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 Prada underwear is cool |
Everywhere you look, even when you're not
really looking, folks are pretty pressed about being what MTV programmers and
please-notice-me Generation X'ers call cool. I am never pressed because Harlem keeps me wrinkled with excitement. Here I feel as though I am tucked like a pearl between the folds of its extraordinary regularness. Harlem is as cool as it is uncool. For me, uncool is where I need to be. Harlem is like a perpetual fashion shoot waiting to happen. A place that soulfully blends fashion, style, with it's own southern fried funk. It's the part of town where coolness becomes more tangible than it is detached. |
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| 9:15p.m. finds me footing across 125th street from the east side going
west. Spring is on its way for most of New York. But up here in Harlem folks are feeling a
lazy fire as if it's Indian Summer. For some reason the population has seemed to triple on this exceptionally balmy Saturday night, especially along Harlem's main strip, 125th street. 125th is a lush cornucopia of street styles mixed with seventh avenue sensibilities. It's where Polo Sport and Nike meet Versace. As I approach the Apollo Theater I retire into a more relaxed stride. I can't help but to notice two exceptionally pretty black women dripping from the sides of a beige Lexus parked about twenty yards away from me. Redman's CD blares from their car's speakers with such ferocity that most folks within an earshot punctuate each line of lyrics with casual head nods without breaking from their conversation. The taller of the two young women, clad in a noodle strapped, tangerine halter with matching skin-fit pants, walks from the side of the car to the trunk. I assume to change the CD's. She doesn't seem to notice me until I approach that imaginary line that denotes her vision to be 20/20. Her Manolo gait is slightly awkward but nonetheless elegant. A black pair of Christian Dior shades holds a head full of curly tresses in place while a filtered cigarette, probably a Newport Light, dangles from her neatly painted lips with a natural accentuation. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that bobbing limp of cigarette was matching Redman's rhythms, beat for beat. And for what couldn't have been more that a nanosecond, our eyes lock. After all, that's more than enough time for her to search to find a reason to go for a guy like me. She found none. |
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| A third friend, a waifish dark skinned cutie, rises from the passenger seat and stands unaffected as if she couldn't hear the fellas driving by who bark flattering compliments and obscenities alike. Complete with a hairdo that led me to believe her to be a to-the-core Mary J. fan, she seems to notice everything but reacts to nothing save for her own ghetto fabulousness. |  The Lacoste Polo shirt is cool |
| I imagine that we'd look quite good together. She
wears Fila Tennis whites: skirt and sleeveless top, to my white, terry cloth, J Crew polo,
and oversized chinos. We smile together. Of course all of this happens within less than ten seconds. Not enough time to grab my camera, focus and shoot. Not enough time to grab my pad to document such a cool occurrence with words and symbols. But just enough time to share the moment. Cover Image: Photographed by Jayson Keeling. Styled by Wayne Sterling Horace/Abantu wears Sunglasses by Versace, T-shirt and leather coat by Helmut Lang.Underwear by Tommy Hilfiger.Sweatpants by Adidas. Socks and sandals by Nike. |
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