I left Brooklyn for California four months ago, which is long enough to get used to buying wine at the grocery store, but short enough that I still remember things like what a real bagel feels like (tough) and where to wait on the G platform (the middle) and when a true gentleman should sit down on the subway (never, according to my friend Tony). I miss all the obvious stuff: friends, taxis, foldable pizza. I knew those would hurt, and they do. But I didn’t know I’d miss clouds. (Image via pixabay.)
The Menil Collection is a low-slung block of grey in the middle of a quiet green square in an old Houston neighborhood. Daylight wafts in through the roof’s white leaves. Tropical plants fill the atrium of its African art gallery, and bamboo thickets at the exterior windows protect artwork in passageways from direct sun.
The French have long known that to wear a gown in grey is to dress in that perfect (and elusive) nexus of classic sophistication and subtle surprise. No one will entirely expect it, but at the same time it is really the only answer to that interminable refrain of But what do I wear?! Existing in the wide and nebulous middle ground between the black cocktail dress and the white wedding gown, a grey dress is inherently versatile, and infinitely adaptable to all occasions and moods between those two stark monochrome poles: as right and reasonable in a disco as at an inauguration...
