The street report: What people are wearing in Midtown East this week

Re-visit the first street report here.

There is something about summer style (I mean this universally) that really softens me. I think it’s the inherently lackadaisical nature of the dressing regiment. No matter what you do and what that requires you to wear, the energy of the clothes just seem to be more…at ease. I suspect that somehow I correlate this sense of ease with a sense of deepened truth: that the reason summer style actually tugs at me is because it’s a public presentation of a version of you, or a version of me, that is unmasked.

When the ironed shirt and stiff suit jacket and rigid pants are suspended from the equation, it is the underthings — a bra top, a flimsy pair of cotton pants, jersey shorts, a free giveaway t-shirt, gauzy blouse, convenient cargo shorts or a towel tank — that do all the work.

These are the kinds of clothes that remind me that we wake up the same way. We get dressed and do our days, then come home and reverse the process — undress, unwind, remove the mask. There’s a nice humility, an honesty about that.

Sometimes, when it’s really hot, I like to walk into midtown even though I don’t have a specific destination. It’s both to get my legs moving, but also to see what’s going on around there — what the people wearing, where they’re walking into, how many tourists are forming a queue outside of an anonymous storefront for who knows what.

A few weeks ago a line snaked around the block near 37th and park. I asked what the people on the line (most dressed in athleisure) were waiting for.

It was a Diptyque sample sale.

I didn’t see that one coming.

But I guess then again summer is hosting season, and nothing says “Thanks for having me,” like a diffuser?

What makes walking through New York City so dynamic is how the neighborhoods spill into each other. In this way, it’s kind of like Paris, but bigger. How the people are dressed is often the most apparent point of demarcation between one neighborhood and another, which you see much more clearly when it’s hot and the clothes are in plain view.

With midtown in particular, if you’re coming from uptown, you have the added end of the park at 59th street to show for the change in neighborhood.

Here between 59th and let’s say 55th streets, there is a cool overlap in style. It’s like watching a subtle merge between the characteristic cues of lower-upper east side style (more brand driven, I’d say, than upper-upper east side style. Think Hermes oran sandals, white jeans, Brioni shopping bags, etc), leisure-style (as in, tourists — either in the neighborhood, or the city) and the office style endemic to midtown.

No shopping bags yet, but you get what I mean

Or perhaps not endemic because the offices in the neighborhood belong to luxury brands — but when you think upper midtown, you think Bergdorf Goodman. And you can always tell when you’re coming up against an employee from the department store. Chiefly because they’re crisp. And they wear great shoes.

I almost bought the Miu Mius at far left after seeing them on him

Fine, a subway photo completely unrelated to midtown (we were on the same Bushwick-bound L-train) but very good nonetheless in these Nike Shox

These are a realistic alt

No where in New York are the shoes-for-sale better than on the second floor at Bergdorf Goodman.

Not true online but they could be yours for $448 in store…

A shoe myth in the flesh

Loewe’s pass at cobalt

It’s an underrated phenomenon that Bergdorf is responsible for so much of the style you see right past the park at all. Without Barney’s there to split the credit (and perhaps invite the same out-of-Madison-Ave-character conceptual taste it used to), BG shoulders that work on its own.

I assume these are these — like how they are styled to look more like a glove shoe

What you’ll see when you walk straight down 5th is not at all the same as what’s on Madison. You get more tourists on 5th — and something about that energy can make you feel like a tourist in your own town too. The pace is leisurely, there is a lot of stopping, and if you’ve come to feel disconnected from the awe of living in the city, you get to meet it again.

Because for the most part, the visitors who populate this neighborhood are indeed here in awe.

An 11 am strut of pride

Coordinating shoes and cap, resin bracelets and necklace

A fashion alt (x 2)

Tourist style is its own beast, and a beast that will really inspire you if you can have a bit of imagination.

I’ve been doing this walk a lot lately — usually I target the Cha Cha Matcha on 42nd street as my destination, then go in to buy an iced blue drink, then take it across the street to Bryant Park where I’ll sit and drink and observe and write until my legs feel ready to again get up and go.

I was struck by this woman’s hair and the shape of her shorts, but when I clocked the shoes, I realized I’ve been capturing tons of Tevas

Here’s a pretty basic look of khakis and a solid black t-shirt (ideal for a summer evening with, maybe, wet hair pulled back and gold earrings), with the shoes, which could be these in your approximation

Then these aren’t exactly Tevas, but the shape is close enough

A double whammy

Now a moment for cargo vests…

If you’re in the market, there is no more sleek and genuine moccasin option at market rn than these from Old Stone Trade

You get a lot of utilitarian sun-hats and multi-pocket vests and cargo shorts and some of the combos of these garments — the vests with twill slacks and lightweight button downs, the hats juxtaposed against leather belts, the shorts imagined with a satin pouch and fine jewels, there’s a quality about them that really does make sense when you place them in a fashion context.

And on the heels of mens week in Paris, too,