There's nothing we love more than a good TED Talk. Always fascinating and original, the idea-filled monologues leave our brains churning in a way that most of our Netflix queue just can't do. And, although they're not known for their fashion content, there have actually been a few awesome fashion-themed talks over the years! We've rounded up our favorites below to start your weekend off right.
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For several years, Alli Lander and Chris Logie, both 37, lived around the corner from each other on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, hung out at the same Irish bar, shopped at the same Duane Reade and took the subway from the same stop.
But like scores of New Yorkers who walk past each other every day and never look up, never share a glance or a smile, never say, "Hey, haven't I seen you just about everywhere?" they had never met.
Certainly, they were both keeping an eye out for a love match. Ms. Lander had pretty much set up shop on the Internet, with accounts on Match.com, OkCupid, JDate and Hinge. "I tried it all," she said.
But nothing screamed "right." She settled into her life, thinking that if she met someone, fine, but if she didn't, fine, too.
Mr. Logie was in the same sort of boat, except paddling in narrower waters. He had kept his search almost exclusively confined to OkCupid. But he felt awkward selling himself on the Internet, creepy checking out suggested women on Facebook, uncomfortable agreeing to blind dates. As someone who is quiet and inquisitive — the kind of person who will wait until he has done thorough research on a topic before discussing it, be it craft beer, obscure baseball rules or the quality of a diamond — he gives people plenty of space.
Among those in his student suite at Virginia Tech, he was the only one who majored in computer science. "He was the quietest of all of us," said Larry Tedesco, who shared the space. "He would shut himself up in his room with the computer , and we had no idea what he was doing.'
One hot August night in 2013, after working late at his job as a software engineer at Google's downtown office, Mr. Logie took the subway uptown and began walking home along West 72nd Street. As he neared his apartment, he passed the Emerald Inn, a third-generation Irish bar newly transported from its longtime perch a few blocks away on Columbus Avenue.
Mr. Logie had been at the Emerald Inn only a few weeks earlier, sitting at the bar with a few friends, including Katy Swindells, a co-worker. They had talked about meeting and dating people in New York, and Ms. Swindells had chided Mr. Logie for his choice of watering hole, saying, � ��You're not going to meet anyone in a superlocal, not-very-fancy pub, you know."
Not that the Emerald Inn is easy to miss. Sidewalk sandwich boards advertise Sunday brunch and N.F.L. Sundays. An emerald-green awning lures neighborhood dwellers with "Where Locals Meet."
As he was walking by, Mr. Logie decided to get out of the heat. He ordered a beer and struck up a conversation with the guy sitting next to him.
Across the L-shaped bar sat Ms. Lander. She had parked there to console herself after a date that she had set up on Hinge had canceled. Once she arrived, one man after another approached her. She rebuffed them.< /p>
Then Mr. Logie sat down. Ms. Lander noticed him. He noticed her noticing. He walked over.
It was a potential cautionary tale, particularly for parents worried about their daughters sitting alone in bars in big cities. But Ms. Lander is far from defenseless.
Impish, witty but pound-on-the-table passionate about social justice, she was working at the time for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility in Manhattan, a coalition of organizations that promotes socially responsible investment practices. "She is headstrong but very sensitive," said her father, George Lander.
Ms. Lander had also established her reputation early as a wingwoman for her girlfriends, always there in a pinch for a night out or an emotional emergency. "If I wanted to drive by a guy's house 15 times to see if he was home, she was driving the car," said a longtime friend, Jody Lupinacci.
Mr. Logie sat down, and the two chatted. They discovered they were both from New Jersey, that they both lived in the neighborhood and that craft beer was a shared favorite. Then Ms. Lander mentioned she had to get home to cook for a baby shower the next day. After an hour and a half of talking and laughing and the universe yelling, "Right!" they parted, awkwardly.
An hour later, a day later, then weeks later found them kicking themselves, Mr. Logie for not asking for her phone number, Ms. Lander, she said, for not saying something such as, "You come here, I come here, why don't you just let me know when you're going to be here next?"
"I was so mad at myself," she said.
Five weeks later, Ms. Lander was wrapping up at work with a friend, Mary Vaccari, when Ms. Vaccari suggested they drop by "that little place across from your apartment." They headed to the Emerald Inn.
Mr. Logie was there that night. He spotted Ms. Lander and barreled through the crowd to her side. Five minutes in, he had her phone number and sh e had his.
"I had butterflies in my stomach," he said. She had the same feeling — "A little hair flip on my part," she said, "and Mary just knew."
Ms. Vaccari made herself scarce. Ms. Lander and Mr. Logie made a date for the following Friday.
The next Monday, Ms. Lander pulled a muscle in her neck, and, in her pajamas, sans makeup or tamed hair, went to the Duane Reade in her building for some pain reliever. After years of never (knowingly) running into Mr. Logie in the neighborhood, she stared in disbelief as he walked in.
"It was the most stilted conversation," she said. "And then I walked out and said, 'Good night,' and he said, 'See you around,' and I thought, what does that mean? Does he not remember we have a date Friday night?" She was too busy to fret about it, though, and on Thursday Mr. Logie texted her to wish her luck on an event she had coordinated that night. "My friends told me I was insane for worrying," she said.
After years of exploring New York on their own, together they tested craft beer at emporiums throughout the city, ate frequently at Colicchio & Sons in Chelsea, listened to live bands at Zankel Hall in Midtown and added to their list of best pizza places (vote so far: Di Fara in Brooklyn). "There's something about growing up in New Jersey that makes you passionate about pizza," Mr. Logie said.
She liked that he was curious and kind. "He probably has more heart than anyone I have ever met," she said.
Heart figured in Mr. Logie's assessment of her as well. "I love that Alli is very passionate and engaged with the world," he said. "Once you get to know her, you want to have her in your life."
On one of their early dates, they fell into a conversation about the bar that was on West 72nd Street before the Emerald Inn moved in there. They had both been in that bar on its last night, and were reminiscing about the evening, even though they had not known each other at the time.
"It was so chaotic that night, if you got up to go to the bathroom, the movers would take your bar stool out from under you," he said.
As they were talking, Ms. Lander pulled out her cellphone to show some photos she had taken that evening. As she held it up for him to see, they began to laugh in amazement. There, standing in the background was Mr. Logie. Without knowing him, she had been carrying his photo around in her phone for months.
They were married on Nov. 8 by Cantor Alison Lopatin under a wedding canopy at the Lambertville Station Inn in Lambertville, N.J., the lights of the inn bouncing off the surface of the Delaware River outside the windows. Ms. Lander, who is Jew ish, and Mr. Logie, an Irish agnostic, made their shared New Jersey heritage a hallmark of the evening, dancing for the first time as a married couple to Bruce Springsteen's version of Tom Waits's "Jersey Girl," and their last dance to "Born to Run."
Was their meeting bashert, the Yiddish word for destiny? Or was it the luck of the Irish? As the couple danced, Linda Schmidt, a friend of the bride's mother, said it was neither: "Sometimes, love is about being in the right place at the right time."
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