Shopping for the person we are not and the life we don’t lead and probably never will is a wonderfully escapist activity. No cash needs to be handed over in this fantasy experience, although it’s possible that we might be able to shop our way that much closer to actually being that person. Or that’s the idea.
So, however unrealistic it might be, picture, if you can, an amalgam of the cool, minimal, Paris–meets–downtown–New York style of Sofia Coppola and that of the nameless Girl, played by the exquisitely beautiful Maria Schneider in Antonioni’s 1975 masterpiece, The Passenger. Although Sofia’s generally monochrome T-shirt, denim, and navy cashmere wardrobe has very little in common with the gorgeous period floral satins and wafting color of Schneider’s character, they share an utterly compelling shrugged-it-on-and-rolled-with-it aura. They are travelers on the highway of life.
