personal - Shala's Rabbit Hole

HAIR: NELSON VERCHER FOR REDKEN; MAKEUP: RENEE GARNES FOR LANCÔME; PRODUCTION: LUKE P. BROWN. SPECIAL THANKS TO 60 THOMPSON HOTEL, NEW yORK
Wheels up for Monroque. Proenza Schouler dress,
by special order. proenzaschouler.com. Dannijo necklace, $595.
Miu Miu shoes, $990. Hermès bag, Monroque’s own.
Fashion editor: Joanna Hillman
Photographs by Magnus Unnar
personal
STYLE
Shala
Monroque
The chic art
maven takes her
singular
style to the
streets
By Anne Monoky
271

Personal
STYLE
Out of this world: Monroque
in artist Tom Sachs’s studio.
Miu Miu sleeveless coat.
Prada shoes.
Stopping for a
scoop. 3.1 Phillip
Lim cardigan.
Louis Vuitton
skirt. Tory Burch
necklace. Delfina
Delettrez cuff.
272
monroque’s
picks
Iradj Moini
necklace,
$1,870
Lanvin shoe,
$1,855
Fendi bag,
$3,920
I
don’t have a high threshold
for pain,” jokes Shala Monroque. No,
the slender 31-year-old isn’t speaking
about exercising or medical procedures;
she is talking about her heels. “I have to
have comfortable shoes,” she insists. Her
preference? Well, Monroque hasn’t been
named the proverbial queen
Chris Benz
jacket,
tank, and
pants.
Marc
Jacobs
shoes.
of the kitten heel for nothing.
In fact, the striking St.
Lucian has been wearing the
barely there heel for several
seasons now, long before
they were deemed in style
again for fall. Such daring
decisions have grabbed the
attention (and admiration)
of the fashion world, gradually
landing Monroque on
the It-girl map.
As venerable designer and
close friend Miuccia Prada
puts it, “She has an incredible
sense of fashion, and,
more importantly, it’s all very instinctive
and natural. It’s really a gift.” Unlike her
boyfriend, art mogul Larry Gagosian,
whose more reliable style she describes as
“preppy—he has worn the same look his
whole life,” Monroque is continually
pushing the boundaries. She wore full
midcalf ’50s-style skirts before Marc
Jacobs sent them down the runway, turbans
before Mrs. Prada reinstated
them, and cat’s-eye sunglasses before
Alexander Wang made them cool
again. And for fall, she has her very
discerning eye on a specific set of runway
looks that she is coveting: the
belted autumnal trenches at Dries
Van Noten, the vivid glow-in-thedark
linear outfits from Balenciaga,
and the fun, flirty party dresses from
Giambattista Valli. As for accessories? She
can’t get enough of Fendi’s animal-printlined
Peekaboo bag or the luxurious
snakeskin heels from Lanvin. ➤
STILL LIFE (STUDIO D): CHARLOTTE jENKS LEWIS; BAG: RICHARD MAjCHRzAK

Personal
STYLE
Mad hatter: Trying
on a chapeau at
the Hat Shop in
SoHo, New York.
Prada dress.
Yestadt Millinery
hat. Delfina
Delettrez cuff.
274
In
Giambattista
Valli
monroque: Girl-about-town
With Larry
Gagosian
“She has an incredible sense of fashion.”
—Miuccia Prada
In Prada
Donna Karan New
York jacket, $195.
Magna consenisl
utate dolorpero
Street chic. 3.1
consequat. Quam,
Phillip Lim blouse.
si euipiscipErcil
Rodarte skirt. Tory
Burch necklace.
In Miu Miu
And while her out-on-a-limb fashion
sense may be innate, Monroque is banking
on another theory. “Ironically, some
of the outfits that receive the most attention
from the fashion crowd are the ones
that are a little off,” she admits. See, this
girl on the go hates to pack and is actually
quite bad at it, often forgetting key
components of her ensemble. So she
improvises. For best friend and fellow
fashion favorite Dasha Zhukova, Monroque’s
innovative style can be
summarized with a simple anecdote.
“One time, Shala was hosting
a party for a designer whose
clothes she didn’t have in this
particular remote location,” says
Zhukova. “In order to be politically
correct, she found a random
piece of fabric, belted it, and turned
it into a cute minidress.”
Such occurrences are de rigueur
for this jet-setter, who spends
less than six months a year on
Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where
she lives. Instead, she’s in Paris, sitting
front row at the Valentino couture
show in a leggy lace number; in Rome
for the opening of the Maxxi museum
(“It’s unbelievable,” she reports back);
or off in Colombia for an intimate
dinner party honoring young designer
Esteban Cortazar.
But international expeditions aside,
New York City still holds a special
place in her heart. She arrived in the
city 10 years ago, and after several jobs
(she was a maître ’d at 60 Thompson’s
eatery, Kittichai), she found her footing
as both a Pop magazine editor at large
and blogger and as an art consultant.
Through the latter, she has forged strong
bonds with artists like Taryn Simon, Ellen
Gallagher, and Tom Sachs, who opened
his awe-inspiring studio for Monroque’s
photo shoot. During which, for effect,
she slipped on a pair of jeweled Miu Miu
stilettos, Cinderella-style. As is true for
any ardent follower of fashion, if the shoe
fits and is divine, she’ll wear it. n
see WhErE To BuY for shoppinG details
For more of Monroque’s best-dressed moments, go to bazaar.com/monroque
BOTTOM, FROM LEFT: TAMU McPHERSON; BILLy FARRELL/PATRICKMCMULLAN.COM (2); jOE SCHILDHORN/PATRICKMCMULLAN.COM