On Fall and Fashion: From New England to NYFW

It was never my intention for this to be solely a fashion blog. Instead, I wanted it to be an outlet for my adventures, my enthusiasms that took me to great places, experiencing the best of life, style and travel. 

I have tried to avoid posts that are merely about an outfit or a trend but rather on experiences, perhaps including a great outfit that I wore during it. But, it’s been a continuous struggle to avoid posts that are purely about fashion, primarily because I love, and I mean adore, clothes. I love putting together outfits. I love mixing and matching last season with this season with a vintage or bargain find. I love my pairs of $1000 shoes as much as I love a $22 sweater from H&M. And most importantly, I love how your outfit can express your mood or tell a stranger something about you or how you feel that day without even exchanging so much as a glance. 

I have always been dramatic - overly enthusiastic with a love for embellishments. That has very much carried over into the way I dress. But just as everyone’s personality is a product of their upbringing and surroundings, so too, is their style. 

I grew up in a setting that is so cliche it’s almost banal. New England, sailing in the summer, skiing in the winter. All girl’s prep school until I shuffled off to boarding school in what seemed like something out of Salinger. Given far too many chances, I almost always misbehaved but was never inappropriately dressed. Forced to wear blazers and skirts to class but always wanted to wear black skinny jeans and a ripped tee. And as much as I liked to be different and stand out, it was instilled in me from a very early age that there was a time and place for everything. 

So on weekends in high school when we would escape by train from idyllic country Connecticut to the city, I loved to dress as “downtown” as possible. 

But even now, living in New York - downtown, in the epicenter of fashion - I cannot fully escape that deeply engrained sense of preppy style that dots my wardrobe no matter how hard I try. 

In the summers, of which I spend most of the time in some New England beach destination, I embrace that part of my life fully, but with my own voice. I am not so much a Lilly Pulitzer wearing girl as I will wear lots of white, even gingham, and leave all my black behind. 

But, every year with the advent of Fall, and when I am back in the city permanently, it takes no time at all for me to shed that New England style for black, lace, grommets, ripped jeans, crop tops and booties. What I have come to realize about my style and that I am a New Englander living in New York, is that it is the combination of the two perspectives that makes mine unique. That I am just as comfortable in a girly, preppy ensemble as a grunge one. My story is one of a young woman who feels just at home in a field with pointer dogs shooting pheasant as she does at the opening of an avant-garde art gallery in the Lower East Side. 

And with New York Fashion Week having just ended, I have to take note that I loved the lacy, feminine looks at the Zimmerman show as much as I loved the edgy, art-inspired streetwear pieces at Artistix. I love that every outfit you put together tells a story. I love that whatever outfit I wear can not only express my mood but tell other people about my story. 

I love Fall because it is the easiest season for me to tell my own story. It’s the perfect season to combine those English-inspired tweed blazers with distressed black denim and motorcycle boots. It’s the best season for throwing a leather jacket over a flouncy dress. And of course, lots of cashmere comes out. My story is the story of a girl who grew up in New England, given opportunity one could imagine. But I always wanted something a little different. I was always frivolous, a little too loud, and was quick to forget the puritanical and pragmatic ways of my WASPy family. 

I have always sought a kind of dream-like life. Which is why when the opportunity came to leave my job on Wall Street and start my own business, I dove in. And now, I get to create my own kind of story. Now my job consists of going to fashion shows and caviar tastings. Something that people like my parents, have trouble understanding. 

But this Fall, it is particularly fun for me to see some trends popping up that allow me to look into my past. I am excited to embrace pieces of my past in my outfits this season and I look forward to sharing stories and memories that those trends evoke.