Dries Van Noten at Chainsaw, the Venezuelan coffee shop in Melrose Hill

The ritual of meeting and hanging out at a Los Angeles coffee shop is a display of style filled with a subtle, location-specific tension. Don't you see it? Comfort fights formality struggle to free yourself. Hide irritations from being perceived. In the end, we feel at home no matter what and take a look around while we're at it.

It's the morning after a night of partying. Two friends meet at Chainsaw in Melrose Hill, the cafe with flan lattes, crispy arepas, and a sherbet-colored wall that everyone and their mom has been talking about.

Miraculously, the line of people that usually snakes down Melrose craving a slice of chef Karla Subero Pittol's passionfruit-lime ice cream cake doesn't exist today. Thank goodness, because the party was amazing last night (the DJ mixed Nelly Furtado's “Promiscuous” with Peaches' “F— the Pain Away” and the walls were sweating), so making it to the cafe's front door alone is like walking through knee-deep slimy water. The senses dull and dull in that special way where it feels like your brain is wearing a weighted vest. The sun, an oppressor. Caffeine is needed intravenously.

The mood: “Don't look at me”, like they Look around furtively, still waking up. “But wait, do it. I'm wearing the new Dries Van Noten from head to toe.”

Daniel, left, wears mac, henley, pants, oxfords, necklace, and Dries Van Noten socks. Sirena wears a Dries Van Noten blouse, microshorts, sneakers, a shell pendant necklace, cuff and bag, and socks by Los Angeles Apparel.

If an attack is fire and no one is around to see it, does it make a sound? A certain type of Los Angeles coffee shop is (thankfully) one of the few everyday landing strips we have, followed by the Los Feliz Post Office and the Alvarado Car Wash in Echo Park. We hit up a cafe like Chainsaw for strawberry matchas the color of emeralds and rubies and crispy fries that come with a tamarind barbecue sauce so good it might as well be classified as List 1. But we stayed for something else.

There's a game we play at the coffee shop in Los Angeles. We are all involved in this, especially those who deny it. It can best be summed up in that state of mind: “Don't look at me. But wait, do it.” Do. Do. Do. Do. We go to a cafeteria to see each other, to be seen. And we pretend we're not doing it. How nice. Yes, I'm looking at you from behind my hoodie and sunglasses, but the hoodie is from a specialty brand from Los Angeles and the glasses are vintage design. I used them just for you. I was once sitting in what to me is an incredible, unbearable coffee shop in the Arts District, where a regular customer was wearing a headdress made entirely of plastic sunglasses that covered every inch of his face (at least a foot long in every direction) jingling with every movement he made. I respectI thought.

Dries Van Noten's spring/summer 2026 collection feels very good in a place like this. The women's show, titled “Wavelength,” is about “balancing the hard and the soft, the rigid and the fluid, the casual and the refined, the simple and the complex,” writes designer Julian Klausner in the show notes. While for the men's show, titled “A Perfect Day,” Klausner contextualizes: “A man in love, on a walk on the beach at dawn, after a party. Shirt unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, the silhouette takes on a new life. I asked myself: What is formal? What is casual? How do they feel?” That is formal or informal? As do Do you balance hard and soft? The Los Angeles coffee shop is a container for this spectrum. A dynamic that works thanks to tension. A master class of this beautiful dance. There is no more appropriate place to wear the Dries SS26 beige tuxedo jacket with heather gray capri sweatshirts and pink satin boxing boots, there is no better audience for the sheer striped floor-length dress worn with satin sneakers, because although no one bats an eyelid, you trust that your contribution has been recorded and appreciated.

Daniel is wearing a coat, shorts, sneakers and socks from Dries Van Noten. Sirena is wearing a Dries Van Noten jacket, microshorts and sneakers.

Back at Chainsaw, the friends drink their iced lattes and eat their beautiful chocolate milk tres leches in a coupe. They are revived, even humming; at the caffeinated beverage glory point where everything is beautiful, nothing hurts, and at least one of them feels like a creative genius. The longer they stay, the more their style is revealed. They used to flex secretly. Now they're just flexing. Looking at them, the contract was understood. Doing it for the show. Wait, when did they change? How long have they been here? It doesn't matter. They have all day. Time ceases to exist in a place like this.

Daniel is wearing a tuxedo coat, pants, scarf, sneakers and necklace by Dries Van Noten and a tank top by Hanes. Sirena is wearing a Dries Van Noten jacket, microshorts, sneakers and socks.