When Christene Barberich encounters a piece of clothing that's destined to end up in her wardrobe, she just knows.
"It's kind of like falling in love," she says, eyeing up the tower of shoeboxes against a wall of her Brooklyn apartment in New York.
"It's not even emotional - I have a physical response."
As the Global Editor-in-Chief and a founding member of Refinery29, Barberich has ample experience with special discoveries.
Today Refinery29 is the fastest-growing independent style website in the US, reaching 25 million visitors every month.
But in 2005, when Barberich put her magazine career on hold to launch the platform with Philippe von Borries, Justine Stefano and Piera Gelardi, "everyone thought I was crazy," she says.
"Twitter wasn't around. Facebook had only been about for a few months. But there was this instant elecricity to everything we were doing."
In her decade-plus with Refinery29, Barberich, with her cinnabar hair and signature red lipstick, has evolved in
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"I've never worn this [Christene's eBay-bought foil-pleated Proenza Schouler dress]. I just think it's so pretty, artfully made, and ahead of its time. It's funny that everyone is doing pleated, foiled skirts now in gold and silver lamé. [This piece] feels like art to me now."
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"I'm a pretty dedicated heel-wearer but I'm delighted with the fact that there are so many different kinds of cool, well-designed, comfortable, long-lasting sneakers these days."
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"I like to think of myself as a collector of shoes, not a hoarder. I love Nicholas Kirkwood, Loeffler Randall, Miu Miu and Surface To Air. Also, Giulietta makes amazing fancy jewelled shoes and high heels."
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"These are Milo Baughman, probably from the sixties. My sister went to an auction for me and was one of the last people to turn up. The chairs were some of the only things left because nobody wanted them, so the owner gave them to her. When I told her the provenance, she flipped out. She knew that I would love them."
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"I'm obsessed with dresses that look like they were worn by a fabulous woman in Palm Springs [California] or Palm Beach [Florida], who just had the time of her life. Sometimes I like getting vintage dresses that have little stains on them, because they had a blast that night, like they went to a dinner party, got tipsy and spilled a bit of their Tom Collins cocktail on it."