Cara Taylor Self-Reflects at the Mall in 'Mall Rats' Editorial

The bag lady is bored and lonely in Prada SS17

Inside the March 2017 issue of Interview Magazine, Cara Taylor, one of the hottest models in the game, portrays the mall rat of the title. She’s not a valley girl by any means, but instead she’s Holly Golightly.

Holly Golightly is the lonely call girl from the 1961 romantic comedy Breakfast at Tiffany’s who’s tries to find herself in New York City. The opening photo is clearly homage to the opening shot of Tiffany’s: Played by Audrey Hepburn, Holly wears a gown with opera gloves and sunglasses as she looks into the window of the Tiffany’s jewelry store.   

In the foreword of the “Mall Rats” fashion story, the subject of it is a “bag lady” on a “tour of the local mall.” The dictionary defines a bag lady as “a homeless woman who carries her possessions in shopping bags.” Cara is a bag lady who must have found a bunch of SS17 high fashion in a dumpster (miraculously). Then she decided to wear those clothes around the mall looking like a million bucks, but can barely afford a cup of coffee.

Cara pays homage to Breakfast at Tiffany's opening

She moves around the mall hoping to be seen. She’s dressed for her moment, but will it ever come? Cara sits on a bench—that familiar bag lady spot—wearing a Prada trench, once again nodding to Holly’s Burberry trench. She looks bored and lonely and reflective.

Within the fashion story, Cara constantly looks into reflective surfaces to see her own image. Significantly, Breakfast at Tiffany’s contains numerous scenes of people looking in reflective surfaces like mirrors and windows.

The constants of the fashion story are the pompadour hairstyle (a nod to Holly’s pompadour), opera gloves and oversized sunglasses. It’s worth noting that Cara never takes off the opera gloves, wearing them with different outfits.

The lessons that fashion editor Karl Templer wants readers to take away from this fashion story is to wear big, glamorous sunglasses, embrace silk opera gloves and get their hair fixed in a pompadour.