Un article très drôle sur le quartier de Williamsburg au Nord de Brooklyn.
“Brooklyn” is now a byword for cool from Paris to Sweden to the Middle East. It’s been strange to live across the river from a place that suddenly becomes a cultural reference point — not unlike having your dachshund become an overnight celebrity. Part of you wonders, Why him and not Aunt Barbara?
So I decided to embed myself among the rooftop gardeners and the sustainability consultants and the chickeneers. I wanted to see what the demographic behind nanobatched chervil and the continually cited show “Girls” could teach me about life and craft cocktails. I wanted to see what sullen 25-year-old men had to tell me beyond “Leave me alone during this awkward period of beard growth.”
First I needed to outfit myself. H. W. Carter and Sons in Williamsburg is full of flannel and cardigans and work boots for the younger set. When a scruffy, ponytailed salesman in his 20s approached, I told him: “I’m going for a Mumford & Sons look. I want to look like I play the banjo.”
The sweet-tempered salesman helped me try on several field jackets, including an olive green London Fog, while a second equally sweet and solicitous young salesman (this one in a wool cap) helped me try on selvage denim jeans and a big, lumpy wool cardigan that looked like a lamb had died on me. He also showed me a $225 short-sleeve, plaid, navy jacquard shirt, which I decided to buy. While waiting at the cash register, I picked up a pair of argyle wool socks from a nearby wicker basket and asked, “Are your socks local?” The salesman self-consciously said no. I returned the socks like an organic farmer who has learned that a friend has named her child Monsanto.
