A NYT guest essay
By Lizzy Goodman
I’ve been obsessing over this year’s return to relevance of a fashion brand that I wore 20 years ago: 7 for All Mankind. It’s once again selling the low-rise jeans that made it famous, now alongside the rest of the 2006 uniform: hip-hugger belts, tiny jackets with princess shoulders and giant, comically impractical platform heels.
These new 7 clothes feel like an attempt to sell you a different option. Instead of looking like someone styled for a repressive fantasy of perfection, perhaps you might like to look like someone caught in the middle of her imperfect life. There’s a risk associated with this approach: that you’ll look bad, wear the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, be seen as unfinished. But for the cost of a moment of messiness, you can reclaim a little lived-in disorder. That may be why wearing a pair of cheap-looking but not actually cheap low-rise jeans can suddenly feel like a deliberate act of freedom.
NYT’s Gift Article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/opinion/culture/the-luxury-of-looking-a-mess.html?unlocked_article_code=1.GlE.Xsft.cACm2rZOeuxP&smid=url-share
