New York Style
Most everyone in New York is interested in looking stylish. The definition is different, however depending on the neighborhood you are in…whether on the affluent Upper West Side or on the Lower East Side. It also makes a difference what your ethnicity is. Young blacks and Hispanics are just as studied only in a different way. Generally, however, clothing ranges from dark to black.
You generally see denim and sneakers on the hip white thirty-somethings walking down 6th Street in Manhattan. The right accessories are de rigueur; it’s definitely a very studied look…it’s about the right jeans paired with the right sneakers and a white iPod in your pocket. For women, it’s levi jeans that can cost up to $500 (but heaven forbid not with a matching levi jacket) or long gathered skirts and an expensive handbag. And cell phones. “Blackberries are viewed as the professional choke-chains preferred by sadomasochistic bosses. And don’t expect to throw on high-waisted Levis and ratty high-tops and pass,” says Lonely Planet guidebook.
The cult of casual is subtle. “One of the draws of this city life is anonymity,” says Lonely Planet, “which is why New Yorkers prefer to mix their designer items back in with their regular clothes so that what they’re wearing doesn’t scream Prada or look like a glorified ad…” The American couple on our Big Onion Tour were wearing what they apparently thought was the New York Uniform…both were in black leather jackets and spendy slacks…both in expensive black leather walking shoes…and were immediately noticeable. They would have fit right in in Paris, however. I remember being remanded a few years ago in a restaurant in southern France while having a polite conversation with a lone woman at the next table who couldn’t figure out, she mused, why Americans wore those dirty sneakers on the streets in New York. You could be wearing a nice black pair of walking shoes she said, as I slowly tried to hide my all-terrain Adidas-covered feet under my table.
“What New Yorkers aren’t nonchalant about is their grooming,” LP goes on to say. “There is a slavish devotion to scubs, cuticles and perfectly coiffed just-rolled-out-of-bed hair. It takes hard work to make that impression of effortlessness.” Who this is referring to, of course, are hip young whites trying to look prosperous on waiter’s tips.
Maybe this is what we need to learn from the thirty-somethings that comprise the median age in New York…studied casualness… Us? Me? Bob?
Tags: Culture, New York City, style, USA
Zoe