Context is everything.

Melina's diary:

When I was about to go off to college in New England, my own dear mama told me she wanted to buy me a warm winter coat for the long cold winters. Since I was seventeen at the time, I was very interested in creating my own unique style and identity. The coat we decided on was an ankle-length raccoon fur coat -- a FAKE raccoon fur coat -- listed on ebay by a woman in Miami who said sadly "I never have reason to wear this anymore."

At the time it was a great investment - very cheap, very warm, very over-the-top/ironic, very faux-old-Yale. No college student I knew had anything like it -- most of us could barely be troubled to change out of our pyjamas for class.

Now, as you know, I live in Manhattan. I wore my ironic-fake-fur-coat to work for the first time today, and realized, to my dismay, that I didn't look ironic-cool at all. There were tons of women going to work (or whatever) in ankle length fur coats - many of them made out of real fur. Since mine is particularly thick and ridiculous looking (it really does look like it was made out of raccoons) I just looked like a typical Midtown jerk in a fur coat.

Looking cool here, I'm realizing, is a lot more difficult. All the styles are taken. If I dress fancy, it's just the status quo. If I dress more shabbily or more hipster, it just looks like I'm a typical East Village kid who took the uptown express train by accident.

I'm going to have to think about this.

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