That New York Feeling

With fashion week looming around the corner, this week’s newsletter is dedicated to New York City.

I find it incredibly hard to write about New York. There’s a large spectrum of what I want to convey, but every attempt falls short of capturing my exact sentiments. Naturally, I’m still navigating the cultural nuances. Living here poses a staggering amount of changes and daily challenges. Yet despite all its intensity, people thrive in this city. In the mythical and the modern-day, New York is where you go to reach your highest potential. As Frank Sinatra famously said, If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.

I’ve been thinking a lot about kismet, the Yiddish word for fate. Kismet describes the moment when you encounter something by chance, struck by the wand of destiny. It’s this search of kismet that makes Manhattan a gambler’s paradise; leaving the confines of comfort zones for a city that seems to have everything. I feel this kismet when I’m pounding pavements in mid-town or crossing the bridge along the East River.

Here are my top 10 favorite things about New York City:

1. Gillian Garcia’s 2018 campaign video for Totême titled The City distills the ambiance of Manhattan’s concrete jungle.

2. My favorite memory from my first week in New York was a night out in the West Village. After a few whiskey sours, I put a coin into a jukebox to play “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters”, what followed was a unison bar sing-a-long to Elton John’s ode to New York.

3. Winter is a great exercise in streamlining wardrobe and opting for structured and solid-colored pieces. One New York muse that inspires me is the late Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, the wife of John F. Kennedy Junior and PR Director of Calvin Klein. She embodies Manhattan and modernity; a sophisticated social fixture established in her own right (beyond her high-profile marriage).

4. New York is a city teeming of restaurants with ambiance, and my favorite addresses for a special occasion aperitivo are Maialino, Le Coucou, and Verōnika.

5. A Rainy Day in New York starring Timothee Chalamet and Elle Fanning directed by Woody Allen bears the director’s signature stamp of sexual interest and conflict, but what I found most charming about the film were the locations and quirky and neurotic dialogue. See the trailer below:

6.The hyper-relevant meme circulating the beige Instagram circuit, via Sex & The City:

7.There’s no New York label that excites me more than Proenza Schouler. The upcoming pre-fall 2020 lookbook consists of clean cuts, sleek lines, and an essentialist wardrobe.

8.One of my favorite photographers to follow on Instagram is @Arnold_Daniel, a Brooklyn-based photographer who documents a wide breadth of life in New York City. His profile chronicles fleeting moments of the diverse, chaotic energy of the city, from the theatrical to the intimate gaze of a passerby.

9. Nothing seems to capture the sound of a melancholic winter evening than LCD Sound System’s New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down.

10. I spent Saturday night at a secret bar in Brooklyn, only accessible through a long passageway of a closed storefront. The venue was disco-only complete with an illuminated dance floor, and the scene felt like the opening credits of Saturday Night Fever.