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Let me be clear: this is not an essay about a maximalist turning into a minimalist. This is an essay about a maximalist (cough, me, cough) coming to appreciate that it’s high time to own a gray cardigan. It will make me no less a maximalist, and I might even enjoy it.
My foray into neutrals *involuntary shudder* all started with blue jeans. I went to Japan last winter and had one shopping desire to take something home from the denim icons at Kapital. In my dreams, I would buy a pair of the kaleidoscopic patchwork bell bottoms known to streetwear denizens everywhere, but in my budget were the blue jeans. So, in a whirlwind of Japanese denim induced desire I thought, well, alright, maybe I’ll try this whole “blue jean” thing. Everyone else seems to be doing it.
When I wore the pants back at the Vogue office, my co-worker remarked that she had never seen me in a pair of blue jeans—ever. What she was used to was my wide variety of colorful bottoms, from my green tie-dyed jeans done by a Bushwick artist to my hot pink CDG balloon pants, my Lower East Side-made orange cargos, and countless vibrant pairs in between. Suddenly, I couldn’t stop wearing the blue denim.
Well, my dear reader, it turns out the blue jeans were just an introduction—a tickle, a gateway drug, if you will—to neutrals. Behold, the horror!
The story continues. I was shooting social content at (ironically) a “Vogue editors’ essentials: favorite white t-shirt” shoot. (Shocker, I didn’t own a white t-shirt.) I asked our producer, Fujio, if I could borrow his sweater to alleviate my frigid temperature when next thing I knew I was 10 degrees warmer, and, actually, dare I say it, enjoying the outfit even more? The sweater was grey, but that’s exactly what I needed. It made my colorful, patterned Pucci skirt really pop, and I appreciated its elegant silhouette all the more, the flamboyant aspect of its appearance no longer being its only appeal. The sweater “pulled the look together,” if you will.
I still love and wear my colorful items, but I realized that what the neutrals gave to me was a base to play off of, to enhance other parts of the outfit—whether it be a shoe or a jacket or a particularly bold hair color of the moment. (Ask me about my orange hair era.) I proselytize that minimalists can find colors that work for them outside of greys, blacks, browns, and beiges, so it’s only fair that I consider what neutrals will work for me.
To borrow from the words of Coco Chanel, “Before you leave the house, ask yourself: will one neutral make the rest of these brights pop?” So my style resolution to you, Mrs. Chanel, isn’t to take one thing off, but to buy one gray cardigan.
Jacquemus
cardigan
$850
JACQUEMUS
cropped wool cardigan
$135
COS
Sportmax
cashmere cardigan
$795
SAKS FIFTH AVENUE
Éterne
Theodore cardigan
$695
ETERNE