It's Cooler In The Shade
It almost pains us to have to bring this issue up in the first place but let's just call it our last word on the matter. The fact is, in the summer, when it's ninety degrees and you've striped down to your underwear because you're air conditioner accidently fell out of your three-story window, sunglasses are the last fashion item standing. They neither require an 'ideal' physique nor an 'ideal' budget; they are the fashion pool party everyone's invited to and so we can expect some particularly fiery wars to be waged in their honor. This we know. If everyone wears them, then everyone's bound to have an opinion. That said, we don't think we've seen such a hostile divide as we've seen with the wayfarer since, well, since ever.
Last night Marie Claire threw a party at Bendel's in honor of their partnership with Rayban. This means three times the ads in upcoming issues of the magazine and cosmopolitans all around (Yes, yes, yes. As if the drink said it all.). Our Network Partner, Fops and Dandies was there by coincidence and reported on the event as it went down. We couldn't agree with her sentiments more.
The thing is, this whole shift in opinion reminds us of that part in The Wiz when at a moments notice, the whole disco loving fashion crowd of Emerald City (New Yorkers do love disco) suddenly decides to change their 'color' at the insistence of the all-powerful Wiz (Anna?). Suddenly green becomes passe and the new color, whatever it may be, is now the only thing to be wearing. Yes, this is fashion as we know it but it seems a particularly apt analogy to the wayfarer divide. Marie Claire scoops up last summer's trends to their financial benefit and it angers the young downtowners who recklessly indulged in the statement, gasp, last summer.
We couldn't agree more that wayfarers are very 'last summer' (to one of our editors, so was the dj at the Bendel party, hehe) but we have to say that the divide seems a bit predictable. It's just like when Williamsburg gentrified and everyone got really angry by seeing people who looked like them on the sidewalks. Or farther back, when everyone in your grade started getting perms even though, like, you were totally one of the first people to get one.
Stick with what you think makes you look nice. We won't judge you. So long as you put down that cosmopolitan, get the hell out of that Bendel's party, and come get some mexican food with us. We'll even let you borrow our Persol 714s (wink, wink).
