Architecturally, the homes I grew up in – my grandparents’, my family’s apartment – were designed with the local climate in mind. Like many middle class homes, our home had terrazzo floors, which meant that on the hottest days or whenever the power grid failed, which was often, laying down on the floors offered respite. Rooms were outfitted with ceiling fans. My parents were very conscious about energy usage and its costs, and the only room that had an AC unit was mine. I developed asthma soon after birth and my parents were constantly terrified that I would run out of air. Through parental logic, they determined that I deserved the AC unit most (thanks Mum and Dad!). After almost ten years without one, when I was in my late teens, my parents eventually relented and installed one in their bedroom.

The AC was not, however, something to be used with abandon. It stayed off most of the day, and at night it was usually run for an hour or so before bedtime, then the fan was turned on to circulate the air. Power outages meant that the AC would turn off on its own anyway, and as a child I didn’t like the thought of my parents doing without while I slept in comfort. On unbearably hot nights, when electricity was nowhere in sight, a thin mattress was rolled out and we would sleep on the floor.

Even now, living in America, the land of air conditioning, my childhood awareness of when and how the AC was used still lingers. It frustrates me when people set their thermostats to temperatures that require wearing layers in the dead of summer, how their individual comfort outweighs the costs. When traveling in countries where it is not typical to have ACs, such as Italy or the UK, whenever I am struck with the temptation to turn the hotel thermostat down to Arctic levels – it’s on their dime after all, goes the rationale – I have to remind myself that I am a guest, and that I have to be mindful of where I am.

In Dhaka, how one dressed, in what fabrics, was also crucial to staying cool, or at least to keep from melting into a puddle. On trips to fabric markets with my mother to buy materials for clothes that we would then have sewn according to our measurements and preferences – a practice so common in Bangladesh, but which remains what luxury means to me – I learned invaluable lessons on what to wear and what was asking for my own doom. Satin was total madness, silk and chiffon allowed for more air but could still stifle, and nothing could keep cool quite like cotton. We used voile to make slips and chemises, and lightweight lawn for shalwar kameezes, dresses, and to satisfy my teenage passion for babydoll tops, which in retrospect, would have now been ideal for my pregnant state.

Something that confounds me each year when designers launch their spring and summer collections is how very little can actually be worn in the summertime. Satin dresses. Wool jackets. Polyester tops. Great if one is spending summer in Antartica or New Zealand, but less than ideal if not. It’s apparent why fast fashion brands choose synthetics over cotton: the former is cheaper to produce, and these companies seek only to increase profit margins. When mid-range brands – where starting prices easily start at $250 – take this route, one wonders. At the luxury level, the mind reels. Increasingly, luxury has very little to do with the quality of fabrics, of their ability to keep cool in the summer and provide warmth in the winter.

When I was twenty years old and briefly lived in Maryland, I found a bottle-green cotton dress at a thrift store I used to frequent. It was sleeveless and had a full skirt, the effect achieved with several layers of voile, a girlish collar and a matching belt, and had a distinctly 50s silhouette. I wore it almost non-stop in the sweltering summers, favoring its airiness over synthetic tops I’d bought from stores I could afford at the time, like Forever21 and H&M. I became increasingly interested in shopping secondhand when I realized that I had a better chance of finding cottons and linens – fabrics that would better serve me in the heat – than what I could find at fast fashion retailers. Most of my closet now consists of secondhand pieces, and what I buy brand new has to serve me very well.

Currently, I’m in my third trimester during an uncomfortably warm and humid June in New York. This means my hands and feet often begin swelling as soon as I wake up. The heat feels hotter and nothing but the most breathable fabrics will do, not even for the sake of fashion. My Pleats Please pieces, a pregnancy godsend, just won’t do anymore.

Thankfully, over the years I’ve learned of small brands who do understand the importance in the materials they use, such as Eka, Labo.Art, Injiri, Apuntob, Egg, Runaway Bicycle, and Album di Famiglia, to name a few. Other labels that have kept me from spiraling into a heat-induced pregnant-lady mania are Marni (from the Consuelo Castiglioni years, whose babydoll tops and tunics inspired my teenage ones), Dries Van Noten, and Comme des Garçons. Stores like Rennes and La Garçonne continue to introduce me to designers who make clothes that are actually conducive to wearing in the summertime heat, and Etsy remains a treasure trove of wispy cottons and linens, from Edwardian petticoats to Marimekko tent dresses.

Below are some outfits I’ve worn over the past two weeks and several hot flashes, and which have kept me cool, moderately calm, and somewhat collected. Consider this a trial run – with New York facing extreme temperatures next week, hopefully they’ll withstand the test of blistering heat!

This cavernous dress reminds me of maxis, nightdresses worn by pragmatic South Asian aunties – they know how to do summer right! The body is made from lyocell, which is ever so light, breathable, and moisture-wicking, and the hem is made from a heavy fleecy-cotton which holds the structure of the dress, instead of it hanging straight down

I’ve been a huge admirer of Rina Singh’s Eka for years. The way Rina and her team have grown a conscious fashion brand that is beloved ought to be studied. The brand’s studio is vertically integrated, which means most of their processes take place in-house, from embroidery and block-printing, to packing and shipping, and heritage textiles are sourced from an intimate network across India. I bought my first Eka piece nearly ten years ago, a pink checkered linen dress with 3/4 length sleeves, which has held up beautifully.

This dress cotton-silk dress is from a recent collection, and features the most delicate embroidery and block printing. The slip is a separate piece, and the scalloped muslin hem is intricately embroidered in vibrant colors. The slip was originally shorter than the dress, and after I placed the order, Siddharth, who heads Brand Relationships, sent me a message to ask if I’d like the slip to be made longer so that it would peek out from beneath the dress, both pieces made-to-order. That, for me, was the pinnacle of luxury, and kindness and service most “luxury” brands don’t offer clients.

These enormous trousers actually fit over my belly without squishing baby or me; I’ve found wider elastic waistbands to be comfortable throughout pregnancy than barely-there ones that tend to dig into the skin. One year when I was visiting my grandparents in Dhaka after moving, my grandmother was aghast to find that I’d only brought jeans and heavy canvas trousers (all the rage at the time) to wear, and the very next day she went out to the local market and bought me a pair of black culottes, not unlike these trousers.

I wore this two days in a row for a day of Doing Things Outside and kept considerably cool. The dress has adjustable ties at the waist and at the back of the neck, and is so capacious when unfastened, that it will get me through to the end of my pregnancy, without a shadow of a doubt.

The skirt has a similarly wide elastic waistband like the trousers above, and I can wear it high up on my belly or low down on my hips. The top is so voluminous and light, I could be having triplets and no one would know, and I wouldn’t break a sweat. I bought the top and the trousers above from the Labo.Art store in Milan, and was overwhelmed by the variety of colors and styles; I now regret not buying some of the cool lemon-yellow pieces. If you should find yourself in Milan, be sure to visit their shop.

For the past four summers and counting, I’ve leaned heavily on this Sara Lanzi dress, especially when it gets too hot to even think. There are ties in the back that can be adjusted, which means I’m very much still wearing it, and it has deep pockets on each side, perfect for stashing snacks and my trusty fan.

I resist the temptation to label this trip as a “Babymoon” because when we shared with an Italian gentleman that the purpose of our visit was our “babymoon”, he said, slightly scandalized and highly amused, he’d never heard of people traveling specifically to make a baby outside of a honeymoon. We only very narrowly survived dying from total and utter humiliation, me thrusting my belly out to indicate I was very much pregnant already, my husband over-enthusiastically patting my belly to confirm. Just below the surface, we wanted nothing more than to whither away.

A week prior to our departure, I began the holy ritual of packing for a holiday. While I do think of some practical matters, I also take into consideration slightly more frivolously glamorous affairs, like changing into an entirely different outfit for dinner, regardless of where we’ll be dining out. After the long winters weighed down by heavy knits and coats, in the summer I feel lighter, both in terms of what I wear and philosophically. A little zanier, more of that frou frou.

As we were traveling at the tail end of my second trimester, I wanted to not only make sure everything fit well but that they also generous. I tried on every last bit of summer clothing in my closet, pulling out tops and dresses out in front of my ever-growing midsection to see how far they would go, and putting away skirts and trousers that felt remotely like a little squeeze. I struck down my own inclination to pack silly little shoes, and took exactly four pairs that would accommodate my feet in their absolute peak swollen state (glamorous!), good for rain or shine: Tevas masquerading as Prada sandals; a sporty Miu Miu pair which buoyed me through two New York summers; barely-there JW Anderson flats for nice dinners; and espadrilles I bought in Barcelona a few years ago, which came to my rescue after my feet and back could no longer endure the silly little shoes I’d brought for the trip.

On our first full day in Milan, we made our mandatory pilgrimage to Fondazione Prada. After getting dressed that morning, I realized that I had worn a variation of the outfit I wore the last time I was there, about two years ago. I love my Prada but I’ve had to retire most of my pieces for the duration of my pregnancy, and this skirt from the Spring 2012 is one of the few items I can comfortably wear. It also occurred to me that every time I’ve been to the Fondazione, I’ve worn red and white, perhaps unconsciously inspired by Carsten Höller’s Upside Down Mushroom Room.

Later that afternoon, having sufficiently perspired through the above outfit, I changed into a pale mint dress by Sofie D’Hoore I bought to congratulate myself for nearly surviving my first trimester though not quite – after returning from La Garçonne with my new purchase, I was bed-ridden again for three more weeks. I wore this to visit Villa Necchi Campiglio, another of Milan’s cultural institutions I am very inspired by, and then to dinner at Al Matarel. Each time we go to Villa Necchi, my husband and I discover a new detail we hadn’t noticed before; for me it was the Marc Bohan for Christian Dior scarves, and for him, the way all the vents and radiators are elegantly and discreetly disguised. We also got to see the top floor of the Villa, which we never had before, where a selection of architect Piero Portaluppi’s sketches were being exhibited.

The following day we took the train from Milan to Naples, a little over four and a half hours, and then a car from Naples to Sorrento. Coming to the rescue for the long journey were my compression socks, which I find not enough people talk about with regard to maternity style. I would be immobile without them! I first tried Comrad socks, which I found impossible to put on with a bowling ball between me and my feet. Then I thought I’d be very chic and get two different styles from Falke; one had a seam at the top of the toes that became painful as time wore on when I test-drove them, and my thumb went through the second before I could get them on. The best compression socks for me continue to be a hideous flesh-toned pair my father bought for me from CVS several years ago for no particular reason.

My travel outfit to and from Sorrento and back to New York was this Comme des Garçons skirt I bought as a pat on the back for actually surviving my first trimester (I’ve been through a lot, okay!?), a blue Tekla button-down, and a Flore Flore tank top. Paired with the compression socks, I got a glimpse of the eccentric elderly woman I hope to be soon. Comme des Garçons cotton skirts with elastic waistbands and clever drawstrings have been the heroes of my pregnancy wardrobe – they inflect that perfect dash of strangeness I do enjoy when getting dressed.

From morning till swim on most days, I wore a loose navy Loretta Caponi dress with a smocked neckline and cutwork hem. When I first bought this dress a few years ago, there was something about the dress that at times I was unsure of. Even though it was beautiful, it wasn’t the sexiest item, maybe a bit mature. Now, I love the way it falls on my pregnant form. I feel this way about several other items of clothing I own, that they look better now than they once did, which, if anything, makes me wonder whether what has actually changed is how I see myself.

One afternoon we ventured out to have lunch at L’Agrumeto at La Cocumella, where Mary Shelley is know to have stayed, and to wander its beautiful garden. I wore a psychedelic-printed Dries Van Noten dress from the designer’s Spring 2022 collection, ideal for concealing pasta splatters and expansive enough to house my food baby and my baby baby. Another outfit I enjoyed was a silk and crochet lace from Péro with a decade-old skirt. I’ve owned both pieces for the longest time, but it only occurred to me as I was packing to put the two together.

Following a late afternoon shower and nap, I took great pleasure in getting dressed for the evening for nothing in particular. We ate sizable lunches, and spent most of our nights lounging on the hotel terrace watching the sun set, Vesuvius in the distance, snacking on olives and treats while I sipped on my gargantuan virgin Piña Colada (heartburn be damned!).

My embarrassing number of Dries Van Noten dresses have served me incredibly well during my pregnancy, now into my third trimester. I fell madly in love with the black and white dress when I saw it on the runway for Julian Klausner’s first spring undertaking for the brand – very 60s Marimekko – and look forward to wearing it to bits. The pink dress is from the Spring 2018 collection; I had searched for it for several years until I finally found one that was a few sizes up from what I usually wear. When I took it to my usual place for alterations, they weren’t able to take it in all that much and before I could embark on alternative options, fertility treatments took over while my alternations pile grew bigger, and here we are today. Fortuitous timing, really.

Back in Milan, I wore a skirt from the Milanese brand Labo.Art – they make crisp, paper-thin cotton pieces perfect for sweltering summers – and an old Marni top with a fussy ruffle down the front to see my lovely friend Giulia, who incidentally works at Marni. At the store, I bought a bitchy pair of sunglasses I’ve wanted for years, and encountered two elderly women who were quietly but audibly trying to determine whether I was pregnant or wearing a fabulously puffy ensemble. When I decided to no longer keep them guessing, they lavished me with compliments. I think the measure of a great outfit is when our elders are either totally obsessed or totally befuddled by it, or both. I told my husband in a few short years that would be my best friend and I. He agreed.

Another daytime look: a chlorine-blue Super Yaya skirt and Prada frankenshirt. Worn with the slippers, I look a bit like a stoner uncle, in the best possible way. A little less than a year ago, the wonderful Katie, who pens one of my favorite newsletters and who also owns the same skirt, invited me to collaborate with her on the ways we styled our respective pieces for a special dispatch, which included this exact outfit. I was feeling so terribly low that summer, and looking back, it takes my breath away to think how much my life has changed since.

A great joy of mine when putting together an outfit is often dressing for other women, particularly those I know more intimately. How will it appeal to their interests, their moods, their own histories? To see my friend Alessia, owner of the beloved secondhand Mecca Shop the Story, I put together a sleeveless 70s top by way of Miu Miu’s Resort 2015 collection with a white cotton Comme des Garçons skirt. The last time I saw Alessia, I wore a long black Yohji Yamamoto dress – her mother was a former avid collector of Comme and Yohji, and these brands served as a jumping off point for Alessia’s shop. After a long gossip session, she mentioned she had the exact same skirt in blue, but not before chastising me for perusing her racks – stop shopping for yourself, you need to buy things for the baby! She was wearing a pair of very comfortable cream-yellow Jil Sander sandals we both own. Talk about symbiosis!

On our last night in Milan, we had dinner at Da Panciroli, the recently-opened sister of Rovello. We ate beyond our limits and I still insisted on dessert. All in all, it was the perfect final meal. I wore a black and red floral Simone Rocha summer goth set with more than enough room for multiple meals. To dial down any seriousness – because my belly hanging out is so serious – I wore a pair of mismatched shell earrings I bought at a market in Formentera nearly eight years ago. I don’t buy much jewelry, traumatized by my youthful habit of putting on far too much jewelry, but I like to buy a piece when I’m on holiday, nothing flashy or expensive, but something that will remind me of a special moment in my life each time I wear it.

PS Did anyone else cry while the Knicks received their keys to the greatest city in the world?

For years I knew I had wanted to have a child, but I didn’t have a strong preference for whether I wanted that child to be a boy or a girl. By the time there was light at the end of the tunnel of infertility, I really didn’t care; all that mattered to me was having a healthy, viable pregnancy. After receiving results for the NIPT, a blood test which detects chromosomal abnormalities recommended for IVF pregnancies, my husband and I decided we wanted to know what the baby’s sex was. Hunched over my phone, devoid of any pomp and ceremony, no gendered-confetti to shoot into the stratosphere, we clicked on a link.

As the greeting card goes: it’s a boy!

Days after the elation settled, a troubling thought entered my mind: I had no idea how to raise a boy. I had never raised a girl, of course, but I felt that I had some lived experience which made me feel confident that I could, at the very least, sketch an outline for what it is to raise a girl – taking a bit more of this, a little less of that from my own upbringing and from how I navigated this world as both girl and woman. After feeling well enough to log back online following my first trimester – my child, a luddite, had a deep revulsion to screens – to catch up on the state of things, during the time I was out of commission, young men were taking hammers to their faces, a new strata of absurdity reached in the world of masculinity, a stepping stone towards spawning a legion of flesh-and-blood Patrick Batemans. A preview of Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere left a hard knot in my stomach. Casual and virulent hatred of women continues to be platformed, free speech weaponized as a tool for violence and for profit. The state of toxic masculinity wasn’t new to me, but in the unmerry bubble of constant morning sickness, I had found a brief reprieve from its horrors.

When I told my parents the sex of our baby-to-come, my father shared that when my mother was pregnant with me, he wished to have a daughter. I have the sort of father who always wanted me to be highly educated with a job in a powerful role, preferably in politics – neither of these came true, sorry dad. He loathed whenever my mother and I trailed behind, not wanting to seem like someone who thought women and girls should be ten paces behind men. It drove him crazy that I was unbothered about learning how to drive – for him a gateway to self-reliance, for me an additional cost I’d rather not pay for – and was determined that I excel in mathematics. Again, neither of these happened. Sorry dad! My father rightfully had no treatise for how my mother, who had been working since before I was born, should be, nor how she spent her hard-earned money. He was responsible for our weekday breakfasts and packed lunches, something of an anomaly for men of his generation. Yet, there was certainly a gender imbalance to how domestic responsibilities were divided, a significant portion of which was shouldered by my mother.

Socially, my parents were very strict. No boys, no parties, home before sundown. In the society I grew up in, dignity was often conflated with reputation, the latter of which could easily be tarnished for a girl no matter how good. It was uncommon for anyone to bat an eyelid over how their sons may have played a role in any such alleged damage. My family constantly fretted over my reputation; how a girl was perceived was of utmost importance. Boys and girls were certainly not viewed nor raised the same way. Even though women were actively participating in the workforce, receiving higher education, and it was not uncommon for them to financially support their families, what was at stake for girls as opposed to boys was starkly different.

I grew up around male cousins, uncles and friends who were granted generous clemency, with far less rules and expectations imposed upon them. They were ambiguous about where they were going and with whom, stayed out late, and did little to nothing to help out at home. As a girl, I had a far higher set of standards to live up to, which set the tone for how I would live out most of my adult life, interiorizing arbitrary rules to live by. The weight of doing my very best and knowing that it could all be upset by any slight in a way that would never have an effect on the boys I knew felt unfair and, at times, crushing.

On any given day, my fears range from, “What if my child is a woman-hating psychopath?” to “What if all the messaging about masculinity that surrounds boys from a very young and formative age denies him the security of being able to express himself however he chooses?” Having experienced firsthand how differently boys and girls are raised, the liberties they are granted and denied, the respect bestowed upon one as a birthright while the other must fight for it, has made the thought of raising my own son rather daunting. It is, of course, ludicrous to consider a child a means of correcting all wrongs and misgivings, but I do think about how to both honor my son and to impart upon him the importance of honoring myself, as well as those like me and who we once were.

Upon sharing with anyone the news that I am pregnant, I am usually immediately asked if I know whether I will be having a boy or a girl. My response is typically met with the sweet but somewhat misguided generalization that little boys adore their mothers. How do some of those boys grow up to embrace misogyny and blame women for everything wrong in their lives, I wonder. How do we imbue them with sustained respect for girls and women, long after they have grown from boys into men?

While so much is terrifyingly beyond one’s control, there is something to be said for the lessons taught at home, and how meaningfully they are conveyed. To fortify my child from internalizing traditional and toxic masculinity, I would need to, first and foremost, interrogate and extricate myself from my own internalized misogyny: how had I positioned myself, for example, and subsequently limited myself as a woman, or the knee-jerk propensity to judge others. It would require my husband and I to take a long hard look at the delineation and assumption of gender roles within our own home and of our gendered perceptions of care. It’s not a cure-all, but it is a start.

Our best chance of raising a conscientious little boy, I hope, is to lead by example, to build a home life that upholds inclusion and compassion – the building blocks of integrity – and create a strong interior world that respects and values little girls and women. Just as I once was, just as I am.

Before I became pregnant, I wondered every now and then how I would respond to the physical changes that arrive with it. From about the age of eleven, I developed a dysmorphic relationship with my body. I possessed a terrible sort of contempt for how I looked, which was never enough, reimagining the reality of my form with a cruelty that even now surprises me as to how a child could be so capable of. Feeling somewhat steady about how I momentarily perceived my body, I did worry about how I would see myself in pregnancy, whether that latent cruelty would once again resurface.

It dawned on me about halfway through the second trimester that I hadn’t really given any thought to my body. Of all the strange new sensations, I was very aware of – my right ear and only the right ear turning boiling hot if my blood sugar dropped; inexplicable pain in my big toe one night; the baby swirling around when laying on my back at the dentist, or drop-kicking me in protest whenever I took an Uber, a true New Yorker of a child – but as my cruelest critic, my thoughts were none. Somewhere along the pregnancy, between the morning sickness and the misery of the first trimester, I made peace with the fact that my body would undergo inevitable changes beyond my control, that I just wasn’t going to be able to wear certain clothes for the foreseeable future, or maybe never again, and I was relieved.

There was a time when looking in the mirror easily brought on a laundry list of disappointments, but now, more than anything, I am filled with a sense of awe and wonder. Over the last two years I lost friendships I held dear, developed health problems that eventually pointed to infertility, began IVF treatments, had a failed transfer, and understood them all as my failures. How bizarre that this body, subjected to more than two decades of neglect and insensitivity still had the strength to withstand it all, to find within it the reserves to grow another life? It isn’t pregnancy itself but rather what it took to get here, what I have gone through, that forced me to acknowledge my own fortitude. What I needed for myself, always, was kindness. And this has finally afforded me the ability to grant my body – and my dear critical mind – a reprieve.

Dressing for two has been one of the greater pleasures of pregnancy. It is rather freeing to know exactly where I stand, not ten pounds lighter or with narrower hips or leaner legs, but to take my body as it comes and as it alters week after week. I no longer agonize over what does not fit. Though it is a tall order to expect each of my clothes and shoes to carry me through all stages of life (wouldn’t that be nice), discovering what pieces are up to the task, what new forms they take, and which designers really do think about encompassing human experiences gives me a thrill.

With the exception of a pair of joggers to wear to prenatal yoga classes and maternity undergarments, a godsend I succumbed to very early into pregnancy and cannot recommend enough, I’ve found that my affinity for tent-like shapes for spring and summer clothing, elastic waistbands, and delaying having pieces altered means that I have a fair selection of clothes to last me through my second and third trimesters. While I used to get flustered at times from repeatedly wearing the same things, making my clothes work for pregnancy has reminded me how much I actually enjoy coming up with ways of wearing existing pieces. Below are some outfits I’ve been enjoying in the second half of my second trimester, most of which are secondhand:

Granny Smith-green Prada jacket; Marni Spring 2019 skirt, the waist of which used to not fit quite right and now does perfectly; Y/Project x Melissa mules.

Dries Van Noten Spring 2019 jacket and skirt, the latter of which I’d been desperately searching for and finally found last, but a few sizes up from what I usually wear. I kept postponing taking it to the tailor and wore it pinned, and now there’s more than enough room for my partner-in-crime to slosh around in; Camper sandals.

A new Comme des Garçons pat-on-the-back skirt which can comfortably worn around the belly but also looks great worn under; Dries Van Noten denim jacket; Prada Spring 2020 sandals.

Simone Rocha Tulip skirt, which like the CdG skirt above can be comfortably worn much higher or lower; Labo.Art jacket; Camper sandals; faithful Fane bag which, in addition to the essentials, also fits a snack pouch of mixed nuts, a granola bar and a pillbox of Tums.

The Dries Van Noten Fall 2017 dress that doesn’t stop giving and deserves to have papers published on its construction. This is absolutely the most-worn piece of clothing I own, pre-pregnancy and now during, with still more room to grow; Spring 2025 jacket; Wales Bonner Mary Janes; JW Anderson Bumper bag highly deserving of a reissue!

Until next time!

A few weeks after my first embryo transfer had failed, I was cleared by my doctor to try for a second round at the end of December. Incidentally, this happened to be the day before my fifth wedding anniversary. Had I not been crushed by the grief of the first failure, I would have considered this timing to be auspicious, kismet even, but infertility and IVF can drain the life out of a thing called hope. I accepted that I would have to submit myself to the cruel game of probability. Might as well get another doomed attempt out of the way, I thought.

On the day of the transfer, I arrived at my appointment with no faith and a full bladder. Following an unpleasant probing in a room full of strangers and a mad dash to the restroom immediately after, the procedure was complete and my husband and I headed home. Afterwards, I ate a lunch of salad and fries from The Odeon.

The next ten days were an exercise in denying myself feeling anything in the lead up to my pregnancy test; there was no room for hope here. Every day I reminded myself that I refused to feel the way I had previously, like a part of me had died. I spoke about a second failure off-handedly to my husband, and began mapping out what my limit would be, and what the course of action would be once that limit had been reached. Unlike before, when I spoke to the embryo I hoped would one day become my baby and fantasized about our not-to-be-life, this time I refused to acknowledge it. I tucked away the image I was given of the embryo after the transfer, along with the first.

The morning of the pregnancy test, I felt steady. I was going to get my bloodwork done and act like nothing had ever happened, and by the time I got the solemn phone call from the nurse, I would brush it off and go about my day. Nothing would upset me, nothing would phase me because I had been expecting it. What I hadn’t accounted for is that it is impossible to deny one’s feelings for too long. A few hours later, I was spiraling, frantically cleaning the apartment, obliterating every last speck of dust while listening to The Prodigy in hopes of exorcising the onslaught of emotion.

Then I got the call, the nurse sounding more upbeat than last time. The test was positive. I was pregnant. This I hadn’t prepared for.

Two days later, the morning of New Year’s eve, I went back for a second blood test which confirmed I was still very much pregnant. I had braced myself for only disappointment so that I struggled to accept that it had finally happened, that it could happen to me. On high alert, every time I got up from a chair I expected to see blood. One night early into the pregnancy, I had terrible pain and was certain something had gone wrong. It turned out to be a bad case of gas. Each morning I awoke riddled with anxiety and looked up the likelihood of losing again with the passing days. My first failure had convinced me that history was bound to repeat itself. Nothing prepares you for the long-term emotional toll of infertility and the ordeal of trying to conceive.

Something else I was entirely unprepared for: just how miserable the first trimester and a half of pregnancy could be. Through the process of trying to conceive and becoming pregnant, I realized how reluctant people are to speak about how hard it all can be, perhaps motivated by taboo or superstition, or a need to project a one-dimensional perfect image of pregnancy, designed to make people feel terribly about themselves. While I’d learned a fair amount about delivery, it turned out I knew very little about the disruptions the first trimester could bring with it. Embarrassingly, most of what I had known about “morning” sickness was informed by TV shows and their limited depictions of high-powered independent women dressed in business formal, their heads in toilet bowls before heading out for the day to take their place in the workforce. Otherwise known as Miranda Hobbes.

A few days into the new year, pregnancy sickness had taken hold. By five weeks, the very thought of food and liquids made me sick to my stomach. Though I was fortunate enough not to be throwing up, I had debilitating nausea and fatigue. Severe food aversion meant that my diet consisted of saltines, graham crackers and bagels with little-to-no cream cheese, foods I’ve vowed to never look upon again – I had anticipated fried chicken-fueled cravings that never arrived. It wasn’t until two weeks into my second trimester that I hesitantly braved scrambled eggs for the first time.

Never had I felt both so helpless and hopeless, unable to do the most everyday of things: I couldn’t read, work, watch television, listen to music, pour myself a cup of water, sit upright on my own, or look at my phone, though this may have been a blessing in disguise, having missed the questionable 2016 nostalgia and discourse on anything ending with the suffix -maxxing. By the time I stopped taking progesterone shots at nine and a half weeks, I had painful lumps and bruises along my hips that made lying down or sitting upright nearly impossible – I slept, when I could, with folded t-shirts under my hips to cushion them. For nearly three months, I was incapacitated, isolated from everything beyond it, disconsolate and deeply resentful.

When the pregnancy sickness quickly became so severe, I was sure something was very wrong. Of the people in my life who had given birth, none had mentioned the common difficulties of the first trimester. Across social media, I witnessed women document and discuss their pregnancies as an ethereal experience, blooming and joyous. Between the saccharine announcements and reveals, rarely if ever were there assertions of how hard pregnancy itself could be. Meanwhile, my skin tone fluctuated between shades of green and grey, and there were days I wondered if I could get by without brushing my teeth. Showering worsened my symptoms, causing me, a former lover of bathing, to dread basic hygiene. Even though pregnancy sickness affects a vast majority of those who have conceived, I felt very much like an anomaly, both lost and losing myself.

In the few moments I could look at a screen, seeking commiseration, I furiously read accounts by anonymous women forced to quit their jobs, who were bedridden or rushed to the emergency room because of how unwell they were, women who felt adrift and inadequately prepared for the degree to which how awful they felt. How could there be no systemic support for a condition so prevalent, particularly in a society where the pressure for women to have children has never abated? The first trimester is about survival, veterans echoed in forums. But with no structures set in place to guide, support, and educate the mother-to-be on the rigors of early pregnancy, she must find a way to survive on her own.

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From the moment I received the news, I couldn’t believe that fortune had worked in my favor. And so I was perpetually suspicious of it (and still am, somewhat) waiting for the moment it would all disappear. The misery from pregnancy sickness was compounded by my belief that in feeling so low, I was being ungrateful, that my inability to bear the suffering with a smile would only further tempt fate. By those who hadn’t gone through what I had, I was reminded that this was a “miracle” and that in another time I wouldn’t have been able to have a child. It’ll all be worth it once you have the baby was a popular guidance, which seemed to me like a great deal of expectation to put upon an unborn child. Having dealt with infertility and a failed transfer, my pregnancy became tinged with superstition and shame. I felt that I had no right to feel the way I did. Guilt consumed me about how unhappy I was when I should have been ecstatic.

Societally, there seems to be a need to portray pregnancy as frictionless. To me, it undermines the immense strength, labour and fortitude that goes into the act of childbearing, and is disempowering for those who are led to believe that their difficulties are a deviation, not the norm. We must either invalidate how we feel or be hounded by guilt. As is the case with most things pertaining to women, in pregnancy, two (or many, many more) things cannot be true. The good expectant mother, we are directed, is one who is beatific and gracious. Any complexities that inevitably arise during this experience should be concealed, pushed furthest away from mind and view. At my first appointment with my OB, I shared with her how horrible my first trimester had been thus far; “People act like pregnancy is glamorous, but it’s not,” she assured me. The unwillingness to betray how messy and complicated it is to bear another life detracts from what makes it a beautiful experience.

The pressure for a woman to be perfect continues to be unrelenting. Everywhere I look there’s a renewed heightened sense of urgency for a woman to erase the things about herself which make her real, even in motherhood, perpetuating a cycle which none of us ultimately can live up to. To take ourselves for who we are and to show up as just that does not fit the arbitrary schema of perfection. But aren’t our truths what make us uniquely, wonderfully human?

It is only now, halfway through my pregnancy, that I’ve finally come to realize that the past few months have been a testament to how resilient both my mind and body are. In early pregnancy, I thought often about how I had lost control over myself, agonizing over how useless I had become. I was cruel to myself when what I needed was compassion. I wish I could have understood then that my body was doing something incredible, and that the difficulties were just as much a part of the process.

Motherhood for me so far has been anything but perfect, which is to say, it has been exactly as it should be.

Despite the biting cold and the SADs, December is my favourite time of the year. I love seeing Christmas trees lit up in the windows of peoples’ homes, the same decades-old seasonal music playing in shops and restaurants (and my home), and hot chocolate walks. When my husband and I lived near Downtown Brooklyn, we’d take frequent walks through Brooklyn Heights to “rate” exterior Christmas decorations on a scale of 1 to 10 Jingle Bells – 10 being the highest order of Jingle Bells – then head into Dumbo for a hot chocolate treat to reward a walk well done. No matter how the rest of the year may have panned out, whether utterly dreadful or just fine, the romance of Christmas makes the impending send-off ever so bittersweet, and all I wish to do is to make the very most of what time remains.

My taste for New York, like most yearning for this city, was informed early on by films like Home Alone II and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the usual suspects. In my imagination, New York was a magical place, loud and bright and frenetic, and Christmastime in New York was certainly unparalleled. The first time I visited New York as an adult was when I was 20 years old. My parents and I drove up from Maryland during the Christmas break for two days and stayed with relatives. We had no clue of where to go or what to do, but I knew names like Soho, Broadway, Fifth Avenue, Tiffany’s, and Central Park. I was far too intimidated to enter Tiffany’s, but my mother was hell-bent on getting a photo of me by the entrance of the store. I look self-conscious and embarrassed in the photo, mainly because I was wearing so many layers to keep warm, producing the effect of a marshmallow, and not looking terribly chic in an incredible Givenchy gown and tiara.

Before heading back home during that trip, my parents and I drove into Soho, no address, just “Soho”. It was Christmas evening and all the shops were closed, the streets exceptionally quiet, but for the few minutes we walked around the area, I felt as though The Greatest Thing in the World had happened to me. At the time, I had so desperately wanted a Kate Spade bracelet with a fun and a silly phrase engraved, but couldn’t afford to do so on my pitiful sales associate salary. We went up to the store on Broome Street anyway just so I could peer in through the windows to satiate my desire. Who knew at the time I would be spending the past eleven Christmases living in New York!

Each November, I make a list of things I’d like to do in December. The list is almost identical to that of previous years, but nonetheless it feels essential to jot down, and it always begins and ends with movies in which Christmas is a guest star, interspersed with hot chocolate walks (Thierry Atlan is currently preferential), a bold and mad attempt at viewing the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, breakfast at The Odeon (the booths by the kitchen if one is blessed), and the sounds of the Vince Guaraldi Trio. Without further ado, some of my favourite Christmas films set in New York, where the season is unparalleled!

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Moonstruck (1987)

A few nights ago I rewatched Moonstruck. It is easily my absolute favourite romantic comedy of all time. One of the challenges of this genre, I think, is holding on to one without betraying the other, maintaining symbiosis so that both the romance and comedy elements have equal time in the spotlight without seeming controlled or deliberate. While watching Moonstruck, however, I find myself swooning and laughing out loud at the same time.

Cher plays the pragmatic Loretta Castorini who accepts like instead of love in her life after spell of Bad Luck. That is of course, until she falls under the spell of la bella luna! and is quite literally swept off her feet by Nicholas Cage’s Ronny Cammareri while she exclaims, mystified by her own fate, “Oh god! I don’t care! I don’t care! Take me, take me to the bed!” Loretta’s long skirts and sensible grey herringbone coat are replaced by a burgundy velvet and taffeta dress and red heels, a transformative moment in the character’s development visually mapped out by costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge. Aldredge also worked on a film that made me dream of becoming a glamorous divorcée at the age of six (and the first film I remember seeing at a movie theater; my parents did some things right!) - The First Wives Club.

Ronny Cammareri is a sensitive and petulant opera-loving baker with one wood hand who has also had a spell of Bad Luck. Ronny flips tables one moment and makes bedroom eyes the next, looks devastating in a tuxedo, and he has few loves, but that which is loves, he does so passionately, hilariously. One of the greatest lines in Moonstruck is when he bellows, “I ain’t no freakin’ monument to justice!” In this household, we love Ronny – the character’s love for the opera, the Puccini soundtrack, and the shots of the Lobmeyr chandeliers at the Metropolitan Opera inspired my husband and I to go see La Bohème earlier this year.

While the presence of a Christmas tree is conspicuously missing from the Castorini household, scenes of New York, the shops, and the restaurants, are peppered with wreaths and poinsettias and festive lights. There are shots of Hicks Street and the Castorini home is on Cranberry Street, both of which were part of our former hot chocolate walk route.

Falling in Love (1984)

For something that doesn’t tug quite so much on the heartstrings, Falling in Love is an excellent Christmas-in-New York comfort film. At the time of the film’s release, several critics were frustrated and comically upset over how the stars of Sophie’s Choice and Taxi Driver had wound up in a cozy easy-viewing romance, but I’m not one to complain. There are fewer pleasures in life than watching Meryl Streep shrug and Robert De Niro play a romantic, with Christmas in New York as the guest star, from the comfort of one’s home on a freezing cold evening. The former Rizzoli location is the site of the duo’s meet-cute, and Grand Central Station and the Metro-North serves as the conduit for their romance, and there are plentiful walks down, in, and around Fifth Avenue, Saks, and Chinatown. What more could you need?

Carol (2016)

I can no longer recall just how many times I’ve watched Todd Haynes’s Carol. It is absolutely one of the most beautiful love stories captured on film, right up there with Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love and Jane Campion’s Bright Star. There isn’t one thing I don’t love about this film, from the swell of Carter Burwell’s score, to Sandy Powell’s costume design and the way Cate Blanchett’s Carol Aid pronounces “Harge” and “Therese”, and of course, Christmastime in New York.

My husband recently bought a limited release Collector’s Edition blu-ray of Carol from a French video publisher for “us”, but really it’s a gift for me. The package just arrived and it comes with a vinyl of the score as well as songs from the film by artists such as Billie Holiday and The Clovers; a look-book that catalogs visual inspiration (department stores and fashions from the 1950s, stunning pops of red, and Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter); a 100-page book with an introduction by Todd Haynes for which I’ll have to bring my horrendous French out from retirement in order to read; a poster; a letter of reconciliation to Therese from one Mrs. Hargess Aird of Ridgewood, NJ, and “photos” of Carol by Therese.

While I was recovering from surgery in the summer, I re-read The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith and finished it in one sitting. The book and film take different twists and turns, but in both instances I emerge in a daze, tears fresh and heart full. I realize that there aren’t very many books set during Christmas – some might argue the Bible but I personally find it a bit cumbersome to fit in my handbag – but I would definitely recommend it to anyone in search of a seasonal read.

Until next time!

As we were preparing for IVF, my doctor recommended that we start off with a fresh embryo transfer. Given my age and overall health, she felt comfortable in us not taking the more common path in America of genetically testing embryos and doing a frozen transfer. In the days leading up to the transfer, we patiently awaited news of whether we would be doing a Day 3 or a Day 5 transfer. At a Day 5 transfer, the embryo develops into a blastocyst, giving it a better chance at implantation. One blastocyst would be selected for transfer, and the remaining would be tested and frozen.

When I received the call from my doctor that we would be doing a Day 5 transfer, I felt exalted. From the very onset of this process, I was extremely fortunate to not have had a terrible experience. There were no raging hormones and climbing of walls, and for the very first time, I happily surrendered myself to any and all changes to my body. I had grown comfortable with the early morning appointments, the daily pricks of needles, our dining room table briefly transformed into a miniature science laboratory each evening while we mastered our shot-massage-clean up routine with the deftness of a synchronized team sport. There was a purpose to this rigor, and I welcomed it. I felt steady and calm; what once irritated or angered me now left me feeling unfazed. My egg retrieval had gone astonishingly well; I was certain that none of my eggs would mature, so that when the numbers had turned out positive, I cried hysterically from shock and relief. All the doubts I had about myself and my body, that it had failed me and would go on failing me, began to recede. My dues seemed to have been paid in full and the light had begun to enter. The walls went down and the optimism slowly crept in.

Early in the summer when I first learned that I would never be able to conceive naturally, what I found hardest to accept was that I would not experience the romantic spontaneity and surprise of pregnancy, nor the blissful unknowing. From day one I would be hyper-aware, vigilant and nervous, like walking on ice: one misstep and I could go under. This denial took longest to overcome, and I did so by telling myself how lucky I was to even have IVF as an option, as those who hadn’t experienced what I was experiencing were prone to reminding me. What was a moment in a lifetime, afterall?

At the hospital on the day of the transfer, I was given the cap, gown and robe – the closest I’ll ever get to donning graduation attire – and a pointless pair of blue cotton pants, worn for only a handful of minutes before having to remove them. After a long wait, my time came quite suddenly, so suddenly that as the nurse was leading me to the next room, I realized I hadn’t hugged my husband, or kissed him, no goodbye or good luck. A woman in a hospital bed was being wheeled back to the recovery room. She was looking at what seemed to be a postcard she held in her hands.

When it was my turn, I climbed onto the bed and placed my legs up and open in a pair of stirrups. There was something comically absurd about the environment in which this transformative moment was taking place: the bright fluorescent lights; my head tilting back and downwards; the presence of the nurses and doctor and embryologist; the silly blue cap on my head; the realization that I should have shaved; Titanium by David Guetta and Sia pulsing in the background. One day I would have a good story to tell, I thought. A spell of mild discomfort later, it was over, and I was given my own postcard. A picture of our blastocyst with my name and the date on it. Positive thoughts! the doctor called out as I was being wheeled away. Later that evening I ate a mountain of fries.

Now we entered what some refer to as the dreaded 10-day wait, and most unlike myself, I continued to feel serene. Yes, I was very much aware of what was inside of me but, in a way, it made me feel special. How fortunate was I to experience this intimacy so early on, to have a co-conspirator of my own. I spoke to it throughout the day, apologizing to it when I made the shower too warm, suggesting to it we take a rest when I felt tired, whispering goodnight and sweet dreams before each sleep. I borrowed a term of endearment my husband had come up with for our cat, little one. I knew she wouldn’t mind. My husband and I made a dinner date for the day after we would receive the pregnancy test results, and thoughts of burgers and fries, pies and shakes filled my mind. I would finally pull the trigger on a dress I had wanted for years as a treat. I pictured my parents’ elation, and entering a new year while the little one continued to grow.

A day or two before I was due for my pregnancy blood work, I noticed that some symptoms I had experienced earlier on after the transfer had subsided. I no longer had the overwhelming need to round off every meal and snack with an apple, nor was I excessively thirsty, nor tired. During IVF, the body becomes a highly unreliable witness. Every and any bodily reaction could be nothing, and so I thought it best to think nothing of it.

Five or so hours after I had my blood drawn, I received the call with my results. The transfer had failed, I was not pregnant. At some point in time, the little one had ceased to be. Maybe it had happened before we had even reached home, before the mountain of fries, maybe after a goodnight. There would be no celebration, no co-conspirator, no secret of ours to reveal, no story to tell. At some point in time, I had continued speaking to it, but it was no longer listened.

What no one tells you about IVF is how crushing the devastation will be when it fails. The lights go off and the walls go back up and over. The abrupt withdrawal of the hormones you become accustomed to ravages through anything resembling joy and hope, and all that is left is pain. Laughter comes in the form of hysteria, the tears are limitless, and any happiness that is not yours can become a violent affront. I held secret hope, so sure that a mistake had been made. When I would receive that call, I planned to be forgiving, benevolent. And then there was no denying it, my body delivering confirmation. In the days that passed, I continued to speak to it. I had questions, demands, maybe if I bargained or pleaded. Where did you go? I loved you so much, why did you leave? How could you go? I woke up each morning crying.

How do you grieve that which you could never hold, when there is no date or time or place to affix to a loss, when there is not even a form? A void begins to open where hope once resided. Positivity and optimism must be approached with caution, perhaps shelved for another time. Slowly the rage and tears dry up and become a steady heavy sadness no one else will be able to comprehend but is yours entirely. And maybe you will grieve this forever, but somehow you pick up what remains, and try again.

*Header image credit: Etel Adnan, California Coast (1982)

The first time I did buy something from Zara was sometime around 2010 or 2011. I had moved to America that summer and worked thankless retail jobs, clearing out piles of clothes customers had strewn around their fitting rooms and picking up clothes they’d knocked off hangers and onto floors. One day, while I was in a Zara at a local mall, I saw a coat I desperately wanted. It was a collarless beige coat with a rough tweed texture and sharp shoulders. I tried it on, and my mother insisted I buy it, I worked so hard, I deserved it. As much as I wanted the coat, I thought of its practicality. It wasn’t particularly warm and I’d only be able to wear it during the fall interlude. Eventually, I bought it. I sized up so that I could wear multiple layers under it to somehow get me through the winter, and when it warmed up, my mother could wear it too. It was a splurge, and I needed to get my money’s worth.

Several months after I bought the coat, which turned out to be a terrible defense against cold snowy days, 30 factories in Brazil where Zara outsourced parts of its manufacturing were accused of having slave-labor working conditions. Worker safety was perilous, a fire extinguisher that had expired in 1998 was found, and Bolivian migrant workers earned $569 a month at the time for working no less than 12 hours a day.1 The Zara seal broken, I commenced shopping there, particularly during the store’s end-of-season sales. Sweaters, trousers, scarves, I was oblivious to the facts. In a 2015 report, the abuses against Bolivian workers persisted.2

On the 24th of April, 2013, Rana Plaza, a building in the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, that housed factories responsible for manufacturing for brands such as Mango, Walmart, The Children’s Place, and Zara, collapsed. Its aftermath was horrifying. One of the most devastating images to emerge was that of a woman and man, crushed under the rumble, in a final embrace.3 For days, my grandmother visited the site of the catastrophe, armed with tiffin carriers full of food and water bottles to hand out to grief-stricken strangers. My grandfather dedicated his daily prayers specifically to the victims and their families. Disturbed by the horror of what had happened, I voiced my anger in a small publication for and by South Asian people. Now able to buy things beyond H&M and Forever21, I continued to shop at Zara, labels bearing “Made in Bangladesh”.

In 2016, I got a Big Girl Job which had a business-formal dress code. I hit the Zara near Bryant Park, and picked out two cropped collarless jackets with metal fastenings, one in black and one in navy; a pair of black wide-legged trousers; a grey and black tweed mock-neck top; and a synthetic-soft white shirt with gold buttons. I wore a combination of those pieces on rotation, mixed in with another pair of black trousers, a brown-faux leather skirt, and a few sweaters and shirts, mostly from Zara. That year, more than 40 artists accused Zara of plagiarizing their work.4

The year I got my Big Girl Job, I exited it, stunned by toxic corporate culture and my own naivety. Some time later, I made an attempt to complete my university degree (sorry Mum and Dad). I took a class on fashion and sustainability, and while much of the semester was spent listening to representatives from certain troubling brands talk abstractly about their grand plans for their Sustainable Development Goals, it also introduced me to the works of scholars like Naila Kabeer. The more I read and learned about exploitation at the hands of fast fashion, the less I could evade my guilt, the clearer it became that I played a role as perpetrator.

From my readings I learned, for example, that the strangely common belief that people from lower income groups were the biggest fast fashion spenders was untrue. Middle and high income groups love their fashion fast. By this time, I had stopped shopping at Zara. Nothing about giving my money to one of the wealthiest men in the world5, a man who amassed wealth at the cost of human life, made sense to me. I was no longer patching together paychecks, and I was financially stable enough to make smarter and more responsible decisions with how I spent my money.

If someone is in a financial position where shopping at Zara is a splurge, there is no shame or judgment in that. I have been in that position. But it is easier on the conscience to demonize a minority group who factor for a nominal piece of the equation, than to look in the mirror. What is difficult to fathom is how people who have the means to buy luxury designer clothes and accessories have the gall to also shop at Zara, and encourage others to do so, or how people of generously comfortable means can partner with a company so totally and completely morally bankrupt. Endless shopping newsletters are littered with affiliate links to Zara “dupes” to recreate one’s impersonal style, with a side of Phoebe Philo and Prada. For the brand’s 50th anniversary this year, over 50 fashion industry heavyweights participated in campaigns to celebrate what I can only imagine are the brand’s historic human rights violations. A link, a campaign, or a collection from influential figures in the fashion and fashion media industries signals that despite all of Zara’s crimes, they continue to co-sign the brand.

Since my first purchase at Zara in my early twenties, garment workers in Turkey attached notes to clothing in Zara stores across Istanbul that read, “I made this item that you’re going to buy, but I didn’t get paid for it!”6; Zara sourced materials from China’s state-imposed labour transfer programs using Uyghur forced labor7; Zara sourced materials from a farm in India using child laborers8; Zara partnered with a cotton producer in Brazil known for human rights violations and the deforestation and destruction of natural habitats9; Zara worked with a manufacturer in Pakistan with poor safety regulations, resulting in the deaths of 250 people10; and Zara has continued its expansion in a place where its government has been accused of committing crimes against humanity11. In this time, Amancio Ortega, founder of Zara parent-company Inditex, has accumulated an estimated net worth of 124.4 billion dollars.

Am I a perfectly ethical and responsible shopper? Not in the least – I assure you, I am the furthest from a sanctimonious high priestess atop her high horse as I write this. Most of what I own can hardly be traced, and the majority of brands are not transparent about how or where sourcing and production takes place. But of the brands I once regularly used to shop, Zara’s crimes have become inescapable, with regular headlines of having been persistently linked to human rights violations. The audacity of this persistence reads entirely like flagrant disregard for the lives of the people who make the items we’re going to buy, as well as for the rules that safeguard those lives.12

It took over ten years and countless catastrophes since I first coveted those Zara boots to finally be unable to look away and ignore the facts, to recognize myself as part of the problem. When it was the most I could afford, it made certain things less of an impossibility. From my position of privilege now, one of the simplest things I do to hold fast-fashion behemoths like Zara accountable in protecting and upholding human lives is to continue my divestment, and to encourage others like myself to do the same. I suspect that when it comes to billionaires, money talks, so hit ‘em where it hurts.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I spent three nights in Antwerp, and though our trip was brief, I’ve thought of the city and all that we did nearly every day since our return. It’s impossible to not feel inspired by a place that values creativity. Before I launch into my ode “O Antwerp, how I love thee”, here are some of my highlights from our holiday, which, it turns out, is everything.

We took the Eurostar from London to Brussels, and then transferred to a train to Antwerp. The first leg of the trip takes less than two hours, which is about the time it takes to finally settle on whether to listen to a podcast or a playlist. Crucial for this part of the journey is a Prawn and Mayonnaise sandwich from Marks & Spencer. It doesn’t matter how early your train is, get the sandwich. You’ll feel smug satisfaction while taking a bite of creamy pre-packaged goodness while everyone else pokes at their dehydrated train meals. A mad dash through Brussels Midi/Zuid will get you to the trains that run to Antwerp. Another 30-45 minutes and you’ve arrived!

To-Do

• MoMu - Fashion Museum Antwerp

I’ve wanted to visit MoMu for years, and it may have been one of the main reasons I suggested to my husband that we take a trip to Antwerp. Over time, as I became more and more obsessed with interested in learning as much as I could about Dries Van Noten, all roads led to MoMu. The museum is home to more than 38,000 items, and showcases works of designers not commonly shown in America. On display in the permanent collection at the time were pieces by both emerging and long-established designers, from Meryll Rogge to Martin Margiela.

At MoMu, I learned about the fashion designer Ann Salens, considered the godmother of Belgian fashion, known for her silk crochet designs. On display were a few of Salens’ knit and fringe pieces, which have inspired Dries Van Noten’s own takes on the techniques.

Elsewhere in the permanent collection were works that explored floral motifs, particularly roses. A blurb on this section reads, “Over the centuries, the rose has become deeply entwined with mythology and religion, as well as with themes of beauty, sexuality and gender identity. What stands out is how strongly designers today are drawn to the rose as a symbol.” There were designs from the queen of roses, Simone Rocha, as well as Prada, Noir Kei Ninomiya, Bernadette, Dries, and Dirk Van Saene. Serendipitously, I was wearing a pink rose-patterned dress from Dries Van Noten’s fall 2017, a revisiting of the designer’s work from his debut womenswear collection in 1994

Also on at the museum (and still on view) was an exhibition titled, GIRLS. On Boredom, Rebellion and Being In-Between, which thoroughly investigates the trajectory and complexities of girlhood. The show opens with a pink ballet-slippered bursting sculpture by Sofia Lai, followed by a singular wax and human hair Mary Jane shoe by Robert Gober. This was undeniably the most thrilling exhibition I’d been to in a while, and I thought it was radical to dedicate something of this scale to the experience of girlhood.

There were bedrooms as imagined by designers Jenny Fax and Chopova Lowena, Lux Lisbon’s prom dress and nightgown, a plush toy dog handbag from 1936, white socks and their gendered politics, and books by authors who have touched my own girlhood and womanhood, such as Toni Morisson, Francoise Sagan, Bernadine Evaristo, and for those of us old enough to remember the glory days of Tumblr, Theory of the Young-Girl by Tiqqun. A compilation of films regarding the theme of girlhood included Bande des filles, Picnic at Hanging Rock, and Bonjour Tristesse by girlcrush, Durga Chew-Bose.

Closing out our visit to MoMu was the RESOLUCIÓN exhibition, an audiovisual installation composed of over 90 years worth of clips spanning Spanish cinema and its incredible actresses as they talk on the phone, avenge themselves, remain composed, implode, and say no, side by side and decades apart. Whether it was intentional or not, both exhibitions and the permanent collection seemed to tell a story: first the seeds of girlhood, then its flourishing, and finally emerging from girlhood and into womanhood.

• Plantin-Moretus Museum

Once a publishing house and residence of the Plantin and Moretus families, helmed by the women of the families between the 16th and 18th centuries, the museum houses antique printing presses and the first modern atlas. While it’s a veritable playground for publishing and typography nerds, there’s a great deal of inspiration to be found everywhere and for everyone, from its beautiful courtyard to ornate wall panels – a little birdie told me the museum inspired elements of Dries Van Noten’s Men’s Spring 2022 season.

While I was walking through the museum, I came across costume displays by REantwerp, a project that redirects excess and scrap textiles from fashion houses, which are then reimagined and given new context by refugee and recently-arrived migrant artisans and designers. Some of the labels REantwerp collaborates with include Christian Wijnants, Raf Simons, Haider Ackermann, and of course, Dries Van Noten. Seven costumes were specially created to honor the lives and work of the women – daughters and domestic workers alike – who powered the publishing house for 300 years.

To Feast

• Camino

Following our Prawn and Mayonnaise train sandwiches and exploring the city for a few hours, my husband and I had built up quite the appetite, which is the perfect time to go to Camino, a cozy Asian-inspired restaurant. We got the BBQ corn with yuzu koshu, fried chicken wings in nam jim gai, mussels in red coconut curry, and Dandan, and for dessert, the coconut cream and mango-passion fruit sorbet. Our only regret was not packing our extra stomachs with us.

• Bar Misera

For our last night in Antwerp, we had dinner at Bar Misera. When I learned that they offered eggs with caviar and smoked eel, I knew I was in heaven. We also had the potato croquettes, the most elegant salad, and fish to share. After returning to New York, my husband and I have discussed our meal at Bar Misera at length and agreed that it was one of the best meals we had on our holiday, right up there with the St. John.

To Shop

I’ve already droned on in-depth about how incredible the shopping is in Antwerp, regardless of whether you’re looking to make some serious financial damage or simply to feel inspired (or for some of us, simply to feel) but to recap:

• Concept shops: Graanmarkt 13 (there are 13 lush trees in the main square just outside the shop); The Menu; Renaissance; Step by Step

• Secondhand shops: Rosier 41; Labels Inc.; Vrijdagmarkt 6 (menswear paradise); Ensō Vintage (their upcycled range, made from vintage Italian pieces, is ingenious!)

• Motherships: Dries Van Noten; Christian Wijnants

• New and vintage houseware: Every shop along Kloosterstraat will have you rationalizing packing a chair into your carry-on.

• Chocolatier: Perhaps the height of tourist behavior, but I couldn’t go to Belgium and not bring back chocolates for my family (and perhaps myself). I settled on a few mixed packages of white, milk, and dark chocolates with puffed rice and nuts from Elisabeth, and have been discreetly working through my loot whenever my husband is on a call.

  ---

  While some might say two nights is a good amount of time spent in Antwerp, I wish we could’ve stayed so much longer. It’s a wonderful city to get lost in, and every space I entered and every space I passed made me want to explore its ins and outs for hours. On the train back to Brussels, I shed a tear of five, surprised by how deeply our stay and the beauty of all I had the privilege of experiencing moved me.

  Until next time!

While some may play a round of Sudoku to keep their minds sharp, my brain game was challenging myself to come up with the many outfits stemming from pieces such as a felted tweed suit or a crisp white cotton skirt. Now, if I’m considering buying something, I have to think of four or more ways of wearing it in a manner that holds my interest.

With the constant turnover of trends and seeming-disposability of clothing, ways of wearing is an exercise in appreciating not just a garment, but the work and resources that go into creating it.

While I was in London a few weeks ago, I dropped by very determinedly headed to the Dries Van Noten store in Mayfair. Located in a listed Victorian building across from the Hanover Square garden, this location joins the roster of recent Dries Van Noten store openings in New York, Milan, and Tokyo, and its interior feels less like a site of commerce, and more so the convivial home of an extremely fashionable eccentric.

When the fall collections began trickling into shops on and offline, I’d spotted a heavy tan wool skirt with a flair for drama. One thing about me is for certain: I do appreciate a big skirt. It had debuted on the runway for Fall 2025, Julian Klausner’s first collection for the label, but the awesomeness of the skirt’s structure had been somewhat concealed by a fantastic chenille sweater. I thought about the skirt for some time, and then tried to forget about, but I couldn’t. Instead, I imagined how it could evolve with me. Before I even decided I would buy it, I thought of how I could wear it: with a pair of bulbous lilac mules, and when it got cooler, with tall brown boots and a heavy pink coated canvas jacket.

After my husband and I made plans to take a trip to Antwerp and London, I told myself that to commemorate my purchase, I would buy it at the Het Modepaleis location. On the very day we arrived at Antwerp, after freshening up and pretending that I didn’t have an agenda, we entered the mothership. As I was perusing, acting as though I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, I was approached by a sales associate asking if I needed assistance. I had done a full turn about the store, unable to locate my skirt. Surely my eyes were deceiving me. I let the associate in on my predicament, who – cool, calm, collected – replied, they had none left in stock. How could this be? What of my visions of all the ways I would wear this skirt? Where could I possibly go from here? Not knowing what to do with myself, I panic-bought a pair of wide leg jeans (be assured, gentle reader, that I had been entertaining buying similar versions for years). Returning from Antwerp, I would have to take solace in my new incredible elastic-waist Dries jeans.

On our second to last day in London, we had a blissful itinerary planned: the Nigerian Modernism and Emily Kam Kngwarray exhibitions at Tate Modern, followed by lunch at Nina; stocking up on far too many books from Daunt; onward to the Bella Freud and Margaret Howell shops in Marylebone and then…what’s this? How did the Dries store sneak onto this itinerary?

The Dries Van Noten store in London is composed of two levels. The top floor houses womenswear, perfumes and cosmetics, and feels like an extraordinarily opulent dressing room. Nothing about it is remote, unlike the interiors of many designer shops, and the people who work there are lovely. Simply walking through the store is a great way to get inspired. Downstairs, in a monastic small network of rooms, is home to menswear and an enviable collection of vinyl records. Of the Dries stores I’ve been to, London was my favourite.

Back upstairs, I’d once again been unable to find my skirt. I took this as a sign, but my husband, who knew he would be the one-man audience to my grievances and lamentations, insisted that I inquire about my skirt. An associate told me she might just have it. I entered the fitting room with another skirt, my heart set on The One, eagerly hoping and waiting. And now I am convinced that there is indeed something as divine intervention, for lo and behold, my skirt had found its way to me. Perhaps my poor husband had manifested it, worn down by how anyone could possibly be so hung up over a singular piece of clothing.

I put the skirt on, and like all things that are meant to be, it was only love at first try. Emerging from behind the canary-yellow curtain of the fitting room to show it off, I must confess, I felt quite regal in the skirt, even though I had paired it with my worn-out black thermal top and rain-soaked socks. I wasn’t going to be coy about it any longer, I was absolutely going to buy it.

While waiting to check out, I spoke to Haider, an associate who works there, and we discussed our mutual admiration for Dries and Julian Klausner. I confided that I was “a Dries super fan” (I really shouldn’t be allowed out in public), and in return, I was gifted with any choice of a travel-sized perfume. Of the two perfumes I own, Fleur du Mal is one of them, and I love it so much, that while packing for our trip, I sprayed the inside of my suitcase with it so that my clothes would retain my favorite scent. Now I could always have my perfume with me.

Now, without further ado, some ways of wearing this epic saga of a skirt!

I.

As I had first envisioned it, my skirt with a black sweater and bulbous lilac mules from Martine Rose’s collaboration with Clarks. The sweater with the skirt could easily become a bit too tasteful and ordinary; incredible and ugly (incredibly ugly?) shoes keep things off balance and on the odd course. Earlier in the summer, I bought this lilac silk-satin purse with silver and gold embellishments from Dries Van Noten, which I thought would go well with a black and gold sari I was going to wear to my cousin’s wedding. I realize now that this outfit is a casual variation of its formal counterpart.

Fun fact: When I was a child, my version of hell was either spending the weekend at Ikea or being dragged into Clarks in Croydon by my mother, and thus it must be said: praise be Martine Rose for delivering me from my childhood trauma!

II.

When it comes to knitwear, I’m not the most imaginative of thinkers. Usually, I tend to fall back on a rotation of black, navy, and grey sweaters, and let the bottoms and accessories do the heavy-lifting (exhibit I). In an attempt to shake things up a bit, last year I bought this vintage cardigan set by John Galliano. It’s incredible and ugly (incredibly ugly!), with patches of fur, velvet, silk tartan, and sheer metallic panels. It pairs perfectly with these vintage Miu Miu Bowie mules I bought for $30 when I first moved to New York.

III.

In Antwerp, I bought this Dries Van Noten jacket from Labels Inc., a secondhand shop that has massive selection of Belgian and Japanese designers. Based on the label on the jacket, it’s most likely from the 90’s. I thought it would be interesting to play around with the proportions, as ordinarily I would wear just wear something that ends at my natural waistline. There’s something a bit late 80’s/barely 90’s rom-com heroine about the overall look I quite enjoy!

IV.

Another constituent of my Weird Knitwear delegation is this JW Anderson cardigan from Fall 2024. The first time I tried it on, I thought it was so deeply unsexy, a cartoonish take on an old English granny’s essential with its puffy quilted silk-satin brown lining, which meant that it was perfect and right for me. Life’s too short to not dress in ways that amuse oneself!

These cracked silver Tabis are a prized possession. I bought them on eBay in 2019 from a seller who had nabbed the wrong size at the Barney’s closing sale for – breathe with me reader – $250. May I never cross paths with the Tabi thief!

Until next time!

To visit a city because of a designer isn’t the sort of reasoning you can give to normal people in possession of a good head on a set of stable shoulders. But it’s why Antwerp had been one of the cities I’d wanted to travel to for quite some time. And the designer in question? Dries Van Noten, of course.

Antwerp, I casually insisted, without betraying a hint of my agenda.

After checking into our hotel and re-painting my face, we set out. Our first stop was Rosier 41, a most meticulously organized secondhand designer shop. One might say it’s rather unorthodox to choose a shop as the first destination in a new city, but I’d argue, unless that city is Antwerp. The Rosier 41 windows are dedicated to beloved designers, as well as young graduates from the Royal Academy of Arts. Earlier in the summer, the windows displayed a private collection of Martin Margiela’s AIDS awareness t-shirts from Autumn/Winter 1994. During our trip there, pieces designed by Selena Wang, a student at the Royal Academy, stood in the windows.

Inside the shop, the clothes are organized by designer: Christian Wijnants, Ann Demeulemeester, Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garcons, some Prada, and an abundance of Dries Van Noten. A second room showcases racks of pieces from contemporary brands. It takes an incredible amount of self-restraint to not walk out with everything, though one is bound to have regrets for not doing so. I left Rosier 41 armed with a wispy lurex printed skirt from Dries Van Noten’s Ophelia/Summer of Love collection.

The following day, on our way to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts – reader I assure you we didn’t just go for the shops, we did also see art and eat excellent food, which I’ll get more into next week – we stopped into Labels Inc., a consignment shop offering the Belgian and Japanese greats, among other designers. While both Rosier 41 and Labels Inc. draw from a similar roster of designers, their temperaments couldn’t be more different, the former being more vibrant and eccentric, the latter decidedly moodier. Labels Inc. has an ongoing collaborative project with the Royal Academy of Arts, where student collections are displayed. The shop also regularly invites artists to reimagine their windows. And yes, I left with a menswear-inspired brown jacket by Dries Van Noten from the 90’s.

A stone’s throw from the Royal Museum is The Menu, a multibrand shop which carries an extensive selection of some of my favourite women-owned labels including Renaissance Renaissance, Super Yaya, and FANE (all of whom have undeservedly-limited presence across shops in America), as well as accessories and houseware. I immediately knew I had to go in when I spotted a purple and white polkadot skirt by Super Yaya, and the chocolate brown FANE bag beside it. Not far from the central shopping district is Renaissance, the younger sister to Princess located next door, which was originally founded in 1953. On the particular day I wandered in, the dress forms lining the entrance were outfitted in August Barron’s fall collection. Inside, one can find an enviable amount of Julie Kegels, Bernadette, Dries Van Noten, and Meryll Rogge’s recently launched B.B. Wallace.

While walking past shops in Antwerp, I began to understand just how significant windows are. In the morning, before doors opened for the day, I noticed people in shop windows readjusting displays or setting a new scene. Passersby stoped to take in the windows, a pair of shoes, a skirt, its price. As we stood in front of one of the elaborate windows of Dries Van Noten, an elderly couple crossed the street to discuss a men’s suit that had caught the woman’s eye. Window shopping becomes a way in which to learn, discover, and fantasize.

In New York, the exteriors of standalone designer shops and the city’s few remaining multibrand spaces can be quite remote. Some windows display marketing campaigns of the moment and very little of what’s in store, while others are shrouded in mystery, signaling cold exclusivity. Those who walk by are not encouraged to investigate and admire.

Despite shopping being a significant element of Antwerp’s tourism industry, noticeably absent is the presence of luxury’s heavy-hitters. Many spaces, it seems, have a particular fondness for emerging and young designers, and those of designers such as Christian Wijnants, with its leafy atrium in the background, invite in, rather than intimidate. The window is transformed into a platform for collaboration and community, fostering awareness and underscoring appreciation of designers new and treasured.

Antwerp is home to the awe-inspiring fashion museum MoMu, its collection ranging from the works of Ann Salens, to that of Martin Margiela and Simone Rocha. Its presentations seek to inform and pique curiosity, and I suspect, inspire. The shops of Antwerp are not unlike the museum itself, keen to offer new ideas, not more of the same. Window shopping here is an exercise in broadening one’s horizons, making a case for the exceptional work of designers beyond household names, offering the curious among us to get up close and enquire.

When I moved to Dhaka at age six and a half, I joined a school where the curriculum was taught in English. During my parents’ childhoods, these schools were few and far between; by the time they had a child of their own, it was considered the height of fashion. At my school, we were occasionally cautioned that speaking Bangla outside of our Bangla language class was an offense. The poetry of Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam flew right over my head, and I could scarcely make sense of their words. It was not until I was in my twenties that I would know Satyajit Ray as anything but a writer of the detective series Feluda. I could not wait to be in the sixth grade, the year Pride and Prejudice would be on the syllabus. To read this mythic novel was a rite of passage for twelve year old girls at my school. The boys could take it or leave it.

I have now lived the majority of my life far beyond the boundaries of my motherland. English has become the dominant language. It is the language I use to communicate to my husband I love you or you’re getting on my nerves. It is the language I continue to read and write and think in, though there is less time for play. Bangla punctuates my day in brief spells. When I am on the phone with my parents, we speak in Bangla. If I am speaking to an aunt or uncle, I insist on using Bangla, and they carry on in English. To my cat, I speak in Bangla, though she is not much of a skilled conversationalist. Despite the prevalence of English in my life, there are certain things I am only able to communicate in Bangla, and there is a life so hard to conceive of in the former yet so ordinary in my life in Bangla.

Recently, I wore a silver necklace given to me by my mother and grandmother. On a trip to Dhaka a few years ago, my mother found it at an antique shop she and I used to frequent when we still lived there. It was located on the second floor of a market where we would buy, for a steep price, imported Lays (as a treat) and Lurpak butter (to be used with discretion). The antique shop was not just so – it was also a place where custom leather jackets and shoes could be ordered, mainly by foreigners whose careers brought them to the city for a year or three, and they had a jewelry display by the entrance where one could not only find antique jewelry, but have custom jewelry made with pearls and beads. One year, I amassed a collection of long pearl necklaces.

When my mother came across this necklace, time had leant it a dull patina. A few stones were missing and others broken, but my grandmother assured her it could be salvaged. My grandmother knew a person whom she referred to as rupar lokh, directly translated as silver person, or silversmith. My grandmother had known his father, then the son, from the time my mother and aunts had married, and it was from them she had her daughters’ jewelry made, and then, when they had fallen out of fashion, returned to melt them down to be made anew. The silversmith, and then his son, knew my grandmother not by her name, but by the number of the road she lived on, so she was Road 5 aunty, which sounds not even half as amusing as paach numberer khalamma. In fact, I was so used to my grandmother being referred to as paach numberer khalamma, and it seemed so powerful that she should be known as a sort of doyenne of that road, that her real name sounded alien to me. The necklace was polished and restored, and my mother and I decided that we would have the stones replaced in America, once she returned.

Now where in America would we have the stones replaced? Jewelry stores were exorbitantly expensive, and craft supply stores too artificial. In Dhaka, it was strange not to have a lokh. There was of course, the rupar lokh, but one might also have a gaser lokh, for when the kitchen stove kicked up a fuss, or an aamer lokh, who procured the best mangoes of the season. And then there was the maacher lokh, from whom my grandmother would buy her fresh-caught fish.

The title of bhai, or brother, and in my case, uncle, was given to those from whom we bought fabrics for clothing and furnishings, and to those tailors responsible for bringing our poorly-sketched fantasies of new outfits and draperies to reality. It was most ordinary to have clothes made to measure and in one’s own vision than to walk into a store to buy something ready made and mass produced. Even at Bongo Bazaar, where clothes rejected by Gap and H&M and Zara were resold, each piece had its own idiosyncrasy: one sleeve slightly longer than the other, a back pocket stitched to the front, mismatched buttons.

So, on another trip to Dhaka, the necklace went back with my mother, and she and my grandmother returned to their rupar lokh to have green stones set where they were once gone.

As I removed the necklace and returned it to its pouch, nestled amidst the jumble of jewelry contained and kept out of view in a glass mirrored box, I thought of how it had come to be in my life. The antique shop on the second floor of Gulshan 2 market, if it is even there anymore; the rupar lokh capable of silverwash and other forms of magic; my late grandmother, known to me as Nanu, known to others as paach numberer khalamma. Onno ekta jibon, a different life, as my mother would often say after we left Dhaka.

There is a life so hard to conceive of in the former yet so ordinary in my life in Bangla. Onno ekta jibon.

Earlier in the summer, I was asked by Vogue Australia to write an essay about what it means to dress as a woman for their September issue. I wrote this in the throes of my grief upon learning that I would not be able to conceive naturally, wrestling with my comprehension of my own womanhood. Upon completing this assignment, I had a sense of catharsis, but I suppose writing about Miuccia Prada and Begum Rokeya, the early 20th century Bengali feminist and writer, will do that for you! You can read it in the digital issue, or pick up a copy from your favorite esoteric magazine shop.

Two weeks ago I underwent surgery to remove my left and right fallopian tubes, which were blocked and filled with fluid. When I first saw images of the state they were in during a scan, between my tears and the shock of it all, I couldn't help but think they looked like Gossamer, the hulking hairy red character from Looney Tunes, or a cartoon rendition of sausage links. The procedure itself had been a bit more complicated than expected, with extensive adhesions fusing the left ovary to the left tube. When I awoke from my anesthetic sleep, having been instructed to eat, I discovered a latent love of plastic-packaged graham crackers and pretzels.

For the day of the surgery, and for a few weeks to follow, I was instructed to wear loose and comfortable clothing. Because there would be incisions in my stomach and both sides of the hips, and gas would be used during surgery causing me to swell like a helium balloon, this meant that my trousers and skirts would be out of the running. If there were ever a time to own McQueen bumsters! Eventually, I settled on a long black dress and a loose black tropical wool jacket with a zipper running down the center of the back, both by Yohji Yamamoto, and a pair of mary-jane Salomon sneakers.

It probably seems rather ridiculous to give so much thought as to what to wear to a hospital, only to have to change into a standard-issue cotton gown upon arrival. Clothing has long offered me a sense of security, and since childhood, it has been one of the primary mediums through which I express and assert myself, but it has also been a way to shield my private self in my outward presentation. Sometimes they have said exactly what I mean, and at other times, the total and complete opposite.

The clothes I wear have certainly feigned courage on my behalf when I myself lacked it, but they have also, on occasion, served as a means of escape. As children, why do we wear costumes of beloved characters, or dress as ballerinas or astronauts we hope to – but eventually may not – one day be? In a good dress, I could briefly elude the reality of the grief I felt somewhat buried under.

What I hadn't thought about was what I would and wouldn't be able to wear post-op, and I was unprepared for how it would make me feel. Like many women of and around my age, I have long had a dysmorphic relationship with my body. Bouts of cruelty in how I view myself are interrupted by moments of compassion. The way I dress has partly been shaped by the parts of myself I would rather not think about, and those I hesitantly love.

But now my body had taken on a new form; much of my clothes which were once a source of security, I could now not wear for some time. This temporary interruption (temporary, I have to repeat to myself like a mantra) is also a crude reminder that my body is not blooming with new life, but has instead lost a part of it. Gone was a part of myself I had before never given any thought, something now of great consequence.

A few days after the surgery, I finally understood what the source of this amorphous grief I had been feeling was, one that I had, till then, difficulty putting to words. I would never experience the spontaneity of the first stages of pregnancy, the not knowing and then the secret knowing, the uncertainty and the miraculous surprise. My experience would be different from those more commonly told, different from that of my cousin, my mother, my aunts, my grandmother. From day one, I will be holding my breath, expecting the worst and privately, shamefully, hoping for the best. It is an incredibly fortunate thing, to be able to do IVF, that it is even an option and that I have the resources to follow this course, but a lack of societal understanding and acceptance makes for an isolated experience, as if the process to and of motherhood is not sufficiently isolating.

My acceptance of such radical physical and emotional changes has not been easy, and I am exposing my vanity in admitting that I have struggled with seeing myself as I presently am. When the time came to change out of the nightgown I had been wearing far too long, the thought of what to wear next was more paralyzing than it ought to have been. I didn't want to wear loose-fitting comfortable clothing as advised by my doctor, the nurse, and the guidance I had been sent home with. I wanted to wear what would be too taxing on my healing body, I wanted to hide the evidence. Suddenly my roomiest dresses were not just that, but rather a magnifier of my weakness. It is not so simple to feel empowered when the armor no longer fits, when the shield is lost.

Ten minutes before I had to leave for my follow-up appointment a week later, and the first time I had the strength to leave my home, I was in a frenzy over what to wear. “Who do I want to be?” I asked, as I have done whenever I have felt uncertain of myself. I wanted to emerge in the disguise of someone untouched by my pain, whose life was following the trajectory we are told, in a body not so unruly, in something tough and assured.

But I couldn’t be anyone other than myself, my body was still healing, and there were no other possibilities. I reluctantly picked an airy pale blue and brown checkered dress by an Italian designer named Sara Lanzi, and pulled on a pale green jacket from Lemaire, which I had bought in Paris a few years ago on impulse and with a modicum of guilt. At that moment, she was not who I wanted to be, but I had to accept that this was who I would need to be.

Accepting my vulnerabilities has been difficult, and wearing them on my sleeve even harder. The clothes we wear are commonly perceived as protection, a defense from intrusion, but they can also leave us feeling quite exposed, forcing us to confront that which we may be hiding from. To deny my reality will make the process of healing only that much longer, so I am surrendering. This is who I am now, and I am slowly, surely, growing quite fond of her.

Header image is Etel Adnan’s Sans titre, 2012.

One morning this week, I stepped out for an appointment when I was met with a wind gust, which in no uncertain terms, was positively brisk. I wore a mid-length skirt and a solid t-shirt, a pairing which had become my unofficial uniform for this summer, and wished I had brought a light jacket or a cardigan with me. A cautioning of the season's impending end.

Some of the more enduring memories from my childhood and adolescence originate in the summertime. For a period, the summer holiday meant a respite from school – where I remained hopelessly uncomfortable until my last day – and the opportunity to travel, to see my cousins, to see places familiar and those entirely new. On visits to London to see my aunt and two cousins I had grown up with, my mother packed our suitcases with mangoes, custard apples, jackfruit, and dried fish. In exchange, we returned back to Dhaka with Dairy Milk, Digestive biscuits, and pungent and delicious bags of Monster Munch.

There was the summer my parents and I visited Toronto for the first time, and on that same trip, to what we referred to as America for the first time since I was a baby. I was eight years old at the time, and there are photographs of myself on the glass floor of the CN Tower and in front of the White House. When my father had begun the process of migrating our family to America, my summers were composed of phone calls to a boy which lasted early into the morning (and trying not to get caught by my mother), playing The Sims and inhaling the first two seasons of The O.C. with my cousin while our mothers were at work, and exploring the world with the aid of our newly installed broadband.

This summer has felt somehow abbreviated. As I was just done hanging up the last of my summer clothing, the call came for layers. If you live in New York, with seasonal change comes the exhausting task of rotating out linens for knits, every last bit of storage bursting at the seams. Before I pack away my pieces, I wanted to share some of my favorites from summers present and past.

It was during one of my last summers as a teenager that the works of Miuccia Prada had really resonated with me in some lasting way. By way of a magazine at a tailor's workshop, I had come across Prada's Spring/Summer 2004 campaign, photographed by Steven Meisel, the models depicted in a watercolor late-summer haze. The collection and campaign were already a few years old by that point, but I didn't care, and twenty-one years later, I am yet to tire of it. I suppose one could say that this points to the way Prada, both the designer and the brand, has the rare ability to transcend time, setting trends while bypassing them entirely. What is old becomes new again, a valuable lesson with regard to how we view our clothes.

The spring and summer collection from 2004 remains my longest fashion relationship. So enamored I was by it, that as a teenager I had a dress made to replicate the feeling of a tie-dye dress worn by Daria Werbowy in the campaign. It fascinates me to think that the outline of my tastes as they are today had begun to loosely form over two decades ago. There were minor interruptions along the way, an unfortunate dalliance with skinny jeans, but somewhere the idea had taken root that as a fully-formed flesh and blood adult, that was how I wanted to dress: big-in-spirit skirts and mid-length dresses, interchangeably ugly and beautiful.

Traveling in time back to 1998, Miuccia Prada produced one of her most cerebrally sexy (to me) collections. Absent from it were nostalgia and longing, the latter of which not be confused with desire. The collection seems to have been born in that very moment, perhaps even ahead of its time, and nearly thirty years later manages to still remain modern, even more than what many brands have to offer today. On their own, the drab beige hemp tops would look simply ordinary, but the addition of sheer latex panels transforms them from dull to perverse.

Prada’s Spring/Summer 2003 show was regarded with divisive reception. The appearance of little knit shorts and mini skirts ruffled the feathers of a fair number of editors, one alleging that it would make women feel as though they were being “shunted off to the junior department.” It’s an interesting take, as the collection seems to have a foundation set in the 1960s of Cardin, Rabanne, and Courrèges, as well as the women’s liberation movement. What I appreciate most about this collection is how a range of diverging ideas, from couture fabrics to the essence of sportswear to chunky childlike plastic appliqués merged to create a collection that is unmistakably Prada: the beautiful and the ugly, conflict and contradiction.

One of my earliest secondhand purchases was a brown and white skirt from Spring/Summer 2001. Of this collection, Miuccia Prada told journalist Cathy Horyn, “The moment you start being in love with what you’re doing and think it’s beautiful or rich, then you’re in danger.” It was Prada’s confrontation of her discomfort with the 80s. It was a departure from the 1940s romanticism of the previous fall season, almost entirely devoid of prints with the exception of a few stripes and repetitive floral patterns in yellow and brown, and one that the designer and her present co-conspirator Raf Simons have referenced frequently in recent collections.

Over the past year or two, hot on the heels of Y2K (the Bush years, the ceaseless wars) came the vintage Prada trend. Overnight, it seemed people were shelling out small fortunes on Prada from the mid-nineties to mid-aughts to make thirty second-long videos ending on a leg pop. Did sentimentality guide these purchases, or a connection to the ideas or styles they communicated? For some, certainly, but my cynic suspects a good number of people were buying to belong, the whiff of virality, or supplanting an identity with stuff. Here, longevity has no place.

The pieces I collect, though I hesitate to use the term “collect”, comes from a place of sentimentality, and yes, at times, desire. It begins with an image in a magazine from a very long time ago, and how I made that image my own. As an adult, the clothes we buy and wear should not be dictated by an algorithm, but because of how they make us feel, and how we feel in them. I wear these clothes relentlessly because they bring me pleasure, and because I dress to please myself.

My last entry was a quippy number about dressing for the sweltering heat while on my period and chuckling my way through the disappointment of learning that I was – once again – not pregnant. The following week, my husband and I had an appointment with a fertility specialist. Women over the age of 35 are encouraged to see a doctor after six months of unsuccessfully trying to conceive. We had tried for three, and I was anxious to confront any potential issues sooner rather than later. Had I known better, I would have seen a specialist the very first time I was certain I would one day like to have a child, but women are never given this sort of guidance.

At our first appointment with our smart and tough doctor (I am the child of immigrant parents and do not respond to coddling), we were given a run-through of our options and were required to do bloodwork to give a clearer understanding of our health. The doctor performed a transvaginal ultrasound to assess my ovarian reserve, and after months of diligent pelvic floor physical therapy, I'm happy to report that it felt almost less invasive than inserting the tiniest tampon. My reserve was low, she observed, but not alarmingly so. Based on our medical profiles, the assumption was that we just needed a tiny bit of help in the form of a trigger shot to induce ovulation, or maybe even intrauterine insemination (IUI). Ever the cynical pessimist that I am, I was mentally prepared for these forms of intervention long before we had even begun trying.

The final stage of fertility testing was a hysterosalpingogram (HSG) procedure. If you think it must feel as awful as it sounds, you're entirely correct: a dye is injected into the uterus and fallopian tubes to determine their health and induces the worst imaginable cramps while you have to stay still as an x-ray hovers over your pelvis to take images of your insides. The procedure is brief but extremely unpleasant, however our doctor was performing it and I felt well cared for. What I was not prepared for, as someone who takes pride in her over-preparedness, was what would come after.

As soon as the HSG was complete, still cramping and spotting, I was instructed to sit up to have a look at the images. The test concluded that I have a condition called bilateral hydrosalpinx, most likely congenital, which means that both my fallopian tubes are blocked and filled with fluid, making fertilization extremely difficult to impossible. Had I gotten pregnant, the chances of an ectopic pregnancy would have been high and possibly fatal. Additionally, the fluid from the fallopian tubes could leak into the uterus and create a toxic environment for an embryo. I learned this while still dressed in my sad beige hospital gown, my husband unaware in the waiting room.

Trigger shots, IUI, and natural conception would no longer be an option; my fallopian tubes would have to be removed and I would have to undergo IVF to conceive. Not even the apex of my pessimism could have prepared me for this. Before I could begin to process what I was being told, I began to cry. Here I had thought the journey would come to a close, one that had seemed endless with what had felt like speed-dating gynecologists through New York City who would take my pelvic pain seriously, a year of physical therapy with limited results and then searching and moving on to a new physical therapist, getting my husband on board with having a child and recognizing my urgency, all to blindly board a brand new rollercoaster. After going over the results, my doctor said to me, "We're just going to have a baby another way."

What was the locus of my grief? It wasn't one thing in particular, but rather an amalgamation of fears long imagined and those I'd never conceived of. The laparoscopic procedure I would have to undergo would be my first surgery, and I was terrified of losing consciousness and control. I had never once felt particularly attached to my fallopian tubes and had never thought that natural conception was what legitimized one's role as a woman. Yet I felt as though something was irreparably wrong with me, all my inadequacies confirmed, and that I was now less than a woman. I was the outlier. No one I knew had ever spoken about struggles with infertility, none of the generations of women in my family, nor friends, nor acquaintances, which is odd because roughly 1 in 6 people globally are affected by infertility.

The next morning, I awoke believing that the previous day had been a nightmare, but it was our new reality. At the follow-up appointment, another ultrasound was conducted to confirm my ovarian reserve, which was higher than the previous scan, and what our doctor referred to as a "beautiful" number of eggs. It is not uncommon for women to be told that once they approach the age of 35, fertility dives off of a cliff, but according to both my gynecologist and reproductive endocrinologist, my age was not a concern. When I first asked my gynecologist about this, she exclaimed, "Every pregnant woman in Tribeca is over the age of 35!"

The surgery to remove my fallopian tubes was scheduled for the beginning of September, and after a period of recovery we would begin IVF. My treatment would require a small dosage of hormones and my eggs would be frozen upon retrieval. It would be required of us to attend an online class about the IVF process, and optional genetic counseling was offered, allowing us to determine things such as the gender of the embryo, which we declined. The greatest concern while I was scheduling my surgery was that it fell on the same day as a Nine Inch Nails concert we had tickets to. My husband stared at me bewildered.

I am someone who has found solace in knowledge; the more I know about something, the pros and cons, risks and successes, the more comforted I feel. Often this means having the curiosity to investigate on my own, and by the time we were on our way to the follow-up the day after the HSG procedure, I was briefing my husband on everything I could find about bilateral hydrosalpinx, IVF, and alternative pathways to having a child, just in case. What I learned also made me wonder why knowledge-sharing about women's reproductive health is so sorely lacking, when it is the most vital system required – and not to sound too dramatic – in the creation of life. One would imagine that the topic of commonplace complications within reproductive health would arise when we are first taught about it, or that women would be educated by healthcare providers on understanding their bodies alongside their very first pap smears. Instead we proceed with limited knowledge of our reproductive systems and experience fear, panic and isolation when our bodies fail to respond the way we have been misled to believe all bodies do.

Knowledge and awareness with regard to infertility isn't just crucial for those experiencing it, but is also essential to foster empathetic and supportive environments by those who are not. Much of my own fear, panic and isolation is not rooted in what I know, but in what others do not. I had not anticipated a gamut of comfort from older members of my family, given that speaking about sex and reproduction has long been a cultural taboo that has only recently begun to be chipped away at. There is a palpable sense of shame I am aware of that I do not feel myself. What did take me somewhat by surprise was the response I received from friends and family closer to myself in age, which ranged from aloof to uncomfortable. The common thread between them all was the absence of knowledge, and as a result, the absence of empathy.

Speaking to strangers has been one of the greater sources of comfort to me. Frustrated by being unable to reconcile the data and information I was learning about infertility and IVF with what I saw online and around me, I decided to ineloquently share on Instagram what I was going through in hopes of being able to connect with someone who understood. A stunning number of people sent me private messages over the following week: people who had conceived through IVF, their partners, people who were going through similar heartbreak, some who had the exact same condition as myself. These were people who had beautiful and interesting lives, and from the outside, one could never tell that they had experienced such grief. We live in a society, after all, that has determined there is very little beauty in grief and life's trials.

It has taken me a good long month to come to terms with this next chapter. There are still moments when I am gripped with a suffocating grief, and in the first few weeks I would erupt into unwarranted and uncontrollable laughter. I no longer ask myself how this could have happened to me; it happens to more people than we know, but we are not yet at a place where we can freely say so.

The privilege I have in being able to afford health insurance that covers three rounds of IVF and grants me access to intelligent and kind doctors is something that is not available to so many, a reminder that returns me to the real world. I no longer view the basal body thermometer, the ovulation strips, tracking my cycle like an amateur detective across apps, and diligently recording my temperature as a waste of money and time. When I don’t begin sentences with, “My therapist says,” I begin them with, “According to my acupuncturist…”

Talking about it is what has kept me from feeling like an outlier, a means through which I have found connection in the unlikeliest of places: a pious uncle whose frankness made my jaw drop; the facialist I am devoted to but see sporadically; a woman in Australia I may never have the fortune of meeting. I joke to my best friend that I am wearing my, “I”m starting IVF, how about you?” t-shirt.Talking about it, no matter how much discomfort it may cause, has made me realize that things like IVF and infertility are very normal and natural junctures of life.

Some time ago, a woman who had gone through her own struggles said to me, “IVF is the worst club with the best members.” It’s going to be one hell of a party.

On a 91 degrees Fahrenheit feels-like-1000 day (32+ degrees Celsius for the rest of the world), Aunt Flo arrived for her monthly visit, like clockwork. Of course, the arrival of my period coincided with the day I could not shirk my responsibilities and absolutely had to leave my apartment in my role as a fully grown adult. I was tasked with not just dressing for the suffocating heat, but also for a body that wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole. How does one dress when it is hot enough to fry an egg on the surface of exposed skin and one’s uterus is pulsating so hard, it would be right at home at Berghain?

Quite thankfully, I was a late bloomer. When it was finally time for my time of the month, I hardly felt as though I had transformed into a woman or a blossoming flower. To me, it was nothing but a major inconvenience. A few years ago, I spoke to a woman who told me she felt euphoric each time she got her period. After several years of a strict diet, including the total elimination of chocolate and treats, her flora and fauna were in total harmony, and from then on, she was only ever grateful to receive her period. It would be total sacrilege to the essence of my being to summon such discipline and do away with sweets. My monthlies continue to be a major inconvenience.

When I was not a girl but not yet a woman, nothing was worse to me than when I got my period in the summer. Clothes that would cling were unbearable; what I needed was to feel nothing against my skin, and preferably anything that could manufacture even the slightest breeze. Having spent most of my childhood and adolescence in Bangladesh, where the weather during summertime was not unlike fresh hell, I’ve learned a thing or two about dressing for extraordinarily hot temperatures during that time of the month. For example, cotton is your best friend, spandex is a heat stroke, and nylon is a death sentence. Volume is ideal for when the body becomes engorged, and excess fabric doubles as a fan when in desperate need of air. Length will save you from the horrific sensation of feeling a stranger’s lingering sweat on a subway seat, and one simply cannot shave their legs so often!

In spite of my preparedness, the arrival of my period this time around was more than a major inconvenience, it was a major disappointment. The first 91 degree day (of many) of this week also marked the third cycle of trying, and failing, to conceive. For some, three months of trying is hardly anything to fret about, but for me it’s been several years of obstacles, plus three months, in addition to Not the Greatest News from a fertility specialist. My hope of becoming pregnant by now had been so high that whenever I bought new clothes over the past six months, they were pieces that would work with a changed body in mind. In summation, it has seemed like a lifetime.

Loved ones vacillate between telling me that I am still young (helpful, despite everything and everyone around us desperately trying to convince us that women in their mid-30s are just about eligible for retirement) and that wanting something too much makes it harder (unhelpful). When I brought up the bogeyman that is the reproductive system of a 35 year old woman, my wonderful gynecologist first scoffed and then exclaimed, “Every pregnant woman in Tribeca is over the age of 35!” And somewhere in the middle of that are my ovaries, marching to the beat of their own drum.

Even though I had done bloodwork that indicated it was unlikely I was pregnant, so that I knew what to expect, getting my period was still crushing. All I wanted to do was wallow and sob hysterically like a mid-film 90’s rom-com heroine down on her luck, but I had to put my mask on and pretend to get on with it. Now, how does one dress not just for a major inconvenience, but a major disappointment too?

A few morsels of wisdom I have earned in my 35 years is that I have more or less come to terms with what clothes work for me, what clothes do not, and that it is always more satisfying to wear what pleases me. To get myself out of the house without feeling like too-much of an emotional mess, I instinctively reached for my trusty black dress by the Perugian designer Sara Lanzi. Made from cotton, it has a voluminous pleated skirt, deep pockets, and accommodating adjustable ties just where the shoulder blades end and low on the waist. Since the designer gifted it to me when I met her at her studio sale a few years ago, I have worn it countless times over the summers. In it, I feel protected and pretty (I need to add that Lanzi’s designs have Rei Kawakubo’s seal of approval).

For all the designers and brands that exist today, it is total madness that so few offer clothes from their summer collections that can actually be worn in the summer. It is as though the hotter the earth’s core gets, the greater the inclination to sell wool jackets and sweaters that have no place in the season. When it comes to clothes for the summer, I first turn to vintage, and when I say vintage, I mean from before the 1990’s. For the most part, the quality of vintage clothing appears to be better the older it is, and cotton offerings were more abundant. My search begins with Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, particularly from the later 1970’s and the 1980’s: roomy dresses and loose smock tops that are equal parts sexy and silly, and most importantly, made of cotton. When my vintage search is complete, I set my sights on Loretta Caponi.

And for my finale trick, you guessed it: Dries Van Noten. I know I am parroting myself, but not enough brands have cultivated an understanding of women’s desires and women’s needs. The success of Dries Van Noten, both the designer and the brand under the creative direction of Julian Klausner, has been driven by the acknowledgement that clothes need to support us, like armor, but that they can be protective too. As I write this, I am wearing this very skirt below, which is from Spring 2005, where an extravagant dinner table served as not only a dining surface for the guests, but a runway for the models.

That concludes Menstrual Fashion Week! It’s been a tumultuous season, but it is my belief that ultimately, the fashion delivered.

Effortless means the absence of effort, which, in my personal opinion, does not sound all that wonderful. It should be used to describe a poorly conceived account or essay, for example, “What on earth is this woman even talking about? It’s so god damn effortless!” But alas, the condition of Effortless is regarded with utmost esteem. One capable of work, action, or effort without the exertion of effort is one who is highly regarded. The greatest accolades for Effortless are reserved for the Beauty category. These acknowledgments and distinctions are, of course, reserved for women only. No one is saying, in reverent tones, “Joe Bro is such an effortless beauty!”

A subdivision of Effortless Beauty is Effortless Hair. Often, it is the crown alone that determines whether one shall gain entry into the hallowed halls of Effortless Beauty. Effortless Hair typically occurs in the summertime: one moment hair is a tangled nest suffocating under an itchy wool hat, and the next, voilà! The hat is removed to reveal beach waves. Other terms that are synonyms of Effortless Hair include tousled, shaggy, beachy, wavy, waves, no matter that there may be nary a beach in sight.

Last year in the fall, I cut my hair short. It was a Big Deal, as my hair had not been that short in thirty years, or since my mother had come to realize that she should not be allowed to cut my hair. For six months after that first dramatic chop, I let my hair grow out, unsure of whether I wanted to go back for more. A month ago, I decided that I did in fact want more. Seated before the hairstylist I had first submitted myself to nearly eight years ago, and guarded with a Pinterest board of Shaggy Bobs, I motioned, hand at just below the chin, shorter.

When the cut was complete, what looked back at me in the mirror was an Effortless Hairstyle, a Shaggy Bob good enough for my own Pinterest board. It was wavy and tousled and beachy, even though I was seated at a hair salon on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, the murky East River and the industrial Gowanus Canal the nearest bodies of water. However, there was a caveat: it took four different products and prolonged applications of both a hair dryer and curling iron to achieve this effortlessness. The actual hair styling portion of my visit to the hair salon took just under one and a half hours.

By the time I reached home, my very fine and straight hair, which no heated instrument has stood up against, hung limp. I cursed myself for being too self-conscious to take a commemorative picture of my new ‘do at the hair salon.

One evening a few weeks ago, my best friend called me over FaceTime. “Your hair looks amazing!” she exclaimed. I thanked her, I wasn’t going to deny it. “Now, let me tell you what it takes to get my hair to look like this,” I continued.

First, I wake up.

The earlier I take a shower, the better for my Effortless Hair.

After showering, I begin the process of letting my hair air dry. If I use a hair dryer, my hair will hang straight. For my hair to fully dry, it can take anywhere between two to four hours, depending on the humidity for the day.

During the air drying process, there are a few interventions. The first thirty minutes, the hair is left to its own devices. Then, it is imperative to gather as much hair as possible at the top of my head, twist it around itself multiple times (which can be tricky at this length), and finally, secure it with a clip. The remaining hair is twisted into a miniature version of the top layer and also fastened with a clip. Having damp hair tied up like this often gives me headaches, but that’s alright. Allow the buns to rest for half an hour.

An alternative procedure: when the initial thirty minutes have passed, brush the hair to reveal the natural part, which is slightly off center, from left to right. Sweep the shorter “face-framing” pieces of hair from the left to the right, and secure it with a pin just above the right ear. Separate the hair in two even sections down the center. Twist the hair on each side tightly (as mentioned above), and secure each bun just below the ears with large clips. A too-large clip will not provide the required definition, and a hair tie is hopeless. Allow the buns to rest for half an hour.

After the specified time, unfasten the clips and continue the air drying process for another thirty minutes. When I was a child, my grandmother used to tell me that tying my hair before it was fully dry would make it a breeding ground for lice. Whether this was fact or fiction is something I haven’t gotten around to clarifying, but I alternate between letting my hair down and twisting it all back up every thirty minutes in an act that I have allowed myself to believe will keep the lice at bay. The contracting and releasing of the hair is also essential to create waves.

Today has been a very humid day, and as such, the time required for air drying was approximately three hours. Once the hair is fully dry, I spray texturizing spray over and around my head. Time is of the essence here, and before the vapors have settled, the hair must be bound according to either outlined procedure. Switching to a different procedure at this stage of the process is discouraged.

The longer the hair is bound, the greater the chances of achieving effortlessness. Keeping the hair in their respective twists and clips for about eight hours post-texturizing spray will provide optimal results.

This means, on days when my hair looks so good, my Effortless Hair has had no contact with the outside world. I get to experience its effortlessness for an hour, before I tie my hair to wash my face in order to go to bed. And what a blissful hour it is.

Et voilà! How to get Effortless Hair!

Why would you not want to collect these pieces? In my opinion, few if any of Dries Van Noten’s collections have faltered, even those he claims were critically divisive, such as Fall 2001, where monochromatic looks took center stage, or Fall 2009’s Francis Bacon show. Yet Spring 2019 achieved something that I cannot quite put to words, something akin to attitude. Perhaps this could be because Van Noten and his team were principally concerned with communicating an attitude, rather than an era or a strict theme. “The way that you dress, the way that you gesture, the way that you stand,” shared the designer with editors after the show. Attitude.

My gateway piece from this collection was a breezy cotton bright blue dress patterned with hazy pink flowers. Though I have never been one for a cold shoulder, there was something both humorous and sensual of a thick bungee cord tied just below the nape of the neck giving way to a sliver of skin. Its cut and color resembling bioluminescent jellyfish, it was certainly not designed with the heterosexual male’s desire in mind, ever a rarity in Fashion, and even on my most unforgiving days, it has the unique ability of allowing me to feel the better parts of myself.

In reviews and references to this collection, “couture” is frequently mentioned without going into specifics. While attempting to infer what elements recalled couture, I came across a silk navy-violet opera coat by Cristóbal Balenciaga from 1954, inspired by Japanese kabuki coats, on the Victoria and Albert Museum’s website, and saw parallels with Van Noten’s collection some sixty-five years later. And at Sotheby’s auction of socialite Alixandra Fitzwilliam-Tate Baker’s extensive couture collection, I found a pink matelassé Balenciaga dress topped off with a dramatic pleated cape, which reminded me of the sleeves of my blue dress. Balenciaga, who refused to expand into ready-to-wear, would have most certainly turned his nose up at Van Noten’s accessibility, and for that notion alone I find Van Noten’s work ever the more alluring, his ability to draw from the most beautiful elements of couture to craft clothes for the modern woman and her everyday.

One of the most memorable pieces from Van Noten’s runway show was from the opening look: a canary yellow sleeveless mesh top with large plastic “feathers” sewn on, paired with a crisp white cotton lab coat, and a jumpsuit with its top undone and gathered at the waist, worn as trousers. By some stroke of luck and madness, I was able to source it last year on Vestiaire Collective. While it is slightly larger than what I usually wear, as the great Celine Dion once said, “I’ll make them work. I’ll make them fit.” Van Noten’s use of faux feathers, which at first glance could be mistaken for crystal or delicate glass, is perhaps his way of making light of the staid ways of the couture houses of yore, who catered only to the wealthiest of women. These are feathers meant to be worn to dinner (the reservation under your name, of course), or if you are feeling bold, to work.

As I continued excavating to find connections to couture, I discovered a blog written by a woman from Brisbane who had moved to Italy some time ago. In the midst of accounts on travel, she had also written about a visit to the Balenciaga Museum in Getaria and shared photos from her trip. What stood out was an image of a few Balenciaga gowns in shades not unlike Van Noten’s 2019 palette: diamine green, black, white, and canary yellow. These colors, in addition to bold stripes and checks, were popular with other haute couture designers as well, such as Jeanne Lanvin, Hubert de Givenchy, and Christian Dior.

It was not only by way of color that Van Noten evoked haute couture, but through technique too. The voluminous gathered waist has become the designer’s signature, which he returned to in Spring 2020 for his collaborative collection with Christian Lacroix, and for Spring 2025, the brand’s studio team put forth a similar style, but now with a narrower silhouette and a slit up the front. In an editorial for Vogue Paris in 1963, Audrey Hepburn wears a canary yellow Givenchy gown with a similar detail at and around the bust. How clever is it that Van Noten recontextualized this couture element not with finicky boning that would be impossible to reproduce at a larger scale, but by simply leaving the tops of jumpsuits and dresses undone and with the aide of bungee cords?

On the V&A site, I also stumbled upon a black Christian Dior silk evening dress from 1957, its shape and volume constructed with metal coil boning and silk and nylon petticoats. In Van Noten’s interpretation of the quintessential little black dress, excess is done away with, and material is skillfully draped and manipulated.

“What’s more beautiful than workwear?”1 said the designer of this collection. There is a reason why clients and fans of the Dries Van Noten brand are devout: his designs, simultaneously uplifting and grounding, are meant for living life in. And in a landscape where far too many designers neglect the technicality that is Life, what’s more beautiful than that?

Leaving my shoes at the door was an inherent part of my upbringing. It signified how I regarded myself and my home, as well as those around me. It was an indication of respect for a home and its occupants: in most cultures that are not Western, introducing filth from outside (if you live in New York, anything that touches your soles once you leave your home can only objectively be classified as filth) desecrates the sanctity of the home. The home should be a sanctuary. My home is most certainly my sanctuary. It is here where I live with the person I love. It is here where I favor spending time with loved ones, with take-out in front of the television or a home-cooked meal around the dinner table, my preference being the former.

On a less spiritual and more practical level, the removal of shoes is also about a quaint custom known as “being considerate”. For those of us not wedded to billionaires or aristocrats, the daily upkeep and maintenance of our homes cannot be outsourced to anyone else other than ourselves. Cleaning flooring – whether your method be mopping, vacuuming, Swiffering, or industrial ride-on floor scrubbers – is yet another task we undertake in our exhausting lives; decorously removing one’s shoes upon entering a home saves one the headache of bringing out the mop and bucket. Well, there’s no need to clean your floors so often, you may argue, to which I reply: there is, however, the matter of fecal matter.

But what collectively irks us so much when an incredibly privileged person puts their proverbial foot down and states their refusal to remove their shoes inside the home, or that guests should not be asked to take their shoes off? It’s not just the declaration itself, as bothersome its delivery may be. For me, most importantly, it is the disregard and ignorance of cultural customs and the lack of consideration regarding what one’s home means to them. People of color living in the West have such limited space to exercise their cultural practices outside of their homes and contend with cultural ignorance on a daily basis: confusing Eid for Kwanza; touching one’s hair; assuming all brown people are either from Mexico or India; Namaslay; being asked where you are from and how you speak English so well; the only South Asian character in And Just Like That getting in bed with her shoes on (I think not!); Africa is a country, and so on.

Home is one of the few places we get to fully be ourselves. An invitation into one’s home is not meant to be taken lightly: it is an invitation into one’s private sphere, and boundaries must be respected. For people of color, whose traditions and values are constantly ridiculed and denied, the home couldn’t be more sacred. Crossing the threshold with shoes on when that is not the house rule – a quick glance at the row of shoes at the entrance or the host in their bare feet, slippers or socks will save one the oblivious question, “Shoes off?” or the awkward confrontation “Shoes off, please!” – is incredibly disrespectful. And is this not why fancy socks exist, to be paraded in front of others and admired, not sequestered in sweaty sneakers?

The expectation that one should take off their shoes before entering a home is not a denial of their right to shoes. As someone who wrote about shoes just last week and spends an inordinate amount of time really thinking about shoes (and more money buying them), I’d be the first to admit that I have a thing for shoes. Yet, I value the sanctity of one’s home and its inhabitants more than I do my shoes. If I am concerned about the well-being of my shoes or that I may be in the presence of the Tabi thief, I would ask to store my shoes somewhere separate. If that will not suffice, I would bring a bag to put my shoes in and carry it for the duration of my visit, then I would book the earliest available appointment with my therapist to work on my trust issues.

After all that, if my shoes are stolen, I’m registered at Manolo Blahnik!

When I took my trusty Mary Janes from The Row to be resoled, the gentleman at the shoe repair shop dramatically held them over his head to inspect the sole, laughed and shook his head at the sliver that separated my foot from New York’s delightful pavements, and told me to return in four days. I could still walk in them for hours, but my back had begun complaining to me about getting some more support over the past few months. I had bought them when Tiina the Store in Amagansett was closing down (which has now been replaced by The Row), and the shoes had been shockingly marked-down. Such luck does not strike twice, so I thought it best to let the shoes and my back rest.

(If we haven’t been previously acquainted, allow me to introduce myself: I love Mary Janes. My love for Mary Janes has garnered me a degree of notoriety, so much that last December, Marie Claire’s fashion features editor let me prattle on about my beloved form of shoe on their site.)

Any kind of Mary Jane won’t do; they must fulfill my wants and my needs. They are now virtually everywhere, yet very few are good. Some are too clunky, others are far too narrow, and most soles give new meaning to becoming one with the earth. But last summer, one particular pair caught my eye: Camper’s Casi Myra Mary Janes. Because I am a very…specific shopper, it took me nearly a full year to buy them. My reservations were that I was not head over heels in love with the microscopic Camper branded tag on the side of the shoe, and how visible the black soles looked against the pairs that weren’t black. I told you, specific.

Over time my apprehension wore off. If necessary, the tag could be cut off – shocker, I haven’t been fussed to do so – and the hardly-visible soles are a testament to adequate and much-needed support. For their first trip, I wore them straight out of the box and walked in them for several hours, and by the end of the day there was nary a pinky toe rubbed ever so slightly raw, nor even the beginning of a blister.

To add to its glowing review, the Mary Janes are made of supple leather that lend it a Martiniano-the-outline-of-your-toes-are-just-barely-visible effect, the toe box is gently squared, and the vamp sits high. They have the tiniest heel and the insoles are OrthoLite. Also worth nothing: the traction is so superb, it’s fair to say New York’s cobblestone streets have finally met their match. I wore them to physical therapy and tested them on cobblestones, and the Mary Janes passed with flying colors. Design-wise, I have to admit, I do love the look of these more than The Row’s Ava Mary Janes.

“Do it!!” is my professional opinion.

With summer hot on our heels, a few honorable mentions that have kept me cool:

• Prada leather sandals. I have two identical pairs of the leather buckled sandals which were first designed for Spring/Summer 1996, which I have worn so much over the years that I think my family now know them better than my face. This style has been reissued for Spring/Summer 2025. Another tried and true pair are from Spring/Summer 2020, which were put to the test on the sloping roads of Monte Argentario.

• Barely-there sandals from JW Anderson. To be worn anywhere but New York City, but do have excellent traction. We must talk more about traction!

• Birkenstock Madrid sandals. These remind me of the little sandals from Prada’s Spring/Summer 1998 collection and my grandmother’s Dr. Scholl’s. They are great for walks on pebble and rock beaches, and I like to wear them with melodramatic dresses on the beach.

• FANE’s Bra bag. It currently houses my keys, hand sanitizer, lipstick, phone, wallet, sunglasses, and Jane Austen’s Persuasion. The long and thin straps accommodate the my widest sleeves and heaviest coats, and it fits discreetly under my arm.

Shoes take up a significant chunk of my mental real estate. It’s not enough that I have myself sorted out, I need to also know what well-heeled fellow walking enthusiasts are wearing (and where they’re going). Now that I’ve droned on about my Camper quest for long enough, without further ado:

Anja Tyson is a New York-based consultant and creator of Food Is A Mother, an annual recipe and art zine.

These shoes are made for walkin’. Almost all of my shoes are purchased with the intention of being able to take a stroll. I am lucky enough to live in a walkable city, and so I intentionally plan on the day to day to be mobile whenever it's possible, so that I can enjoy my life and reap some of the benefits of living in this ridiculous town. I cannot think of something dumber than wearing a pair of shoes in my day to day life that don't support me being able to live my life to its fullest, and I have always felt this way, even when I was 20 and I considered Louboutins "walkable".

My two go-tos are: 1) Loeffler Randall ballet flats and Mary Janes. These always have a very flattering toe box, a little longer and more elegant than many alternatives that can leave outfits feeling a little childlike or disheveled. They're well-made and long-lasting, and as a bonus, they consistently make an ACTUAL size 11 (Italian 41, French 42), which so few brands do. I wear these with skirts and trousers in situations where it's not appropriate to bear my toes. 2) More "fashiony" sandals with a functional heel. The two in heaviest rotation for me right now are a pair of caramel brown Prada sandals with the bone buckle across the strap, and a pair of patent leather Miu Miu block heel sandals, and both of them are about 20 years old. They're both very comfortable, and high in sentimental value for me.

One of my other favorite brands for my shoe size is Aeyde. I have a few of their sandals, mary janes and low heels, and they’re always well-constructed and chic. I am always complimented when I wear their shoes.

I don't really have a different set of shoes for when I am spending time with my daughter, as my whole motherhood journey has run in parallel to a busy career and personal life, and a true belief that I can retain my style and the joie de vivre of getting dressed alongside raising a human. I should also note that my daughter is a pre-teen now, and she values strolls and mobility as highly as I do, so we regularly walk miles and miles together around town, enjoying life.

Favorite bags (or lack thereof). So actually, I have a whole thing about this. When I was in my teens and twenties, I carried so much stuff around every day. It was a combination of reasons: one was I didn’t always live right next to work and I might need to freshen up before dinner or a night out, but another was because at that age, like so many people, I really defined myself by my personal possessions, and the other thing is that I was already 23 by the time the iPhone was invented, so I was regularly carrying around a cell phone, an iPod, a date/address book, a big billfold, and all the other stuff that was consolidated by iPhone adoption.

When I grew up, my biggest dream was that I would be able to walk out of the house without a bag. I absolutely LOVE days when I can just throw my phone and my keys in my pocket and go, and not lug around a huge sack of my personal possessions. I think I literally wrote in my diary about it when I was 18 or 19. Now it’s a happy in-between. I want a medium-sized bag that fits an appropriate amount of stuff, but doesn’t tempt me to jam everything I own in it. I try to remember to carry a collapsible carry bag in case I have the chance to stop by the farmer’s market or pick up a package, but other than that it’s just wallet, keys, phone and lip gloss.

My current favorites are a stamped snakeskin Miu Miu bag that I lusted after for two decades and then finally found this winter on eBay in Japan, and now that it’s nice out again, my small assortment of Marni market bags that I’ve collected over time, which are very durable, colorful, and capacious.

The best route. When I have a free stretch of time on a nice day, I love to hop across the water to meander through Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens. Brooklyn is truly where my heart is, and because I live in such a tourist-jammed neighborhood in downtown Manhattan, I frequently need to get someone more peaceful and down to earth to fall back in love with the city. I am thrilled at the chance to walk on streets where every single building doesn’t have a commercial storefront with a line outside, and where there are few enough tourists that you don’t notice when they are walking four abreast at the pace of molasses down the sidewalk. I can easily log a few miles anywhere in Brooklyn, but just in terms of peace and scenery, that’s one of my favorite ways to flaneur.

Durga Chew-Bose is a writer and director, and resides in Montreal.

Shoes for simple strolls and long talks. I'm not the smartest when it comes to the shoes I wear for long walks! You never know when a simple stroll to the market can turn into a one hour phone call! If I know I'm going for a long walk, intentionally, I'll usually wear my Kiko Asics or Nike Zoom Vomero sneakers in all black. On a recent trip to New York, where I invariably walk a lot, I was wearing these black Wales Bonner Mary Jane sneakers. I was very comfortable. I'm not sure I should be going on long walks in my Clarks Wallabees but I do.

A banana bag for an apple. I've actually been trying to walk without a bag, but that's very hard to do! Keys! Chapstick! Phone! Hand cream! An apple! Sometimes I carry The Row's banana leather bag. Mine is so worn and floppy now—it's been to beaches, dinners and day trips, playgrounds, you name it. I learned early on you can even fit a diaper in there. My trusted everything bag is my very sturdy all black Pacific Tote Company tote.The most durable canvas. I'm not even sure they make or sell the all black version. My friend Chris Chang gave it to me.

Waterside walks. We live near a canal. That's an ideal walk, to be accompanied by water. I do like walking...somewhere, though. Even if it's to buy fruit or fill a prescription or come summer, find some ice cream. It's nice to arrive somewhere.

Arpana Rayamajhi is a multidisciplinary artist living in New York.

Faithful to her moto boots. I’ve been almost exclusively wearing Christian Louboutin Horse Moto Biker boots. They’re super comfortable and I love the way they look. I have skinny ankles and legs – good boots that fit well don’t come by so easily.

Keep it simple (or spikey). I should probably get into handbags more but right now, I just have my mesh bag by Mango and sometimes I also use this old vintage leather bag. For an accessories person, I'm not big into purses – I haven't seen many that are amazing or worth the price (to people that love and invest in luxury handbags I probably sound nuts but yes, I mean it when I say I haven’t seen a lot of amazing handbags). I loved the Gucci (Tifosa) spikey ball purse.

Take a walk on the westside. I walk a lot in the city. I go to the westside by the water quite a bit. On average I walk around 10 to 11 thousand steps a day especially when it’s warm. My ideal route is Union Square to the West Village where it’s quiet and pretty, and then to the water, in the sun.

In Walk A Mile In Their Shoes Pt.1, I spoke to Naomi Accardi, Jalil Johnson, and Aydha Mehnaz.