so this is love
an ode to the items that make life divine
A few months ago, I fell in love in line at a gay bar.
His arm, poking out of a tight black tee shirt, caught my eye while I waited to enter Cubbyhole with a visiting friend. It wasn’t his muscles or a tattoo that sent chills running through my body. It wasn’t even the arm itself, but what hung from it: a black patent leather crocodile pattern stiletto with a metal heel. A strap wrapped around his arm, connecting the heel to the toe. I watched him unzip this creation and rummage around for an ID.
Both shoe and purse, it was like nothing I’d ever seen.
In an instant I knew it was love.
Normally I’m not one for approaching strangers, but I couldn’t resist offering a compliment. Once I did, the owner of the art piece beamed and told me his bag was from SYRO. He said I could see all the brand’s designs at their studio in Brooklyn where he’d been few days earlier. Then his friends knocked him down a peg by informing me he was only visiting Brooklyn from the Midwest despite talking like a local. He went a little red while I insisted it didn’t matter. He had style, which knew no geographical bounds, and he just schooled this lifelong New Yorker about the wonders waiting in her own backyard.
I can’t remember his name, but for 30 seconds the owner of this perfect purse was my best friend. That’s always how it feels when game recognizes game. A girl yelling “LOVE THOSE BOOTS” as I walk down St. Marks or someone asking me the brand of my denim jumpsuit. There’s a difference between a casual compliment and genuine reverence for someone’s style. Sometimes in a chance encounter you find someone who not only thinks you look good but also understands your taste and admires your resourcefulness.
By the way my new friend was smiling, I knew we’d come to that understanding. He’d shown up to the bar, shown out, and finally found his audience.
Several cocktails, flirtations, and failed attempts to get the DJ to play “Good Luck Babe” later, my mind was still on the SYRO purse. In the Uber home from Henrietta’s, I went on and on to my friends about how it had to be mine. Someway, somehow.
You may think you’ve seen plenty of shoe-purse combinations, but I’m convinced none can compare to SYRO’s1. None are so functional, stylish, or sexy. What other design can claim to be made from an actual shoe? Size 40 if you were curious.
At full price, the “STILETTO BAG CORVETTE” was not something I could afford to impulsively purchase. Instead, I spent weeks plotting, yearning, and showing off photos of the item to anyone I could hold captive. I was building up the courage to make my sentiments match my wallet. Like the Vicomte de Valmont I approached my love with obsession. I kept a tab open to the brand’s site on my phone and computer. I stalked their Instagram. I claimed that this purse’s beauty was like no other I’d ever encountered. That this purchase required more care than the rest. That this possession would mean more than any previous acquisition in my long history of collecting.
And at this moment, I must pause to say, isn’t it lucky I like to collect purses and not people?
I’ve been reading Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos on and off for the better part of this year, and it’s made me think about how far one can go in relationships “for the plot.” I picked up the book because I’ve adored the 1988 Stephen Frears film since college. Before that, I was obsessed with Cruel Intentions (1999), a modern adaptation of the novel.
For the uninitiated, the 1782 novel follows the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont in their attempts to outdo each other in the game of love. The pair take pleasure in sleeping with and ruining members of French high society until a high stakes bet drives them apart. The immoral former lovers inevitably bring about their own destruction, in a charged, dramatic way that could only be romantic in fiction. It’s the same kind of game playing, cruelty, and passion that’s currently making me ship Blair and Chuck on Gossip Girl.2
Les Liaisons Dangereuses is an incredibly sexy story for the 1700s. It’s a cautionary tale of course, but both the film and the novel allow their audience to have plenty of fun on the way to the moral lesson. In life, I’m rarely one to play games. I have a history of being direct (for better and worse) and would make me a horrible opponent or partner for the Marquise and Vicomte’s schemes. Still, there’s a small devious side of me that enjoys a good chase. A part that lusts for beauty. An illogical piece of my brain that is convinced the right conquest will make me a king among men.
Like the Marquise de Merteuil, I seek out pleasure and satisfaction without mercy. My lovers simply look different than hers.
Back to the paramour in question!
I became all the more obsessed with my SYRO bag when I saw a photo of Julia Fox carrying the brown version to a book event at the Strand. Knowing my taste matched my favorite NYC it-girl emboldened me, but I still hesitated to commit. When I saw Tinashe wearing the brand’s new purse-boots, I feared I’d waited too long. What if they raised their prices with new demand? What if with this new drop of purse-boots, my dream bag went out of stock?!
I reopened the tab to find my beloved was on sale for pride month. It was a sign!
The day I chose to trek to Brooklyn to pick up the Stiletto Bag was unbearably hot.3 The L was down and some well-meaning transit workers convinced me to take a shuttle instead of the bus that would have gotten me closer to the brand’s studio. I called my mother with a storm cloud over my head, lamenting that I didn’t have the bag delivered.
Sweaty and exhausted, I arrived at the nondescript warehouse that supposedly housed the brand’s showroom. But then something wonderful happened. The designer himself answered the buzzer. When I told him I was there to pick up a purse, he smiled and said, “Sophia, right?”
My experience at SYRO was the most personalized I’ve ever had as a fashion consumer. The fact that I was able to compliment the person who conceptualized the bag I’ve been coveting and hear them tell me what influenced their design was such a rare treat for a materialist like myself. I learned the brand began in 2016 making heels for big feet. Only recently have they begun catering to smaller sized feet with their Breakdown Boots, which are designed to function as both a shoe and a purse. As the site advertised, the metal heel of the purse could function as a weapon in a pinch. Every detail was so thought out down to the sole inside the purse matching the green foam inside the base of most shoes.
All this insight into the brand gave me a greater appreciation for the piece. I left feeling invigorated and sure that every cent I’d invested in the bag was well worth it.
On the corner, waiting for the bus with my shoe box, I imagined writing about all the adventures I’d have with this bag on my arm. The Sex and the City themed birthday I would be attending that night. An A24 themed costume party next week. The wrap party for the series I’ve been working on the week after. I fantasized about what I’d wear and who I might become with that magnificent item finally on my arm.
Only once I sat down to write, did I realize the story of this bag lied in my pursuit of it.
Now that I can hold the Stiletto Bag in my hands whenever I want, the initial thrill has faded. The overwhelming passion that was born outside the bar subsided and replaced by a gentler, lasting love. I want to take care of my bag. Ensure she has a long, storied life by my side. That I show her off properly and use her as the fates and designer intended.
“Brat girl summer” is alive and well in New York. This is a time for indulgence, mistakes, making memories, and of course listening to Charlie XCX. It’s the season to be single and in the streets, but if you must fall in love, remember it’s easier to hold purses in a white-knuckle grip than people.4
Outfit of This Era:
Quote of This Era:
“Indeed, if to be in love is not to be able to live without possessing that person one desires, to sacrifice to her one's time, one's pleasures, one's life, then I am really in love.”
- Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Recommendations for This Era:
SYRO - I genuinely love what this brand stands for and think their designs are incredible. Read more about them here!
brat by Charlie XCX
Gossip Girl
Oh Mary! on Broadway!
Reading this piece on Cole Escola and admiring photos of them in SYRO’s purse boots.
Cruel Intentions (1999)
Vitamin Water5
The “Cloudbursting” music video with Donald Sutherland
Dangerous Liaisons (1988) - I rewatched the film last night and confirmed my suspicion that it is the rare case of a film being better than the book.6 Glenn Close’s performance is incomparable. The things that woman is able to do with her face!
Especially not the $1,890 Balenciaga clutch.
I am currently watching Gossip Girl for the first time!!! I just finished Season 2, so please be patient with me. I could write a whole separate essay on Gossip Girl’s role in late 2000s and early 2010s culture, specifically in my bubble as an UES private school girl, but let me just say for now that I am loving it and also happy I didn’t watch it until now.
Like every day in New York in recent memory.
Thus, ends my morality tale.
I’ve been so dehydrated lately I’ve returned to the drink of my teen camp counselor era. It was a decision not prompted by the intense 2008 Gossip Girl Vitamin Water product placement. Or was it…?
Sorry Pierre!
That purse is actually sickening