The struggle to be stylish in Havana

I had just arrived in Havana when I first saw them. A young guy in a tight T-shirt and denim shorts. And on his feet, bright white rain boots. It wasn’t raining. The sky wasn’t even threatening. I didn’t think much of it until, a few blocks later, I saw another pair of white rain boots. Then another. I asked my young Cuban friend Tony what was going on. “Are they in some kind of cult?” Tony, a slight young man who works as a chef and tour guide for one of the city’s new private, boutique hotels, exclaimed: “It’s style!”

That’s the first paragraph from my latest article for Title magazine, “Fidel’s White Rain Boots,” written during my last visit to Cuba this past September. And, as a departure, it is not focused on classic style, which is almost impossible to find in Havana. Instead, I profile street style as an example of the complicated relationship Cuba has with capitalism, popular media and contemporary fashion.

A moment that didn’t make it into the article but sums up Cuban style for me occurred when my friend Tony was taking me through a department store and I pointed out that the only trousers for sale in the whole place were jeans. “Cubans consider jeans very elegant,” he told me seriously. “You can wear them anywhere, even to fancy places.”

You can read the full article here.