Since I’ve infiltrated the Manhattan fashion scene, I’ve found myself slightly suffocated by the pure chic-ness of it all. My days have become a mesmerizing haze of people watching, in constant awe and admiration of the natural style riding beside me on the subway on a daily basis. Allow me to back up and explain myself.
I am a recent graduate of a Big Ten university. Though we seem to have it all (brainiacs, jocks, student involvement, etc…) I often found myself frustrated and aggravated by the pathetic attempts at style that I was forced to encounter on my walks to class. Yoga pants, sweatshirts, and worse yet, Birkenstocks (agh, I know!) were the eyesores that offended me seemingly everywhere I turned. A true nightmare. So you’ll have to excuse me for being overwhelmingly impressed by the fact that in New York City, people actually get dressed every day!
And dress they do. From the Upper East Side, awash in Burberry coats and Aigner riding boots to Soho, where the eclectic Haute Hippie and upscale consignment chic run the show. Fashion is all around us here, tantalizing the tastebuds and stirring the senses.
I’ve zeroed in on two major look categories that I personally feel caught between and feel the need to discuss, as they are the two primary classes that every New York fashionista must choose between and ultimately fall under, tucked away into some drawer within the two.
The first is the NYC staple, The Village Girl. She’s eclectic and unique, a zany mix of theater geek and women’s rights activist. She may be an NYU student or a New School grad. She lives in a third story walk up in East Village or on the outskirts of Chinatown. She wears geek chic Ray-Ban glasses and combat boots over knit socks. She loves to find jewelry in secondhand stores and has an apartment that looks straight out of an Anthropologie catalogue, but cost a third of the price. She carries a vintage Celine bag and never leaves the house without her grandmother’s Cartier Love bracelet. She loves fashion and covets high end designer pieces, but always finds a way to make it her own on a budget. She’s interning at Teen Vogue or People’s Revolution, and eats at her favorite hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant every Tuesday night while re-reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
The second is what I’ve deemed the Haute Hottie. This is a girl with refined taste and well developed style. A graduate of Columbia or Yale, she lives Uptown in a high rise with a doorman. Her closet is a well-organized jumble of Louboutins and Balenciaga bags. She prefers a cab or town car to the subway, and the Met to MoMA. Her blazers are from Theory and her manicure is always fresh, and while she covets the latest styles and trends, she is careful to maintain a balanced ratio of timeless elegance to of-the-moment couture. Her Prada sunglasses are rarely out of reach, and her tailored jacket always hangs gracefully over her shoulders.
As you can see, these are two wildly different kinds of people. Walk around the city for a few hours and you’ll see both, as well as everything in between. Both are fashion conscious trend-setters with strong senses of their own style, and both are essential for peppering the New York City style scene. Where do you fit in?
Chic Like Mayonnaise 