Sartorially speaking, the thing I’ve noticed here is how this city’s chic set really latches on to a trend: I’ve seen so many Balmain shoulders I sometimes think I’m in a game of kinky, high-heeled touch football. And don’t even get me started about the fur chubbies. I mean, I knew that fur would be big here—but it’s, like, really big here. But just when I was convinced that this town took all its cues from Paris, I discovered it might also have the ability to subversively inspire a few trends of its own.
Yesterday, a bunch of us piled onto a bus (I totally called the backseat) for a tour of the city, and a very chic thing happened when Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, Byrdie Bell, and Sophia Hesketh tried to get into the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Because Restoin-Roitfeld was in a scandalously tight pair of leggings, Bell’s long hair was down, and Hesketh dared to expose her legs, all three had to nick their friends’ scarves—which naturally happened to be cashmere and from Vuitton or Burberry—and whip their legs and hair into looks that were both orthodox and surprisingly fashion-forward. That’s them outside the church in their layered glory. So the question is: After
slap bracelets, will these ladies bring back the sarong? The more I think about it, the more I realize how appropriate a multitasking, two-in-one scarf skirt is for times like these. What’s more, it being mere days before HBO’s
Grey Gardens premieres, there couldn’t be a better tribute to Little Edie, whose odd circumstances encouraged her to make convertible skirts of her own. —Derek Blasberg