Trick of the Trend

An article on the street style star and fashion editor-turned-florist, Taylor Tomasi Hill, was recently publishing in Elle magazine.  In the photograph of her in her Chelsea apartment kitchen, Hill wears a styling printed skit with a silk blouse layered under a wool sweater, and on her feet are red Birkenstocks. It seems that these shoes have taken over the world.

I see them in every magazine I open, on every person I pass while walking around in Soho, and displayed like the heroes of footwear in store windows. Why has the fashion world gone mad for this orthopedic-looking footwear previously reserved for elder ladies?

In the photograph in Elle, Hill makes those thick soles and big buckles on wide red leather straps look stylish. Yet, when I walk down the street of Manhattan and see these shoes, I can only shake my head in despair and confusion. Somehow on my fellow typical, non-famous, New Yorkers, they are once again old and frumpy.

I am forced to ask, "When is trendy too trendy?" At what point do you stop coveting the neon satchel (remember those?) and back away from what is supposedly "the latest" and "the coolest"?

There were delicate socks with heels, clear plastic handbags, fruit print dresses, and heeled knee high Hunter boots. These trends hit the fashion world with such severity they were everywhere you turned, but now they are no where to be found.

However, some trends do stick, like the mirror sunglasses we see returning this year. There is a talent in having the ability to weed out the bad trends from the good ones, the ones that will come back as not a trend, but a staple.

While I enjoy investigating in the trends each season, I typically do not opt to indulge in them. Instead, I choose to purchase key items that never go out of style, like my classic Burberry trench. I did buy several pairs of sneaker wedges (great ones at Golden Goose, Ludivine, Ash, Shutz, and Philippe Model), but the sneaker trend is not new; in fact, it is recurring and I know these shoes will last me for several more years.

So where do the Birkenstocks stand? I predict that not to far in the future they will be tossed into the pile labeled 'discard' and never be seen again (except of course on those elder ladies I mentioned earlier.)

When I pass the display of Birkenstocks in the Soho Bloomingdales, I make my confused frown, and then move on to search for leather t-strap sandals that I can wear for many seasons to come.