Between the lines, p.9
Between the Lines, page 9
What is Lynn Land and what do you want to look like in it?
Lynn Land is a place with a lot of tulle. I want to look like a fat, clumsy ballet dancer or a broken Victorian doll. [Laughs.] At one time in my life, I only wore ’20s vintage and went to Europe with six beaded dresses and a velvet coat in my suitcase. But as you get older, the vintage things, which are so charming when slightly torn, start to look shabby. I still have a little bit of vintage in my wardrobe, like my vintage reindeer cardigans. I went crazy and bought a lot of them.
Does Marjorie Morningstar have a place in Lynn Land?
Marjorie Morningstar is not a fashion thing for me. At one time, this book was in every Jewish home in America. I first read it as a little girl because I was a grown-up reader at a very young age, although I was a terrible student. It’s about the trials and tribulations of a Jewish girl who grows up in the ’30s on the Upper West Side and wants to be an actress. She falls madly in love with this sort of sexy, ne’er-do-well Greenwich Village songwriter. I was so young when I read this book, I didn’t realize that the sexy guy is actually a jerk. But I was very taken by Marjorie, who goes to Hunter College, which is where my mom went, too. The story ends with her becoming a middle-class housewife, which is very dispiriting, and looking back, this might actually be a terrible book. [Laughs.] It’s hard to explain why it had such a powerful effect on me. Maybe because it captured the power of New York dreams in a way that really spoke to me when I was young.
Sometimes we need distance to see something in a new light.
Decades of fashion can wash over me without my heart getting involved. I wrote about all sorts of fashion professionally, but the garments that really move and touch me are part of Lynn Land. There’s a huge fashion revolution happening right now, and some people argue that we’re living through the end of fashion, but people will always want to dress up and decorate themselves. The way clothes are presented, and the way people buy clothes, all of that is changing, and of course no one really knows what will replace it.
Some say they lost a reason to get dressed when Bill Cunningham passed.
Bill didn’t care about people who dressed up for his camera. I feel very firm in saying that. He liked all kinds of people, but not the ones who deliberately tried to get his attention. Sometimes I look at Bill’s pictures of me and can’t believe what I was wearing. [Laughs.] Eleanor Roosevelt, herself a lifelong New Yorker, once said, “Every woman in public life needs to develop skin as tough as rhinoceros hide.” The reason why something speaks to you is shrouded in mist. Our taste is one of the great mysteries of human life, and New York is a great place to express fearless experimentation.
West 4th Street–Washington Square station
Manhattan, 2020
Yahdon Israel
Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem by Daniel R. Day
As somebody who grew up in New York City, and as a child of hip-hop culture, I see Dapper Dan’s book as a cultural reckoning. Dap influenced culture before we had algorithms that measured impact. That’s why his memoir is so important, and to see a pillar of culture tell their story on their terms is beautiful. He gave 5th Avenue the flavor of Harlem and he made ready-to-wear clothing before Louis Vuitton, Fendi, or Gucci ever thought of it. He took their symbols of luxury and did what he called “Blackinizing” or “knocking up.” There are people who have called what he does “knocking off,” but a knockoff is a counterfeit or something of lesser quality. Dap used the same quality, if not superior quality, and he showed us how important symbols are and how they can make us feel.
How did Dapper Dan use logos and symbols differently?
Dap created a sartorial language of access. People said, “Oh, it’s not just the bag. It’s what’s on the bag. It’s how the bag is worn. It’s who’s wearing the bag.” Dap brought that language of wealth and worth to Harlem, where it belongs. You turn on a hip-hop video today and it’s very hard to not see logos. Before Dap, the symbols of privilege and wealth were very hidden. Fashion houses were not thinking about decking someone out from head to toe in a monogram. But for a community of people who historically have not had access to wealth, it’s important to say, “I’m somebody who you should take seriously. I’m somebody who you should value.”
And he showed people how to make that access their own.
Exactly. When he started doing those pieces—this story is in the book—he would go down to 5th Avenue, buy Gucci garment bags with the Gucci logo printed on them for like $15, and then he would make outfits out of them. It got to the point where he was buying so many garment bags that he had to find a different way, and that’s when he got real leather and a printing machine. The ink he used was so powerful that it would never fade. That’s what I mean when I say that he “knocked it up.” The discourse ascribed to us, as Black people, is that we innovate culture in a way the world takes notice of and seeks to emulate. If we are the arbiters of it, then it’s important to know who those people are.
What’s your personal relationship with fashion?
My understanding of fashion comes from my mother, who made my clothes for the first ten years of my life. I was very connected to the process, seeing how my pants would fit as my mom tailored the clothes to my body. Love was literally stitched into every piece of fabric I wore. My connection to clothes is skin-deep. But then I went out into the world with the clothes my mother made, and ironically, I got made fun of because they were not Phat Farm. You learn at a young age that there are arbitrary rules that make people fly or not.
Do you have a take on fashion rules?
What I’ve learned in my time of dressing up is that when you’re following a rule, you’re allowing the world to dictate how you should exist in it. You have to ask yourself, “How do I use these principles to my benefit? How do I articulate what I want?” I want to be fly, but not on other people’s terms.
York Street station
Brooklyn, 2019
Dusty Childers
The Chronology of Water: A Memoir by Lidia Yuknavitch
The Chronology of Water is a stream-of-consciousness memoir by a woman who was slated to be an Olympic swimmer, and the theme of water connects with all moments in her life. I found out about the book through her TED Talk about being a misfit. She was afraid to put herself out there, because she thought she would be too different to fit in with everyone else. The idea that no matter how many times you mess up you can still put forth your art—that idea calms me. Just like she keeps going back to water, I keep going back to fabric. I’m a designer and have been surrounded by fabric my whole life. My family worked in mills in the South. I feel like fabric is in my blood.
F Train
Manhattan, 2016
Pamela Sneed
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
I’m a small-town person, but I know I’m a New Yorker, because when people stand in my way I’m ready to do some kung fu on them. [Laughs.] Defending your space is a city thing—that and being enraged by politics and places like Century 21 going out of business. I am devastated! That’s where I buy all my clothes, like this dress I’m wearing today. I’m over six feet tall! Century 21 is how I stay fashionable and current! People come from all over the world to go there. I don’t consider it a store. I consider it a landmark.
How do you feel standing next to Audre Lorde’s mosaic by Rico Gatson?
Sister Outsider is a bible for me and remains a necessity. These are dire times and I believe we need the voice and wisdom of a Black lesbian. Audre Lorde gives us space, hope, license, and courage. I love her mosaic and I hope to be as brave and as bold as her. I feel like our story as LGBTQ people of color has never really been documented. To narrate your story and to name yourself is so powerful. Maybe somebody else can stay alive because of you.
What do you name yourself?
I am a Black lesbian warrior, poet, survivor, mother, politically outspoken interdisciplinary artist, doing my work, coming to ask: Are you doing yours?
167th Street station
Bronx, 2020
Mordechai Rubinstein
Back in the Days by Jamel Shabazz, Fab 5 Freddy, Ernie Paniccioli
It’s nice to get a full look. I like to study what people wear and imagine where they might be going. With a postal worker in uniform, obviously you can tell they’re a letter carrier. But there are different types of messengers in New York—the walking messenger, the bike messenger—and a lot of them are veterans. People don’t know that. Messengers have some of New York’s best style along with street vendors. I also love the subway for looking at people. It’s fun to see somebody with a briefcase, a suit and tie, and then, boom: sandals. Where are they going? Is this the new casual Friday?
Subway etiquette is a big thing. I’m breaking it right now.
On the subway, I want to get close, but it might be rush hour. So I act like a tourist and ask for directions even when I know which way is east and west. Someone might tell me to get lost, but most New Yorkers aren’t rude. We’re actually very nice people. We love to conversate. However, there are a couple of unspoken rules you have to know to break them. Don’t talk to somebody in an elevator. I do. I try to be inviting but not everybody is a chatterbox.
You clearly love this city very much.
Everyone thinks I’m a New Yorker and I’m not. I’m a Hasidic Jew from Rhode Island and I’ve been living in the city most of my life. I wear Mets hats. I wear Yankees hats. I like to represent the city of New York as much as I can, wherever I am. You could say that I’m a fashion consultant and a street photographer. The best subjects are people who don’t understand why I want to photograph them. I wish I was a real street photographer who shoots from the hip, because you get things like ice cream dripping out of someone’s mouth, but it’s not what I do. I want to document the movement of clothes.
New York’s street photographers are iconic and important.
Yes, because the city has changed but we don’t want to admit it. This book is called Back in the Days by photographer Jamel Shabazz, who captured the New York that I miss. But guess what? I wasn’t even there for it. [Laughs.] Shabazz is still uptown and I’d really like to find him in person. What an archive he must have. I’ve only been shooting for twenty years. In Shabazz’s work, you can tell exactly what year these photos were taken. You can tell this is the ’80s. Look at the laces on their Pumas, their low-slung belts, their Kangol hats—these clothes make me think of a time when New York had more character. Today, everyone is dressed by the Internet. Back then, if someone was in head-to-toe Adidas, you bet they knew every Run-DMC lyric.
Do you thrift and do second-hand?
I do. I like to imagine who owned the item before me. That sweater I saw on eBay, did that come from a JCPenney employee? Was it their uniform? Is it a special edition from their corporate family barbecue? I was raised on second-hand clothes and hated them as a kid. The only new thing I had was my bar mitzvah suit. It’s funny, now that I have a couple of dollars, I’m a sucker for second-hand again. It’s true, tried, and tested. It’s not going to shrink, and it’s got the fringes on the shorts ready to go.
What are you wearing today?
What influences me is old men. My father-in-law painted a house in these shorts and you can see paint splatters all over the fabric. I’ve never painted anything in my life and my polo is three sizes too big, which is great. Today, I wanted to look cool and dress a little nerdy with a tie. Then I looked at the time and said, “Well, there’s no time to prepare an outfit.” So I’m wearing head to toe what I was wearing yesterday. All I did was shower.
Greenpoint Avenue station
Brooklyn, 2020
Sandy Miller
Let Me Be Frank with You by Richard Ford
Richard Ford is one of my favorite writers. Let Me Be Frank with You is the fourth book in a series that follows a character named Frank Bascombe over four decades. Ford is a neorealist in the vein of John Updike and he also happens to be exactly my age. A lot of his writing is autobiographical so I’m experiencing the same things as his characters at the same time, like retirement, aging, and ailing. [Laughs.] Let Me Be Frank with You is set after Hurricane Sandy and Ford has a black humor about things like mortality. One of the characters says, “If nothing is funny, then nothing is truly serious.” I like that he finds a way to make tough and thought-provoking topics something we can talk about.
Bergen Street station
Brooklyn, 2014
Cheryl Dunn
Widow Basquiat by Jennifer Clement
I won’t tell you the year I came to New York because then you’ll know how old I am. [Laughs.] Let’s say there was graffiti on the trains and the city was the most thrilling and exhilarating place ever because of all the artists who were here. It was heaven.
You made the documentary Everybody Street, which I love.
That’s how I got to spend a day with street photographer Bruce Davidson. I wanted to shoot him on the subway and there’s a station right outside his apartment, so I was like, “Hey, Bruce, you think we could get on?” I was so nervous! I shot on 16-millimeter film and I think my struggle to load it helped to convince him to ride more stops than intended. What you work with helps or hurts you, but it definitely gives people an idea about your seriousness. You have to fail, fail, and fail again, but in between you might get a magic shot.
Is this book magical?
If you love New York, art, and graffiti, you’ll love Widow Basquiat. I’m reading it while finishing a documentary about Dash Snow, the graffiti writer turned artist who passed away at age twenty-seven, just like Basquiat. What I picked up is that Keith could glamorize graffiti as a gay white man in a way that Jean-Michel could not. Here it says, “They both understood this.” Basquiat was a kid from the street who got sucked into the art scene and it destroyed him. He put so much of his life force into his work, and it emanates from it, but if you give away all your life force, you can’t exist. People will take it endlessly until there’s nothing left.
How do you stay afloat and not get sucked dry?
All of our biggest fear is the fear of the unknown. I was at a concert in Golden Gate Park where Rage Against the Machine and the Beastie Boys were playing for maybe a hundred thousand people. There was a massive push toward the mosh pit and people started falling. Everyone yelled, “Get away! Get out!” But I said, “No, let’s go in, to the middle.” Outside the center, it was hectic and scary. And in the center, it was calm. Don’t succumb to fear, because that’s what most people are going to do. With intelligence, go in, and find a better, calmer way.
Myrtle Avenue–Broadway station
Brooklyn, 2020
Devon Rodriguez
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
I’m an artist. I do drawings and oil paintings, but I got started by doing graffiti here, in the Bronx. That’s what all my friends were doing and I thought the colors, the letters, the handwriting, all of it was so sick. Graffiti culture is huge in the Bronx. I remember when my father took me and my sister to do graffiti with him, my sister asked, “Why does everyone do it? I don’t get it. No one knows your name.” And my father said, “We want to mark our territory, like a dog taking a piss.” [Laughs.]
Do you want people to know your name?
When I was a kid, I definitely wanted to be famous. Now I just want my work to be famous. I think that has to do with how I grew up. Five of us lived in a tiny one-bedroom on 141st and Willis. Ten people shared the same bathroom and people would constantly walk through our apartment to get to it, like it was an open house. I felt so unspecial, the way I was raised.
How did you get into oil painting?
After I got arrested for doing graffiti, I started to draw people on the subway. The grittiness of New York is embedded in the subway. The clothing, the colors, and the way they interact with the subway lighting is perfect. This book, Outliers, made me want to become a master at painting and drawing. I first read it when I was fifteen. I used to google “how to become successful” all the time, and the 10,000-hour rule kept coming up. Supposedly, when you put 10,000 hours into any craft, you become world-class. Malcolm Gladwell made this rule famous with this book. I thought it might be a little self-helpy—like how to take charge of your life—but it wasn’t. Gladwell analyzed a bunch of success stories and everything that it takes, like individual merit, where and how you grow up, and how much you practice. Everybody thought Mozart was a child prodigy, but he actually sucked until he put in the time.
Brook Avenue station
Bronx, 2019
Michael Hashim
The Dalkey Archive by Flann O’Brien
The bookmark I’m using is a 500-peso note and this is probably the second or third time I’m reading The Dalkey Archive. Flann O’Brien is one of the great Irish novelists, like James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. He is completely indescribable and almost magical.
