In my early days as a fashion writer, the subject of personal style reigned supreme. Every publication I wrote for back then was on the hunt for the next red carpet style star, or the bona fide 'fashionista', eager to pinpoint her signature moves. As everything about celebrity became highly personal thanks to social media, and designers came to rely on influencers, I watched the quest for 'personal style' fade.​

Some claim that personal style is dead. Others, from time to time, declare it revived. Both sides might be right, but, as far as fashion journalism goes, having it, owning it and celebrating it is just not that interesting anymore. And yet, the importance of style as a statement was shining ever so brightly at the two exhibitions I visited on my last trip to New York. They couldn't be more different, at first glance. yet had so much in common. ​

The first, Art of the In Between at the Metropolitan Museum, is dedicated to the craft of visionary designer Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons. The second, at the Brooklyn Museum, is Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern, diving into the painter's wardrobe and taste. Both exhibitions were clearly destined to delight fashion addicts of all kinds. While the Met built impressive white installations to display Kawakubo's imaginative designs (plus those wigs!! perfection), and the Brooklyn museum displayed O'Keeffe's clothes in simple, straightforward quarters, the goal was achieved. But each experience hits your fashion palate differently, leaving strong flavors of individual style - and food for thoughts. 

O'Keeffe would have never worn Kawakubo's exaggerated, curvy and bold dresses. Divided into simple dichotomies like High/Low and Life/Loss, the designer pieces at the Met are elaborate, sometimes grotesque, larger than life. "How could you sit in this?", quipped one jeans-wearing lady to her friends, as I stood behind them in front of one exhibit. It's  very clear, however, how to sit, walk and lay down in O'Keeffe's simple linen gowns and sturdy jackets. She loved designers too, and commissioned the likes of Balenciaga and Chanel to create her simple wardrobe, but hers was a understated, stripped-down aesthetic, almost monastic and, smartly, totally ageless. 

Inspirations may vary. Kawakubo, 74, is known for her keenness on privacy, and once said in a Vogue interview that "young people get satisfied too easily, they're too soft on themselves". She reported that, being hard on yourself, true inspiration is harder and harder to come by. O'Keeffe, who died at 99, famously bought her New Mexico home because of its black door - an element she fell in love with and immortalized in her paintings. Both women, seemingly polar opposites in their views of style and fashion, have had the same force moving them forward - their gut feeling. No one works with volume and lines like Kawakubo. No one wore black in the desert (or painted. Or behaved) like O'Keeffe. Visit their exhibition back to back, and you might just scratch the surface of what personal style is really about; an inevitable extension of the self no red carpet review or Instagram feed can capture. 

Escapism is a tricky topic. Where I come from, 'escapist' is a title Tel Avivians are often slapped with, for the shielded, stylish, detached life they seemingly leading. I've heard New Yorkers and Londoners being called escapist too, for similar reasons; big city life offers endless possibilities to dissolve in pleasures and experiences, to the point of determining one's identity beyond, or without, the country they're physically in. 

On the other hand, catching a flight to a getaway destination is also 'escapist', yet isn't judged as harshly. The bigger the leap, the distance you put between yourself and reality, the warmer is the attitude towards escaping it all. And to skip judgement all together? Staying at home, no matter where it is, watching A Bigger Splash, ​is your best bet.