Traditionally, luxury was considered to be the height of seriousness. The lofty price points seemed to necessitate a sober mien and a clear head. There’s nothing funny about spending serious amounts of cash on something that strictly speaking you could easily live without. So for many years, I didn’t think that humor had any place in the luxury milieu. But then I had a little epiphany.
I bought a pair of the new Valentino Garavani flats on my last trip to Boston, and I wore them for the first time a couple of weekends ago. They are super-cute, black with a crisis-cross ankle strap and silver metal grommet details. The man who sold them to me at their store on Newberry Street raved about them as an upgrade to the Rock Stud flats that I already own in multiple colors. “These are so much more comfortable than the old version,” he assured me as he lovingly put them in their red box.
It may be the ultimate in old-school publishing and fashion, and the last gasp of the media business as we have known it, but for me the arrival of the September issues of the big fashion magazines is still a thrilling moment. I still feel a jolt of excitement when I see them on the newsstand, as if a bell has just been rung and something wonderful is about to commence. Arriving long before the kids are actually back in school, and well before leather jacket weather, the September issues are one of my favorite harbingers of autumn.
