She’s Every Woman: A Guide to NYC Essentials

Being a New York girl is everybody’s dream. You know her. She’s on every Pinterest mood board. She celebrates birthdays in Rose Hill (or Sheep’s Meadow), dances at Pianos, orders her iced—yes, even in winter—matcha, and devours falafels at Mamoun’s.

She bikes along the West Side Highway and sometimes takes the ferry to Brooklyn instead of the L-Train, just for a picture of the sunset. Some days she’s at Yankee Stadium enjoying a ballgame; other nights, she’s singing along to Fernando at Mamma Mia! on Broadway, the hottest ticket in town. You see her on the train to school, applying her Rhode Pocket Blush, or running across Fifth Avenue to class with her soulmate: a tote bag.

Look around yourself—or better yet, in the mirror—because she could be you, too.

Take a peek into her closet and you’ll spot the usuals. The pieces in her wardrobe are like vitamins: they smile back at you and hug you when things go wrong. In this case, the inevitable wardrobe crisis. She’s seen duplicates on every Instagram page, in every closet, and on every block. But they’re not boring—they’re a code. Codes for every New Yorker. This Big Apple has a lot of seeds.

She wakes up after dawn, searching for her house slippers before starting her skincare routine—or maybe an ice bath for her somewhat visible pores. She’s not perfect, but she’s working on it. #IceBathRitual. Relaxed, she slips into silk Patricia Green slippers and heads to her closet, transforming into Wardrobe Barbie, complete with a uniform to choose from: her essentials.

Code 1: The Yankees Hat Is the Manhattan Tiara.

Her favorite piece is simple—a NY Yankees hat. Because everyone has one, right?

A tiara in baseball-cap form, commonly found in blue, black, or white, with the iconic NY embroidered onto the crown (word of the day: Crown, the front portion of a hat). Garage even sells them in fashionably different colors and patterns? You want to be different? Try a camouflage crown—or even a bite of cherry burgundy.

She lives in them, travels with them, and occasionally lets her partner borrow one—though it’s a must-return. Yankees hats are everywhere in the summer, or maybe she’s just noticed too many on the 6 train. She remembers that one game she attended, the perfect excuse for a “personality pic” in her Instagram dump.

She fell especially hard for it after spotting Kendall Jenner wearing one sans pants post-Paris—but she usually styles hers with denim.

Code 2: Leather Is Your First Love.

Leather is a New Yorker’s guardian angel. A well-cut, 100% leather jacket is a saving grace, worn like a trusted sidekick when that winter breeze rolls in. It makes her feel confident, powerful, and brave.

She wears it to an Addison Rae concert at Terminal 5, and to career fairs at Found Study, always layered over a crisp shirt. She’s chic. She goes with everything.

A leather jacket gives off a post-duty supermodel energy, synonymous with New York “cool.” And the smell of vintage leather paired with Baccarat Rouge? That is a perfect pairing.

Let’s talk about another perfect pairing: the leather jacket and its missing puzzle piece… the going-out top.

Code 3: The Big Apple Has Bling.

Every girl has a going-out top, and every New York girl knows how to have fun.

Sequin shirts, feathered or lace trims, floral embroidery, and even leopard prints—these tops are haughty, naughty, and made for martinis at Le Dive. Her going out top hugs her waist like it was custom-made, and she suddenly embodies Carrie Bradshaw. Like Carrie, she’s worn it to plenty of disco nights—first at Paul’s Casablanca, then again at Jean’s.

Ask your best friends, or even your abuelas: the going-out top is sacred. Among all of them, one item appears again and again…

Code 4: Every Girl Must Have a White Tank Top.

Hanes, Gap, Victoria’s Secret, J.Crew, Calvin Klein, SKIMS, The Row, Ralph Lauren—it doesn’t matter. The white tank top is universal and essential across all genders.

Think “Empire State Building–level” symbolic. You’ve seen the greasy pizza slice wearing a white tank top on your social feed; if the cheesy slice has one on, you need one too.

She owns multiples—from snow white to milky white—in cotton, ribbed, linen, and wool. One shirt bears a faint pink stain from Dior Rouge she’ll never quite remove—but it’s chic. That faint difference in hue and material determines her night: a movie night at AMC Lincoln Square, or an excursion at midnight in Lower Manhattan.

The white tank top is a life jacket, an emergency hack, and a museum-worthy artifact of New York girlhood. Her white tank top is often paired with…

Code 5: Meet the Trench Coat—A Girl’s Real Best Friend.

She owns two: subtle and stunning. The subtle one is a lightweight wool-blend, knee-length, sand-colored trench thrifted from Housing Works on 64th and 2nd. It’s made for walks through Central Park, gallery openings in Chelsea, and Sunday brunch with the ladies.

The stunning one—a brown fur-collared trench with a lacquered exterior and silk lining—was thrifted from Rogue on Allen Street. She wears it with pouty gloss, sharp eyeliner, gold jewelry, and a flirty blush (duh). Lacquered trenches are must-haves for fashion week events and birthday parties where the outfit speaks for itself.

New York women love outerwear, proven again and again by yet another essential…

Code 6: To Knit or Not to Knit.

The cardigan.

Beige, gray, blue—cashmere, cotton, alpaca. She reaches for it constantly, because this piece never gets it wrong. The cardigan never fails.

Each sweater is a personal shield for our New York warriors, armored onto our girls who then find a pair of matching Simone Rocha socks.

From red carpets (hello, Kim K!) to paparazzi shots, the cardigan has proven itself timeless.

We must dress head to toe, and no NYC wardrobe is complete without stylish shoes—specifically, loafers.

Code 7: Lucky Loafers? They’re year-round.

Shoes? Simple.

Loafers are this season’s most-shopped shoe, and hers are dark brown with black contrast stitching. They embodying NYC attitude: genderless, timeless, universal.

Low-heeled, pony hair, zebr a patterned—anything goes. Petition to replace

“Live Laugh Love” with: Loafers in the spring, loafers in the fall, loafers in all colors, loafers for them all.

And finally, the cherry on top.

Code 8: The Belt that Ties it all together.

Belts have traveled from Cleopatra’s waist in ancient Egypt all the way to New York City in this new age. Somewhere along the way, we got creative—using shoelaces, scarves, chains—and now, anything goes. That’s the thing about New Yorker women: they adapt, and they survive! From Gucci’s signature GG-logo belt, to a richer Prada leather belt, each peice adds the ever-so necessary pop to every outfit.

Whether its wrapped around your waist or around your blazer, New York girls know that security is everything… but so is silhouette!

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Now, these aren’t just clothes. They’re shortcuts. As we mentioned before, they’re NYC codes. They’re the seeds that grow our beautiful, irresistable apples!

The New York girl doesn’t dress to impress; she dresses to live. And maybe that’s why she’s everywhere, because the New York girl isn’t a fantasy, she’s a uniform. She’s the woman who proves exactly who she is, even when she’s still figuring it out…

Hey Siri, play Native New Yorker by Odyssey!

Do you own any of these New York staples? Leave a comment below.