Cold. (ouch) Nose to Grindstone. (ouch)  +

#thisparty #thatparty #thislaunch #thatexhibition #thisgala #thatmediacampaign  =

This Mama is tired of That Winter. This Kitten Wants to Dance.

Relentless. “Polar Vortex Death Storms.” says The Weather Channel, “Ample, pointless sunshine.” say New York Times City Room Blog-gers, Andy Newman and Annie Correal, of days below 20 degrees. And the next day: “Here’s the advisory: Pull down your ear flaps.”

In search of new epiphanies, I try a remedy I rarely do: Sheer Shopping.

Y’all know I also rarely do simple one subject posts. The combo of hell freezing over and an unexpected trip to the most exhilarating shopping in NYC I have perhaps ever seen has tripped my synapses, and thus this Love Sonnet to Rei Kawakubo’s Dover Street Market, just opened this Winter. This curative cave of curious sits in the unlikely neighborhood “creeping west of the Ace Hotel” as described by Maria McElroy, one of it’s denizens, indie-perfumer and my hostess.

I bustled over from a lunch in the Flatiron, bundled up in my classic cold weather gear for 2014, gold leather pants, sherpa ski boots, layers of down and massive fur hat.  Classically, just as the brain said “where the h is this place?” I spotted another gold-leather-panted, model-legged girl bound up the stairs across the street.

Oh. There it is.

O! This paper picnic dress, this fabric meteor, this Dorothy of Oz Saloon seemingly tornado dropped dressing room and the neat lady-like, little black dresses with pearl colors.

Epiphany #3: Our deepest, most creative spirit perpetually longs for that it which it has never seen.

Alice, (aka Maria of Aroma_M ) in her Mary Tyler Moore, circa 70’s apricot sweater skirt set, touched the pink paper floral froth in wonderment. Many garments combined high-tech fabrics with tons of ruffles or 1910’ish demurity. Like a teleported Madame Blavatsky. It’s a character I want to be but never saw a designer make party dresses for. Designer is imagining me. That there is an Epiphany.

Epiphany #4:  My perpetual goal is to step out of time in the right dress for a Time-Traveler.

Everyone is so damn hot on “Ascension” that they miss the joys of careening down the back staircase, the innards and behind-the-scenes of Life. Maria and went to the top first, and used the rabbit-hole stairwell like a palate cleanser. Rei and Junya would be proud.

Epiphany #5:  Today’s Fortune: Aim high and seek the road less traveled.

This kind of crazy quilt has been my brain and decor since age 5. I’m like a laboratory rat, only sedated by the organized mix of bright color stimuli. To see this as the structural columns in this anthill ran medicine through my very bones.

Epiphany #6: Heaven can often be soothed by Chaos.

Can you see how these pillars  lead to a kind of good design vertigo? We are not hungry ghosts looking for designers to acquire like keeping up with the Joneses or banker bonuses, we are humans exploring, feeling shape and volume to toss up our conventions of body, booty and brain boundaries. To be. Or not to be.

Epiphany #7: The White Board is the design to break Boredom.

A useless (?) devoid of context or use (?), silver appendage (?) juts out from a wall with a repeated image. This snarky thing is captivating to our minds, so attuned to instant images and messages via our attachments to our “communication devices.”

“Not this, not that,” is the famous yogic RT pondered right this minute by millions of meditators.  Should we think anything different when pondering clothing and identities?

Epiphany #8: The Absurdity of Imagery and Architecture. Just Do It.

Bugs? Gripes? How to impress one’s golfing buddies? Where the f is Spring?

Epiphany #9: It’s all in our heads.

I am sweating this girl band.

How a navy sweat band with heavy gold Caligula plaque and I fell in love.

Epiphany #10: Veneration is worthy when a simple thing says so many things.

H-E-L-L-O! And just $1500. buys these black suede Azzedine Alaia puppies and one never need own any other pair of black sandals.

Epiphany #11: Seduction and Salvation can be bought+worn together.

This cowrie shell neckwear appears suddenly in a creche of ancient garb set among the avant-garde shoppes like a window into a soul.

Epiphany #12: Hmmm, maybe my double Desire for Alaia and womb-y memories of cowries can indeed be satisfied.

A men’s jacket sleeve.

Epiphany #13: The topography of dichotomy can be played with.

Commes des Garcons? Oui, Luigi. Girls can play that dichotomy game too, boys. Are we check, Mate? Portofino on a Vespa with you headed to … a deserted beach on a dreary day. The wind sweeps the sand across the beach. He finds an old photograph of a seaside town cradled on a hillside. While exploring the quaint passageways of the town, the director encounters a beautiful woman and follows her to a seaside clothing shop where the woman works. In the shop, she gives him a look of recognition. They do not speak, but seem drawn to each other. As the director leaves, she gestures to him but he does not respond….Beyond the Clouds.

whoops. teleported…

Epiphany #14: The fabric of our lives is actually more of a soup. 

The fake, random architectural artifact. Either reminds that you are participating in the grand pre-fab soup bowl of history determined by the Pratt student devotee of Comme des Garçons who lovingly does the display in this shoppe or…

all this visual tantalizing equals RT’s “hmm, I’ll buy that” by your sudden transformation into a fashion sheep following the flocks seduced by these frocks.

Epiphany #15: Buy, buy, black sheep, Have you any wool? Yes, sir, yes, sir, Three bags full; One for the master, And one for the dame, And one for the little boy who lives down the lane. 

Between obsessives layering in dressing rooms proclaiming “Yes, I will take this and this and that” and multiple bags full observed in the hands of the besotted…yes. This pre-fab intentioned art stimulus does equal sales.

The un-perfect perfect. The closet every New Yorker wants. (except Jay-Z, Beyonce, The Man Repeller and Ivanka Trump)

Epiphany #15: Species evolution is marked by changes to the roof of the mouth which in turn relates to the roof of the brain. Olfactory response to edible offerings, choices and taste determine the evolution of morphic resonance. Or…a clean, exquisite offering on a pallet is as enticing as a taste or mantra isolated on my palette. Changed.

This here fabric froth frenzied me. I felt like a spring lamb devouring fireworks in a field with every clover crunch. Like a petticoat turned up in the LA Lakers locker room. Like a…

Epiphany #16: I am a sucker for incongruity.

Nothing like a thick, ruddy turmeric cargo coat for men, slapped with a shiny ultra-violet blue 10′ hangtag. It’s not even pretentious, this Junya Watanabe just wants boys to have some fun.

Epiphany #17: I just want to take a boy-man client through Dover Street Market and style him to the ends of the Universe.

Like a rhinestone cowgirl. This is so basic to me.

Christian Astuevielle is the creative director of Comme des Garcons fragrance, and the gentleman creator of these warrior necklaces. As per Vogue ‘constructed from layers of industrial materials (metal chains), pop exclamation points (vividly colored plastic links), and glamorous detritus (broken-down costume jewels)’

 “Most of all,” he says, “it’s to make women happy and exceptional.”

Epiphany #18: Christian, gracias, I am so getting warmer.

YSL dancing shoes.

Epiphany #19: Need we say more?

…and perhaps the most telling of the finer points of The Dover Street Market is a random pile of clothing about to be purchased I saw laying on a sales wrap desk. This is not cheap and fast fashion. This is an Epiphany of Cloth.

Epiphany #20: The Dover Street Market is Slow, Delicious Luxury.

160 Lexington @30th Street, NYC

all photographs by Jade Dressler,
with exception of LV runway and big mural in DSMNY.