Philadelphia Street Style: Gabby, Walnut St

Gabby, in these shots, is wearing a Boy Scout jacket, a ripped pair of jeans, art socks, and jelly heels. "I'm really tall, so I don't usually wear heels," she told me. "But I'm breaking them out today."

The Boy Scout jacket she got at a thrift shop. She's been gradually accumulating Boy Scout patches (or "badges") to fill up the back. I don't think the Boy Scouts of America officially approves of this as a strategy for accumulating badges — your are supposed to "earn" them by taking first aid courses, learning to make fires, tying knots, saving cats from trees, etc — but then Gabby is no Boy Scout. I was. Until I couldn't bare the humiliation of wearing that uniform to school anymore. I quit when I was 12 and traded that uniform for a new uniform of all black, every day. 

Gabby doesn't know how to describe her style. "I always wear something different all the time," she said. "I just wear what I want to wear, and what makes me feel comfortable. And I like to try things out." I tend to think of "comfortable" as the opposite of trying things out. It is settling into a routine, wearing the old faithfuls, and relaxing into a style. But Gabby, it seems, finds her comfort in experimentation.