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Luxury – accessible luxury – has been a marketing strategy for ages. For as long as there has been social comparison, entities have pulled on the heartstrings of the hoi polloi, promising a better, more glamorous, way of life – with a purchase.

Times have changed from the days of women prolonging the lives of socks by darning them, buying a smart new suit every few years, and yes, investing in a hairnet for the utmost in sophistication. Today, anyone from Ames to Anchorage can log onto net-a-porter.com – the wildly popular online luxury emporium – and buy goods that were once completely out of reach.

Net-a-porter.com, in it’s time, was totally revolutionary. It’s founder, Natalie Massenet, has been hailed as a kind of trend forecasting goddess for predicting that luxury would sell (and sell and sell) online. On its heels came sites like my-wardrobe.com, Gilt Groupe, and La Garconne. Each of them a slightly different rift on the original model. Luxury was suddenly everywhere: I saw young women in Pittsburgh dressed in Alexander Wang, and quite a few Balenciaga bags while on business in Chicago. Personal style blogs further pushed the trend, as luxury goods companies like Coach started sponsoring the amateur – yet highly influential – fashionistas. The whole racket reached a saturation point, and by 2011, everyone on the street looked like they’d walked out of the pages of Lucky.

 Not that it’s such a bad thing – people should be able to adorn themselves with nice things, and communicate that they, too, are able to aspire and dream and feel fabulous. But with all of the colors, silks, leathers, studs, and lace-up booties on the street, the mood felt ready to burst. It was time for a stripped down – affordable – approach to living well.

Enter: Everlane. Everlane provides the type of products I love: simple, easy, luxurious, basic, no frills (my favorite brands are Theory, Helmut Lang, and Rag & Bone). And while I carefully select pieces from these fine companies, it’s difficult to justify paying $100 for a t-shirt. However, given the production techniques, the retailer, and of course, the brand – it’s virtually impossible for these pieces to be sold at a “reasonable” price. Besides, part of the cache of owning designer brands is that they are expensive. A colleague from Chicago recently visited New York and asked me how any stores sell anything given the prices. I told him that as we look at our dismally tiny closets, we know every piece has to count.

Circling back to the t-shirts and Everlane. I recently received an invitation to the new site, and was immediately intrigued. Here, their business philosophy:

To the extend of my knowledge, this is an untapped niche in the market. The closest analogue I could come up with is Muji, or maybe Uniqlo if you push it: affordable luxury basics with little to no branding. Muji, on its Wikipedia page, is described as “distinguished by its design minimalism, emphasis on recycling, avoidance of waste in production and packaging, and no-logo or “no-brand” policy.”

The age of the flashy show-and-tell logo has been waning for years now (ever since conspicuous consumption became déclassé), but the concept of quality for quality’s sake, regardless of brand, has recently gained momentum. More brands are opting for no signifying trace of themselves, save the discerning eye of those in the know. Valextra, the Italian leather goods company, for instance, creates utterly divine products without a trace of branding. Starting prices for a women’s handbag hover around $2300. They create an unspoken club that knows luxury when it sees it, with members seamlessly moving among each other, while the rest of us are walking advertisements for Marc Jacobs and Kenneth Cole.

a Valextra bag

Curious, and willing to spend $30, I ordered two t-shirts from Everlane. What I received was nothing short of perfection. The fabric, the fit, the color, the softness. Everything a t-shirt should be, yet maddeningly difficult to find at a reasonable price. Since Everlane is – at least on the surface – transparent about its production methods, as a consumer you can’t help but root for them. Coupled with a quirky, approachable personality, and attentive social media strategy (as far as I can tell, they reply to every tweet in which they are mentioned), the model seems like its come at the right time.

I’ll throw out a tangential analogue to food: the over-arching opinion is that organic, fresh food is out of reach – too expensive, too hard to find – for the masses. We must either spend like drunken sailors on a locally sourced quinoa-nettle-kale salad (Hermes) or settle for a soggy burger (H&M). But when companies like Le Pain Quotidien come around and show that a fast-casual, totally affordable, elegant place can serve delicious, creative, organic food, previously held public opinions start to change. While I’d love to eat lunch at Chez Panisse everyday, it’s satisfying to know that there are options with a similar philosophy and dedication to my values that I can regularly afford. The more the word gets out, the better.

Success begets imitation, so my hope is that a business like Everlane does well, sells a lot of basic luxury goods, and spawns authentic copycats. With more companies creating different value propositions targeted at various consumers, you cover more market surface area. Luxury and quality can be accessible, but it has to be real. I knew it the minute I slipped one of those Everlane t-shirts over my head. As always, an exciting time to be thinking.

Image courtesy of Frenchified

We’ve all heard the enviable tenants of what makes The French Girl so thin and cool: she eats smaller portions of really delicious food like chocolate, cheese, bread, meat. She has a smaller wardrobe filled with timeless, high quality pieces. In this way, she remains perfectly satisfied with less. This archetypical femme drives us American Yanks crazy – how do they do it and still look fantastic, brimming with je ne sais quoi?

I was recently in Paris – one of my favorite places in all the world – and while I did my civic duty and shopped (half-heartedly attributing my behavior to “contributing to the economy”), I was highly sensitive to cultural differences in terms of consumerism. Whereas in the States, a perky sales associate at J. Crew will tell me I should get sequined skinny trousers because they’re the “hit of the season” without trying them on, the elegant shopgirl in Paris will take the time to carefully discuss which color, cut, and fabric best suits me, and will last for years. It explains why I still wear all of the pieces I’ve acquired in France over the course of years.

Image courtesy of Manali Shah

Recently, a New York Times article entitled Why We Spend. Why They Save. explores the forces behind why countries like Germany, France, Austria and Belgium have maintained household saving rates between 10 and 13% while Americans struggle to save anything at all. I’ll spare you the details you can read in the article, but it boils down to this: a significant difference in cultural values. Much like personal values, cultural values are what a society holds dear and deems necessary to pass on to following generations.

Think about the European philosophy of food: instead of eating a whole bag of fat-free potato chips, indulge in one square of extra dark chocolate. It is the high quality morsel that gives the eater everything he or she needs; enough to satisfy without binging. Design anthropologist Dorie Tunstall loves the chocolate example as an analogy for cultural consumption.

According to Dori, the way against over-consumption is to buy objects that meet the needs of the consumer so that he or she won’t need to consume as much; like the square of dark chocolate. Now, she doesn’t mean that everything you buy must be the most expensive chair/jacket/boots/whatever, but it should contain the qualities that you want, at the right level that you need them. So, if you’re able to be cognizant and calibrate your unique needs, then you only need one particular version of whatever the thing is. You needn’t go out every week to buy another version of that thing, because you’re “metabolizing” it’s value very slowly. This concept works with bread. This concept works with shoes. Europeans understand this from a cultural standpoint, but it simply was never “taught” in the American cultural value system.

I became consciously aware of this phenomenon when I “gave up” fast fashion. No more H&M. No more Gap. No more Topshop. (I admit to the occasional Zara purchase, but we’re all human, non?) A few months ago, I treated myself to a blazer from Rag and Bone. I had never spent as much on any one piece of clothing, but the blazer was ideal. Perfect aesthetics notwithstanding, the brand behind the blazer connected solidly with me  – perhaps created a deep value. R&G’s brand essence echoes the sort of downtown cool that I associate with my neighborhood (which I love a lot a lot) and see as an extension of my identity (as people often do in New York City). Beyond that, I know the pieces are made in the U.S., were started by two enterprising young New Yorkers – the same guys I habitually see at my local coffee shop. It’s a great deal: I get quality, identity, and a narrative to throw over my shoulders.

At the time of the purchase, I had a half dozen blazers in my wardrobe of varying degrees of quality. Once The Blazer came home, everything else seemed wrong. I would never need to acquire another blazer, because this one fulfilled every need I could self-identify. It was my piece of dark chocolate; it created a higher level of satisfaction, despite the eyebrow-raising price. All of the elements contained within that piece had meaning to me. In other words, it met my cultural values.

So why don’t Americans do more of this kind of consumption? That expensive blazer has actually saved me money and space in the long run. Why do we continue to have over-stuffed closets and under-stuffed wallets? Tunstall contends that it’s due to too much choice; too many brands. I agree, and would add that it’s our culture’s pre-occupation with trends. While observing the Parisians, I wouldn’t actually call anyone “trendy”, but more like “timeless”. Everyone looked fantastic, but their clothing choices would be as welcome 15 years ago and 15 years from now, as they are today.

Tunstall believes that mass consumerism has cheapened our values. Years ago, when people had about 2 suits and 1 pair of shoes, the quality and cut had to be timeless and of exceptional quality. Today, with so many choices, many of them inexpensive, the chance  of making a “mistake” is greater. But, because of the perceived low risk (i.e. cheap price), we’re more likely to repeat those mistakes. For example, if you choose a brand that rings “hollow” to you in terms of values (bad cut, bad quality, bad treatment of workers), then you feel as cheapened as your values. So, you continue to buy in order to find that choice that rings “true”. Luckily, most retailers are switching out their merchandise every 2 weeks, so there is always something new to try.

Perhaps it’s our “bigger, better, best” culture in action. Since people tend to place cultural significance (their values) on objects, it makes sense that we would constantly want more, more, more. But I argue that if we could slow ourselves down and think about what is most important to our value system, we would consume more thoughtfully, mindfully. We could save more, look better, and spend time thinking about more important things. We could enjoy more dark chocolate, less 100-calorie packs.

I realize that I’m writing about the topic of over-consumption and values on the biggest shopping day of the year. Again, a symbol of our cultural values to behave somewhat irrationally in the face of over-consumption. Our culture does little to quell these tendencies, save small movements like Adbuster’s Buy Nothing Day. There is a lot we can learn from our European neighbors, and I hope there is more discussion like Dori’s and the Times in the future.  As always, an exciting time to be thinking.

In case you missed it, I’m a new contributer to the Booked Blog on Forbes.com. Head over to the site to check out my first review: Brand Thinking, by Debbie Millman.

Happy shoppers courtesy of Dreamstime

The field of happiness research has grown significantly in recent years. I recall the first half of the century, when I was at university studying affective decision-making – or the way in which emotion influences human choice – the literature on happiness was a bit skint. Today, with superstar “positive affect” researchers like Daniel Gilbert, new insights into what makes us happy abound – though the number of happiness-related self-help books has increased in kind.

In a sense, Gilbert’s work is answering the 26 million dollar question: how do I become happy? Fundamentally, Gilbert gives us the answers, yet it doesn’t appear that people are becoming any happier. In fact, with books like The Paradox of Choice, Luxury Fever: Weighing the Costs of Excess, and The High Price of Materialism, one may begin to doubt that with recent economic stability, we’d surely be a happier people. In fact, though our living spaces have tripled in size in the last 50 years, our incomes have grown, and we’re living longer, Americans in general have flat-lined in the happiness department.

Image courtesy of god's daughter

This phenomenon fascinates me, and succinctly summarizes why I got into this brand strategy racket in the first place. With all of this relative wealth and universal access to stuff, why aren’t we any happier than our parents or grandparents? In a recent TED talk, Daniel Gilbert posits an interesting theory: Americans should embrace synthetic happiness as opposed to only natural happiness.

Allow me to explain: our brains are really really good at protecting our feelings. We validate, justify, and legitimize our actions and opinions so as to assuage any negative feelings that may arise. That smoker, who knows his habit is detrimental to his health, will justify his actions by telling himself that only a few smokers become ill, that it only happens to very heavy smokers, or that if smoking does not kill them, something else will. This construct is called cognitive dissonance and it’s a nice way that our brains make us feel better about our choices.

In terms of happiness, we also protect ourselves. The first drummer of the Beatles, for instance, who was famously abandoned in favor of Ringo Star, was quoted as saying that it was the best thing that ever happened to him. This attitude is what Gilbert refers to as “synthetic happiness”. In essence, synthetic happiness is what our brains create when we don’t get what we want. On the flip side, natural happiness is what we feel when do get what we want.

image courtesy of like books

Imagine getting broken up with by the woman of your dreams – you’re devastated. Our brains will immediately start to protect us by telling us things like she wasn’t even that pretty or her big ears always bothered me or she was a b*tch anyway to create positive affect. While most people may find this type of behavior unhealthy, synthetic happiness is just as real as natural happiness. Truth be told, Gilbert has found that, with the exception of a few severe cases, after 3 months, everyone is just as happy, whether by synthetic means or natural ones.

What does this mean in terms of buying behavior? A lot, actually. Americans generally look down upon synthetic happiness when compared to natural happiness. Why? Because what use in a thriving economic environment is it to be happy with what you don’t have? What would this means for millions of women – who suddenly become totally satisfied with the contents of their closets, needing nothing more? Or the tech junkie is finds peace without needing the newest gadget?

Image courtesy of flickr

Synthetic happiness – which is just as “real” as natural happiness – is the bane of all marketers’ existence. They’re in the business of making people want more; to believe that buying one more sweater, or mobile phone, or dresser set will create natural happiness. Perhaps we, as a society, should embrace our synthetic happiness and love our current existence, that includes everything we don’t have. At the same time, imagine is marketers were able to tap into synthetic happiness as well, playing with consumer psychology in order to have a monopoly on all kinds of happiness? As always, an exciting time to be thinking.

Image courtesy of Nitrolicious

I’m often surprised that the backlash against “fast fashion” hasn’t been as great as that against “fast food”. The similarities between the two are innumerable: cheap “ingredients”. cheap labor. high fuel costs. high waste. addictive behavior. sneaky marketing. more expensive in the long run…

walking past the newly-opened fast fashion store Joe Fresh on 5th Avenue, for instance, I saw a sign promoting $19 jeans. I felt the same uneasiness I get when I see an ad for a $5 super-sized meal. Wait, how is it possible for something like that to be so cheap? The whole system begs to be questioned, but somehow, the fury towards industrialized food and adoption of trends like organic food, traceable sourcing, fair labor, and supporting local artisans hasn’t bled into fashion in the same way. It’s interesting, given that the symptoms of a flawed system are virtually parallel.

Image courtesy of the New York Times

The big news this week was Levi’s new investment into a more sustainable way of making jeans, specifically to save waste on water. The funny thing about water is its recent astronomical increase in cache: once the ultimate commodity product, water is now arguably one of the most coveted products on earth. Between it’s incredible scarcity in major parts of the world, and it’s over-crowded market in the US (there are over 100 brands of bottled water in the U.S. alone), water carries enormous global emotional heft. However, we don’t realize the extent of how water is wasted. In the context of manufacturing and owning jeans, a typical pair will consume 919 gallons of water in its lifetime, or 15 spa-size bathtubs.

in an article in the new york times, it states that “Levi Strauss has helped underwrite and champion a nonprofit program that teaches farmers in India, Pakistan, Brazil and West and Central Africa the latest irrigation and rainwater-capture techniques.  It has introduced a brand featuring stone-washed denim smoothed with rocks but no water. It is sewing tags into all of its jeans urging customers to wash less and use only cold water.” emphasis my own.

Image courtesy of bkrw-denim

What I like about this endeavor is not just that the Levi Strauss company is promoting the use of sustainable methods to help curb our destruction of the environment, but it’s doing so because it affects their bottom line. In my opinion, no amount of Greenpeace-hysteria is going to convince large companies {who have the means, reach, and influence to implement large-scale change} to invest in sustainable technologies. It is only when an argument can made to defend profits that this kind of do-goodery is enabled. It might not be an optimistic point of view, but it’s certainly a realistic one.

This kind of positive press couldn’t have come at a better time for Levi’s. The brand had faltered and lost its cool in the early 2000s, after a surge of new premium jeans entered the fray. The younger generation, who were not privy to the long-standing, culturally significant impact Levi’s had had on previous generations, were drawn to the glitter and glamour of Seven Jeans, J Brand, Earnest Sewn, and the like. In the last few years, with a total revamp of their brand, Levi’s got its groove – and rivets – back in a big way. “Go Forth”, the hipster-inspired, “this is our time”, go and do yo’ thing-style campaign re-energized the brand. In addition to targeting today’s youth culture, the brand’s new positioning emphasizes creating positive change in a world going through tough times.

Image courtesy of por homme

With such an inspiring message, and a reminder that Levi’s is arguably the iconic American brand, it stands to reason that they could usher in a new trend of sustainable sensibility in the fashion industry. Up until now, there has been a small, but strong community of designers and organizations promoting a notion of “slow fashion”. Websites like Slow Fashioned, and designers like Maria Cornejo have voiced strong opinions towards less waste and higher quality, but the movement simply hasn’t gained ground. Getting back to the fast food analogy, fashion simply doesn’t {yet} have it’s Whole Foods and Michael Pollan.

This is where Levi’s can potentially take the helm of an environmental sea change. With a strong business case in favor of doing so, other companies may respond in kind, increasing public awareness and ensuring sustainable production methods and education becomes the norm. As always, an exciting time to be thinking.

image courtesy of the man repeller

10, maybe 15 years ago, consumer culture was a totally different game. most people couldn’t afford designer clothing, beautiful furniture, or slick household appliances; function typically won out over style. sometime around the year 2000, a giant shift occurred. seemingly overnight, people could buy really cool tableware at target for $12, or an eerily straight-off-the-runway style sweater for $29.99. in fact, people anywhere from pittsburgh to portland had access to affordable, well-designed products. while many people rejoiced at the new-found accessibility to beautiful goods, some remained skeptical. is this really a good thing?

it all depends on your point of view. clearly, people want to wear nice looking clothes and decorate with nice looking products. bottles of method window cleaner look nicer than the ones made by lysol. when i first started my career, my wardrobe and apartment tchotchkes came from the likes of h&m and target. i looked presentable, but oh dear did those products wear out quickly. now that i’ve been working a while, i buy upscale brands, and with growing wisdom, i plan for beautifully-made, high-quality items. when i first moved to new york, i couldn’t. but because of ‘design for the masses’, i could at least fake it in a city where image is incredibly important.

i recently popped into zara – as one does from time to time – and was drawn to a particular twisted yarn sweater. as is common at zara, the sweater was a simulacra of an isabel marant sweater seen on the runway not weeks before. i had inner turmoil over deciding whether to purchase the sweater: i knew it was a marant knock-off, and i knew the materials and labor that produced it were cheap, but i wanted it because it was pretty. ultimately, i bought the sweater because it made me feel like a million bucks {which is arguably the most important test a garment should pass}. but it’s still a little weird: i know it’s not the real thing. {for a further exploration into this, and into isabel marant followers specifically, read this great article by cintra wilson}.

image courtesy of pirates and fireflies

i wouldn’t have known that the zara sweater was a hopeful imitator of marant’s runway look, of course, were it not for the internet. certainly, this is one of the major engines of change in terms of design innovation. the internet provides knowledge to the greater world. the more people know, the more they want. knowledge begets desire {excuse any allusion to religion}, and companies scramble to provide for that desire. should a consumer be able to buy a pair of shoes straight from the celine SS ’12 runway at their local zara for less than $100, only to have them fall apart after a season? on the other hand, what if that one season of wear gives the owner indescribable pleasure? is it still wrong?

thinking about it, i’m not sure. the state of rampant “consumerism” has recently rubbed me, and a growing number of other vocal bloggers, the wrong way. i do, however, think that the things people buy should give them joy. then i read an interview with karim rashid, a designer who advocates the democratization of design.  in other words, creating goods that are accessible and affordable on a mass scale, but more importantly, using design so that those products last. his term for this is “designocracy”, and as rashid puts it:

the minute you use the word ‘design,’ it signifies that whatever you make has to be used by people, that means you’re using technology to mass produce something…For me, design has to be a democratic art, because it allows everyone to have nice, beautiful things that make their lives more pleasurable, or more enjoyable, or more artistic, or more emotional, or more expressive.

image courtesy of habitually chic

it makes sense that people, with all the exposure to the world through the internet, would want better designed stuff. rashid even loves shopping {gasp!} because he likes “to see what people are making, and to see what the world is offering. i have no issues with consumption. i have issues with consuming things that we don’t need and that are badly made.”

so does that zara sweater fit into the “don’t need” and “badly made” categories? it depends where one draws the line. if i understand rashid correctly, then yes. i already own sweaters. and the one from zara is poorly made in comparison to others i own. but it makes me feel good, and isn’t that was great design is about?

even azzedine alaia – one of the most respected and long-standing designers in the world – likes fast fashion. in an interview with style.com, he says “[fast fashion is] a very good system. even if you don’t have money, you can still dress well. i shop at h&m and zara for my cousins and my nieces.” further proof that designocracy has a place in society.

the hopeful part of designocracy is that, with more people having access to the same stuff, there is a greater opportunity for creativity. maybe it’s a “how do you wear yours?” a teenybopper in philadelphia might also own that zara sweater. but because we’re individuals, we won’t interpret it the same way. as virginia postrel puts it “today, status if more about showing off your creativity and your cleverness, your eye and your discernment. now the outward signs of status are often a combination of high art and low art.” so while teenybopper X will pair her sweater with a medley of h&m and topshop, i will mix it with helmut lang and reiss.

image courtesy of marie-claire 'mixing high and low'

consumerism has become a dirty word, and while i do believe that people generally over-consume stuff like food/clothing/electronics/television and not enough stuff like books/face time/art, it’s an unavoidable byproduct of existing. someone once said “you stop being a consumer when you stop breathing.” everyone needs stuff in their lives to some extent, and to rashid’s point, shouldn’t that stuff be accessible, beautiful, and provide joy? as always, an exciting time to be thinking.

dame vivienne westwood

I am not actually being disingenuous when I do really say stop buying clothes to people… The slogan is ‘buy less, choose well, make it last’

- dame westwood on shopping to WWD.

image courtesy of the coveteur

over the last few years, i’ve noticed a trend. at first, this trend was exciting, inspiring, fascinating. it was engaging. it began when a fantastic photographer named todd selby captured the homes and studios of some of the world’s most creative and interesting people. like bill cunningham before him, selby wasn’t interested in capturing big names {you’ll never see a kardashian home}, but people who live uniquely, regardless of fame or status. in fact, at first, selby’s subjects were his friends. today, the photographer has become something of a phenomenon, but he still retains his dedication to capturing under-the-radar stuff: the 40th anniversary of chez panisse, for example, or annie novak on her organic rooftop farm.

as with anything new and “cool”, selby-imitators started cropping up. sites like the coveteur go into the houses of fashion editors and stylists, the {exquisite} german site freunde von freunden focuses on creatives and cultural luminaries, closetvisit raids the closets of indie darlings like vintage shop owners, and into the gloss delves into the contents of tastemakers’ make-up cabinets.

image courtesy of into the gloss

now, it seems like everyone’s “stuff” in on display for the world to see. personal style bloggers have jumped on the trend, pouring out the contents of their purses and make-up bags with “what’s in my bag” posts  {super-blogger bryanboy even had a blog devoted to the exercise}. it began to feel totally strange – what is the purpose of broadcasting “stuff” to the world? my gut instinct thought it seemed to prey upon materialist hunger – look what i have - but i started to wonder if there isn’t something more at work here. is there an innate human desire to show the world one’s possessions in an attempt to find, refine, and communicate personal identity?

i’ve just finished an absolutely fantastic book called brand thinking by debbie millman. it is a series of conversations with some of the world’s most influential brand and design thinkers – and beyond exploring business, brand, and marketing – is at its core a meditation on human nature. the last conversation in the book it between millman and malcolm gladwell, and they discuss the very topic of sharing of one’s possessions with the world.

image courtesy of svpply

gladwell discusses the popular start-up site svpply, which is “populated with the products that you like…you can also follow people, so if i find someone whose tastes i like, i can follow them and observe their other marketplace choices. and the site can also find people for you.” so, finding connection to people via the objects that they don’t necessarily own, but covet. as gladwell puts it, “[svpply] is very explicitly making a point about how our personalities are in part a function of the collection of objects, ideas, and things that we surround ourselves with.” in fact, the work of psychologist samuel gosling found that rating another person’s personality based on a room filled with their possessions is as good as, if not better, than rating that person after meeting them.

so perhaps the desire to showcase one’s possessions is really short-hand for saying hey, this is who i am. are you like me, too? or more likely, this is who i want the world to perceive me to be. do we aspire to the same things? this phenomenon, of course, isn’t new. before the advent of the internet, people dressed {and still do} to achieve the same end. virginia postrel, the fabulous author and cultural critic who studies the concept of glamour, argues that people have always dressed to convey who they aspire or dream to be rather than who they are, but that with the internet it “promotes the idea that your ordinary, every day life could somehow be interesting to other people.”

image courtesy of dead fleurette

beyond the desire to communicate our identity to the world, it could simply be a need for validation. i am important, unique, and interesting. but is it real? writer zadie smith finds this all a little depressing; how “constant broadcasting of your likes, your friends, your thoughts, and your things to the world has robbed people of an interior life.” that is, by putting every minute and superficial part of your life online, there remains nothing that is “just yours” anymore.

i am fascinated by this because it has personal implications. i recently “quit” facebook (ask me sometime about how the site pulls at the heart-strings when you attempt to leave), and deleted my tweets and tumblr postings that had more to do with my personal life than i felt comfortable with. when i first joined social media sites, i too documented every meal, night out, and thought i was having – it was new and exciting to do so! what power! what reach! but the more updates i saw on facebook, or sappy personal ramblings i read on tumblr, or another what i ate for breakfast tweet i saw, i began to feel weird. perhaps this is the backlash – is privacy the next trend? is the “new cool” to be off-the-grid and not allow the public to have full view of your belongings and inner-most thoughts? like the current artisanal trend in food, clothing, and design – perhaps reverting to older ways of connecting, like phoning or meeting in person – will be the next phase in our hyper-connected, over-sharing society. as always, an exciting time to be thinking.

the car is boxy and rugged, hardly in keeping the prevailing modern aesthetic of sleekness, but something about its totally pure functionality and impeccable design speaks to a certain luxury that no amount of round-edged target collaboration can accomplish.

the next day, bill cunningham’s weekly ‘on the street’ feature covered the ubiquitous trend of women in trench coats. again, a perfect specimen of classic, functional design that has remained largely unchanged since world war i. like the mercedes g-class, the trench coat’s roots are in functionality; created by burberry to literally be worn by soldiers in the trenches. the style has become a civilian mainstay since then, and doesn’t appear to be falling out of fashion in the future.

this spring, military fashions are all the rage, from parkas to blazers to boots to cargo pants. but this trend isn’t truly a trend, as it’s been a classic since time immemorial. in high school, i wore army green cargo pants from abercrombie, in college i donned a coat from an army surplus store in aix-en-provence, france. after school, i wore a military green blazer from a manhattan h&m (we didn’t have an h&m in cleveland at the time) until the pockets fell off. today, it’s a slim pair of olive-colored khakis from uniqlo. always in style, always timeless.

i tend to think about military style in the same vein at barbour jackets, l.l. bean duck boots, and wellington boots: highly functional, timeless items that hold a spirit of aristocracy. as if going hunting in the english countryside were one’s next stop after leaving the office. j. crew’s jenna lyons swears by the military aesthetic because it’s classic. i wonder, then, how something like the army can influence civilian fashion to the extent that it does.

uniform: by and large, military style doesn’t change. a uniform is just that, unchanging and timeless. in my experience, people tend to gravitate towards uniforms, which is how one ends up with personal style. adding a bit of military integrates easily into anyone’s wardrobe because it works with most any other style.

functional: by and large, people tend to like functional clothing. the occasional dhoti pant, 5 inch heel, and bandage dress notwithstanding, clothing that works, works. a trench coat, for example, keeps us warm and dry, while adding shape to our frames.

sexy: whether it’s because the army somehow symbolizes power and strength, there is something inherently sexy about donning a piece of military garb. the army (so to speak) of isabel marant worshippers look darn good in their costly marant military parkas; a girl wearing a flowered dress looks cool when she throws a distressed army shirt over it.

ease: military style is completely incognito. the colors are neutral, the shapes are simple, and the care is uncomplicated. obviously, this stems from the root of its functional origins. there is no guesswork, color-coordinating, nor any unfortunate dry cleaning bills {unless the material used is not-traditional, like silk pants}.

nostalgic luxury: back to my original feeling when i laid eyes on the mercedes g-class. it’s not today’s military that evokes the feeling of aristocracy, but perhaps a rather imagined glamorous past. think: british-occupied india. that particular aesthetic arouses nostalgia that has been used by everyone from louis vuitton to j. crew.

it always feels good to identify a particular style that truly will never be out-moded. open-toe booties, tie-dye, and color-block all appear to come and go in cycles. military glamour, however, will never be anything more or less than an uncompromisingly chic style.