners?

It starts out innocently enough with the 5k, a race that spans 3.1 miles. But the problem is that it’s a gateway drug that gets shared far more often than the Semi-Random Guy You Went to School With who got engaged to the Friend You Didn’t Know Even Knew Said Semi-Random Guy.

After my Facebook friends got bit by the 5k bug, the color runs followed. (That’s an actual type of race.) Apparently, there’s a variety of other themes to be had while propelling oneself forward via sneakered foot, and they too sound like 1950s dance moves (like the Turkey Trot, for example). Then after all “fun runs” have been completed — which are, by the way, two words that should never hold hands and yet they continue to do so — people begin to look toward half marathons.

I understand the concept here. You’ve just completed a fantastic goal, one that manifested through a resolution, an encouraging friend, or an extremely worthy cause for which you raised money and awareness using your feet. You’re flushed from the elements, high on endorphins, bolstered by your chanting peers and emboldened by the fact that you completed something you may not have thought you could do. I used to run, back in the day. It felt amazing. So I get it.

But that was in college. That was when I had all of this free time, when my major life choices after attending mandatory classes were to A) nap, B) study C) workout or D) drink. My answers were always A) yes, B) no, C) why not and D) yes. But now I’m in the real world — and so are my Facebook friends.

When did everyone find hours to re-train their breathing patterns, up their endurance, strengthen their core, and stretch? No one used to stretch. This whole running thing is just like those old teen movies; I feel like I’m sitting in chemistry class, minding my own business, when suddenly! the entire student population breaks out into synchronized and meticulously choreographed dance. “Is that Kenny playing trombone? When the hell did he learn to do that?”, I ask my lab partner next to me, who is actually no longer next to me because she has joined in the Rockette-worthy kick-line.

So: why didn’t I get the mass text that notified me we’d be re-creating the finale from High School Musical? And where was my running memo?

Recently, a wise friend (who runs) gently suggested that what I’m feeling is fear — of adulthood in general, and I’m projecting my anxieties on to those social media happy 5k-ers. Perhaps my friends who have suddenly developed a love for running in ice-rain, Instagramming at dawn and posting about their accomplishments in time clocked or miles raced have cracked a seminal life code that I have yet to figure out.

It’s just that for now, I’m more comfortable walking.

Photo by Mario Testino

Get On It: White Tennis Sneakers

I am not a good tennis player.

Sometimes I tell people that I am but it is a lie. I took lessons from the time I was eight until I was eight-and-a-half and in those sweet, short six months, I learned that my hand-eye coordination is not bad but catastrophically laughable. I am also not susceptible to ball hitting or catching (do with that information what you want) and as much as I like to believe that I am a woman of many colors, neon is technically not my friend.

It hates me, in fact. This theory has been further propelled only by an almost broken nose that suspended my tennis career at eight-and-a-half.

What I am good at is simple and rather unimpressive: dressing the part. Or I should really say, pulling details from the part and making them seem so my own that layman bystanders or the uninitiated are effectively forced to believe that, in the case of my white sneakers, I am an off-duty tennis pro. A pro at all sports, actually. It is that natural.

I know that when I started wearing Golden Goose it was because I loved the way their white sneakers looked. They came dirty and with suede accents and grey laces and if you wanted, a splash of green or red or gold. What I’m not sure about is what initially elicited my interest in wearing white sneakers at all. Until two years ago, they were much more nurse taking vitals than they were tennis — or street style — star.

Blame the former semblance on Reebok and the latter, maybe, on a perfect storm that has come in the wake of a popularity surge in formal shoes that are white (they took Emily Post’s post-Labor Day decree and shoved it right on up her behind) and Isabel Marant’s wedge sneakers. Whether I like to admit it or not, they were essentially a gateway drug that turned me into a fashion victim-cum-certified aerobics instructor.

The thing is, I certainly didn’t figure my proclivity for white rubber soles a trend so much as I did a function of how I liked to look. But now, with Hedi Slimane’s sneakers for Saint Laurent, The Great Adidas Original Comeback (my mom will jovially brag that she’s been wearing hers, no break, since 1972 which is not a lie) and any number of fashion sneaker brands mimicking the shoes that hearken back to the preferred footwear of The Wonder Years‘ Winnie, it’s probably time to reassess that thought and perhaps even suggest that you too jump on this bleached bandwagon?

Come on, give your bunions a break.