the oval office

ALT A full-length daytime photo of a man dressed as Lenny Kravitz for Halloween, walking straight toward the camera along a concrete sidewalk with a deadpan, cool expression. He wears a purple knit beanie, aviator sunglasses, a nose ring, and a full dark beard and moustache. A gigantic chocolate-brown chevron-knit scarf is bunched around his neck and hangs past his thighs, ending in thick fringe. Under it are a brown suede zip jacket and a cream long-sleeve tee, with one hand tucked in a jacket pocket. His mid-wash blue cargo jeans are cuffed and bunched over tan suede slouch boots, and he carries a white plastic Hudson retail bag in his other hand. The heavy layers swallow his torso, giving him a broad, boxy, cocooned silhouette. Behind him are a green trash bin, a black iron fence, cypress trees, a yellow apartment building, and parked cars under a clear blue sky. It is a gay Halloween costume: a hyper-specific pop culture reference, here Lenny Kravitz running errands in his big scarf.

ALT A candid street photo of Lenny Kravitz, the look the costume recreates, walking along a city sidewalk in daylight. He wears a striped purple-and-blue knit beanie, dark aviator sunglasses, and has light stubble. A massive, chunky, nubby chocolate-brown knit scarf is wrapped over his shoulders and falls nearly to his knees, ending in long, heavy fringe. Under it he wears a brown leather coat over a cream sweater with red and pink patterned trim at the cuffs, one hand slipped into his pocket. His slim, ripped blue jeans end in taupe suede ankle boots with slouched shafts. In his other hand he carries a white plastic grocery bag marked with a green circle logo. His head is tilted slightly with a cool, unbothered look. The background is a soft blur of a tree trunk, yellow-and-orange bollards, a pale sidewalk, and a few passersby, with hedges at the lower left. This is the candid photo behind the gay Halloween joke, where costumes are hyper-specific pop culture or meme references.