A few weeks before Halloween, we met a nine-year-old boy named Dashiell for ice cream and shakes. Except, underneath a rubber dusk mask and a NASA astronaut space suit, he didn't look like the sort you might see tearing up a playground. You know the one—in a pizza-stained dinosaur tee, covered in tanbark, looking askance.
Dashiell's kind of different. Redolent of Maurice Sendak's Max—precocious, imaginative, contemplative—he's also forthcoming with strangers, game to break out in unique dance moves like "The Dubble Bubble," and most interestingly: he adores fashion. We first read about him in the pages of W magazine (which was created in 1972, when Dashiell was oh, about 33 years deep in the womb). His mother, the style writer Francesca Castagnoli, had bylined a first-person narrative titled, "The Boy Who Cried, 'Chic!'" in which she describes her son's style as an "exuberant mix of Halloween costumes, sports gear, and dapper holiday formal attire." Does Dashiell fall asleep to bedtime stories like The Fashion Book? Like a lamb on its 100th jump. Were his eccentric tastes challenged when Bradon was cut from Season 12 of Project Runway? Indeed, but fashion, as adults know, is ruthless.
When we sat down to chat with Dash, he had pulled the duck mask over his head so he could suck down a Morgernstern's butterscotch milkshake. "I'm gonna get a brain freeze," he tells us, blowing out in short exhales and shaking his enviable nimbus of honey-tinged hair. (So enviable, in fact, that his mother once took a swatch to her hairdresser and asked for highlights to match.) He swings his Yeti-inspired, white faux fur boots, which make him feel like an eskimo... or a movie star. Innovation is at play, here, and this particular Halloween contender, thrown together with aplomb, will be the first of seven (Dashiell is currently on a mad hunt for a tweed suit and trench, a la Doctor Who).
As he talks, you get the feeling that every day is costume day; his imagination free-flowing into memories as varied as a trip to Costa Rica or a visit to Jeff Koons exhibit at the Guggenheim. But for those of us with only one excuse a year, here are the kid's tips for a killer Halloween.
1. Go For Faux
"It's cool and fun. I feel happy. I look like a Wookiee or an eskimo, and feel like a movie star."
2. Dance!
"Dancing is always a way to feel happy. You should let your hands flop, then spin around. Your hands will feel disconnected, because you can’t move your wrists when you are spinning that fast and your fingers will feel like they are tingly and sparkly.”
3. Tap A Candy-Gathering Strategy
"Our trick-or-treating route is, first we go to small houses close together so we can get a lot of candy, then we got to big houses up on hills. Even though the hills are steep, we don’t get tired because we are doing it for a really good reason. The girls want go to the house that gives lip gloss, but I can’t wait to go to the house with the lady that gives books and toothbrushes."
4. Eat White Skittles
"The best candy is Skittles, because it makes me feel rainbow-y. My favorite Skittle is black. It’s super rare. No! My favorite Skittle is white. but it’s not the rarest. My mom says there are no white Skittles, but they are tons. You suck off the red or green or yellow and then it's white."
Dashiell's kind of different. Redolent of Maurice Sendak's Max—precocious, imaginative, contemplative—he's also forthcoming with strangers, game to break out in unique dance moves like "The Dubble Bubble," and most interestingly: he adores fashion. We first read about him in the pages of W magazine (which was created in 1972, when Dashiell was oh, about 33 years deep in the womb). His mother, the style writer Francesca Castagnoli, had bylined a first-person narrative titled, "The Boy Who Cried, 'Chic!'" in which she describes her son's style as an "exuberant mix of Halloween costumes, sports gear, and dapper holiday formal attire." Does Dashiell fall asleep to bedtime stories like The Fashion Book? Like a lamb on its 100th jump. Were his eccentric tastes challenged when Bradon was cut from Season 12 of Project Runway? Indeed, but fashion, as adults know, is ruthless.
When we sat down to chat with Dash, he had pulled the duck mask over his head so he could suck down a Morgernstern's butterscotch milkshake. "I'm gonna get a brain freeze," he tells us, blowing out in short exhales and shaking his enviable nimbus of honey-tinged hair. (So enviable, in fact, that his mother once took a swatch to her hairdresser and asked for highlights to match.) He swings his Yeti-inspired, white faux fur boots, which make him feel like an eskimo... or a movie star. Innovation is at play, here, and this particular Halloween contender, thrown together with aplomb, will be the first of seven (Dashiell is currently on a mad hunt for a tweed suit and trench, a la Doctor Who).
As he talks, you get the feeling that every day is costume day; his imagination free-flowing into memories as varied as a trip to Costa Rica or a visit to Jeff Koons exhibit at the Guggenheim. But for those of us with only one excuse a year, here are the kid's tips for a killer Halloween.
1. Go For Faux
"It's cool and fun. I feel happy. I look like a Wookiee or an eskimo, and feel like a movie star."
2. Dance!
"Dancing is always a way to feel happy. You should let your hands flop, then spin around. Your hands will feel disconnected, because you can’t move your wrists when you are spinning that fast and your fingers will feel like they are tingly and sparkly.”
3. Tap A Candy-Gathering Strategy
"Our trick-or-treating route is, first we go to small houses close together so we can get a lot of candy, then we got to big houses up on hills. Even though the hills are steep, we don’t get tired because we are doing it for a really good reason. The girls want go to the house that gives lip gloss, but I can’t wait to go to the house with the lady that gives books and toothbrushes."
4. Eat White Skittles
"The best candy is Skittles, because it makes me feel rainbow-y. My favorite Skittle is black. It’s super rare. No! My favorite Skittle is white. but it’s not the rarest. My mom says there are no white Skittles, but they are tons. You suck off the red or green or yellow and then it's white."