My Boyfriend Dressed Me For Balenciaga’s First New York Show

This past week, I received an invitation—a wad of Demna-ified cash—to the Balenciaga resort 2023 show, which was held at the New York Stock Exchange. After test-driving almost every bizarre trend from the label from their heeled Crocs to their catsuit, I thought, it’s about time for that invite, people! But oh, what to wear to the first time the French House has ever shown stateside? The daunting pressure!

I went through my whole closet to search for something. Y2K this; late ’90s that. Same old. I wear all of these things whether or not it is a fashion show, and not even my Tom Ford-era Gucci python print pants from the spring ’00 collection can ignite a fire within me. And I just knew that my fellow guests would show up in their most clompy-chic, fetishy ‘Ciaga gear. What’s a girl to do?

Weirdly, the answer for me was to take a man’s advice. The day before the show, I got dinner with my boyfriend, and long story short, I did not make it back to my own apartment as planned. I couldn’t wear my own clothes from the day before: a sheared-off stained white tank top and a pair of inappropriately loose, and also stained, RE/Done jeans. Instead, he recommended I wear his clothes: a healthy rotation of mesh basketball shorts and a gargantuan polo. In his proposed solution, I’d be a death-of-sex vision! Not a curve in sight; just a silhouette shaped like a Lego.

I was a good sport and I tried on his selections (or pulls, to use the industry term): a fresh, soft, fire engine red polo that hit my thighs and a pair of very long royal blue mesh basketball shorts that hit my knees, which were inspired by Adam Sandler. Obviously, this was a hit. At least to him. “The colors!” he yelled. “The colors are great!” He had a point. My rendition of a potato sack was made even more bizarrely fantastic when I put on a pair of vintage white Gucci kitten heel sandals. Nothing was supposed to work, and yet, it all did.