Dressed for the Countdown

Every year around this time I start the same mental negotiation about what to wear on the 31st. Not because I care that much about fashion in the abstract, but because New Year’s Eve carries this peculiar pressure—the one night when showing up underdressed feels like a statement you didn’t mean to make. Monki, the Swedish label that turned maximalist color into a personality type, had a whole editorial about this. Sequins. Metallics. The kind of outfit that photographs well at midnight and feels slightly insane on the train home. There’s something almost endearing about the ritual—an hour in front of a mirror deciding whether you’re a velvet-blazer person or a silver-mini person, as if the right answer will make the evening mean something it probably won’t.