Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1538826
Letter from the Editor 48 H ello, September, and welcome to our Back to Cool issue. We've embraced that term and made it the overarching theme for this issue. It's been around for ages, yet whenever someone says in a nonchalant way, "That's cool," it still has the same power. Cool needn't be loud and in your face. In fact, it's better when it's only understood by the select few who speak that vernacular. I've been pondering that four-letter word since we started working on this issue a few months ago. Once fixated on a theme, I always fall down a Google hole, searching for song lyrics or quotes. Lo and behold, I found these from Cher: "Some years I'm the coolest thing that ever happened, and then the next year everyone's so over me, and I'm just so past my sell date." No. Cher, you will always be the standard-bearer of cool. Come on, you're almost an EGOT (only missing that Tony Award). From the stop-traffic moment when you belted out "Dark Lady" in all-black Bob Mackie (who doesn't remember that veil) on the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour in 1973 to more questionable fashion choices like the one from "If I Can Turn Back Time." (Okay, we admit there might be a time and place for leather and fishnets.) Cool never expires. We enlisted some folks who will always be cool in our minds to contribute to this issue. Our past dynamic duo, co-editors Brooksie and Robsie (Brooke Hortenstine and Rob Brinkley) give us an updated Old School 101, and another girl who helmed this glossy, Christina Geyer, pens her Ode to the iconic L.L. Bean Tote. Kendall Morgan takes us back in time to the 1990s — an era pre-social media and iPhones where Dallas' social set drank and danced with abandon at some memorable louche lounges. And, finally, fashion this month (shot at NYC's venerable Mark Hotel) is the most modern whimsical mash-up of American Gigolo-cum-'80s romcom, with a dash of Whit Stillman (IYKYK). @Tabletmag recently posted "The Death of Cool" and has 39,500 likes (and climbing, as we send this issue to press) with more than 1,400 responses including one from someone we think is the epitome of cool, Daphne Guinness: "So, true. I've been saying for 15 years." Well, forgive me for being contrarian, but I think cool still exists. You just have to search for it. You have to actively sift through the noise of brand marketing and influencer culture and find those who are perhaps quietly giving us cool ideas, art, products, and energy. I'll leave you with this — a few things that will always be cool in my opinion. A wink done effortlessly from across a crowded room that feels like the warmest embrace … The Luscious Jackson "Naked Eye" video that straddles the fence between the bygone era of sophisticated travel (a hatbox is the perfect carry-on) and 1990s angst … A white 1970s Volvo 240 (the elbow- patched sweater of the auto universe) … A phone number scribbled on a matchbook given to you by a potential suitor or confidante … The most well- worn and well-traveled chocolate-brown Hermès Kelly bag … And, finally, an anonymous donation to a worthy cause. If you find me a few spritzers in at a soirée this fall, then maybe you can ply out of me my list of things I find uncool. See you soon, Billy Fong Dallas Editor in Chief billy@papercitymag.com SCOT REDMAN Confidential cocktail whispers between Brooke Hortenstine and Billy Fong at one of Nancy Rogers' swellegant soirées