What to wear where...

I know I have not blogged in a while but I have been thinking about this one for a long time now. I know fashion is a personal choice for everyone and all the great fashion icons have their own style, but I truly believe that style is very different depending on where you are. I know,"to thine own self be true" but you also need to look around for some cues.

For example, in Palm Beach colors are bright, prints are vibrant and floral is everywhere. At night things tend to get dark and edgier, but during the day you can spot a Palm Beacher from miles away. Lilly Pultzer and pearls, preppy popped collars and blazers, Jack Rodgers and Birkin bags. One great piece of VERY fine jewelry the rest fun semi-precious or beach pieces.

NY is a monster of it's own, what you wear downtown doesn't fly any farther than the village. When your downtown, you can wear an eye patch and a pirate hat and no one will bat an eye, but wear a pink cashmere RL poncho and you might as well be wearing a snow suit in July ( the wrong thing at the wrong time). After Houston Street it seems the closer you get to wearing a costume with out actually wearing a "costume" the more downtown fab you are.

Now once you pass, say 20th St., things get a little more serious. Fashion is measured by the size of your Birkin, the perfect hem of your Joesph trousers, your completely unscuffed Prada mid to high heel boots, and the slick of your pony tail in non desrcript black/brown pony holder. The rules are a lot more straight forward and a lot less creative. There are definitely no pirate costumes on Madison Ave, shopping at Van Cleff and Arpel.

At the beach there are several style sections as well. Where I live in Normandy, non desrcript black havanans, a jean skirt and floaty Calypso blouse or J. Crew tee are the uniform, but travel less than a mile up the coast and your closer to palm Beach than if you were in Miami. You are in Bay Head, and unless you are wearing Ralph, Lilly, or Vineyard Vines you are sorely out of place. Go a mile (or two) in the other direction and you have reached Seaside Heights, acrylic french manicure, juicy sweat suit, and Snookie. I'm not even going to go there.

Out on the West Coast it seems to be granola hip in the North, and in LA you have a choice: either Rachel Zoe or the anti-Zoe (white blonde hair, black ray bans, think Blonde meets the Ramones). Then down towards the South you have more flower prints and the gangsta/skater/surfer look (often all in one). I once wore Manalos in San Diego and looked more out of place than the guy who wears the concert tee to the concert.

What's great about the Somerset Hills is we get to incorporate a lot of different elements into our clothing. Being on the outskirts of the city we are definitely in tune to the changing fashions of each season. We get to play with what is on the runways, but don't have to replicate them in a costumey way. Being such a well established community classic is still King (although some gals do push the envelope...not mentioning any names). We also get to play with colors a little more than our urban counter parts, but less than our friends on the coastal. We can wear Lilly one day, then pile on gobs of gold with leggings and fur vests the next.

The long and short of it is this fashion comes from our environments as much as it does our selves. There is nothing fashionable about looking like a German tourist, anywhere. Copying everyone else is not cool either, but there definitely is a certain level of "fashion awareness" when traveling that sets a true fashionista apart. What you wear is important, but remember where you wear it is just as important.

Please feel to weigh in with your opinions. What are they wearing where you are? What are they wearing where you've been? Do you agree? I'd love to hear your thoughts...