Rando Report: The Chic Woman Who Works Backstage, My Week of FiveFingers, Madonna’s Maternity Style, and More
Plus a tried-and-true ballet flat is back...
I have an aversion to covering anything fashion week…probably from my review days at Vogue, when I had to crank out piece after piece on my battery-sucked iPhone or an anvil laptop. Well, here is a sliver version of all those years…heh. Also, NEVERWORNS with Highsnobiety’s EIC Willa Bennett is out. Watch it! Stay tuned for a new one.
The Chic Woman Backstage at Tory Burch
This year, I covered Tory Burch backstage and front-of-house, which is always an honor and truly so fun. While harassing the shoe team backstage, I ran into Dalida of TheDsm, who is the Collection Managing Director. She is French Canadian but has been in the New York fashion world and beyond for quite some time: She has worked with the likes of Chanel, Christian Dior, Giorgio Armani and more. Fun fact: Dalida has been Collection Managing Director at Tory Burch for the past 13 years…that’s 27 seasons of Tory!
Whenever I see Dalida, which is only about once a year, I am drawn to her. Note: I don’t even know Dalida’s last name but I don’t care. She’s a mononym to me. The woman has an otherwordly gravitational pull that hinges on an elegance that feels both innate but also learned through years of trial and error. It helps that her bone structure is to kill for—that Romanesque nose and those soaring cheekbones! There’s also the way her hair is sheared off, bleached, and slicked back like she just loosely ran through a thick-toothed comb. There’s an ease to her look, but I also know she has put in decades of work to get to this point. And I mean work in the literal sense: Her experiences on the job inform her style.
Her uniform is minimalist and tactical. This time, she wore a perforated windbreaker zip-up over a white button up with a fat collar that bloomed across her collarbone. She uses a stuffed forest green Prada nylon crossbody as a work bag. The killer moment? Makeshift Charvet cufflinks that she affixed on the protruding sleeves herself.
Dalida lives and works in her clothes at a go-go-go physical job. And these are the women I love most: the BTS women whose careers deliciously melt into their looks. It’s refreshing to see women sweat and grind in their pieces. I want to get to know them, and like my friend Mellany Sanchez always says, I want to know where they are going. Speaking of Sanchez, she is one of the best examples of this. While working with Drake on tour, she made a custom stylist’s vest for herself to easy extract all of her tools. It doesn’t stop there: Sanchez designed custom pants with window pockets to slide in her credentials…no lanyard needed!
Speaking of Tory Burch…the Reva Is Back
The Reva ballet flat by Tory Burch is back. It’s unmistakable! A beacon on the sidewalk: a firm flat with a hulking, gilded Tory logo medallion flashing at the tip. In recent years, the Reva, named after Tory Burch’s delightful mother, was reimagined as the flexible Claire.
But now the classic Reva has returned. This time, the Reva comes in an updated bule form, a mule and ballet flat combination. On the runway, some of the medallions were see-through, so there was a saucy top-toe cleavage peekaboo moment. Note, the Reva and the Claire have long been billed as midtown career woman classics, but the style makes for the most universal shoe—and ripe for subversion depending on how you style it. I wear my Claires with low-slung baggy jeans, and I roll down the waistband and let the cuffs spill over the flat to reveal that blinding medallion. Essentially, the Reva (or the Claire) has the same style-as-you-please appeal as a Chanel flat, but for women who like to move.
More on Shoes…Those Nasty Little Toe Shoes!
Yes, I put the digit-cradling Vibram FiveFingers to work during this New York Fashion Week. And let me tell you…there is a refreshing euphoric feeling about not wearing heels to wobble around the city. In my FiveFingered freakdom universe, I was able to cling to every surface as the Lord had intended me to: My toes curled over the smooth edge of a subway step, dug into the grass at the Collina Strada show, and grazed the disgusting sidewalks of New York. I adorned my FiveFingers with a little evil eye anklet from Etsy, just in case anyone wanted to curse my perverse little piggies. Laura Pritcher of Dazed interviewed me about wearing them around…click for free foot photos!
Ok More Shoes…The Thong Mules at Sandy Liang
Watching Sandy Liang was a throwback to my high school fantasy of how I would look as a mid-20-something in New York. Bitchy little skirt sets and clingy shirt dresses. Of course, I never wore anything like this. But, I did wear shoes like this, and those little click-clackers are really something: A metallic kitten heel that looked like a mule from afar but actually had a hidden thong strap affixed to an O-ring. Nubby, stubby, and ready for action.
Bevza Touches Down In New York
I stopped by Svitlana Bevza of Bevza’s presentation at the Ukrainian Institute of America way uptown. There are major red-carpet hits, like a corset slathered in gilded spikelets, which is a wheat stalk. Bevza hails from Kyiv, and wheat is fundemental to Ukrainian identity and history. The country is considered the breadbasket of Europe. Their yellow and blue flag represents fields of wheat and blue skies. She has long used the spikelet as her brand code, first as earrings, later as necklaces, and now as embellishments. The corset is extraordinary, but there is always a seemingly ordinary silhouette that she elevates in her collections. She made a halter dress that was based on kitchen apron: the neck strap was a clever spikelet as was the belt. The color name? “Dough”.
Bevza moves about this world like a lady. Every hair in place. Every pant leg pressed. Her gliding elegance shows up in her clothes—and I’ve always loved how she has long used her Ukrainian heritage in her designs. That’s perhaps more important than ever.
eBay’s Endless Runway—all Pre-Worn Pieces!
I hosted eBay’s “Endless Runway” which was the first exclusively pre-worn runway in New York. This was a dream and close to my heart. For those who do not know, my mom has been running an antique jewelry business on eBay since the early ‘00s. (My dream is to bring my mother here and have her set up a pop up!). You can watch the eBay Live video here.
Madonna’s Epic Maternity Looks
Madonna’s maternity outfits in the early ‘00s deserve a moment in fashion history…ps. a longer piece on this coming soon. There is something liberating about the no-styling, fuck-all get-ups: Madge looked killer in low-slung cargos and t-shirts, letting that baby bump free-fall.
At first passing glance, I thought the pattern on the cardigan in your subway photo was one of those pixelated censor things to hide boobs on TV. Rad.
Your mom is the original eBay queen 🤎