See what I did there with that smooth and visually appealing blending of French and Spanish? I aim to please, thank you very much.
As it so happens, I’m currently in the city of love and croissants and impeccably dressed elderly women, and because I’m a shameless observer of human appearance and behavior in general, I spend a lot of my day staring at people (sometimes covertly, sometimes not). This has led to many meditations on how everyone looks so…comment dit-on? SO FUCKING STYLISH.
Honestly, I still can’t quite figure it out. There’s something about the shape of eyebrows and the twist of scarves and the hemming of pants here that make even snotting infants look like they just stepped out of a Vogue cover shoot. Which is not to say that my recent anthropological explorations of the Soho/Boho culture have revealed a trash heap of couture – no, people in NYC are indeed “hip,” sometimes to excess. I guess as a fashion outsider my biggest generalization would be this: when I walk the streets of Paris (in a non-prositutional sense) the color palette is often a delightful array of neutrals, speckled with some bright notes of rouge. When in New York, the streets are a boat load of crazy, and by crazy I mean color, and by color I mean crazy. Really. One time I saw this on Lafayette street:
someone dropped their hairs! or, as my dear friend Sean put it: “tumbleweave.” I’m not giving up on Paris, but let’s just say that I don’t expect to see this on Boulevard Raspail anytime soon.
So, back to meditations on chic chicas, looking at all of the ladies here made me think of some of my favorite fly girls at home (and I don’t mean JLo). I present to you: Ms. Lauren Yates, and the Pavri twins outside the Nuyorican. This is what I think of when I think of NYC:
If Paris surprises me, I’ll let you know. I like surprises, and I also like taking their snaps.