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Lusting After Fashion: Wanderlust Goes Vintage Shopping in Jersey with Anouck Lepere May 13, 2011
Before she became a model, Anouck Lepere was studying architecture in her native Antwerp. Then, in 1999, her friend Dries Van Noten cajoled her into walking in his show in Paris. Since then she's walked runways for Gucci, Prada, Chanel, D&G, closed for Christian Lacroix, lent her face to campaigns by Missoni and Louis Vuitton, and been featured in Allure, Dazed & Confused, Playboy, Nylon, and German and Japanese Vogue, to name a few. Her look is clean and fresh, with a blushing, youthful glow that belies the fact that she is a very busy woman.
For the MINI Countryman Wanderlust Movement, Anouck wanted to momentarily step back from the frenetic pace of the fashion industry without leaving her classic sense of style behind. With the landscape whizzing by in full bloom, the model escaped the narrow streets of New York City for a relaxing and rejuvenating vintage shopping trip in New Jersey. Her partners in crime for the day were Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, a creative director and international icon of beauty and style, and Natalie Joos, casting director and Anouck's long-time friend and stylist.
It was a trip the ladies had been planning for quite some time, but between everyone's hectic schedules and city-bound lifestyle, it had been hard to make it happen. "I haven't done a road trip in a few years," said Anouck. "I don't have a car, so I don't get out of the city much." The plight of the city girl yearning for an escape to a more bucolic setting is the very embodiment of Wanderlust. Now, with a MINI Countryman at her disposal, Anouck was finally able to indulge her long-simmering fantasy of getting away.
A gentle spring rain was misting the Garden State as the friends pulled up to their first stop, Another Man's Treasure vintage boutique in Jersey City. The girls found plenty of pieces to work with in the shop's small but painstakingly curated collection, occasionally even venturing out into the drizzle when a hat or gown of particular interest required closer inspection in natural light.
Two hours later, it was onwards to Montclair, where the lush spring foliage even inspired Natalie to the traitorous tweet: "I'm so sold on New Jersey. Sorry New York." The picturesque, old-fashioned downtown offered up one charming discovery after the next: homemade sodas, antique furniture stores, and a boutique called Speakeasy Vintage, where the troupe found themselves snowed under with delightfully unique suits and gowns from every decade.
Once back in the city, the afternoon's carefree mood prevailed. The three ladies were joined by friends Paola Kodacki, a fashion photographer, model James Penfold, and the milliner and woman about town Ashley Ruprecht, as they wrapped their adventure with a laid back round of cocktails at Hotel Delmano in Williamsburg. Modeling their recent acquisitions for the newly joined members of their crew, the returning travelers got the chance to recount their day of Wanderlust while looking dazzling at the same time.