Literary critic and curator Anna Narinskaya about favorite outfits
FOR RUBBER "WARDROBE" we take pictures of beautiful, original or strangely dressed people in their favorite things and ask them to tell stories related to them. This week, our heroine is a literary critic and curator Anna Narinskaya.
I do not think my style has changed much since my youth. That is, from the time when I even realized that clothes are an expression of you, your tastes, thoughts, views on politics and culture. Comments of my son's friends to my photo in instagram "Mother is Yours - Old Hipster" I regard as a compliment. Yes, I am an old hipster (in the broad American, and not in our narrow sense of the word, which implies exclusively trousers-pipes, white socks and sneakers), and I like the fact that I can see it.
Akhmatova, arguing that poetry is developing “from the inside,” and not by someone else’s order, said that poetry “is not a model house, where you can bang your fist on the table and bark:“ it's time for the boots! ”. So, on the territory of fashion, now it is also impossible That is, you can bark something, but no one will obey. I was lucky that I grew up just at the time when the dictates of fashion were replaced by the idea of “stylishness”. And the main tenets of this current understanding of stylishness were - I am ready to defend this thesis - it was invented by my generation. It was us in the nineties who staged a vintage boom, began to wear sneakers to a lace dress, jeans with a tuxedo on a naked body and to preach all kinds of “Shudd mix”. This is what we hold.
My approach to buying clothes is unoriginal. There is a base: white T-shirts, blue jeans, simple black slim dresses. I wear them until they wear out, and then I buy them again, for example, in the COS store, or in Uniqlo. And there are things that constitute a statement, my or something, a commentary on life - I look for them like mushrooms and find them in commission shops, in stores and showrooms of my favorite brands. It happens that a picture on instagram touches me, and I can't calm down until I get to the thing (sometimes to find out that I can't afford it, or it won't exist anymore). And in the same way it happens: I grab something from the souvenir collapse of “everything for $ 5” - a bright plastic bracelet or glasses - and then wear it without removing it. Dressing is interesting. It's like a puzzle to fold. My puzzle should be in the picture "freedom, self-irony, a little movie with books and a little bit of vanity." Because without vanity it does not work. What a lie to myself.
Chanel trench coat, glasses from a souvenir shop, Maison Martin Margiela boots, COS socks
Chanel bought a blue leather trench coat on a commission on Chistoprudny Boulevard for some ridiculous money and could not believe her happiness. I don’t know what year it is a collection, and in general I’m not a fan of what Lagerfeld does, but this is just a super thing. Laconic, but significant - it is with such a matte spark, so besides the military-pilot theme there is still a hint of dominatrix, some kind of rigidity and playfulness at the same time. I like it so much that I often stay in the party when I come to the party - they say, I went in, you know, not for long. Because it is impossible to look better than in him.
Maison Martin Margiela shoes are different: one is smooth, the other is perforated, like a brogue. I still have them from the fabulous times of the existence of the James shop on Tverskaya with its grand sales.
Socks - COS. In principle, with what is considered "stylish", you can do as with the enemy. To sit and wait - and sometime his corpse will be carried right past you: the thing that only you wear will become mainstream. I always wore socks as a "separate" element of the dress - people looked at me with surprise, but I still didn’t look like a city madman, so everyone understood that it was "on purpose". Socks are now stamped: stylists carry them on packs in packs, HYIP stamps of the Supreme type release socks with large inscriptions and are worn, tucked into their pants. I still don’t get to that, but I can’t give up socks, still proudly wore them when no one else has.
Dior Vintage Dress, Maison Martin Margiela Shoes
All the buttons - and there are dozens of them - are sewn by hand. Satin lining with monograms. Makes you hold your back and pull in your belly. I put on self-discipline in order not to bloom. Well, the color, of course.
Dress Coat Alexander Wang, Uniqlo T-shirt, men's training pants Acne Studios
Training with a tailcoat is a win-win ninety-nine combination that still impresses so far.
Dress and Boots - Maison Martin Margiela
I have already at least ten years of this Maison Martin Margiela dress - that is, Martin himself has made it. I adore these his overalls, I have several of them, and only one - black woolen - gobbled up the mole (I generally noticed that Margiela's coat is especially loved by the mole).
This is some kind of extremely subtle understanding of the very idea of what clothing is. This is the thing that covers you and covers you, it’s a thin glove that makes it easy to move, it’s armor. Marzhela is, of course, one of my favorite designers. He is also one of my favorite philosophers.
Indecently expensive Japanese silver bracelet, copying the thing that the Japanese archers put on the arm to rest an arrow on them. I saw in the Moscow semi-secret concept store and could not live without him. And I do not live.
Inshade sweatshirt, Nina Donis sweatpants, Guidi boots
Inshade is a great domestic brand. Funny, high-quality, with his own handwriting. In the literal sense of the word, too: they began to embroider Cyrillic inscriptions on sweatshirts and dresses before Cyrillic fashion took over the world, and in New York’s Hipster stronghold, the Owning Ceremony store, Japanese tourists began to tear each other’s T-shirts from Heron Preston with Russian inscriptions "STYLE". But I like the trembling Cyrillic on Inshade clothes much more. This is a hello from the past (similar tags were sewn to us in childhood on clothes so as not to get lost), literary reminiscence and fashionable statement at the same time.
These shoes are a variant of the model "goodbye, youth" performed by the Italian brand, sewing shoes by hand. It is believed that this is a very expensive brand, but then how to approach. These shoes really live up to the promises: over time, only the best and flatly refuse to wear out. So if the price divided by the time of their service - it turns out not so expensive.
Acne Studios sweatshirt, Nina Donis sweatpants, Guidi boots
This Swedish brand once struck me completely. It seemed to me that they make clothes for me and for me. They address me directly. Everything they had was so bohemian, not difficult to wear, ironic. Once, quite a long time ago, I had a nervous breakdown. In the literal sense: I cried for almost whole days, I knocked painfully on the shoals in my own house, I didn’t sleep at all. My husband decided to console me and took me out - almost at random by buying tickets for the nearest plane - to Stockholm. It was winter - that is, in Stockholm, it was getting dark about three days and it was generally rather gloomy - not the right place to dispel melancholy. And now, I remember, we drive up to the hotel: five in the evening, complete darkness, solid oak doors, a dim light over the porch, and next to it there is a glass showcase and from there rays of cheerful light cutting through all this darkness. And above it burns funny inscription "Acne". In general, then I bought a lot of things there. In particular, this Suprematist sweatshirt, which continues to delight me, as well as those who stand behind me - in the queue, for example, for tickets to the cinema or to the bar.
Acne Studios has since risen in price and became bourgeois, and I love her not so much, but I love this sweatshirt.
Raincoat N ° 21, COS dress, Guidi boots
This raincoat was presented to me a year ago for my birthday, and at first I was directly frightened, because usually I don’t wear anything that is really shiny. But the more I looked at him, the more attractive it seemed to me his brilliance. In the end, I decided - and to be honest, no of my clothes have ever collected such a number of compliments. They approached me with delight in the most different, one can say fundamentally different, places - from a small fishing village in Latvia to Hollywood. And all sorts of people: starting with children, whom it seems to be the clothing of elves, to the inveterate fashionistas. My friend Lena Stafieva, the best domestic fashion critic, told me that this is a rare case of the “right” brilliance, not screaming, but mysterious. It seems that the way it is.
Yves Saint Laurent Vintage Caftan, COS Dress, Guidi Shoes
The story of this caftan is as follows. In the late eighties, when I studied at the university, I had a friend who knew a fartsovschik. I just now understand that he was selling top-class things at some absolutely ridiculous prices. I remember a leather jacket of the color of parchment Krizia (I didn’t know such a brand then, and it was her heyday) that I bought for the whole scholarship (forty rubles). Familiar parents - a fairly famous Soviet actress - seeing him, just howled and begged to sell her for two hundred. I would have been glad - but he did not fit it. In general, the business model of the enterprise is incomprehensible to me - maybe it was all stolen from somewhere, I don’t know.
So, this guy (and this is some of the most important collection of Yves Saint Laurent), this guy could not sell at all. In the USSR, he did not look beautifully exotic, but practically an ordinary garment of melons from the Cheryomushki market. In the end, he gave it to me, so as not to mess with it. I shoved him in a suitcase and did not wear it for ten years. And now (that is, for more than twenty years), I don’t take it off. This, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful things I have.
Dress Nina Donis, adidas sneakers
I am very serious about what Nina Neretina and Donis Pupis are doing. These are special clothes - loaded with cultural connotations and at the same time ideally designed: even their workouts stretch exactly as they should. They are not engaged in fashion, they are engaged in clothing - this, in my opinion, is the highest compliment.
I try to buy things from each collection, but what they did a few years ago is summer things with “stencilled” numbers, referring either to the forms of rugby players, or to the sails of sports boats and at the same time rhyming with the Russian avant-garde, especially cool. Clever, simple, beautiful. Yes, it is beautiful.
Glasses in an aluminum frame from a souvenir shop in Los Angeles
I love sunglasses, and I have a lot of them. Previously, the favorite was a pair of blue glasses from famous optics in Venice. Now in favor of these. She grabbed them in some designer shop, they cost about twenty dollars, and they look like it doesn't matter how much they cost there.
Perfume Comme des Garçons Black
I fell in love with them from the first breath and remain loyal to them. From time to time I want to change for something less straightforward, and knowledgeable friends say that all these smells of burning rubber are already quite in the past - but somehow it does not work out. So I smell fake rubber and, probably, I'll smell it.
Ring
An eighteen-century serdolic French signet with Hermes's head carved on it was presented to my father by Akhmatov - he was her literary secretary, they were friends. After the death of Anna Andreevna, he went to the first jewelry workshop and asked to make a ring. The jeweler made an inexpensive silver frame to his liking, and dad presented the ring to mom. Many years later, she gave it to me - by that time the frame had cracked, it had to be redone. But it never occurred to me to change anything in the design. Because it is not only a beautiful thing, but also the memory of the love of my parents. That is, about Akhmatova too, but for me, first of all about their love.