Like other famous streets in major cities, Newbury in Boston is filled with brands who run the fashion spectrum from Forever 21 to Chanel with restaurants and cafes sprinkled inbetween. However unlike cosmopolitan cousins like the Champs Elysees in Paris or Broadway in New York, Newbury maintains an intimate feeling with its narrow, tree-covered sidewalks and kempt brownstowns. The city may surge around it, but here on Newbury, there’s enough quiet and peace to woo you into the natural and original habitat of the prepster.

At Newbury’s far end, across the street from Burberry (I told you – spectrum!), waits the Boston Public Gardens. Entering its gates just as the golden hour was dawning, this, I knew, was exactly what I was hoping Boston would be like. Seen from a distance is the city’s modern architecture, but here in the gardens, the timeless design of nature’s best work was on display. And if that wasn’t enough, a show unfolded all around me of mothers with their children, tourists with their cameras and friends rendez-vous-ing while an array of professionals and students (who, this being Boston, you can only imagine are genius attendants/alums of Harvard, MIT and the like) cut through the park on their way to somewhere new. Best of all, it was a fashion show of New England, neatly-groomed, smartly-layered style complete with clicking heels, tailored suits and scarfs, jackets and tights galore.

Together, Newbury Street and the gardens were a perfect introduction to the classic Boston I had so looked forward to meeting.