This is what it comes down to: appreciating what your fashion says about you, and understanding its history. These days, Lena is into designers who aren’t motivated by sexiness, like Fenty by Rihanna (“The clothes are weird. And they’re not about impressing men, it’s about feeling comfortable.”) and vintage Todd Oldham (“he was representative of a period in fashion where… it wasn’t about being sexy”). She’s also traded in her nameplate necklaces for crystals. “I love the look of a bunch of layered necklaces. I used to wear a bunch of chains—I don’t do that anymore. I don’t feel like it’s the right look or the right move. This is my way of feeling that same kind of power.” Jesse Ross died two years ago. “My cousin had this crazy streetwear collection and [after he passed] my aunt [told Jesse's friends], ‘You can all just go into his room and take stuff.’ And I remember just being like, ‘That is a representation of what this entire thing is.’ Like, just go into his room and take stuff.” For Lena, so much of her streetwear recollections are mired in darkness and misogyny. “I don’t have one friend that came out of the late 1990s or early 2000s, New York scene, without really being super damaged physically and emotionally by the whole experience [of streetwear]. I just feel like everyone was taken advantage of, abused. I just feel like that was the culture. And it was racist, even as it was inclusive, it was racist.” “The amount of suffering that came out of that period; you have to be really careful because there was a real glamour to it. It was so chic. But it was also so fucked. And that combination cannot be ignored.” As with Jesse. “My cousin was a really terrible misogynist,” she admits. “I loved him a lot, but he was a really terrible misogynist who wasn’t able to see women as anything other than an accessory to coolness. But, also a really interesting person who probably could’ve done it a different way, but was so surrounded by this… you know?" We’re jumping into a Lyft now. The night is black and cold, and Lena is wrapping up a quick hello with a beloved neighbor on the sidewalk. She whispers, “He voted for Trump!” and teases him about his camouflage jacket. “Are you starting a militia?,” she quips. He rolls his eyes and she jumps into the car. When we’re settled into the back of the Corolla, she’s flipping through her phone again, half replying to texts, half staring out the window as we weave through the Lower East Side. Because she’s Lena Dunham now, and not just Jesse’s cousin, some of those apparitions from New York’s downtown past have materialized. “It’s funny, because I’ll run into some of those guys now, and they’re like, ‘What up, we go way back!’" Lena explained. "And I’m like, ‘No, we don’t, and I don’t want to wear your hoodie.’”