There She Was Just A-Walkin’ Down the Street

January 22nd, 2009 | 0 comments | Posted by Jen

We ladies all have that one girlfriend who always looks better than we do, no matter how hard we try. You know, the one with the skinnier legs and the prettier hair who looks perennially chic, even when they’re, like, cleaning out the cat litter box? For me, that friend is Mimi, whose clothes I used to borrow all the time when we lived together in college. She has the body of a ballerina (which she once was) and this uncanny ability to make everything she wears look expensive. I’ve tried over the years to figure out what it is exactly that makes her so striking–Is it her lithe arms? Her wide-set eyes? The fact that she’s slightly bow-legged, like Kate Moss?–but after a lot of rumination (and many failed efforts to imitate her), I can only chalk it up to something that can’t be quantified: mystique.

I wasn’t at all surprised, then, when I saw a photograph of her today, taken from behind, on my favorite style blog in the universe, The Sartorialist. She works in fashion and is currently in Milan, making other women weep with envy in the streets:

Immediately I thought of Degas (ballet again, which means in my next life, I’m definitely studying ballet). I also thought she was the girl on the right, because she’s taller than me, so I always think of her as “the tall one,” but she’s actually the one on the left. When I told her this, she wrote in an email, “Well, we can lie and say it’s you and me.”