7,000 Pairs Of Shoes: Inside NYC’s Coolest Mega Closet!

It's really very unfortunate that the Albright Fashion Library is just two doors away from our office. Imagine if your neighbor had a closet stocked with thousands of pairs of shoes (7,000, to be exact), red-carpet dresses from designers like Balmain and Balenciaga (plus, iconic archival pieces), and jewelry and handbags that you've seen in every magazine. Well, it's our reality. Super collector Irene Albright has got all that and so much more—uh, diamond-dusted paintings anyone? Her library is the ultimate resource for designers looking for inspiration, fashion editors, and celebrity stylists hungry for their clients' career-defining dress. Albright, who's known as "the editor to the editors," houses her collection in a monster closet; 7,000 square-feet of racks, drawers, hooks, and boxes filled with loot you could browse forever. We took a tour (that we never wanted to end), plus we grabbed all the inside deets from Albright and her equally fashion-forward daughter, Mina. Now that we know the address, our lunch breaks just got a lot longer.