Tailor Make Your Cool

So rare is it that someone can successfully tap into the workings of his own mental objects and translate those acute, elaborate thoughts to become something tangible for whoever is willing to participate. Because to walk into a store and recognize a scent as indigenous to that place, the photography as not just approved by but taken by the creative force that drives his commerce and to notice the nuanced difference between the lacquered floors and mahogany-but-same-color tables and appreciate that to make those colors work probably took months of sourcing for the sake of only one person’s appeasement, is, to me, what the shopping experience is supposed to be about.

To leave feeling like you’ve just culled an intimate relationship with a person you don’t even know, like you’ve very seriously purchased a part of his ethos — that’s something to talk about.

And when the merchandise paired with the experience is excellent, you’re either in terrible trouble or feeling really great about yourself. This, of course, depends on whether or not it’s Friday night and as *NSYNC so eloquently sang it, you ju-u-u-u-ust got paid.

At the helm of Johan Lindeberg, his brand Blk Dnm bleeds cool.

It is precisely the assemblage of high waist jeans that start exactly where you want them to at your stomach and end at a better ankle point than you’d even been looking for with the aid of a zipper down your leg, and loose fit counterparts that make you wonder how you lived before. The t-shirts fit the way they would on your trendy brother if he were a slightly beefy young boy, and the double breasted, thigh-length blazers which are “boyfriend fit” but don’t seem too perfect do exactly what you want them to: masquerade your upper body but beg the question of what happens when the jacket is off?

As for the leather jackets — the ultimate emblem of she who bleeds cool — you know my position on how trying the quest to achieve the perfect one can be. And because you know that, you also know that I found love in an anything-but-a-hopeless place at, yes, Blk Dnm.

So when a new project arises from these purveyors of swagger, what are we to do lest we concede to join?

Earlier this month, the brand launched a new project called Leather Project X wherein customers are invited to design their own leather jackets pulling from several pre-existing silhouettes and filling them in with blocks of different fabric and color — whatever the hell you want. It seems like the most effective way to tailor make your very own sense of “cool girl” which is why when I caught wind of said project, I was determined to participate in pursuit of constructing something equal parts awesome and weird.

What I came out with registered much more awesome than it did weird with its red suede front, black detailing and faux-croc back.

When I tried it on, I knew I’d finally mastered the art of faking it.

It’s like a white wall just found me, begged me to lean against it while I peppered my coat with a beanie and ripped jeans and before I could even spell out Daria’s last name, W-e-r-b…I was finally, irrefutably cool.

Of course, it wore off. But those were the best 16 seconds of my life.

Rag & Bone jeans, Blk Denim jacket and t-shirt, Theory beanie and Fratelli Rossetti shoes.