I Found The Perfect Leather Jacket

 

 

Here’s a question worth canvassing: what happens after you’ve uncovered the source of your style inspiration? Will there be fireworks? Will a runway take form in front of wherever you are standing? Does a Taylor Swift song play? Honestly I couldn’t tell you because I haven’t a clue where my source lies.  But what I can ruminate about is the perfect biker jacket I discovered and the conversation I overheard while having lunch at Barney’s this week.

There’s something so delightfully calming and still about having lunch at Barney’s Genes Cafe. Eating surrounded by the latest in store offerings of jackets hitting the $20,000 and up mark, makes a meal seem to have a special veracity and holiness.

Aside from the fashion, the delicate vegan salad that seemed to hover over a digital rotating screen and sipping a glass of Chianti I couldn’t help (but never tried to stop myself) from hearing the conversation next to me. “You are a frantic person. The kind of person that will never stop and annoy everyone in her path.” A man said to a blonde woman dressed in a tight fitted black tee and white scarf next to him. “No that’s a bad thing” he quickly added before she smiled and took a long sip of her cappuccino.

They went on to talk about sex, interior design and what she should wear to an upcoming event – a white leather jacket and emerald pants.  The woman was an interior designer and the man seemed to be a friend looking for advice, yet was delivering more then listening. Looking for the source of inspiration was a phrase that continued to repeat through the course of their conversation. The source of her latest project or the source of his failing marriage was the main theme.

After trying on an the perfect leather biker jacket from Balenciaga downstairs I wondered what was the source of my style inspiration, something less heavy then her work or his marriage but equally imperative I thought.  After all this wasn’t something I had given much thought about in recent years. I go through fashion like Kim K does husbands – always changing based on the person I’m trying to be.  Last week I was trying to be a Masculine version of a ‘90s fembot. This week I feel like a character out of “I Am Love” and only want to dress in tailored suits and anything that walked down the Fendi runway. Next week I may be trying to channel a sea witch. Who knows. My source is fuzzy and consists of multi-layered madness.

But I thought if I was able to access the true source of my style inspiration I would be able to halt my chameleon like ways.  Yes I know fashion is always changing and a person’s style will always change. But if we’re able to locate it, what really drives our decision to select that specific knit or turtleneck, would we be in a better buying situation?

I can honestly say the moments I had true shopping clarity over the years are the items I would always  go back to those  and rewear years later. Clearly this souce is not something that would only save our style, but our jobs and relationshops. Why do we spend so much time sidccusinh the source and not trying to locate it? 

I met my perfect leather jacket 45 minutes earlier that day. It was hanging among a selection of knits, more delicate looking, labeled size 44 but it looked large, you know, so I gave it a chance. “This is me.” I thought. I am an a guy who can live in an emerald biker despite it’s unseasonably proper ways during a NYC winter.  I think this jacket holds the answer to my source. So I had to get it.