From Prada to Plaid
Meditations in an Ace Parking Lot
I’ve recently come to realize that there are two versions of me: the woman dressing for a dramatic aperitivo in Milan, and the woman buying potting soil in plaid. Every place I go seems to pull a different character out of my wardrobe, which apparently changes completely depending on my proximity to a hardware store versus a Prada window. The same woman who wears an oversized old Miu Miu necklace in Milan will absolutely spend an hour searching for chic gardening gloves in a small town — because apparently, regardless of location, it still all comes down to accessories.
When I’m in Milan, getting dressed feels almost theatrical, like stepping into a performance or indulging in a particularly glamorous version of playing dress-up. I reach for all of my favorite extravagant things, and somehow they make perfect sense there. I layer fine knits over feathered skirts and crisp white collared navy car coats, wandering from Cavalli e Nastri to L’Arabesque in search of treasures before dinner at Giacomo. I’ll dress up just to go to Marchesi for a macchiato, simply because the occasion feels worthy of it…
…thank you, sciure, for teaching me your ways.
In California, and often in Tuscany too, a different side of me comes through, one that feels connected to the version of myself who spent entire summers barefoot outdoors long before I ever decided to study fashion or move to New York. I find myself in plaid button-downs, as I run between hardware stores and local markets, searching for practical things, though always the most beautiful version of them: rubber gloves with the most subtly embossed fingernail beds, for example.
I still feel like me, only another facet of her. Maybe certain environments simply draw out different sides of who we already are. The constant, no matter where I am, seems to be a pursuit of beauty and a desire to show up thoughtfully, shaped by the world around me and the things happening within it.
I often think about the different versions of ourselves that might exist had our lives unfolded differently. Of course, we’d be shaped by different experiences, but it’s funny to imagine how different we might actually look. What references would define us? What would we find beautiful?
So much of my style is tied to specific memories and images. On the rare occasion I wear ripped jeans, I’m channeling Morrissey gliding around onstage in the ’80s, from YouTube videos I watched as a teenager. When I pair red and blue together, I’m chasing the saturated Technicolor feeling of films like The Red Shoes. A babydoll dress inevitably makes me think of Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby, and I briefly consider chopping off my hair. And when I wear plaid in Tuscany, I’m doing it for comfort, but I’m also referencing a plaid shirt from a past The Row collection that I eventually found vintage on eBay for twenty dollars (a nice old Chloé version here).
I love the idea that the places we visit can influence both us and our style. It suggests openness — that we are paying attention, absorbing things, and continuing to evolve. There’s something healthy about being malleable, but also about knowing yourself well enough to maintain a center. Maybe balance is found there: in having a core sense of self, while allowing life to add little layers along the way — a pair of espadrilles from the south of France, or a pair of kung fu shoes scooped up in Chinatown, a new element of your style discovered somewhere unexpected.
The thing I always return to is the idea that style should never be fixed in place. It shouldn’t be pinned down, labeled too neatly, or reduced to a few tidy adjectives. We would never describe a life that way, or a person, because who we are is constantly shifting: contradictory, emotional, shaped by memory, by longing, by circumstance, by the places we pass through and the things we fall in love with along the way. This is something I talk about extensively in my book.
Maybe style is at its most interesting when it reflects that expansiveness. When it remains porous and alive. The important thing, I think, is to keep wandering…through the world, through different versions of yourself, through new obsessions and experiences. To keep playing dress-up a little. To allow yourself to evolve without clinging too tightly to who you once were. There’s something beautiful about becoming, about letting life leave traces on you, little by little, until one day you realize you’ve changed…and thankfully so.
x
Jenny
