Leandra Medine's Blog, page 750

Because It’s Cold

Charlotte and I anticipated shooting three forthcoming style stories yesterday. One was another installment of How to Make an Old X New Again and the other two are a surprise, surprise, puppy surprise.

Much to my discontent, however, what weather forecasters suggested would be a mere morning of flurries snowballed (for lack of a better term and my propensity for bad puns) into a full day of our gazing out the window, feeling like the contents of a snow globe.

At around 12PM, during a lull period, we walked to my apartment anticipating the termination of the morning’s white but of course as Murphy’s Law would have it, once I was changed, the city started to look all too much like a Dickens novel once again and that was the end of that. Defeated, dejected, with no new content to share, our glide — not walk — back to the office was met by an interesting point one Amelia Diamond made. I was dressed like the physical manifestation of at least five posts I had recently written.

And I hate to admit it because she looks and acts like a butt plug but she was totally right.

Yesterday I wrote a love letter to mid-heels and what do you know, the navy leather boots from Zara that I was wearing featured just the perfect number of accrued inches in the form of short heel. We kicked off our Saturday Slideshow installment with a tribute to sweaters and is it just me or does that chunky-ass Marc Jacobs ivory knit thing I’m wearing looks a lot like, you know, a sweater.

There was a story just last week detailing the tribulations linked to uncovering the perfect jeans and though I maintain that I have yet to find them, these are the precise rendition I mention in that story as having come close to superlative.

And you remember She Who Wears a Hat, don’t you? I practically wrote a dissertation on women who wear headgear. Or how about that Ode to Neck Scarves? I’m practicing both those trends with the aforeposted Maison Michel wide brim topper and a navy blue Isabel Marant neckerchief that makes me feel like my mother in all the right ways.

The combination of hat and scarf hearkens back to Karl Lagerfeld’s week old homage to The Old West and I’ve been endorsing ankle-length coats and minaudieres as day-time handbags for just about as long as I’ve been picking my eyebrows, which according to my deteriorating right brow leaves us (the brow, the coat, the bag, myself) at, let’s say, two and a half years of dedicated work.

So, there you have it, folks. I really, really, really never tell you to do something that I don’t want to do myself.

Just one question: do you take my suggestions? And for the love of all that is heated, how in the good name of forgoing gloves are you staying warm?

To Glove or Not to Glove?

Were you a member of Model Congress in high school?

No?

Haha. Me neither.

Why would I ever elect to stay at school after hours only to refute or support fictitious bills as proposed by the equally fraudulent United States Congress? Here at Man Repeller, however, we’ve quietly enstated a new installment that we’re calling Model Congress internally because Amelia and I hold opposing positions on so many topics in conjunction with fashion. You remember the pants vs. man debate, don’t you? Or less recently, the one on dressing like a bowl of lucky charms vs. a funeral attendee. The first came in the wake of discussing the cost of looking natural. And today, we talk gloves.

Frankly, I hate them. I know it would be unfair to call them feckless because they do serve a fairly utilitarian purpose that is twofold — to keep your hands warm and to keep them moist but frankly, I am terrible with accoutrements unless they come on to stay on. Like a choker or a Cartier love bracelet. One time, when I was sixteen, I borrowed a pair of fancy-ass gloves from my grandmother because it was 25 degrees outside and I wasn’t wearing any. In just thirty minutes I lost them. I don’t even know how that’s possible considering the fact that I’d spent that time walking from 68th and Madison to 82nd and East End.

Sometimes I wonder whether there’s a purgatory where all the vanished socks and gloves of Manhattan are keeping themselves warm while our digits beg for summer to get its damn show on the road. Gloves unlike socks are typically fairly expensive which makes their loss particularly distressing. The fact of the matter is, I am lucky enough to have a coat — two even, so why not use the rather robust pockets built into the coats to shield my fingers from hypothermia?

That or a pair that come tethered to the jacket. Never mind, that wouldn’t work either — I am a woman of many rings, rings that I love to wear, rings that cannot be worn beneath tight gloves and as aforestated, I hate to take off my accoutrements so let’s just settle on three (five) of the best moisturizing hand creams together and call it a day without gloves — which is just like a Sunday that comes with no hang over, shall we?

-Leandra Medine

***

Don’t listen to her, you guys. People who don’t wear gloves during the winter drive me crazy. First of all, it’s rude to the people who make gloves. Here are these hard working people, pouring their energy into creating a pair of hand socks that have got to be tricky as fuck to create pattern for and sew — can you imagine stitching four fingers and a freaky thumb properly so that the fabric encases human paws without giving its wearer a case of supermarket lobster claw? No, you cannot. — and then then there you are, throwing your hands into the air sometimes singing “ayy yo” like you’re friggin Taio Cruz.

It’s also childish, because only a toddler would elect to have their skin pierced with ice-air when there is, in all seriousness, a very good option that isn’t all that annoying to wear. Actually, I think that’s the only argument for those who don’t wear them: that gloves are annoying. You know what else is annoying? Hypothermia. Frost bite. Birds. Exactly.

What’s more is that gloves can be really, really chic, like these pony hair Acne ones that I’ve talked about before, or this cashmere lined pair from Club Monaco, or this camel colored twinset just begging to be loved. They’ve even come up with astronaut-level technology to allow you to text and stay gloved (like these guys at J. Creezy in a variety of flavors).

So unless your hands are so furry that people confuse you for Chewbacca (which they might! no judgement!), or if you’re Taio Cruz, then I really see no point to letting your hands go commando. You’re just begging for them to fall off, and if they do — no sympathy from me.

-Amelia Diamond

***

Well, may I just say: that is silly. Amelia dumbass Diamond obviously doesn’t realize that my hands falling off would duplicate her workload thus intensifying her sense of sympathy so comprehensively, it actually becomes a handicap she too experiences. But, uh, your turn! On the topic of this bill, put forward by the Senate of Y-Chromosomatic Repulsion and Hand Cloaking, how do you fare?

All Hail the Mid-Heel

They say the difference between smart people and stupid people is that the former learns from their mistakes. The stupid people, on the other hand, just continue to either make the same mistakes or confront the same difficulties without supposing that there might be a solution.

In the case of my idiocy, I recently spent a chunk of mornings putting on the same pair of jeans (they are my beloved; mid-rise, slouchy and cuffed to fall just an inch below the heel of my foot) and then taking them off. I would try on every shoe in my closet only to render each and every pair more useless than a pharmacy branded nail file. This is not a normal routine to indulge especially when, as a self-proclaimed sick fuck, I own upward of 50 pairs of shoes.

To say that I might never need another pair is a worse understatement than to say that brie cheese is a decent snack.

It occurred to me by early November that I was experiencing a mild-to-severe hankering for a pair of shoes I’d previously had a hard time acknowledging. Where I have historically sympathized with that which is finite (see: flats or heels), I was looking for the shoe equivalent of Switzerland.

It was to be neither here nor there. Pro nor against. I wanted neutrality.

The thing about these shoes is that they’re also like Paris. Which is to say that they’re a good idea. In some ways, too, they can be likened to New York but only in that if you need to get somewhere really late, they will facilitate that journey seamlessly.

Last season during Paris Fashion Week, I came across ballet slippers in the window at the Isabel Marant boutique on Rue Jacob. They featured a heel no shorter than two inches, no taller than three, and when I saw the lone French woman in the entire infested-by-Americans shop try them on, I knew that Isabel Marant and her vanguards were onto something.

In a world post wedge sneaker and loosely prior to the proliferation of man shoes, it can be assumed at worst, granted at best, that comfort trumps beauty and as a result, so too redefines what we consider beautiful.

If, for example, you were to see a woman walking down the street, preposterous sneaker wedge balloon-tongue on foot, you probably wouldn’t think, what the hell. If you’re initiated, it’d be more like, damn, she’s cool or damn, she’s late. I might actually argue, in fact, that the induction of Birkenstocks into the fashion zeitgeist is a result of the modern, wedge-sneaker-propelled conception of “ugly chic.”

What about she who “gets it” though, but just prefers to remain, let’s say, dainty south of the ankle?

As someone who prides herself on an ability to masquerade her gender using nothing but thematic clothes and corresponding accoutrements, I must admit that there are days when I just want a delicate shoe to serve as a reminder — if only for myself — that underneath the premeditated exterior, there is a woman. Which is where my foot stands in defense of the mid heel.

But I’m not necessarily talking kitten heels here. I’m envisioning your favorite winter boots in ballet-shoe formation. Or your grandmother’s old Ferragamo flats, the tangible articulation of Giorgio Armani’s lady and the spate of shoes from not just Isabel Marant but even less recently, Valentino and Chloé or more recently, Charlotte Olympia and Céline and Maiyet.

Of course, my opinion is but a finger tip in the footwear basin, so, please, expound on your mid-heel mandate.

I Hate Saying “Hi”

As I’ve gotten older I find that there’s nothing quite so satisfying as the act of declaring that which I do not like and furthermore — avoiding it. For example, I can’t stand eating cauliflower, so I don’t. It was one of the most liberating things I’ve ever done, declaring that I, Amelia, actually do not like consuming creepy white plants that taste like library breath. And I realized that despite its festivity, I hate drinking champagne, so I stopped that as well. (One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind, am I right?) But my recent and perhaps most significant epiphany of that which I don’t like and therefore won’t do is a bit more tied in to the involvement of others: I hate saying “hi.” Hate it.

It’s not the word itself, because “hi” is fairly unassuming when it comes to syllables and requires the lowest level of intellect to get the point across. And I’m fine with its saluting cousins — the formal hello, the casual hey. I’ll type it in a text or an email just fine. What I can’t stand is the act of Saying Hi face to face while in transition from one point to another, no matter how leisurely I may appear to be walking.

Like many of the proverbial lightbulbs that eventually switch on above my head, this realization took a few documented occurrences before I was able to pinpoint my aversion. The first most notable times surround who else but my father. Aren’t parents always, according to therapists, the root from which all of our neurosis stem?

My dad loves saying hi. He is Mister Hello. At the bank, at the grocery story, on the sidewalk, at the movie theaters — there he is, addressing strangers like he’s in the running for Greeter of the Week at Home Depot. One time, while leaving a restaurant in downtown Manhattan my dad went rogue and shouted “Hello!” at a stranger coming in the door. I was mortified and so was said stranger who, as I pointed out to my dad, no doubt thought we were a father/daughter tag-team ready to steal wallets and take names.

Another scarring juncture includes the one time I thought I saw my ex-boyfriend on the corner of 57th and 6th avenue. Encouraged by my stupid roommate who said it would be rude of me to not say hi, I ran up and tapped my ex on the shoulder. As he wheeled around I stood there expectantly (waiting for some sort of, “OH MY GOD! NO WAY!,” I suppose), but instead he said, “Uh…do I know you?” It wasn’t my ex-boyfriend.

As if that’s not insane enough, I’ve realized that the people I avoid are those who I genuinely enjoy and would love to see, yet I cross the street due to my lame pretense of hating the ritual of hello: the stopping mid-walk, the waving in their face until I get their attention, tapping them on the solider or worse, having them see me first but due to my poor eyesight it takes me eight squinty beats longer to realize who the hell this person is. I mean saying hi is exhausting.

A few weeks ago I was walking past a restaurant and, fairly certain I spotted my friend named Maggie, I tucked my head down so I could become engrossed in an imaginary text. I got only a few steps past her when I heard, “Amelia?” Shit. Caught.

And then just last week, I was crossing the street holding Leandra’s arm like two old ladies on an icy sidewalk when I pointed out that my friend Jason was right in front of us. “That’s my friend Jason!,” I told her. “So go say hi,” she said back. “No way, that’s so much effort,” I responded. “I’ll just tell him later.”

And I do, which I’ve been told is even weirder: I admit to my avoidance of the “hi” later on. “I saw you last week!” I reported gleefully to Jason at a party that weekend. “Why didn’t you say hi?,” he asked.

Same with my friend Maggie at the restaurant — I admitted to her immediately that I recognized her but didn’t stop on purpose. “Why?”

“I just kind of hate saying hi,” I shrugged. To which they both replied, “I totally get it.”

And that, if you ask me, is precisely why I’m friends with them in the first place.

Champagne and cauliflower, anyone?

Accidental Style Icon: Speedy Gonzales

I don’t know many Mexicans who dress like Speedy Gonzales nor do I many mice who wear its oversimplified conception. Furthermore, I’ve yet to come across a red-nosed, black and white cat who is constantly in pursuit of a meal that seems to perpetually take the shape of the sombrero-wearing, red-neckerchief doling cutie-pie of a rodent. That I should feel compelled to cite a rodent as not just cute, but “cutie pie” presents a point of victory, I think, when considering The Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.

Tell me you grew up on those guys.

Sometimes I wonder whether my imagination would have afforded me the same tendencies had I not believed that all rabbits boasted Brooklyn accents and were unanimously popular wise-crackers who failed in the romantic depot. To that note, would I have been able to sympathize with the Man Repeller movement as comprehensively if Lola Bunny didn’t emanate that no-bullshit attitude?

Would my current affection for Taylor Tomasi Hill’s hair color be as poignant had it not been for Yosemite Sam? By goodness, come to think of it, would Chanel have been able to cultivate that impressively accurate atmosphere in Dallas last week had it not been for Sam’s effusive antics?

All skunks are not created equal. Pepe le Pew just wanted to love. And maybe Wile E. Coyote wasn’t always hungry for Road Runner. Maybe he just needed someone to talk to. As for Porky Pig, is that where the prospect of a career in speech pathology began?

But back to Mr. Gonzales.

It occurred to me — or rather, to my friend Roxana — about two weeks while I was sitting at a restaurant in Nolita with her that I’d been taking unwitting style cues from the Mexican mouse.

Clothed in a red neck scarf (this was on the heels of my story on how to wear them), a yellow felt hat (I know it sounds unusual but it’s actually more ivory than it is yellow) and a white sweater (fine, this too was more ivory than it was white) that I had worn multiple times that week, it was hard to refute her assertion. Not that I would want to — I pride myself on a proclivity to pull style cues from unlikely places. (See also: The Lion King).

But this one, this one I really wanted to knock out of the park. If fashion lets us assume different identities and clothes are the vessel that actualize that transformation, what we’re left with is simply choice. Which identities will we evince and why?

Lately, I’ve wanted to evoke the spirit of something indelibly jovial which is why after Roxana’s shrewd appraisal of outfit, I went home, picked through my closet and recreated an even more accurate depiction of the Looney Tune’s look.

With a vintage Jean Paul Gaultier blouse that Kate gave me as a holiday gift, Rosie Assoulin pants, a proper panama hat and a red ribbon (not unlike the one from my sadistic childhood favorite, The Girl with The Red Ribbon), the outfit became what I want to call the perfection depiction of what I want to say is my favorite theory: that fashion doesn’t have to be serious to be really, really good.

And with that, I encourage you to try your best Marvin the Martian.

Also, obviously, do let me know who you think wore it best — never mind who can run faster.

Viva America

On the heels of Karl Lagerfeld’s deeply Americana inspired Metiers d’Art pre-fall show earlier this week, we’re proposing that your Saturday morning be spent in bed right next to a generous dose of American patriotism. So, do like we always tell you to and forget the hangover, the waking up, forget the “gym” (Haha! Lol! Jk!), forget to feed the dog if you have to. It’s just you, the bed, the us and, hehe, The U.S.

You can get your shit together on Sunday.

And as for the music that accompanies your sweet slumber-and-clicks:

We would never lead you astray. See you Monday!

The Empress Has Spoken

There’s a meme going around the Internet that reads, “Beyoncé has the same amount of hours in a day as you do.” If we didn’t find it palpable previous to this morning’s surprise full album drop, it sure is hard to digest now. In a mere matter of hours, this crazy global communication system we call the Internet has become the Beyonternet.

So let’s take a moment to review some of the things I’ve done during some of my hours, shall we? On Sunday I ate oatmeal but didn’t finish it and then kind of forgot about it, so it dried up and then I had to run hot water over it again and then scrape the cement into my sink, which then clogged, and so I called a plumber. Wednesday I found a nickel! And this morning I brushed my teeth.

Beyoncé, on the other hand, went rogue and released an album like, “SURPRISE!” How the ass did she do it? How did the most watched gift ever given to our solar system create a body of 14 songs and 17 music videos all while touring, breast feeding, Instagramming and generally living whereas the greatest thing I’ve accomplished this year let alone today is finally, finally, getting that weird freckle looked at (which, I’ll have you know, turned out to be a sprinkle).

It is possible that Beyoncé exists on a plane separate from one of human comprehension. Where we are able to process the first through second dimensions and exist in the third, Beyoncé sits above the fourth. On this plane of which she presides, time as we know it is incorporeal. She’s able to pass in and out of our universe for blocks of time that we might consider centuries, but her ability to manipulate our cognitive hours allows her to permeate our mind space without us realizing she’s been gone.

That or she has an identical twin.

Without further ado, we at Team MR give you a series of one sentence reviews of the eponymous album.

Pretty Hurts Sometimes it feels like she’s looking directly through our souls and in a quiet, motherly, soothing inflection, saying “I know.”

Haunted Had this been anyone else’s music video: gratuitous eroticism. Since it’s Beyoncé’s: pure glamour. Also, damn.

Drunk In Love (feat. Jay Z) Nominating this to be the first one club-remixed and my right arm cannot wait.

Blow Sorry I actually didn’t listen to this song yet because my ears don’t work when Beyoncé LOOKS LIKE THIS.

No Angel “No I’m not an angel either but at least I’m trying,” she sings. LOL I love when she pretends to be “one of us.”

Partition Eradicate the madonna/whore complex with one play of this track and just feel S E X Y.

Ghost A haunting song, a mesmerizing video.

Jealous Lyrics sure to be in about 8 million people’s Instagram profiles.

Rocket I think this song may be about sex.

Yoncé Joan Smalls, Chanel Iman & Jourdan Dunn…PLUS BEYONCÉ. My computer just exploded.

Mine (feat. Drake) Make a baby, thank me later.

XO Ummm, Jay? Beyoncé is on the phone, she wants to talk to you.

Grown Woman If this had been the Pepsi commercial, I would have become a cola convert.

***Flawless (feat. Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche) Bump-it-in-your-car-with-the-window-down female ANTHEM.

Superpower (feat. Frank Ocean) Play this while you have a long avenue stretching in front of you and a little bit of time to walk slower than normal and just fucking strut, man. STRUT.

Heaven I need to lie down with this song and take a minute. And then cry.

Blue (feat. Blue Ivy) This song is perfect so allow us to babble beyond one second as we wrap up the album that will essentially become the soundtrack to our lives: Leandra and I once hypothesized that when we die, a little piece of us becomes Beyoncé. Beyoncé is therefore the heavens and the stars; we, the matter; and all of us — each and everyone of of us — a culmination of something more beautiful and great than the dimensions on this planet allow.

I think that’s why everyone loves her so much. Beyoncé is us.

Or are we… Blue Ivy?

Ok, your turn. Review the songs, the videos, and tell us which one(s) will be on repeat for the rest of your life.

Real Women Wear Khakis

Does any garment speak more accurately to the principles of a business casual dress code better than khakis do?

I think not.

In my own, diminutive effort to debunk the universal supposition that a. khakis are for men and b. are best when worn on Summer Fridays, I bought a pair. To be fair, I’d initially set out to find them because my partner-in-sex told me he wanted khakis. Why? To dress more appropriately his age. (What does this mean, you wonder? Well, evidently, for a 28-year-old guy from the outside, 76-year-old gentleman from the inside, quite simply that his internal clock wants his exterior to catch the hell up.)

He works an office job that requires suits and therefore leaves only weekends for recreational pant wearing. That any man should elect to wear khakis on the golden days of sartorial freedom brings up another issue — particularly when said man is 28. 28! Distressed denim, dirty t-shirts, flannel, plaid, corduroy, you name it — he should try it. So why the khakis? Why the imminent weekend half-zip? Why me?

When he asked where I stood on the topic of khakis, I told him about 300 miles north, which made coming home the following Saturday evening with a new pair for myself awkward as it meant I was a. a hypocrite, b. a weirdo. Frankly, I’d gone to Acne in pursuit of a happy medium — a respite for suit-wearing oddballs wanting to appear at least somewhat cool, but as I moseyed over The Great Wall of Pants, there they were.

The khakis.

I pulled a pair from its compartment, tilted my head to the left as I (and Golden Retrievers) do when trying to understand something that otherwise confounds me, and as quickly as I could forget his name, I forewent my husband’s request and tried on the pants for myself. The result was equal parts high waist and slouch that made me feel much more like Jenna Lyons, or Katharine Hepburn than the incipiently purported off-duty maritime lawyer. Of course, they would only work as well as I worked them which is precisely where a fancy-ass tweed jacket (Marc Jacobs, Yoox), off set by a Uniqlo-branded flannel plaid and some glittery neck shit (Dannijo) + shoe shit (Lube-outin — get it? Get it?) comes into play.

That, and I’m still hung up on my new favorite thought – that when they say “She wears the pants,” they should mean it.

Finally, just one question: would you wear this to a holiday party?

How about now?

The Cost of Luxury

Like you, I’ve been weathering the holidays since the beginning of November. Let’s blame Thanksgivukkah. I did, anyway. Care of the epic ritual mash-up, the much-maligned season descended even earlier than usual this year. By the time Turkey Day at last rolled around some weeks ago, the insufferable cheer seemed inescapable. Carols blared. Starbucks painted every town red. Your second cousin mailed her customary, politically correct card. And, meanwhile, all over the Internet, department stores and boutiques and blogs reminded you that the time had come not only to draw up your own wish list, but also to brainstorm a bevy of presents for your nearest and dearest as well.

At first, I resisted the incessant click bait. I had exams to study for and places to be and episodes of The Mindy Project to watch. But when Gwyneth debuted her Goop-approved guide to gifting, I succumbed. I couldn’t help it. My equivocations on green juice notwithstanding, I harbor a not-so-secret crush on the idiosyncratic starlet. Was I surprised that the same woman who told a British talk show that she’d rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a tin also admires a set of Hermès playing cards and a $200 spun brass teapot? No, I was not.

(She is apparently eyeing Paul Cunningham’s “Handsome Dan Leather Head Football,” too, but I couldn’t tell you how much BespokeGlobal.com is charging for it. To view pricing, you must have an account on the site. I do not.)

There is, of course, something obscene about Paltrow and her list and the demographic to which she caters. And yet there is also something fabulous about it — the way so much of fashion favors fantasy over reality. Why else do we look at so many pretty things we cannot afford? Why else do we feast our eyes on breathtaking art and hand-beaded couture and $120 Christopher Jarrat slingshots sourced from Gwyneth’s “latest find for discovering art”?

But there is a darker side to the extravagance.

Last week, the New Yorker published a stunning essay by Carmen Maria Machado. This year, Machado is spending this holiday season “working in sales at a store in a giant luxury mall . . . near one of the richest Zip Codes in the United States.” There, she peddles expensive skin creams to preteens, preternaturally posh millennials, and affluent middle-aged women. For the most part, her customers are not the problem. In her own words, they are “at their best, perfectly friendly, and, at their utmost worst, uninterested in my presence.” That is: “This is not going to be an essay criticizing the behavior of the rich.” Instead, Machado describes the experience of being so constantly aware of the presence of wealth and her astonishment “at the ease with which it moves around” her.

As the studies she goes on to cite confirm, her feelings of alienation are not some figment of her imagination. Nor is she the only one suffering them. Kathleen Vohs, a marketing professor at the University of Minnesota, found that “exposure to money, even if it’s not your own, can desensitize you to the needs of others.” It can also make you depressed and antisocial.

As a window-shopping enthusiast, I have long associated upscale goods (greats?) with an aspirational approach to style. After all, they are the stuff glossy editorials are made of! For me, at least, the gorgeously impractical items that Goop or Vogue or even a site like Farfetch is featuring have become sources of inspiration entirely independent of their astronomical costs. But Machado is pointing out that — even as I might like to pretend otherwise — their price tags are not somehow “besides the point.” For the people who spend their days surrounded by them — the cashiers and the poorly compensated stylists and even the interns — the psychological effects are very real.

As someone who writes about so many dresses and shoes and bags that she could never consider buying (see: Chanel 2.55), I wonder how or if a version of Machado’s argument applies to me and to those in the industry at large. (Has it ever applied to you?) Is it fair — or even possible — to enjoy only the fiction of fashion with no regard for its cost? Does the sticker shock Machado pronounces rightly render such fantasy impossible? If so, what should designers — especially those artists who themselves once struggled to make ends meet — do about it?

‘Tis the season for exchange! Let’s Talk About It.

The Chanel Hoedown

There’s a lot of pride in Texas. It took spending less than 24 hours there for me to come to that conclusion. Sensibly so — it’s a state that seems so rooted in our history, so integral to the soul of the United States, The American Struggle and the subsequent road to triumph. And particularly in Dallas, a city amidst a creative renaissance, did that sense of emphatic pride pour through every conversation that took place between the local and the misplaced Americans in town to celebrate Karl Lagerfeld’s 2013 Métiers d’Art show.

If last year’s event in Edinburgh moonlit as the regal wedding ceremony and reception that betrothed Karl Lagerfeld to the town in Scotland, Tuesday night’s show, held at Fair Park, a national historic landmark in Dallas, was a decadent vow renewal, officiating the paramount bond not between Chanel and any number of its previous preferred cities or even its place de naissance, Paris, but between Chanel and its heretofore most significant ally.

When I walked into the landmark-cum-convention center, it didn’t matter what would happen or how it would happen. It would be impressive. As one employee to Fair Park put it when asked whether the constructed-from-scratch bridge, linking two separate rooms (one, I might add, boasted a mechanical bull under which Mr. Lagerfeld spent a good portion of his night clapping for his friends while they held themselves up on the abruptly oscillating machinery with poise) was safe to walk on, she quipped, rolling her eyes to indicate how silly the question was that “Yeah, it’s Chanel.” Duh.

The night started in a large, abandoned, factory-sized makeshift drive-thru movie screening room. 70 vintage cars were parked across a long floor, appropriately illuminated by anything-but-hackneyed haystacks and neon lights. The cars waited for their passengers to occupy the seats and then, cue rolling credits, Karl Lagerfeld’s short film, The Return, commenced.

The short’s context seeded us in Dallas with a purpose: we were celebrating a rebirth. One manufactured by Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus in 1957, just three years after Coco Chanel reopened her business after a fifteen year closure prompted by World War II. Her return to fashion was turbulent if not dismal — the criticism was plenty, fans few but as evidenced by the film, American press stood behind an untrammeled understanding that Coco Chanel was a visionary.

In 1957, Marcus invited Chanel to receive The Neiman Marcus Award for Distinguished Service and following her acceptance, a surprise fashion show took place, chased by a lavish dinner. They say history repeats itself and so I suppose that 57 years later, we were fulfilling that prophecy – granted, with Frito-Lay bagged chili and Texan whiskey — but the ponchos were everything.

Karl Lagerfeld was famously quoted for saying “I love Texas. I love Texans” during the last WWD CEO Summit. Such a declaration would make perfect sense after having observed his version of Texas, constructed from the depths of his ineffable imagination.

A history lesson evoked the spirit of the Old West with a hint of Saloon-style dressing in knee-length robes that boasted virginal white ruffles, in addition to the surely-to-make-headlines Indian headdress that closed the show on Caroline de Maigret. Interspersed among less abrasive feather headbands were more traditional cowgirl cadences of bolo ties and the smart, unobtrusive use of denim. The mid-length skirts were paired with knee high boots that slouched, and the fringe ranged from suede to knit.

The unanimous, post-show response was an electrified, “Wow.”

You know how if you wear a pair of sunglasses, the lenses often saturate what you see? The sky will appear slightly bluer, the grass a bit greener, your skin a touch more sun-kissed. Though Coco Chanel once said that “good taste is something spiritual,” it’s also kind of like that pair of sunglasses. The collection could have functioned as a hideously obvious homage to the West. To denim, and cowboy boots and hats. But it was a far stretch from that. It was a pair of  sunglasses disguising a collection that told of gratitude, respect, admiration, amiability and excitement when considering authentic American style.

And to see not just American style, but American style underscored by the hallmark of French style, and the house that has both contributed to and created French style — that is ample enough reason for any Texan to feel proud.