Christina Binkley

Pockets have long been a male/female divide. ”

Hermes scarf designers can be found in places from Poland to Japan, not to mention the U.S. post-office sorting room in Waco, Texas. Kermit Oliver, a longtime postal employee, has designed more than a dozen Hermes scarves. ”

Comfortably middle-class, I had shopped for years at the likes of Saks outlet Off Fifth, Banana Republic, and Zara. My mom raised me to believe clothes should be comfortable and practical, not frivolous. ”

The Hermes scarf is a coveted, much-collected symbol of success that defines the Paris-based luxury company. But it has no single designer. Rather, the scarves are designed by a far-flung array of freelance artists. ”

Our social mores no longer conform to a world where nice girls wear skirts that don't cling. ”

Clothes are particularly hard to value. While cars and high-tech gadgets - Maseratis, Audemars Piguet watches, and first-generation iPhones - offer not only performance but the cachet of a visibly rich item, clothing does less to convey what you spent on it. Clothes get stained and snagged, and they go out of style quickly. ”

Any woman who has attempted to slip a credit card into an inch-deep trouser pocket knows about the annoying puzzle of women's clothing: Pockets rarely work. ”

For more than a century, New York City has been home to a constellation of department stores whose openings, closings, and transformations have charted the fortunes and foibles of the city itself. ”