If fashion were a sport, Dawn from Riverside would be the captain of Team Comfortable. A Cambridge resident since 1992, her style philosophy can be summed up as casual, comfortable and proudly outdated.
“Fashion here is … not really a thing,” she laughs, describing Cambridge as a sartorial safe zone. “You can wear anything and no one cares.” To prove her point, she tells me about the time her mom, visiting from out of town, locked herself out of the house in pajamas. “She panicked for a second, then realized she was in Cambridge. No one would bat an eye.”
Dawn moved here from New York, where black dominated her wardrobe. Now? “I haven’t worn black in years,” she says. In summer, it’s all breezy linens; in winter, warm wool. Shopping locally is key, and she frequents the triangle of Nomad, Clothware and Susanna in Porter Square. Bonus: She can walk, meaning no returns, no mailers, no problem. She’ll also pop over to Huron Village now and then at J Miles for more of a splurge purchase. (Two of these stores have no up-to-date Internet presence.)
Favorite items? Not really. But she keeps pieces that remind her of people, another quiet nod to the sentimentality that defines her relationship with clothes.
If Cambridge ever had a fashion week? “I’d wear whatever I wanted,” she laughed. “And no one would judge me.”
A stronger
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