Have you ever experienced a shopping crush? You know, when you can’t stop watching a girl you don’t know try something on because you love her style and because you love what she’s picked up off the rack — and you can’t believe you didn’t spot it yourself? And then you try to start a conversation with her by offering your opinion of how awesome the dress/top/jacket looks on her? Well, there I was, at the warehouse sale that was the Barneys Madison Avenue flagship this past Saturday, sprawled on a fourth-floor couch, awaiting the bill for a gorgeous pair of eggplant Prada peep-toe stilettos and feeling like pretty hot shopping shit for my score. Then I saw her. Tall and slim, she wore illustrated canvas high tops with inside-ankle-zip jeans and one of those floppy knit hats that look horrible on everybody but her. As if all that weren’t enough, she sourced these amazing Viktor & Rolf patent-leather boots. Last pair. Total perfection. I can’t stop thinking about them. Or her.

When I was a kid coming of age in Reagan-era suburbia, shopping at the Salvation Army was as unknown to us as gay people (until, that is, all our mothers’ hairdressers began dropping dead of AIDS). But my Great Aunt Rose, who lived in a hovel in gangland Detroit, had a vintage habit dating to the 1950s that was born out of necessity, and then blossomed into addiction because the hunt was a thrill and the loot a novelty (she often said the faygelehs, as all old Jewish ladies referred to gay men in those days, were her biggest competition). The woman didn’t exactly suffer from great taste, but I’ve always known that the truly insane amount of pendanted gold chains she collected would find a future use, and I’ve finally discovered it: a custom chandelier dripping with sentimentality, by the Brooklyn design team, Floto + Warren. Surely, Great Aunt Rose is grooving in heaven with the drag queens as I publish.

www.flotowarner.com

If you are like me and most Americans, you may have a little extra padding in places where you did not at this time last week. Trust me, I know, it sucks. The good news is Sandra Backlund, a Swedish genius who knits architecture for the body (and who recently won Hyeres, the prize that catapulted Viktor & Rolf to fashion stardom). The clothes are not only form fitting and gorgeous, but they also distract from those new (and definitely temporary) rough spots with unexpected sculptural pop-ups. The best part is that they’re knits, so they’re ultra-comfy too.

www.sandrabacklund.com

Oh la la! Only Sonia Rykiel could make such perfect adult floaties to match my daughter’s, while we frolic in the kiddie pool in Palm Beach this week. Yeah, I know knit is a touch impractical for aqua-wear, but it’s not like I need them to keep my head above water!

See 40 years worth of Sonia Rykiel’s superiority via the retrospective at Les Arts Decoratifs in Paris, the best city in the world.

When my daughter entered her “no” phase, I tried to encourage her to speak in the affirmative by appealing to her artistic side. “Say ‘yes,’ like Yoko Ono,” I’d coo. Then a counselor at the Soho Parenting Center explained that every kid goes through a “no” phase because “no” is how we protect ourselves. And then I spotted this sweet sequined T by V&R in French Vogue, and I saw it less as a symbol of teen rebellion than a fashionable and empowering chastity belt! Not that my daughter needs to know my sex-ed intentions when I give her the T for her 13th!

Credit: Viktor & Rolf. $760. www.viktor-rolf.com.