Happy Friday!
When I came back to the office after Labor Day, I felt like I’d been shot out of a cannon—in a good way. Like so many cities, New York comes to life in September. It’s Fashion Week, the art galleries all have new exhibits (and normal opening hours), the US Open is on, and the weather is still nice. All the children on Facebook are adorably rocking their first-day-of-school-outfits, and last night in Chelsea, all the grown-ups were too.
As a result of all this autumn energy, my eyes are bigger than my calendar. I made an ambitious list of events I wanted to over-commit to this week, and I’m still smack in the middle of it. I’m actually considering an academic planner so I can write it all down. This Bullet Journal thing is a slippery slope.
It’s Fashion Week, and New York City garbage collectors’ uniforms are now in fashion. Seriously! Designer Heron Preston collaborated with the Department of Sanitation of New York (DSNY) on a collection made from recycled clothes, and sold them at the Spring Street Salt Shed, where the city’s snow-melting material is stored. Some of the pieces were pre-owned DSNY uniforms. Others were vintage tees the designer dug out of Goodwill’s warehouses. All of them were customized with printing and embroidery.
The men and women of the DSNY—AKA “New York’s Strongest”—are less commonly crushed-on than New York’s firefighters or tourist-revered than the NYPD, but that makes the department a perfect bedfellow for fashion: under-the-radar, a little bit badass, and trafficking in a utilitarian streetwear vibe with re-appropriated logos. Everything about this felt so right and so New York, down to the sanitation workers playing the bagpipes at the party.
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I bought two shirts, and the DSNY tells me they’re working with Heron Preston to get the rest of the collection online, so you can too.
In less feel-good fashion, Kanye West also had a show Wednesday. It sounded like one part performance art and one part social experiment, grueling for models to endure and disturbing for reporters to witness. The experience had editors from outlets including The Cut and Refinery29 questioning their complicity in Yeezy’s rise.
“Kanye is fashion’s Donald Trump,” tweeted Fashionista editor Chantal Fernandez. “We were entertained and raced to cover every angle and let it all get out of hand.” Now, she added, “he’s the president.” Yikes.
Fashion reporter Marc Bain and I will be snapping (you know, on Snapchat) and telling Instagram stories during the week ahead, hopefully from happier events than Kanye’s! Find us on Snapchat at quartznews and Instagram @qz.
In the meantime, Parker Posey in the front row at Rachel Comey’s sidewalk show is all you need to know about first-day-of-school fashion and attitude.
A note from your headmaster. Quartz’s Jenny Anderson found some brilliant parenting advice in a letter that Tom Sherrington, the head of a north London school, wrote to his staff. He tells teachers to behave more like diplomats than dictators—assertive, rather than autocratic. Give kids clear choices and consequences (ie: ”You can either work quietly by yourself or you can come up and sit with me.”) and replace “no” with positive language, which Jenny acknowledges can be harder than it sounds: “Instead of saying ‘stop interrupting your sister,’ you say something positive: ‘I’d like you to listen to what she has to say before speaking.'” Okay!
Home ec. Schools might say it’s autumn, but the farmer’s market says: Nope! This Sriracha-lime corn salad takes advantage of end-of-summer sweet corn and it’s simple to make a pot of it to set you up for a week of meals.
J.Crew’s Jenna Lyons says she has a “lunch uniform.” For this week, this corn salad was mine. The geniuses at Food52 devised several ways to eat the leftovers—perhaps most interestingly in a stew with clams and bacon—but I mostly just spooned this straight from the fridge, sometimes tossing in some shredded rotisserie chicken, fresh avocado, and cherry tomatoes. I accidentally used cilantro instead of parsley, and wasn’t sorry.
Literature. The late author Gabriel Garcia Márquez is now honored on Colombia’s new 50,000 COP banknote. (That’s about $17.) This seems as good a reason as any to add one of his books to your autumn reading list—maybe Innocent Erendira if you love short stories?—or add Cartagena to your travel plans.
We made it. Have a great weekend!
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If you are in New York, run—do not walk—to Os Gemeos’ new exhibit, Silence of the Music, at Lehmann Maupin in Chelsea. The Brazilian graffiti artists have transformed the gallery into a canary-colored carnival with music, sculptures, sequins, archival photos, boom boxes, and most importantly, paintings upon paintings upon paintings. Last night’s opening was a sticky, beautiful mob scene (including a Leo sighting). I cannot wait to go back on a quieter afternoon to immerse myself in this magic.