The balance comes when you are the sum of your parts.

This is connected to the concept of One/Ton/None. I’ll explain further, here.

A good friend I met over dms and that spilled into real-life sent me an excerpt from a New York Times review of a play she saw that deeply moved her. The review was written after she had seen the play, and she said the play having hit the same way it did as the reviewer:

“It’s distorting to discuss them separately”…………

In the past, when my head of design and I would style our collection, it would often begin with simply trying things on. “Hmm, this feels “off.” Or “it feels disjointed.” We’d question ourselves, “what is it we’re trying to say?” And we’d pick the look apart, try new things, and then land in a place where we’d relax and say “ahhh. Yes. This works.” Back then I viewed “works” through the lens of creating something desirable through trial and error coupled with a focus on our seasonal message.

But that was back then.

Things “work” when you see the whole. You see, just like the costumes in Pastoral, to discuss their colors individually, would have felt oddly forced. Because they were engineered to work in tandem, with their surroundings and with each layer of colored fabric, telling a story and creating a visceral feeling. Life is this way. When things work so independently with no visual cues or sense that it’s coming together, it feels “off.” Life, that is. I hear this played out when people dm to say feel they’ve nailed their personal style. The comments they get from friends, strangers, move from “nice sweater. Or cool bag.” They move on to people stopping them, often stating while gesticulating with their hands “this. All this. Wow.” The movement of their hands is because when you see something fully, you can’t point to just one thing, you use your hands to demonstrate that you’re taking in the whole thing. The whole you. We are not plays, this isn’t about making sure you’re creating the right story for a passerby, a viewer. It’s about the sensation you get for yourself.

Years ago now, taking the time to deduce when it was that I got the “ahhh, yes that’s it” feeling in my own closet, I found a truism that exits, irrespective of a season or of a directional message I hoped to convey. Without fail, when my eye simply rested on the body, I felt whole. Settled. But, if my eye bounced around my body, landing to the top and over to the shoe, darting to an earring, I felt nervous. Chaotic even. I also started to notice that when my clothing, my style, made me feel that way it spilled over into my life. Just a simple “what are we having for breakfast?” From my kids could illicit an irrational and irritated: “for fucks sake - said silently - and then aloud: I don’t know! Give me a hot minute here, ok?!!!” Now I’m not claiming that a fully chic outfit results in a perfectly set table of a well balanced meal, But it also isn’t a stretch to say that if life is not as much about the problems we face but how we react to them, then it stands to reason that being in a calmer state allows for a better and clearer headed reaction. Right?

Understanding the goal “getting to the place where your style works all together” is a first step, and not a hard one to absorb. But how to get there? Consistently? That seemed illusive, until it wasn’t. Giving this notion thought, rather than simply a series of in real time closet reactions, I identified a clear pattern: One,Ton or None.

• When you have ONE item on your body that draws the attention, your eye settles - no bouncing around. See the pink sweater here? I do. Calm doesn’t have to imply a walk through a field, it can stay urban. But calm all the same. You see though, on the right, your eye bounces from my shoe to my sweater - I don’t know where to look. I’m bothered.

• When you pile on disparate items all together, things you love, your eye doesn’t zoom in on one element, rather you just see the whole look, the whole vibe. This is Chloe King, she used to be our PR manager way back when, and she’s the master of ton. A lot of advice dollers will push you to “take Chloe’s runway style and tame it for real life!” But the thing is, this doesn’t make it “real life”. What it does is it fundamentally changes the personal style message here. Chloe’s style isn’t about “wearing a fun print.” Her style is “highly experimental, risk taking and fun.” Rather than feel “calm” by the look on the right, I feel uneasy. And this may seem counterintuitive at first, how is it that all this look on the left actually rests easier on the eye? But I bet your eye just sees Chloe in one, and I bet you see the individual parts of the “non-ai generated but me scribbling over poor Chloe” on the right. Chloe, I am sorry!!

When the colors simply blend, we call this the “none”. Your eye just lands on the body. Below a range of navy’s, black’s and deep burgundy help make my point.

People often mistake dressing tonally as the only route to conveying calm - you know, everything you’ve read about “quiet luxury.” I remember in highschool I worked at a luxury store, one of the incredibly chic older woman there (she was 45, it’s all relative at that age) always looked so calm and put together. She told me “it’s because I always wear shades of one color at a time”. Nice, I thought. But it didn’t sit right for me as an absolute. You see, while I loved the old lady’s look, I also love a strong color, a crazy Comme piece, a loud statement tee. I love options. The idea here is that you can get to that halcyon moment in more ways than one. I’ve given you three, here.

Now after all is said, or written here as it were, if you look at my little sad face sketches and think, no, I love this one that Amy’s dumping on, then know this, that is just fine. To be clear, I’ve never seen anyone in the sad face image and thought they looked “bad’. In fact, I never gave it much thought. But I do know how that combination would make me feel. Me.

For many of you, this is the moment where your light bulb goes on, you realize that this is bit of reasoning that is a big problem solver. For you. So try it, if it works, it works. And if it doesn’t, then you’ve likely never had the problem to begin with. It’s like me extolling the virtues of Tylenol to someone who never gets a headache.

Know this. I won’t try and convince you here that dressing tonally, or with a good “one” or “ton” ensures your life will have direction and that things around you will fall in to place, working in tandem to take you where you want to go. But I will double down on the idea that when you are settled, you can better see what’s around you and move intuitively but purposefully through life. Intuitive and Purposeful. Creative and Pragmatic.