Paul Dally on his Starr Street stoop. — Photo by Molly Hamilton. Click to see full version.

Paul Dally, 21, Artist

I found Mr. Dally smoking a cigarette on the stoop of an apartment near mine, on the phone and having what must have been a delicate conversation because he couldn’t stop laughing after he hung up, and kept making awkward faces for the bulk of the pictures I took. What caught my eye about Mr. Dally’s getup was his seriously oversized grey wool coat, so long in part because he was a very tall individual, but it was even too large for his six-and-a-half feet. He had it on over nothing but old cuffed Levi’s 501s and a plain white cotton Hanes shirt, dressing up the Bruce Springsteen look with something a little more retro, or classic (although, really, The Boss is classic in his own right).

Being able to reference multiple decades in a single outfit is a modern luxury, and can turn into a hot mess if you don’t go about it with a cool head. And at the time I met him, Mr. Dally wasn’t the most together. The mile-long coat pooled in folds around him as he sat on the stoop, his hair was slicked neatly to the side but his black dress shoes were totally scuffed. Whether this is stylistic progression or regression, his ensemble definitely had a certain quality. Carelessness? Traditionalism? Economic strife? Whatever the case, the coat made the man.

Where’d you get your coat?
My father bought it in Chicago the year I was born and gave it to me when I moved to New York about two and a half years ago.

And you’re an artist? What sort of art do you?
I make shit. I use a guitar and my phone and Bic pens.

What gets you excited about any given article of clothing? Like this coat?
The stories.

So do you wear a lot of vintage? Or are there any particular designers you’re into?
I like fashion in the sense that I like the potential of clothing, but I don’t usually spend more than fifteen dollars on any given piece. I like free clothes.

What are your favorite looks, for yourself or in general?
In general, I like girls who wear lace, and I like it when boys present themselves with enough guts to display their personality? Does that make sense?

Sure? What do you think about living in Bushwick?
It’s weird. I can’t tell if I belong here. Gentrification is a strange thing. I feel like I’m still working on finding the balance between being personally happy and fitting in. New York is expensive. I work a lot, but it feels good to be independent of home.