The street report: What people are wearing during “peak New York” season

Revisit the last street report from the Union Square farmer’s market here.

New York peaks in the fall. It’s the only season we get where you can actually find yourself more inspired by the leaves on the trees than the clothes on the people. Something about the way the shades of green and orange and yellow and red flirt with each other, and the cement they stand on and across from, can actually get you out of bed, make you want to leave your house.

And when you’re looking up and see those same trees against nothing but the expanse of dry blue sky?

Forget it. You’re touching God.

There’s a gravitational pull uptown during this stretch, chiefly because of its main attraction (Central Park), but the people really do get dressed — and its worth the visit just to be among it.

Sunday morning in Carnegie Hill

If you’re to take the subway over, any number of 6-line stops will leave you on or near city blocks just as well dressed as trees and people, with their own potted plants and evergreens.

More and more I’m finding myself attracted to simple leather footwear (the linked are the above, and will look great with wool socks) — not patent, not suede, not gold, not embellished, just leather

The rings add something emotional that compelled me to snap

Eyeball evergreens! (But admittedly, this is from the West Village)

And in particular during October and November, you can smell the precursor to holiday spirit from midtown. The townhouses become Halloween spectacles (second only in its enthusiasm to the West Village) and the pumpkins stay out through the end of next month, catching the golden light as it ascends overhead and nurtures the streets like a loving mother.

I guess the whole thing is that it is a mother. Fall in New York is as rare and hopeful and promising as she is because the kiss of nature is here.

There’s a spiritual quality about this beauty, a sort of tender sacricity, an intangible touch. This softness that feels other-worldly. You can get overwhelmed by it, want to lay in its bed forever — and in this way, it might fill you up to your peak.

Perhaps this is why the outfits are good: they’re invented from this faithful place of fullness.

Not to mention the golden sun really does hit different. It is, quite literally, divine. When you see it against anyone, you can’t help but think the heavens are opening for them.

But in the shade, where day is bright but the lighting delivers more clarity, what you get is a halo of striking color that is even more delectable. Be it from a cloak or a most regal head of hair.

Really selling those Row mary janes, huh

Let’s not ignore the fabric handle-pouch either, it’s exactly the whimsy a wool coat, jeans and sneakers needs. Her sunglasses were sheer lens, like this.

I think there’s a quality about summer’s end that plays a role in the allure of the fall. The way you can see the remains of the prior season on the faces that stand at the top of the outfits. The leftover glow, the innocence of unbridled anticipation: what comes next? Is it as good as this?

It’s also the seasonal preamble to winter dressing, but better because the looks are not covered by coats. Lest you are wearing a coat (because there are so many good ones,) in which case, the way you wear it feels more like pleasure — a choice as opposed to need.

It is no doubt the season of leopard, and when it’s a gorgeous coat (I’m sorry I keep drawing attention to this one, I use it as a reference point for what to look for; velvet might be a good alt material for us to look out for), you really don’t need to wear much other fashion. Another day, a different block:

Maybe it’s the same person now that I’m looking. It was the white jeans/bare ankle/coat combo that had me above. The combination of red/white/blue sneakers with the coat struck me this time around

Have you also noticed that it seems like smoking cigarettes is back in style?

Juxtaposition of patched up leather aviator coat with suede driving shoes and white jeans. The cane helps too!

A trench coat from The Row that glistens in the sun (somehow, this feels like the right comp — a white denim trench with winter clothes under? Ya!), next to a checkered wool coat that swings — good contrast to sneakers and straight cords.

A textured coat that reads like a cardigan with Belgian shoes and straight leg jeans that look like these

The kinds of sandwiches you’ll find on the corner of Spring and Lafayette

This is particularly true during this freaky deaky summer-fall. Where the tenets of in-between dressing still stand tall and clear, even if the denizens of the streets are pushing for crispier air (I get it).

During peak-New York, you get the most pleasant stylistic inconsistencies.

They’re all over the place:

• gloves styled over lightweight shirts (no jacket)

• socks without pants (legs out!)

• shoes without socks (anklegate)

The accessories glisten and the richness of buttery fabrics like corduroy are intensified.

A full leather ensemble, tailored strait with laidback cowboy boots, a python bag to break up the black. I suspect these two work at Khaite

Exposed calf, ankle socks, sneakers (the New Balance and Adidas ranges at Net are real good rn; so much good Wales Bonner)

Not winter, not summer

The clogs make the polo/crewneck sweatshirt/Dockers combo give cool chef-from-Brooklyn energy

It’s the nails that give this one its majestic dose of interest

Some hard trends I’ve observed these past weeks —

• Miu Miu’s ‘Regard’ sunglasses (counted 11 pair between 72nd and 79th street last Friday), possibly to usher in the season when sunglasses are actually most functional. And, you know, the other part of all this is that they (sunglasses more generally) so often add instant cool to a look. It’s the easiest, most noncommittal way to make a statement through dress.

• Recreational scarves, by which I mean those worn over outfits that don’t really need it, but which are additive nonetheless.

  

  Two shades of Nike, patent flats

  

  Uptown dame, Sambas!

• Totes styled into deliberate outfits. No notes on this one, just a series of demonstrations:

  

  

  Tailoring with the tote is the right contrast

  

  It me! In a Lisa Yang knit, Alex Mill cargo pants and Joelle’s first L.L. Bean tote.

• Pops of red

• And other colors too

  

  Turns out I knew her! Sabine Skarule at Ancient Playground in Central Park

  

  

  

  

  

  Pinky ring catches the gold sleeve buttons, hot pink sweater around waist makes the complete look youthful

  

  What do you think, are brown paper bags the next frontier of luxury good?

  

  Cashmere sweater, cotton sweatpant, camp socks, great green Asics

  

  A theory I’ve yet to explore: Hoka sneakers are the new Isabel Marant platforms

• Leopard accents (some pants, an errant coat, but mostly shoes)

  

  Pretty sure these are Jimmy Choo; the shape is familiar

  

  These look like Manolos (shape), but the print’s not right

• Levity

  

  

• And a bit of confusion (see: temperatures)

But the most gorgeous trend of all has got to be all the camaraderie (dare I call it love?) that’s in the air.

Because in the end, you know what?

There’s actually just one prevailing quality that creates the excitement of the season and you can’t really touch it or see it. The thing about style, about feeling attracted or connected to anything is that it’s only ever really an energy. We don’t truly care about stuff.

That’s why, I think, the outfits can move me in such a palpable way even though when I reflect on the photos, I realize that pleasant as they may be, they can’t quite capture what I see.

Because what I see, really, is felt. It’s in the air, it comes off another person when: they’re projecting confidence, unworthiness, happiness, sadness, expansion, utter restraint and on.

You can intuit — know without knowing — when there’s fullness, completion in the room. And in the fall, IRL, you get that in droves.

It feels distinctly different to what you get online, the sort of tension and anger and animosity, the slippery boundaries that create speedy reactions and perhaps for this fact alone, there is reason to keep parking my own corduroy pants on whatever sun-soaked bench I can find.

Taking in the grace of real life always reminds me to slow down, to stop, to appreciate that no matter what dark cloud hovers, what incredulity persuades me, the sun’s never far. There is light to look forward to. Light to look into. Reason to love where you are.