In the late 80s, I relied heavily on two black jackets, both from agnès b. Not just for style, but because wearing them gave me a huge sense of security. One was black suede and a bit more moto-inspired… the other was the very classic snap cardigan style that agnès b was so famous for, reimagined in black leather.
I still own both even though they are practically unwearable – while the silhouettes are pretty classic otherwise, the shoulders are 80s-style enormous on me. Au courant back then, comical now. So sad! (Perhaps with some help from our tailors I could trim them down to make them feel a bit more current… there is an idea…) But I cannot part with them. They are too sentimental.
In preparing to write this piece, I went to the back of my closet to see if both were as magical as I remembered. And they were. I slipped them on and felt cool. Immediately. No matter what I was wearing under those jackets… no matter how I was feeling… no matter what was going on in the rest of my life… each of them gave me an instant lift of attitude.
I imagine a lot of this had to do with the label in the back. If you are familiar with agnès b., you will know what I mean. To enter her shop down on Prince Street was to enter an entire kingdom of cool. Minimal, edited, spare — these are words today that we all understand as consumers, and there are big brands that have made their fortune selling to people in a near-museum-type retail experience. This was not quite that… but for me it was an introduction to the kind of immersive, art-directed world that transported you someplace new. I call it ‘art directed’ but I think she – as in Agnès – probably didn’t think of it that way. She just liked what she liked and you got to see what that was when you stepped inside. It was crystal clear. Lots of black and white. Lots of unisex styles. The occasional wisp of a floaty, feminine dress — nothing too bare or revealing. The iconic striped tees she made all the way down into baby sizes. This was the first place I ever smelled a Diptyque candle, which to this day we carry in our own shops, as they made such a huge impression. I remember the way the cool shopgirl explained to me the meaning of the Foincoupé scent. “You know… what is the grass in a field after it is cut?” Fresh-mown hay. I cannot even remember if she was French herself, but I am saying it in my head with a French accent! It was that kind of place.
Agnès, my queen of cool, was more feminine and approachable herself than the mod girls you associate with black leather and rock and roll. Soft, wavy blond hair and what struck me as a friendly, almost maternal presence. (She DID make baby clothes!) Unintimidating cool? Whatever it was, I was bought in. Her clothes made me feel confident. Adventurous. Fearless. Daring. And, of course, cool. And in my early 20s, I guess I needed to feel that way at the time — more often than not, I was scared to death!
I have no idea how I could have afforded those coats, even though I purchased them a few years apart. The suede one had to have been from an end-of-season sale. The leather cardigan one, though, was scored on the cheap… because it was pale pink! Of course that would be for a very specific and limited customer base. (Now I am speaking like a retailer…)
But do you know what I did? I asked around and found my way to someone in the Garment District who dyed it black for me. It isn’t perfect, but it did the trick. Françoise Hardy… Joan Jett… Chrissie Hynde… multitudes of cool girls were strutting around in my head (or perhaps vrooming on motorcycles) when I wore those jackets, and so I felt cool by proxy. “Fake it 'til you make it” at work. Cool is cool and you know it when you see it.
So this brings me to the black leather cardigan jacket on the line this fall. It is truly fantastic. No dye job needed. It does not have the huge shoulders of the relics in my closet… it is perfectly proportioned and based on the Megan Cardigan silhouette we have run in the past. A ladylike jacket with a little edge. Now that I think about it… perhaps Agnès was riffing a bit on a Chanel-style jacket with her iconic Le Classique snap cardigan… and taking on her idea of grown-up cool that Coco Chanel represented… a romantic label in the back of a cardigan-style jacket that she figured out how to make practical for her own life in fleece-lined cotton. (Actually, the story goes that she just wanted a sweatshirt that she didn’t have to pull over her head, with easy roomy sleeves and pearl snaps inspired by 18th-century greatcoats. But inspiration comes from many places, right?)
Ours is quite lightweight, so it is truly more of a cardigan than a coat — you get to treat it more like an accessory than something to keep you warm. So I do not have to consider the weather when I need that extra dose of cool.
Currently I write this from Italy, where I am traveling for work to visit a few factories that make our shoes and bags. I struggle each month with having to take a photo of myself in whatever I am promising you need. Jet lag, old age, and a crazy schedule make it even harder to capture what I like to see in an image. Which I think speaks to the power of a cool-girl jacket. Even forty years later, slipping on a little black leather can arm me with that extra dose of confidence. This one, in a ladylike cardigan style, doesn’t feel like a costume the way a true motorcycle style would. It feels like me, just a little cooler. Agnès b… Coco Chanel… both very different, very inspiring women who did their own thing. You can, too. YOU NEED THIS, I PROMISE.
