What the people in my world wore from July to September 2024.
Although I now have the privilege (usually only bestowed upon children, teachers, and grad students) of having a mostly free and hedonistic summer, July to September has always been the most sociable time of the year. This is the season of block parties, backyard barbecues, rooftop dinners, beach days, and late-night bar crawls across the outer boroughs. I still found myself trapped alone indoors for work but most of my summer was spent among friends and fellow New Yorkers trying to let loose, and when you’re showing up every day of the week, you tend to do some of your best sartorial work.
September also brought the somewhat-welcome somewhat-unwelcome return of the school year. For me, this meant switching to more comfortable shoes and a bag big enough to hold my laptop, but for my classmates, it meant it was time to get back on the rigorous schedule of serving daily looks.
What I wore:
The oversaturation of referencing by celebrities, editorials, and major fashion houses has led to understandable fatigue. Constant navel-gazing, nostalgia, and iconographic inside jokes do nothing to push fashion forward and can feel cheap and derivative. I became especially conscious of this when seeing three months of my outfits sorted into near columns. My style has been using references as a crutch, and moving forward, I want to decrease my reliance on them. It’s really very hard to screw up dinner when you follow a recipe. It’s much harder to invent your own menu.
On a positive note, I’ve been enjoying wearing socks and tights as a statement piece. I’ve always felt like a hat or coordinated hairstyle (or wig) was a non-optional component in creating the perfect outfit, and now I feel the same way about socks. If it’s going to be visible, you might as well make it count! I purchased a pair of asymmetrical paisley tights with silver studs (picture #8) that are really special, but even changing a pair of white socks to ones with coordinating yellow and green athletic stripes (picture #6) makes a world of difference.
What the people in my world wore:
Favorite moments:
– Elias’s one-of a-kind upcycled summer shirt (picture #1)
– All of the tchotckes on Alex’s raver jeans, including suntanned My Melody, a blackmeans x Supreme lighter, and a handheld videogame given to Defcon 2024 attendees (picture #3)
– Aaron’s beautifully executed blue-and-blonde raccoon stripe hair (picture #7)
– Eboni’s pattern play and layering with a plaid skirt and striped pants (picture #8)
Least favorite trending items:
Collina Strada x BAGGU Pony Bag
When Collina Strada first came on the scene, she was lauded as “the designer putting climate change on the runway“. Since then, she has happily embraced generative AI in her designs, a process that saps natural resources and exacerbates environmental collapse. The release of the pony-shaped bag in collaboration with BAGGU (another brand that proudly touts its sustainability) not only feels pandering and perfectly exemplifies the designer’s cognitive dissonance, but the print itself is an eyesore.
“Bootleg” meme t-shirts
Too much irony! These t-shirts are far from new, but they seem to have reached peak saturation this year. While they try to emulate the charm of a bootleg T-shirt, the generic cut-and-paste graphics look more like something thrown together in Canva and the sense of humor has been lost. Furthermore, does every meme need to be memorialized and broadcast as an extension of our personality, especially as they become increasingly ephemeral?
Hulken bags
When did we become too good for the granny cart? True, schlepping groceries in New York City is an eternal struggle, yet Hulken approaches the issue with neither elegance nor efficiency. If I never have to hear the awful plastic grinding of these wheels on concrete again it will be too soon!
Backseat Driver 
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