This Husband and Wife Live, Breathe, and Dress as If They Are From Y2K

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Photo: Courtesy of Taylor Moon / @taylore_moon

When I FaceTime with Taylore Scarabelli and her husband, Slava Balasanov, I feel as if I am in the wrong era. The New York–based couple appear to be a grainy dream out of Y2K—a low-res image plucked from an Angelfire site, or, in other words, a match made in noughties heaven. Scarabelli, a writer originally from Vancouver, wears a pink rhinestone-encrusted Bebe logo tank top, a piece that she bought at a Chinatown dollar store. When Balasanov, a blockchain developer and DJ, turns his head to the side, he reveals a rattail-meets-Mohawk. Their Instagrams, especially Scarabelli’s, are more Myspace circa 2004 than Instagram circa 2018. Scarabelli and her account @taylore_moon, especially, follow a method-acting route, wherein she takes blurred selfies as if they were pulled from a yesteryear point-and-shoot (the up-close, bottom-up angles are evocative of Myspace’s heyday, too) while wearing a glitzy zip-up hoodie that reads “Carpe Diem” and a pair of fist-size hoops. Her feed is a fascinating barrage of symbols from long ago: True Religion, John Galliano–era Dior, Playboy bunnies, and a tribal back tattoo. Are they punking us with their anachronistic allegiance to the early 2000s? Possibly. But their story is very lovable—and so is their look.

Scarabelli and Balasanov met two and a half years ago at a Halloween party, and it was love at first sight. “Slava was dressed as a crazy cyber goth, and I took a picture of him and then we kept running into each other at parties,” says Scarabelli in her endearing Paris Hilton–in–The Simple Life vocal fry. “We started hanging out, and yeah, the rest was history.” Eventually, the two ended up getting married at City Hall on Halloween, among the likes of a mod couple and a goth duo who were officiated by an old man in a Roman soldier costume. Instead of going for the traditional matrimonial wardrobe, Scarabelli donned a corset, a “really miniskirt,” and Lucite-and-pleather thigh-high boots. Balasanov sported what he describes as a “gothy and vampire” jacket by the Chinese label Sankuanz.

Photo: Courtesy of Taylor Moon / @taylore_moon

The two have their reasons for dressing as if they hail from the excessive early 2000s. For Scarabelli, her love for the period is wrapped up in a want for clothes she didn’t wear during her high school years. “Not to age myself, but I was wearing this shit when I was in high school. Maybe it is a weird nostalgic thing where I can buy all the Von Dutch and Miss Sixty jeans I was never able to buy.” While to the naked, untrained eye, her style seems more or less the of the same era, her look encompasses several cultures, sometimes subcultures. (The two had a goth period when they dressed in UFO pants.) “Now, I am more into Eurotrash style,” says Scarabelli, “although my look right now is very trashy housewife–Paris Hilton.” Balasanov’s style, which sometimes includes tracksuits, stems partially from his Russian heritage. “I felt like my look was a little bit Euro, like Adidas, because of my Russian roots,” he says. “It’s nice to wear these things that were really strong signifiers in the past but now have lost those signifiers and are now being reappropriated into newer context.”

What brought the duo together was a love for Ed Hardy. “Ed Hardy was Taylore’s addition and inspiration,” says Balasanov. “But it’s also in because it is this trashy Euro style.” (You can spot him on Instagram wearing a pair of Ed Hardy jeans; emblazoned on the pockets are fire-engulfed skulls.) He’s also recently bought two more pairs at a vintage denim shop in Brooklyn. As for Scarabelli, she wore Ed Hardy in high school but was later banned from wearing it. “They wouldn’t let us into the clubs if we were wearing Ed Hardy because all of the gangsters in Vancouver would wear Ed Hardy stuff, so it was like a red flag,” she explains. “It was like you were like bad kid or something, which I think is funny because it is like a weird fashion middle-age bro. But when we wear it, it’s cute.” Talk about true love.