September 2023

Lynette Nylander grew up with a mother who ironed her underwear. “She took immense pride in the way in which she put herself together,” says the London-born, Recent York–based fashion critic. “She thought it was necessary that I understood that as well.” For Nylander, who served because the creative and editorial director-at-large of CR Fashion Book and is currently the U.S. editorial director at Dazed, good style lies in its contradictions—slightly high, slightly low. Something delicate but “slightly fucked-up.” The art is within the clash.And planning an outfit begins with a single piece. “I ask myself, Recent thing? Old thing? Tailored thing?” Armed with the reply, Nylander ventures into her closet, a former “apartment-engulfing fungus,” which she has since wrestled right into a state...