Color

This past weekend I went to my neighborhood laundromat and dropped off two shopping bags-full of dry cleaning. One of the particular joys of living in Harlem is that two shopping bag-fulls of dry cleaning amounts to $19. The drawback is having to have a full conversation in Spanish each and every time about the many god-children of Dona Francesca (not really that terrible, just time consuming) and often submitting myself to sartorial criticism. This ??? This can't be your size, its way too big. This??? This is a man's blazer. You wear things muy raro...

This saturday I received a full-on scolding though. Por que no te llevan colores?? She took me through my bags--blanco, blanco, gris, negro, negro--so deprimante! (depressing). Its true, I have items with color to liven up the rest, jackets, mostly, or say, a yellow cardigan, but i'm usually happiest with black, white, grey (my favorite), and nude-beige. It's almost as if color has lost its edge; its chicness. Editorially, in my industry, in New York, whatever.

Until now. Dries Van Noten, Wow.

Dries uses pastel colors that look more Eggleston than Miami Vice, rich, beautiful, sunny and greyed at the same time. Nothing contrived. Color with dimension instead of a flat pop. Couple that with splices--like origami folding papers--of DVN's signature patterns, and with every progressing slide, I am falling deeply in love.

A fait accompli of giving me something I wasn't looking for and didn't even know I wanted.







I'm not a full on convert yet though, these are still my favorite looks from his collection: