The coat featured an ingenious belt, threading inside on one side and cinching the waist on the other. I tied it as I looked in the mirror.
For a moment, I didn’t recognize myself.
Or, rather, I saw a version of myself that I sometimes try to be, aspire to be, but haven’t fully grown into yet.
Being young, female, and prone to coming to work in athleisure, I’m often asked in business situations if there’s a man who runs my company with me, or questioned about “who the decision-makers are.”
But standing there, in this unequivocally beautiful coat, I imagined myself walking into meetings and drawing confidence from looking every bit as powerful as I truly was—the owner and CEO of my fast-growing company.
This is the magic of fashion: it can shape your identity, if you let it. Now, I’m not saying everyone needs an Hermès coat, but everyone should try to see fashion as art—a tool to tell a story about who you are or who you aspire to be, even if just for an evening. That story can be edited, adapted, and rewritten over time, eventually becoming an integral part of your identity. I know I sound a bit like Miranda Priestly here (cerulean, etc.), but you get what I mean.
A gentle knock on the door pulled me from my philosophizing.
“I would like to… OH!” A said as I opened the door. “WOW. I know what I think, but what do you think?”
“I’m in love,” I answered.
“It couldn’t suit you more. May I?” A asked, adjusting the belt slightly and shifting some of the fabric to the side. “In New York, you may want to have the alteration team remove a bit of this fabric,” he said, stepping back and squinting to assess me from head to toe. “Yes, they will be delighted to work on such a piece.”
He picked up the binder he had brought in, that sat, until now, forgotten on the couch.
“This is the coat on the runway. It was styled with a leather belt, but you can choose how to wear it—with the belt it comes with or any other.”
