I had the perfect summer evening this evening. You know when it finally really hits you that summer is HERE and you just want to go to the beach and stay there for three months? That was that feeling today. I finished a whole bunch of really hard school stuff today so I’m getting way too excited already. (I still have two more weeks of classes!)

Anyway, I took my dog for a walk down Fifth Avenue after dark. It was beautiful because it felt warm enough that it was almost cozy, and there was practically no one on the street so I had the windows to myself. (It’s always best to do window looking when no one is around so you get the whole window instead of having to push and shove posing tourists out of the way.) I loved the punk windows at Bergdorfs especially. I’ve seen them several times, but tonight I was able to really appreciate them and focus. I’m also surprised with myself because I think ‘Chanel punk’ is completely and entirely growing on me. This new punk fashion phase had me thinking of the meaning of punk, and I realized the sort of obvious fact that Chanel was punk in the 20′s. As much as a tweed suit may seem totally unpunk now, for women who had been wearing corsets tweed was pretty punk. So maybe I have been looking at Karl Lagerfeld the completely wrong way. Chanel is about rebelling against the standard ways of dressing, and for Karl Lagerfeld to be keeping the brand modern, it has to be rebelling against the standard ways of dressing as we see them today. (I’m embarrassed and annoyed at myself for not realizing this earlier.) 

In other news, Humans of New York posted a photo today with this caption that I’ll leave you with to expand on the ‘thinking’ theme of today’s post. The caption said, “Image is very important to me. But I’m always asking myself: ‘How much is personal expression, and how much is facade?” Such a true and interesting question that I think anyone interested in the way they present themselves relates to. 

PS. OKAY AND I JUST HAVE TO POST THIS LINK BECAUSE— THE DOG!!! IF THIS DOESN’T MAKE YOU CRY YOU PROBABLY DON’T HAVE A HEART: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/05/oklahoma-woman-finds-dog-video-tv-rubble-garcia.html

‘The Enterprising Gavin Brown’ by Nicole Phelps for style.com

Is the fashion world stealing the seats at the art world’s parties? I read an interesting article on style.com by Nicole Phelps that brought up this question. It is an interview with Gavin Brown who references the tensions between the fashion world and the art world. He calls the fashion world empty and says that fashion people don’t understand art people but that they think they do. I find this really annoying, not because it’s right or wrong, but because fashion and art are even considered rivaling worlds when at the end of the day they are essentially the same thing. It’s frustrating that fashion has to work so hard to prove itself as an art form and it’s sad that an artist isn’t able to recognize fashion or even art as more than an invitation to a party.

There are so many brilliant street style photographers. It’s every New Yorker’s dream to run into Humans of New York’s Brandon Stanton on the street or to see Bill Cunningham zip by in his blue jacket on his bicycle. Scott Schuman, Phil Oh, and Tommy Ton are also among the list of photographers that capture New York’s style in the raw.

If you had the option to be photographed by any one of the photographers, who would you choose? I would pick Bill Cunningham because his photos are in the future and in the past. I like the way he puts one photograph with others in his weekly collection to document the present moment, but if you saw the documentary on him you can remember that he keeps all his photos he ever took filed  in his home. Give him the name of a person and he can find their file. So even when your photo is tossed in the garbage with last week’s newspaper, you’re still a permanent record of a moment that you very much owned.

Who would you pick?

I was recently asked what my style is and I didn’t know how to answer. I like what I like and I dress the way I feel like, but it doesn’t fit (or at least I don’t think) under any of the typical stereotypes of dressing. Is it better to have a defined taste and define your style but limit yourself to 1/10000000 of the fashion world? I’ve been thinking about this for a little bit… I think maybe it’s not because then you can continue to reinvent yourself in the way you want to that day… I can’t decide!