Planet Cool, Revisited: How Are We Making the Upper West Side Look?

 by Yvonne Vávra

The Upper West Side is about to receive a real treasure—one created by a New York treasure, at that. It’s nothing less than the city’s own spark, captured and carefully tucked away by the late Bill Cunningham, the legendary New York Times fashion photographer. Now, a vault of that very spark is being opened: tens of thousands of his photographs, negatives, and pieces of memorabilia will find a permanent home at the New York Historical on Central Park West.

For decades, until his death at 87 in 2016, Cunningham roamed the city on his bike, documenting what people wore as they lived out their own versions of New York life. His work captures the looks people created for themselves, and the way they collectively dressed the city. To Cunningham, fashion was “armor to survive the reality of everyday life,” as he said in the 2010 documentary Bill Cunningham New York. “I don’t think you could do away with it; it would be like doing away with civilization.”

Now we get to see the beauty Cunningham captured at the New York Historical. But what about outside the museum? How are we making the UWS look?

Well… how do I put this kindly? When you spot someone with breathtaking style on the Upper West Side, your first thought might be: visiting, probably. Don’t throw your coffee at me—I say this with love, as one of us! We’re looking good, no question. Have you seen us? Glorious. I just mean, style-wise, the typical Upper West Sider often looks like they’ve got other things on their mind. I’m talking about a typical one, not you! But let’s be honest, a stunning outfit that triggers a double take and another glance back over your shoulder? It’s rare. To sum up the pickle I’ve written myself into: on your average Tuesday afternoon, you don’t see much that would’ve made Cunningham slam the brakes on his bike.

The mornings can be mind-blowing. Upper West Side dogs on their first walks of the day are accompanied by humans who sometimes look like they got dressed mid-fall—in whatever clothing put up the least resistance. It’s giving teen angst, a grown-up edition. I’ve contributed more than once, say, by showing up to the park with my shirt inside out, the washing instructions flapping in the wind like a price tag. Definitely on sale. Good thing dogs don’t judge.

That said, the Upper West Side does have style in its DNA. I mean, this is the neighborhood that gave the world Lady Gaga! It was here that a small shop on 85th and Broadway—opened in 1967 by single UWS mom Selma Weiser—grew into a boutique empire that reshaped the fashion scene in New York and beyond. Charivari, the name Weiser chose for her store, taken from the French word for ‘uproar’, made the Upper West Side a hotbed for cutting-edge style, thanks to her eye for avant-garde designs and her support of emerging talent. Marc Jacobs got his start here as a stock boy, and Yohji Yamamoto and countless other designers have Weiser to thank for their breakthrough in the US. Charivari was “Planet Cool”, as former employee Kerry Harris put it in the documentary Charivari: A Fashion Uproar. At its peak, Charivari had multiple locations across the neighborhood and made the Upper West Side the place where the cool people went to get dressed.

Charivari’s last store closed in 1998, but the Upper West Side had another style icon holding court since the ’60s. At Off Broadway Boutique, on 72nd Street between Broadway and Columbus, Lynn Dell Cohen sold everything needed to, as she put it, “dress for the theater of our lives.” Sensational ensembles and every imaginable accessory to match—really, everything you could dream of, including hats so dramatic, sculptures might be a better word. But arguably the most fabulous thing in the store was Lynn Dell herself. Until her death in 2015, she brought out the inner glamour of everyone who walked through the door.

Lynn Dell became a style icon well beyond her boutique. She was a regular on Advanced Style, the blog by Ari Seth Cohen that celebrates fabulously dressed older women—in fact, many Upper West Siders have been featured there. Maybe style really is everywhere in the neighborhood, and I just don’t always know how to look.

Because here’s the thing: Bill Cunningham wore the same blue work jacket every day. He didn’t draw attention—he paid it. He found endless joy watching the fashion show unfold on the streets. Well, these are our streets, and this is our show. Bill taught us to look, and when we do so with his kind of curiosity, we might see the beauty of someone dressed exactly for the day they’re having. There they are: our neighbors, making it through the theater of their lives, looking the way they do. And we get to share that little scene with them. That’s quite extraordinary—definitely worth hitting the brakes for.

Yvonne Vávra is a magazine writer and author of the German book 111 Gründe New York zu lieben (111 Reasons to Love New York). Born a Berliner but an aspiring Upper West Sider since the 1990s (thanks, Nora Ephron), she came to New York in 2010 and seven years later made her Upper West Side dreams come true. She’s been obsessively walking the neighborhood ever since.

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