Fashion Icon

Fashionistas, you already know that Anna Dello Russo is the editor at large and creative consultant for Vogue Japan and that she writes an influential fashion blog. Until last week, I had never heard of her. If there is such a thing as a fashionisto, I'm not one of them. I continue to wear the kind of clothes I wore 60 years ago when I was a college student.

I learned about her in the Style section of last Thursday's Times. Until then, I had no idea that the editors of fashion magazines have become style icons, fashion celebrities whose clothes and blogs are eagerly followed by the female under-thirty set, who are abandoning these editors' glossy magazines in favor of the editors' blogs.

What caught my attention was the large photograph occupying the entire top quarter of the Style section's first page. It shows Anna Della Russo in Paris last month during Fashion Week. She's walking past four decidedly unfashionable white-haired old ladies who are seated on a park bench at the rim of an artificial pool, in which fountains play. Outside the park's greenery stands a block of beautiful 18th century buildings.

She's wearing a black coat, piped in gold braid and trimmed in white fur, with form-fitting sleeves. Her coat is very short, its hem in the stratosphere at least twelve inches above her knees. Her high-heeled platform shoes are colored gold, matching the piping on her coat and accentuating the curves of her legs. With her broad shoulders and slim build, she could have stepped off a runway were it not for her tousled hair, unless messy hair is the latest craze. If it is, then the old ladies are fashionable in at least that respect.

Ms. Della Russo's outfit is arresting, but even more so are the expressions of the old ladies who are watching her walk by. At their feet are four identical open straw baskets, banded by cloth flowers at the top. A caption for a second, smaller photo on an inner page, describes the women as visitors to the city. They probably have come into town together to go shopping and those pretty baskets are one of their trophies. The two ladies seated in the middle of the bench are looking at Ms. Dello Russo with slightly opened mouths. The other two ladies, one at each end of the bench, are smiling as she walks by. It's as if a giraffe had suddenly materialized. It would be expected at the zoo but not at this park in Paris. Astonishment and delight is what I see in their faces.

Is there also a touch of regret, a smidge of envy? Their youth has passed, they've gained 50 pounds, and they have never been nor will they ever be glamorous. No, these appear to be practical women who have worked hard all their lives and for whom following the dictates of fashion is as remote an ambition as learning to speak Swahili. They exhibit no regret, no envy, only pleasure at this unexpected apparition. The photographer has caught them during a moment of wonder, a moment that has lit up their day, a moment about which they will tell their families when they go home.

As for Anna Dello Russo, when she goes home she'll take off those dreadful shoes, which must be killing her feet, and heave a sigh of relief.