I’m a British model very concerned about something the photographer just told me. “Dolphins are going extinct? We have to do something! But first—do you have any coke?”

I’m a young executive at Morgan Stanley who’s been calling in sick for a week, when really she’s just been drinking scotch, watching Thirtysomething on DVD, and listening to her BlackBerry die. She just now realized she never wants to go back to her job, and she’s thrilled and scared. Also, she called her college boyfriend who lives in a squat house on Avenue C, and he’s coming over to visit her. She can’t decide whether she should put on pants.

I’m a Cobble Hill nine-year-old hiding from her tanned French au pair (see that arm, peeking out of that halter top, in the left of frame?). The au pair will soon get in trouble, but not quite fired, for letting her charge put on her mother’s Vena Cava date-night dress.

Actress in a canned wine campaign. Meant to look carefree, but wondering why her boyfriend hasn’t called her back in almost thirteen hours.

Have you ever read William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury? I read half of it. So did this girl, and then she had sex with one of her cousins. She wouldn’t do it again, but it doesn’t keep her up at night or anything. She was born in New Jersey but has relatives outside New Orleans who she really relates to. She acts like she’s very confident about that hat, even wears it inside at dinner, but she’s had her moments of doubt.

An open lesbian since age 17. Now 23, she never wears a dress, but she’s putting one on for her grandfather’s funeral because she knows it means a lot to her mom.

You know those women who did gymnastics in their youth so now there’s just a natural ease and strength to all their movements? If someone is having a problem they’ll just sit on the floor in front of the couch, cross-legged, and put a concerned hand on their knee. No matter how much weight they gain, there’s something solid and strong about their torso. Britney Spears is like this. They’ll often choose to scramble up something tall to get a better look at something else. Yeah, I’m not one of those girls. But this girl is.

When I first got this tunic I wore it seven days in a row. Over jeans, over checked shorts, with only underpants, even though it falls just to the crotch. It makes me feel like Fairuza Balk in The Craft, and also reminds me of some wonderful tunics my mother bought me at a sample sale on Broadway when I was four. The company was called Jesse Designs. They had matching headbands and leggings and were as cool as the outfits on Kids Incorporated. When my little sister saw me in this, she said I was working a kindergarten art teacher angle, then took is further, proclaiming it “very Botany teacher at Hogwarts.” On that particular day she was looking like Andie MacDowell in Multiplicity, so we were a really great pair.

Icelandic high school girl obsessed with Snoop Dogg, wearing her mom’s best jacket. She wants to be a rapper but is scared to write any raps. Right now is the time of year when it never gets dark and she’s been forced to stay inside most of the time to study so she won’t be held back. She’s posing for an art student who saw her at a record store and is doing a thesis photo project on youth culture.

The year: 1988. The place: Soho. The job: Independent film producer/Willem Defoe’s manager. (Side note: I rode a friend’s motorcycle and he underscored the importance of wearing “a leather” when you’re on a bike. “It’s not just for show, it’s for safety.” So that’ll be my tagline when I wear this little ditty.)