Don’t underestimate the simple power of complimenting a stranger.
I chose my moment — two stops from my destination, in case things got awkward — and made my move.
“Excuse me,” I said. She looked appropriately wary. “I just have to say: I love your whole look.”
She was flattered. We talked briefly about her excellent hobo bag. When I returned to my seat, the woman next to me said, “Your saying that to her inspired me to tell you: I’ve been admiring your outfit!”
Maybe not what most people think of as a New York moment, but it has become one for many this fall. The compliment market is booming.
“Oh, there’s definitely been an uptick,” said Kaitlin Phillips, a publicist in Manhattan. She said she had been complimented on her outfits at random four times in one week, despite that she was “not a style maven.”
“There’s definitely more lately,” says Kristin Roa, 33, a dancer based in Manhattan.
After getting a new short haircut, Ms. Roa was feeling a bit unsure about it. But not for too long: “Today I was complimented not once but twice on my hair — all before 10 a.m.!” she said. “They both caught me off guard but were very appreciated.”
The element of surprise makes the compliments sweeter. And the compliments motivate the recipient to up their game.
At a museum last week, Melanie Dunea, a photographer based in TriBeCa, said “a super chic woman” stopped to tell her how lovely she looked.
“I was shocked and blurted out: ‘I threw on this big ol’ scarf in the last moment because my neck is always cold — I was worried I looked old,’” Ms. Dunea, 53, recalled. “‘Au Contraire,’ she said. How nice was that?”
Once, when Rebecca Gardner, an event planner, dropped off her dog Percy at the groomer, the woman working behind the desk noticed her vintage polka dot dress. “The other employees joined with applause,” Ms. Gardner said. Now she dresses up for all her visits to the groomer.
Chloe Malle, who edits Vogue.com, recently experienced this phenomenon somewhere unusual: a funeral. Two strangers complimented the chocolate satin chore jacket she was wearing. “Somehow, unexpectedly, it was the perfect way to connect with people at a solemn event where small talk is not always easy,” she said.
Fashion, makeup choices and fragrance are a kind of “a common space,” according to Jess Matlin, director of Beauty and Home at Moda Operandi — conversation starters that can create connection and even alleviate feelings of isolation.
There may be something distinctly post-pandemic about the pleasure of complimenting someone in person.
“What I missed most of all during the pandemic was complimenting other women,” says Lizzy Weinberg, a hairstylist. “Because at the end of the day, we dress for each other.”
Now that we’ve all lived without casual interactions, says Ms. Matlin, we can choose how we want to be in the world. “It’s not a right, it’s a privilege to have that conversation — to casually enter someone’s world and exit it, gracefully.”
Even if women are feeling more generous in doling them out, compliments can come with cultural baggage. Drawing attention to someone’s appearance can be fraught territory, and some have feared seeming too fawning.
“I was always taught by my New England mother not to compliment or remark on others’ dress or appearance (and never, ever jewelry), lest they become self-conscious or, worse, you look like a fool drooling over someone else’s diamonds,” said Alice Vartan, an interior designer who works in New York and Philadelphia.
But Deborah Blum, the director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, received different advice: “My Kentucky grandmother used to say that the easiest way to make yourself happy is to make someone else happy.” The stress of the world, Ms. Blum said, was made easier by “stirring some kindness into the pot.” And it makes her feel better to have friendly interactions with strangers.
Mood-lifting aside, there are other benefits to striking up conversations about someone’s personal style.
“Perhaps it is in this age where Instagram or every website browser is trying to sell you things you already own,” said the sommelier Victoria James,. “But I lean now more heavily toward personal recommendations.” She said she recently passed by a woman with a gorgeous leather backpack and looped around the block to ask where she could purchase the same one.
Sometimes these encounters lead to requests for information out of a desire to replicate the look — perhaps the sincerest form of flattery. But more often, people say they are getting (and giving) compliments for the sake of what Ms. Roa calls “spreading a little joy.”
Emilie Hawtin, a writer who also works with tailors to produce meticulous women’s clothing, says she gives compliments when she sees someone with exceptionally unique personal style — regardless of whether she would wear that style herself. “Any way we can lift someone’s spirits, or make them feel seen, is the least we can do for each other,” she said. ■
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