The first accessory to ever win my heart as a young fashion editor-in-waiting went wherever I went. Its pink-and-white spotted exterior dictated my entire closet’s palette; we always had to match. I carried it in the crook of my arm with the reverence and care that Hermès salespeople direct toward fresh-out-the-box Birkins. I never let it touch the ground. I went nearly catatonic on a day I thought I left it behind in a rental car and lost it forever. It was a source of comfort and identity; it was technically the beginning of my sense of style. It was a stuffed giraffe.
I’m hardly the only little kid who held on to an inanimate emotional support animal for most of their childhood—and retired it to storage when those once beloved companions became too embarrassing to acknowledge in public. (No, you got up after everyone dozed off at your first sleepover to pull your stuffed animal out of your backpack.) But two decades after I released my grip on my giraffe’s plush neck, the fashion world started suggesting it’s perfectly okay to pick it back up for extra TLC when needed. Or find a miniaturized version and clip it onto my grown-up work bag.
