For me, summer officially begins when I’m watching Love Island, eating Citarella chicken salad in a bed somewhere on Long Island. I like to head out in June when the weather is still cool in places and the towns haven’t been fully swarmed yet. I’m writing to you now from East Hampton, where I’ve been since Friday, feeling a bone-deep level of relaxation that I needed on a biblical level.

I brought my assistant, Izzy, with me, who, as it turns out, has a real knack for photos — so we actually got outfit pictures for once, something I usually either dodge entirely or just forget to do. As soon as we dropped our bags, we headed to Il Buco Al Mare for a late lunch. I remembered sitting at the bar there last summer and chatting with a couple who had a cute dog. The dog was kind of blinged out in a sick collar, and when I asked about it, they told me it was their own brand, Fast Out. Their stuff is extremely special. But I digress. After lunch, we walked across the street to The Row and La Garconne for some retail R&D.

The Row in Amagansett is channeling their building’s provenance and merchandising some of Tiina’s brands into their assortment. Most notably on the racks is Dosa, the Los Angeles label Christina Kim founded in 1984 with her mother, Vivian. The clothing is made with artisans Kim works with directly across India, Korea, Mexico, and beyond, built on traditional textile techniques rather than industrial production. She instituted zero waste into the practice in 1992, before the term carried any weight in fashion. Their output is small and their pieces are not easy to come by — and of course, they’re a favorite of the sisters Olsen. I came home with a breezy white tunic dress that I’m going to get loads of mileage out of this summer.

I also found it really intriguing that they also had an entire case of Frederico De Vera. De Vera is the Filipino-born jeweler, gallerist, and collector who opened his first eponymous shop in San Francisco in 1991 before moving the gallery to New York, where it now sits in Chelsea on 28th. He builds his jewelry from antique fragments — Roman intaglios, Georgian brooches, rose-cut diamonds, baroque pearls, Mediterranean coral — each piece one of a kind and never duplicated. His premise is that nothing has to be precious to be beautiful, and that the work is less about making something new than giving discarded things another life.

At La Garconne, I was immediately enchanted by a hot pink bag that looked like the woven pot holders my sister used to make as a kid on a mini loom. When you shop for a living, you see it all. It takes a lot for something to stop me in my tracks, but this thing left me dry heaving. The designer is Daniela Gregis, a doctor’s daughter who trained as a herbalist before fashion. She came to clothing through textile research, and her collections lean heavily on knit, crochet, and natural fabrics made largely by hand in the Bergamo region. She shows at Milan Fashion Week and I love that she brings her tailors and workers out to take the bow with her — a literal acknowledgment of the artisanal production the brand is built on. Her crochet bags are all one of one and kind of hard to come by, but I found a few at A’Maree’s, and a preloved one on Vestiaire.

Lemaire’s home fragrance oils also jumped out at me at La Garconne. It’s Lemaire’s first foray into fragrance and only launched this year — a five-piece collection called “Objets Senteur,” guided by Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran — and the scents aren’t meant for skin (did my dumb ass immediately put it on my wrist? Yes.) but for the home, designed to be applied to objects placed near where clothes are stored. The two ceramic diffusers, Pomme and Emboîtage, were made in collaboration with the estate of the late French ceramist Annie Fourmanoir (1931–2024), pairing her sculptural forms with the line’s woody, smoky scents. The objects are built to be refilled over time, so the scent lives in the vessel rather than dissipating — spiritually closer to a piece of furniture than a candle.

They also have an embarrassment of Jacques Marie-Mage there, and I begrudgingly tried on a pair of oversized sunnies that channel that 1960’s Jane Birkin vibe everyone seems to be going for right now. I expected to hate them because I think that shape can look kind of silly, but something about these suited my big head and I fell in love with them. Turns out, they’re a collaboration with the Lennon/Ono estate on “John & Yoko by JMM,” a limited-edition series handcrafted in Japan and modeled on the actual eyewear the couple wore while recording Double Fantasy in 1980. The collection runs two frames: Dr. Dream, after Lennon’s softly browed mid-century studio glasses, and the pair I got, Ocean Child, after Ono’s, its name pulled from a line in Lennon’s “Julia” that translates her first name. Talk about a story.

We had dinner in East Hampton where there was a little block party going on for the Knicks game. fully infected me with the illness of her fandom earlier this year and now I am hopelessly invested in this team. I also partially blame whose brand Saie had a suite earlier this season (genius for a makeup brand to market to the women fans and hook up the dancers and wags) where it dawned on me that basketball games were like, so fun.

The next day we spent entirely in Montauk. When my friend Ashley asked what I was wearing, I told her I was channeling “unhinged Montauk Mom”, and I think I nailed it.

We rode out to meet up with her, staying at ’s old beach house (still just as charming). She was there hosting a bead bar for her brand Don’t Let Disco at Rachelle and her husband Sean’s hotel, Crow’s Nest, which I’ve mentioned here before as one of my favorite places out east. It’s just a special, cozy spot. I picked out a necklace Ashley fashioned from an old Pucci scarf (similar here) and clipped on two of her totems to add to my stack for the night.

Rachelle and Sean have just redeveloped the Montauk Lighthouse Restaurant, and we went to the opening night which I frankly used as a guise to get hands on Rachelle’s new puppy, Lucy. I couldn’t tell you much about The Lighthouse restaurant except that they installed The Jane Hotel’s iconic old disco ball front and center, which is a rad move. But I was wayyyyy too drunk on puppy breath to pay attention to much else. (I do remember Holly from Marfa Stance’s Grinchy green Birkenstocks though, those were phenomenal.)

From there, we went to check out the new Barlume Beach Club in Montauk because St. Lucia was playing and your girl will never miss an opportunity to see St. Lucia. We ran into tons of friends there! Woldy! ! Esha! It was the spot to be.

I think the key to dressing out here is finding the right mix of esoteric bits without abandoning that classic East Coat uniform. I’m not trying to look like I just walked off a sailboat 24/7, but I do think the combination of relaxed and refined out here calls for its own approach, tailored to which little hamlet you’re vibing in.

For example, my underwear was swimwear yesterday! But I styled my cover up with accessories that made me passable to the Maitre’d at Le Bilboquet and enjoyed my spritz in peace overlooking the boats in Sag Harbor, including these great Linda Farrow sunglasses. My Phoebe Philo sandals were the true hero of the weekend, I wore them almost everywhere. Not only are they insanely comfortable, they give every outfit that “wrong shoe” vibe that always talks about that gives a look some necessary friction. And they gave me like 2.5 inches of height, so I felt like I had a little heel on.

We’ll be back out in a couple weeks and then here all of August after the wedding, when the events and socializing really pick up, so I’ll check back in on the topic of what the babes out here are wearing later in the season. ‘Til then, cheeks out!

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Maria McManus is the Dublin-born, New York–based designer who spent the better part of two decades merchandising for other people, rag & bone and Tory Burch among them, before she launched her own line in 2020. The pedigree matters because she knows exactly how a garment is made and what it costs the planet to make it, and she built her entire eponymous brand around that knowledge.

The founding principle is almost aggressive in its plainness: use less water, fewer chemicals, less waste. Everything follows from there: her cashmere is recycled, spun in Italy from old sweaters collected around the world, because she won’t buy virgin cashmere while overgrazing turns Mongolian grassland to desert. The cotton is GOTS-certified organic. Even the buttons are corozo, a tagua palm nut they call vegetable ivory, chosen partly because keeping the palm valuable keeps the forest standing. Everyone who touches the clothes is paid a living wage.

What saves Maria’s line from being a lecture is that the clothes are beautiful. The ease is supreme.

But consider the kind of person it takes to build this! She had the résumé to make beautiful clothes the easy way, fast and untraceable, and she chose the opposite. At the start she held herself to near-total certification on every material, then admitted to me that the rule was strangling the femininity out of the work, so she loosened it to ninety percent and let the craft back in. That is not a marketing position! That is a woman arguing with herself in public about how good is good enough.

The legging she would force into every closet is spun from a fruit-based polymer built to break down in five years instead of haunting the earth as microplastic for a thousand. The crochet is made by a collective of women in Bolivia. She is working from somewhere older and stranger than a trend report. Ethics is friction. It is slower and more expensive at every step, and she keeps adding more of it on purpose, somewhere between raising two teenagers and reading about the climate before the rest of us are up.

And she is not doing it alone, which is the part that genuinely thrills me. There is a cluster of women in New York right now turning a ship that does not want to turn, Zero + Maria Cornejo and Gabriela Hearst working the same waters, designers who reject the idea that conscience and desire were ever opposites. It matters that this is happening here.

Maria keeps a kind of altar to the Helmut Lang archive, the place she goes back to when she needs to remember what she is doing, and the lineage is exactly right: raw and minimal, the New York she actually comes from. For most of my life the most thrilling clothes were made in Paris and the most responsible ones were made in a hemp poncho. Neither is true now. The center of gravity moved downtown and it is female, and I cannot remember the last time it felt this alive to get dressed in this city.

Jess Graves: How has your design ethos or approach evolved since starting your own label?

Maria McManus: My design ethos has certainly evolved since starting the collection over the past 5 to 6 years, mostly influenced by a broader progress in sustainable materials. When I began, people were talking a lot about sustainability, but material development in organic, recycled, and sustainably-farmed materials was still quite rudimentary. I also set very strict parameters for myself, aiming for 100% of materials to be certified organic, recycled, or sustainably farmed. That rigor was important in establishing a foundation, but over time I realized it was actually stunting creativity and femininity within the collection.

Today, with so much more innovation and development in responsible materials, I’ve been able to naturally integrate more interesting, sustainable materials. But also I have become more comfortable working within a framework that is 90% certified as sustainable - prioritizing biodegradability and avoiding synthetic fibers like polyester and nylon as much as physically possible.

This evolution has also opened the door to a deeper engagement with craft. I’ve been incorporating hand-crocheted elements created by a collective of female artisans in Bolivia, as well as working with exceptional French lace from Dentelle de Calais-Caudry. I think these materials carry history and a more human touch to my clothing - qualities that feel essential to creating something truly covetable and long lasting.

JG: Are there any non-fashion inspirations - outside of clothing and textiles - that have influenced your work recently?

MM: My friends have great taste, so the women I’m surrounded by are a constant source of inspiration. I also often return to my Irish roots when designing a collection – poets like Seamus Heaney and singers like Sinéad O’Connor both informed my FW26 collection. Sinéad, in particular, embodied an extraordinary dichotomy and a fearless approach to collaboration, working with artists as varied as Massive Attack and more traditional Irish folk bands like The Chieftains.

Seamus Heaney’s writing carries a deep awareness of place, heritage, and the quiet power of the everyday. That sensitivity to landscape and lineage encourages how I think about simplicity in design and craft – something that holds an aesthetic while evolving gently over time.

JG: What’s a recent discovery (artist, place, object) that’s made an impact on you?

MM: Recently I traveled with my family to Puerto Escondido and stayed near Casa Wabi. It was a magical experience. The Tadao Ando-designed gallery, home and gardens are an incredible merging of nature with art, architecture and Mexican culture. From our cabana on the beach we could whale watch every morning and although restaurants were limited the quality of food was outstanding. All of the neighboring architecture and landscaping felt deeply aligned with nature, sustainability and a respect for doing less, with greater care.

JG: How would you describe your design ethos? If someone raided your closet, what story would they piece together about your life?

Maria McManus: If someone were to raid my closet they would not be surprised to find several pieces from old Céline, Lemaire, Jil Sander, and The Row, but they would probably be very surprised to find weird and wonderful shapes and crazy color and print from Consuelo Castiglioni’s time at Marni—it has never been the same since her departure.

JG: What made you want to collaborate with AGOLDE? Was it instant chemistry or a shared question you both felt needed answering?

MM: Working with Karen and the entire AGOLDE team on this collaboration has been incredible. We first met last spring in LA and immediately recognized the synergy between each other and our two brands, both from an aesthetic perspective but more specifically around sustainability and responsible consumption. I remain so impressed by AGOLDE’s commitment to creating the most sustainable and responsible denim through their partnerships with regenerative cotton farms and their use of biodegradable stretch and recycled leather. We custom-made every piece of hardware, every label, and every hang tag, and worked tirelessly with Karen’s team to perfect each fit and wash.

JG: Tell us about this capsule — what is the entry point? What should everyone be eyeing first?

MM: Karen and I began this collaboration with shared reference points: the spare, intelligent minimalism of Craig McDean’s early work for Jil Sander and his stripped-back images of Kate Moss for Calvin Klein. Those photographs - direct, unembellished, and quietly sexy - set the tone. From there, we built a small and precise wardrobe of essentials: a jean, a skirt, a shirt, a jacket. The foundation is pragmatic and considered, but with moments of irreverence - an acid-wash corset jean, a powder-pink oversized denim shirt - that interrupt the purity just enough to make it feel modern.

My first purchase will be the regenerative cotton skater shorts in white, styled with the black Naia sateen cami and the washed pale-blue barn jacket finished with a recycled leather collar.

JG: If you could force one item into everyone’s closet, what would it be?

MM: If I could force everyone to buy one item right now, it would be our biodegradable legging and capri made from fruit-based polymers. Unlike conventional synthetics derived from the fossil fuel industry – which will stay on the earth in the form of micro plastics for thousands of years and are likely having very harmful effects on our health – this material is designed to biodegrade within five years. It is a small, stylish choice that meaningfully reduces long-term environmental impact.

JG: What’s a garment detail you’ll never get over, like a personal kink?

MM: I love an exposed zipper done in the right way, specifically the grosgrain ribbon zipper detailing that defined so many of Alber Elbaz’s dresses for Lanvin. Years ago, I bought one of those dresses at a pop-up hosted by my friend Michaela Lee. Michaela lives in Paris and runs Ofr Bookshop with her husband, Alex, in the Marais. Under the handle Letendre Paris, she will occasionally host the most extraordinary, well-priced vintage pop-ups. I have found some of my most treasured pieces there: that Lanvin dress years ago, and just last October, the most perfect vintage Yves Saint Laurent blouse.

JG: What was the last piece of culture (book, film, meme, essay, anything) that felt like a breath of fresh air?

MM: My dear friend and work mate Rachel Chandler recommended that I see the Kathy Butterly show at James Cohan gallery in Tribeca. It is exquisite and nothing I can put in words. Her sense of color and composition, the curation of each grouping, the precise positioning of every porcelain piece, and even the exact shade of lavender-pale pink chosen for the walls felt considered to the point of perfection - a joy to live in for an hour on a rainy Saturday in April.

JG: What corner of the internet do you go to when you’re craving inspiration?

MM: When I need a reset or a jolt of clarity, I inevitably return to the Helmut Lang Archive. To me, Helmut Lang was the quintessential New York designer - raw, sensual, minimal. There was an intellectual sharpness to his work that never sacrificed edge.

I still own the first pair of Helmut Lang shoes I ever purchased: mocha-brown suede. They are objectively trashed, yet I will never part with them.

JG: What makes you immediately open your Notes app?

MM: My never ending to-do list has me constantly opening my notes app to keep track of life. Between my 2 teen daughters, my husband, who also owns his own business, and my collection, life is never boring and the list of to-do’s never ends.

JG: Whose taste do you trust completely?

MM: I have a long standing girl crush on Suzanne Koller. To me she can do no wrong. From her own personal style—that occasionally she will show on the grid or in stories—to her incredible work at Self Service Magazine that has consistently set a standard for intelligence and edge in fashion imagery, to the work she did with Louise Trotter at Caven for a hot minute before Louise was very deservedly appointed at Bottega Veneta.

JG: What’s a tiny daily luxury you can’t live without?

MM: I use Vitner’s Daughter Active Botanical Serum morning, noon and night. The smell is divine, it makes my skin look plump and dewy, and April the founder is a fellow eco-warrior and has similar business principles to me.

JG: What’s on your playlist right now?

MM: Yikes, my playlists are extremely eclectic. Depending on my mood or what I need to get done on a given day I can be listening to anything from Vivaldi, The Four Seasons Recomposed by Max Richter, Irish Druid Folk band Lankum, anything Sinead O’Connnor did with Massive Attack, and my guilty pleasure, the Foo Fighters—even my husband knows I would leave him for Dave Grohl.

JG: What do you collect that’s not clothes, and what does it say about you?

MM: I collect vintage furniture and art by small (aka affordable) artists. I recently purchased the most divine tiny painting by Justin Bradshaw who is represented by my friend Valentina Ackerman of Galerie Sardine - she has the best taste and also introduced me to Isabel Rower. I just bought one of Isabel’s marble-like stone side tables in the most incredible shade of mustard, too.

JG: What’s the object in your house that everyone comments on?

MM: I am a 1stDibs fiend, and when we moved into our current loft, I found a lacquered parchment screen by Aldo Tura that I use as a room divider between our foyer and living room. Everyone comments on it, and my friend Geraldine Boublil used its irregular arches to inspire the mirrors in her new apartment in Paris.

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There’s some English kook on TikTok with a crazy bouffant flow and a weird spray tan dictating to people in a rather sanctimonious tone about what is and isn’t chic about making your bed. I saw a video where he insisted you only need two pillows per side and thought, couldn’t be me. I sleep in a down pillow fortress with a dog on my head, thank you very much. And find myself with a distaste for the mass-market minimal Millennial DTC look that a lot of bedding companies reach for these days. Enter: vintage bedding.

I love vintage Ralph Lauren, but I only want a touch of it. Maybe it’s having a full-on Shabby Chic princess bedroom in my youth, maybe it’s being in my bridal era… I have a soft spot for a ruffle or a little blue-and-white. But as an adult, I want it to grow up with me, set against modern furniture and interesting art — just a wink at heritage without fully leaning into a theme. Collected, not “decorated”.

You have to be very restrained to keep it from veering into cutesy. I think artist Tyler Hays does this well with his Delft-inspired ceramics at BDDW. So do John Derian and designers Nickey-Kehoe. The trick is to go for things that feel more Amagansett Beach House than country estate, and to be extra picky about prints. It may be a shibori pillow, a wink of chintz, a pop of Yves Klein blue, a wide-set French ticking stripe over a narrow one, or a particularly washy cornflower blue. It really has to be exactly right.

When we were apartment shopping, we opted for pre-war charm, a garden for the dogs, and a key to Gramercy Park over size and modern amenities. Our place still has original parquet floors and casement windows, so I leaned into the 1890s architecture instead of fighting it. While our loft in Atlanta was industrial, vast, and white, here I ran in the opposite direction, going for color and coziness.

Flipping through a book the other day, this photo from Jacques Grange by photographer Ricardo Lebougle stopped me in my tracks and sent me pulling my 90s RL Catalina Island bedding out of storage. Contrasted with the modernity of a stern Sterling Ruby piece above my bed, I think it’s a great summer vibe for our bedroom. I looked up some additional blue and white bedding to mix in from there: Vis-a-Vis, Abc Home,

Is anyone else like, really excited for summer? Unusually excited? I just have a feeling this is going to be one of those epic summers that becomes lifelong lore. Is it hot divorcee summer? Slam pig summer? Too soon to say! After the incredibly rancid vibes of summer ‘25 (a la poubelle!) and an excruciatingly long winter, we’re all due a string of carefree, sunny days (and a good season of Love Island USA). I’ve been having more fun than usual planning my wardrobe — still me, but with some colloquial tweaks. Sort of like pulling cards from the same deck.

I’ll be on Sea Island for an extended July 4th, and then we'll head out to Pebble Beach/Carmel, where we’ll stay until after our wedding at the end of the month. Very different vibes: Sea Island is preppy and oozing with Southern charm. Carmel is, as a friend likes to say, “quiet luxury Palm Beach”, or as I like to say, “the land of cashmere and shorts weather”.

For the Beach Club at Sea Island, where it will be almost offensively hot and humid, an Agua Bendita bikini with a coordinating sarong in a print my eyes don’t find offensive, because the girlfriend I’m going with has thoroughly claimed Johanna Ortiz. A white seersucker set from With Nothing Underneath with little red Row heels. A menagerie of SLBs. A Janessa Leone hat. High Sport shorts. A bandana-print pool bag from Call It By Your Name. Colorful beads. The leg trick!

For Carmel, thin cashmere from The Row and white crepe Gala pants. White cotton shorts, minimal black flip flops. Yaser Shaw wraps. A favorite ball cap and a good dry brush. Lots of pretty (but appropriate) pajamas for plodding around my in-laws’ house. And of course, for this trip, a lot of bridal looks (!!), but I’ll tell you about those another day. I can’t wait to see what my friends wear.

And then there are the Hamptons, where we’ll be all of August. When I’m out on Long Island, I care about proximity to my favorite restaurants and a dog-friendly beach, which is why Amagansett is my preferred hamlet. The girls there get it, and it’s where I feel I can dress the most myself — in a pair of Phoebe Philo track runner sandals, for example, which would surely be misunderstood by the country clubber hometown crowds in Sea Island, or a Sophie Buhai headband, which would read as too literal in a preppier setting.

A barely-there Prada dress with a low back and a dalmatian jasper tassel worn backward. A wacky terrycloth robe. A sack full of goodies from My Bob. An architectural Rohe dress. Vintage Levis. Threadbare t-shirts with diamonds. Bare nails. Toe rings. Elder Statesman cozies for cool evenings. That damn lighter necklace. Birkenstocks. Weird hats. Severe sunglasses. Ugh, and tick repellent.

And since nothing screams sunshine more than sunny SoCal, I asked writer/showrunner/generally offline Baddie Jenni Konner to end the letter with some of her deeply local LA picks:

Los Angeles has been “best listed” exhaustively. It’s a challenge to think of places that are off the beaten path. Everyone has heard of Scout and Lake, and if you haven’t, you can Google and find 10,000 articles about them. Honestly, the entire path has been beaten to death. But I grew up here, and there are places that I love that make me feel like I’m home.

ETRA is a relatively new place for Los Angeles. It’s in Melrose Hill, which is one of those neighborhoods that all of a sudden has a name when people start building there. It has the feel of a neighborhood restaurant, which is vital and rare these days. It’s not going to change your life, but you’ll find delicious pasta, a not-too-long list of natural wines, and a chicory salad that I think about maybe three times a day. Also, and most importantly, great lighting.

Bonus: My insanely chic friend Stephanie Danan’s beautiful boutique CO. is down the street. Insanely well-made and the quietest of luxury clothing. The lightweight cashmere will honestly change your life.

I had walked past UNCOMMON THREAD conservatively 3,000 times before I discovered it. It is technically on Melrose Place, but hidden away off the street. It’s a little jewel box filled with vintage clothing and objects. When I say tiny, I mean there are basically two racks of clothing. That said, these racks are filled with well-curated Gaultier, Armani, Prada 1996 (!), Saint Laurent, and more. It is so lovely it makes me forget there is so much incense I feel like I am at a Yoga class in the nineties.

A note about where not to go: I have nothing against the Beibers. Justin once sweetly recorded a birthday wish for my daughter’s friends in a parking lot, and Hailey makes my favorite blush. But if those two frequent a restaurant, do not go there. Or anywhere the famous go. I do not know what it is about celebrities and expensive, terrible food, but the tabloids are filled with photos of stars going into the worst places in town. If it makes Page Six, avoid at all costs. (I’m looking at you, Nobu Malibu).

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I get very tired of the Internet sometimes. It can be a terrifying circle jerk, especially for people who care about fashion — a real psyop of confirmation bias. And while the middling sameness can be comforting (nothing wrong with being like the other girls), we have to be conscious that the lack of friction stunts our collective creative growth. Spoon-feeding each other trends like baby birds can’t be the only way we’re fed.

The Internet makes stars of regular girls every day. Every so often, someone with a point of view so singular punctures the artifice and whooshes through the consciousness like a fat gust of the freshest air. Slowly at first, then all at once, others clamor to copy her, and she makes a comfortable living off the other women hoping to capture a little piece of her magic. She takes a 9% affiliate cut on 75 pairs of $400 jeans and uses it to buy a better life to emulate, and the next thing for everyone else to chase. I don't think this is a bad thing. The monetization of girlhood has uncuffed a lot of women from a much narrower life.

It's when it all becomes one amalgamous swirl that I get fatigued. Eventually, these people are copied at such volume that there's no path but to become a genre of their own.

The Row is a perfect example of this phenomenon — women so rabidly emulated that packaging their ideals was the clearest and most gratifying path forward.

The Olsen neophytes online have created a reductive subgenre of minimalist Internet entirely taken directly from their twin idols. Fandom is fun, and they are right that The Row is a brand for clothing nerds (like me) who tuck into inane details to justify the cost of what we're subscribing to. I’m not clowning these girls; they’ve removed the thinking from getting dressed, and a lot of people want exactly that. I just wonder if they’re missing the broader point of what the Olsens set out to do.

Walk into The Row’s Upper East Side townhouse, and you’re coaxed into a space designed in such good taste it’s lost most of its flavor. It is soothing. It is elevated. It is you, just a few grand away from your best self. Vanilla is comforting, safe, quiet. I like vanilla. It soothes me. Vanilla can fix everything. I want vanilla sometimes, too.

But I don’t think vanilla is what The Row set out to do entirely. The brand was founded on the hypothesis of the perfect white t-shirt and named for London’s Savile Row. The co-founders’ diminutive size no doubt forced them to think creatively about tailoring as they began collecting as teens. Adulthood arrives, and there you have it: simple things, impeccably made.

But a white t-shirt isn’t the centerpiece of a wardrobe. It’s a canvas. It’s meant to shapeshift and act as the quarterback for the more important parts of a look. It’s perfectly tasty vanilla on its own, but it’s begging for some sprinkles.

It makes me wonder if Ashley and Mary Kate Olsen weren’t trying to be the entire message of your wardrobe, but to provide the best possible foundation for it. The twins themselves rarely step out in their pragmatic pieces alone — they accessorize recklessly and collect vintage with obvious joy. Their clothes are worldly. They choose things with provenance, history, and humor. Everything they pick shares a similar sense of ease, but the brand echoes their own analog natures: The Row’s assortment isn’t meant to be the center of attention, but rather to hold up the pieces that are.

They all but tell us this in their own whispered way. Collaborating with stores like Desert Vintage and Preclothed isn’t a money tree waiting to be plucked. It’s a world-building move, a nudge in the direction of what they hold to be true on their own. Maybe the reveal of Mary Kate and Oliver Sarkozy’s Hamptons home — all art and color — will give purists permission to tiptoe out of The Row’s black box and use it as the canvas intended.

The Row triggers people for the same reason it seduces them: it is a brand that asks you to know better. The prices are not a secret, the logo is not on the bag, and there is no flex available to anyone who hasn’t already opted into the conversation. To the seduced, this is the appeal. To the triggered, it is the most galling kind of class signaling, precisely because it refuses to announce itself. Both camps are responding to the same thing: the brand’s refusal to do any of the work for you. But to read The Row solely as a status object — whether you’re buying in or rolling your eyes — is to make the same mistake as the disciples in the black box.

You can glide along the surface of fashion forever if you want. Shop, consume, chase. There’s pleasure in it. But the people who actually move me are not the ones who took the swatch home and painted the whole house with it. They’re the ones who looked at the swatch and went somewhere else entirely. You can dissect your closet into an analytical formula of color theory, capsules, and rules all you want, but I think the best outfits have a degree of cooking from the hip.

I collect art with a voracity I rarely share here. The painters and photographers whom I love do more for the way I get dressed than any lookbook ever has. Not because I’m trying to translate a Currin bosom into an outfit, but because spending time with someone else’s specific, weird, fully-formed point of view reminds me that I’m supposed to have one too. Nobody hangs a blank white canvas on a wall.

The Gala pant isn’t the problem or the solution; it’s a springboard. The problem is stopping at the Gala pant. The solution is whatever you find when you keep going.

In March, a group of girlfriends and I went to Palm Beach for my birthday. We stayed in the Goop Villa at The Colony Hotel, which has lots of lovely little balconies that are flooded with great natural light. I was wearing shorts and swimwear that day, and my legs were pale as hell after an especially long New York winter.

“I need to do my leg trick,” I said.

“What’s that?” said Cassandra.

My eyes lit up. “Step into my office,” I said. And we went out on the balcony.

She watched in utter fascination as my legs went from pale and blemished to flawless, tanned, and toned.

“Holy shit,” she said.

“What are y’all doing?” Abby hollered from the other room.

“I’m showing her the leg trick!” I hollered back. I’d given Abby the same demonstration the summer prior in Sag Harbor before a beach day.

“It’s amazing! I bought everything, and I do it all the time now,” Abby yelled.

Cassandra was stunned. “Oh my God,” she said. “I need that.” And then she promptly ordered everything.

A few weeks later, the same group was back in Palm Beach, and I squinted at Cassandra’s arms out by the pool. Her skin looked so good. “Did you do the trick?”

“I did the trick,” she said. “I am obsessed.”

And now, because you, dear reader, are also my friend, I am going to tell you the trick. I use it on my legs, but the truth is, you can use it anywhere on your body that needs a little polish.

P.S., this makes an excellent pairing with the kind of bath that will ruin a man’s life.

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Haven’t you heard? It’s a hot divorcee summer! One does not have to be divorced to embody this energy, it’s more of an attitude. A spiritual alignment, if you will. It’s looking expensive, saying yes to everything, and letting a little cheek out.

Cheeks, you say? Which ones? Well, both. The kind you dab a little blush on, and the kind that sticks out from under your bikini briefs. With the summer sale season kicking off this weekend, there’s no better time to shop with your summer archetype in mind.

Below, a little boost for your bum and your buccal.

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Blush and Bronze

• Violet Grey’s semi-annual “put it in the bag” event is on, offering a generous site wide discount of 20%. Victoria Beckham’s Water Tint has been enjoying an internet revival which pushed me toward a re-try. You just need the tiniest drop to give your cheeks the tiniest, most skin-like flush. I LOVE. I layered it over Hermes Beauty’s new Plein Air foundation, which comes in the most beautiful presentation I have ever seen — down to the artful little artist’s palette. (You can see the other wildly desirable things we found at our Hermes press appointment a few weeks ago on our new Instagram — hello, lipstick belt and this nail polish.)

• You can’t think of summer cheeks and not bother with a bit of bronzer. Lately, I like Bob Beaute’s powder formula, which is micro-fine and goes on in a slippy veil with its companion brush. If you’re looking for a touch more pigment, then I suggest veering your cart towards Farah Homidi’s bronzer compact instead. (I think the tawny shades look particularly great with Westman Atelier’s Hydratint in the shade “Bob”, named for Gucci’s beloved Cavapoo!)

• Chanel Beauty sent a litany of my friends and I into a tizzy when they sent the over-the-top Kit and Caboodle to dozens of cool girls. I’ve had a minute to live with it now, and my favorite product from the batch is the lip/cheek baume in Vital Beige. It’s a pinky shade that looks gorgeous on the eyelids as well.

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The Peek of Cheek

• Nothing boosts your buns like a little lift from heels. Lucasheva is new to me, but I’m pining for a delicate pair of their cutie pie Amelie sandals to style with butt-boosting light faded vintage jeans from aligrace. Jude kindly gifted me a pair of their Rooty leather thong sandals — I put them on and wore them straight out the door to a full day of appointments in the city with no comfort issues whatsoever. I foresee a summer workhorse.

• Minis are the moment this summer. I love the low scoop back of this Prada number. Paired with the short hemline it’s a delicious, chill way to sex up a pair of strappy flip flops. Or maybe something a little cooler, like these. Finish with a set of barely-there floating gems that glimmer in the sunlight.

• Hot cross buns: this swimsuit is unassuming from the front, but the back has a high-cut surprise.

• If your derriere is the limited territory of your lover, I suggest these for a peek of cheek.

Sales of Note:

• Toteme’s private sale launched mere minutes ago. You need to be logged into your account, but the discounts are meaningful. There are plenty of universally-appealing gems under $200, like this little over-the-shoulder number that’s a wildly easy way to punch up any ‘fit and an on-trend tuxedo scarf. But for the investment buyers who are looking for something more sturdy, even the brand’s classic box-leather riding boots are included in the sale.

• Nearly all of the big e-tailers are in private sale mode now, too. But Moda Operandi’s assortment is particularly good. Case in point: this thrilling Heirlome dress, summer-y pants from High Sport, beaded fancies from Julietta, satin sandals from Herbert Levine, and that Rohe dress.

Have a great weekend.

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It started with a frog-clasp top, then a viral leather jacket, and then it was on the Instagram of every girl I do not know wearing it to some restaurant I have been trying to get into. The brand is Róhe. It is pronounced roe-uh. And it’s everywhere.

Róhe was established in 2021 by Marieke Meulendijks and Maickel Weyers in Amsterdam. The house philosophy, in their words, is an “infinite dialogue of quiet confidence” — craft, innovation, and an artistic community converging across collections defined by a rewritten definition of tailoring and elevated minimalism. Italian fabrics. Uncompromising quality. A personal garderobe meant to transcend seasons. The official line is that COVID created the pause Marieke needed to finally build the brand she and her husband had always talked about.

The origin story is more interesting than the press materials let on. Róhe is not a 2021 startup wunderkind in any meaningful sense. It is the rebrand of Les Coyotes de Paris, the Amsterdam womenswear line Marieke Meulendijks founded in 2015 after leaving Scotch & Soda.

Meulendijks had a non-compete that prevented her from designing for women and men for a few years, so she started Les Coyotes as a girls’ brand for ages 8 to 18, inspired by Françoise Hardy and a certain 1970s Parisian idea of young femininity. When the contract lifted, she expanded into women’s, and by 2021, she and her partner, Maickel Weyers, had relaunched the women’s arm under a new name with a new point of view. Róhe is what the grown woman got.

The rebrand matters because it reframes Róhe not as an overnight minimalism success but as a second act from a designer who had already spent a decade understanding what the adjacent customer actually wanted. That customer, at the moment the rebrand landed, was grieving Céline under Phoebe Philo and had perhaps grown weary of The Row’s prices. Róhe walked into a specific gap in the market with Italian fabrics and tailoring details that undercut competitors’ prices by roughly half.

The distribution strategy is the other piece of the puzzle. Róhe launched at a small list of directional multi-brand retailers first, the kind of shops that function as taste filters. Net-a-Porter picked it up next, then Liberty, then a wave of boutiques from Melbourne to Copenhagen. The brand has been notably patient about not blanketing every e-commerce platform at once, which is why the clothes still feel like a discovery.

The seeding has been more strategic than the breakout would suggest, too. I cannot point to a single celebrity moment that made Róhe happen. What I can point to is the slow pile-up of fashion editors, writers, and stylists wearing it relentlessly until the brand crossed over. They have a bloodhound nose for “cool girls”, and the brand does a rigorous job of ensuring their clothes land —gifted— in those closets.

What Róhe does well is the detail you catch on the second look. The placket on a cardigan is reworked to read as a small design argument rather than a closure. A double collar sits on the trench where a single collar would have done fine. I’d argue they handily repopularized the now-inescapable Mandarin jacket silhouette, seen on everyone from your favorite fashion creator to Jennifer Lawrence.

The prices are high, but not as serious as those of spiritually aligned brands like Phoebe Philo. A coat runs in the two thousands rather than, say, ten. A knit is five to eight hundred. The outerwear is where the design language is most legible, but the lightweight cotton pieces are what I find myself falling for.

What Róhe has right now is the narrow, magical window between being discovered and being everywhere, and the women who get it are buying accordingly.

Jess Graves: You two are partners in life and in the business. Who says no first when a piece is not working, and how does that conversation usually go?

Marieke Meulendijks + Maickel Weyers: Our roles are very much their own. Marieke studied fashion and textiles at the Amsterdam Fashion Institute and now oversees the full creative direction of Róhe. Maickel’s background in finance from the University of Amsterdam brings a complementary perspective, as he focuses exclusively on the company's financial and business side. Ultimately, the creative decisions are fully made by Marieke.

JG: Róhe is an introverted brand, both in its marketing and in its clothes. Was the restraint a strategic choice, or is it just how you two work?

MM + MW: We’ve always approached our work from a place of intuition rather than strategy, allowing ideas to take shape through process, dialogue, and lived experience. The restraint was never a conscious choice; it’s simply how we work and who we are. As a more introverted person myself, it’s important to me that clothes offer a calm sense of empowerment without being too loud, allowing you to feel confident in who you are.

JG: The Italian mills you work with, particularly Ley Tricot on the knitwear, have been with the brand since the early days. What does a typical meeting with them look like, and what is the hardest thing you have ever asked them to make for you?

MM: Throughout the years, they have become like family. When I’m in Italy, the days are spent going through yarns, talking about shape and silhouette, looking at a first prototype, and continuing from there together. It’s a continuous dialogue. In the evenings, she cooks at home, and we sit, eat, and talk, and it makes the work so enjoyable, like being with family, sharing ideas, and changing them as you go.

The most difficult piece we’ve made together was a sculptural plissé top in a very fine nylon yarn, almost like thread, incredibly delicate. We still laugh about it to this day, how much fun it was to experiment with such a unique yarn.

JG: Which pieces in the Róhe archive have you each leaned on the hardest over the years, the ones you keep returning to season after season, and what do those choices tell you about your own design instincts?

MM: A lot of the collection is inspired by my personal wardrobe archive. Throughout my life, I’ve had a passion for collecting: clothes, furniture, art, and objects that hold a special place. The most meaningful pieces I keep. Among them is a jacket with pankou closures that I’ve had since I was twenty-three. I found that while traveling through Asia, I was deeply inspired by the precision and simplicity of tailoring and detailing found in traditional garments there. The refined detailing of the pankou closure resonates with my genuine appreciation for craft and tradition. It is, in many ways, a true reflection of what I love most about design.

JG: Amsterdam is not an obvious “fashion capital” in the way Paris or Milan is, and you have stayed. What does the distance give you creatively that being in Paris would not?

MM: Amsterdam is the place of our home, our studio, and our lives. By being rooted here rather than in another fashion capital, we also aim to put Amsterdam more on the map. The city has so much to offer. Its rich culture shines through its beautiful buildings, fascinating history, vibrant art scene, and the diversity of its people. The brand is continuously inspired by Dutch history and its rich textile tradition. We respect our surroundings, cherish the arts and crafts of the Netherlands, and it is this interest in culture that makes designing each collection feel like an act of gratitude for the preservation of history that surrounds us.

JG: Marieke, you have talked about photography and architecture as primary sources of inspiration. Who is the architect or photographer whose work is sitting on your desk right now, and what are you pulling from them?

MM: At the moment, I’m drawing a lot of inspiration from archival Dutch landscape paintings, mostly the ones with windmills. We sometimes also visit the Rijksmuseum to discover lesser-known works, and the colors of those paintings naturally find their way into our moodboard and design process. Lately, I’ve been collecting a lot of Dutch paintings, images, and objects as well; there’s something about that world that I keep returning to.

JG: Maickel, what is the business decision you have made in the last two years that other people thought was a mistake and you knew was right?

MW: A lot has changed in the last two years, and looking back, the decisions all came from the same instinct: to let go and focus on what truly matters with intention. Stopping Les Coyotes de Paris and the menswear collection wasn’t a straightforward decision, but it allowed us to focus entirely on womenswear and continue building it to its full potential. We also decided to bring sales in-house. We deeply value our client relationships and wanted to be in more direct contact with the people who carry and believe in Róhe.

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JG: The luxury e-commerce landscape has shifted significantly in the last eighteen months, with Matches closing, the Saks debacle, the MyTheresa/Net-a-Porter convergence, and SSENSE under real pressure. How has that reshaped the way you think about where Róhe should sell?

MM + MW: The shifts in the landscape have encouraged us to think more carefully about where and how we show up. Consumer behaviour has changed significantly. People are increasingly looking for curated, considered spaces where a brand is presented with real intention. Specialty stores and boutiques have become increasingly important to us, and we’ve seen awareness grow through those relationships, with clients coming in specifically asking for Róhe.

However, our larger retail and online partners are still equally important. The way they present Róhe to their audiences, and the trust they place in the brand, is something we genuinely value. In the end, reaching different people through different channels, each in their own way, feels like the right approach for where Róhe is today.

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More Designer Dossier…

Mother’s Day is on Sunday, the 10th! Did you forget? Oops! No worries, though. We have a gift guide with all kinds of great stuff right here. Need even more ideas? That’s okay, too! Below, a quick and dirty short list of (more) things we know she’d love. Just don’t forget the card, ok?

1. Madame Grey Perfume: arresting, mysterious, ageless… pretty much perfect. A very limited selection of full-size bottles is available at 20% off for a short time with code LOVELISTVIP — along with timely mailing for Mother’s Day.

2. Counter Beauty: If she’s the kind of Mom who feels overwhelmed by the enormity of products on the market, give her the gift of one less decision: a simple, easy-to-maintain routine. First, a simple but effective daily facial sunscreen (because you love her and want her to be safe). Next, a plumping, mild, and peptide-rich moisturizer to apply after. (Perhaps be ready to explain what peptides are!) Finally, a dewy skin tint to even out imperfections — easy enough to apply with fingertips in two minutes, without the cakiness of full-coverage foundation. Better yet, the brand is running a sitewide Friends & Family event, offering up to 30% off. Mama didn’t raise a fool who overpays!

3. Tania Buholes tea cup set: Teacups with butterfly wings? For the Mom who loves a little whimsy, these are the sweetest!

4. EREDE Delta signet ring: I love Co-founder and Designer Talia Levy’s beautiful shots of her Mom, decked out in diamonds from her brand. The Delta Signet ring is an incredible gift if you really want to spoil her.

5. Celisse “Little Something” nail set (THELOVELIST for 15% off): If she’s like me and hates sitting still every two weeks for a tedious manicure, give her Celisse’s starter set of low-maintenance nail tools and quick-drying polish that swipes on almost as fast as a lipstick. She’s busy!

6. Custom Lingua Franca sweater (JESS10 for 10% off): If she has opinions about things like ICE raids, get her a cheeky knit that takes no prisoners.

7. Il Buco Vita anything (JESS15 for 15% off): From beeswax candles and chic coffee mugs to winged decanters and Portuguese pottery, if she loves to cook and entertain, send her something from the beloved New York institution where I’ve made many fond memories with the Moms in my own life.

And if you’re in New York… some friends of The Love List, including Kindred Black and Don’t Let Disco, are gathering to put on a trunk show for you last-minute shoppers:

• First of all, WE LAUNCHED ON INSTAGRAM!!

• Anyway. Colleen Allen’s stock is ever-climbing. I got one of her moody cloaks in black velvet, and the ability to wear it immediately is a tiny silver lining to the still-chilly weather in NYC.

• Just a note to say The Row’s Riaco jeans are perfect.

• Juju Vera’s lighter necklace from Moda’s capsule is the first you’re going to see in a long bleat of similar styles. Edie Parker offers one. And I hear is working on one, as well. (I have been chatting with Dame Lisa Eisner about a custom number, too.) Smoking: so hot right now. Even if you don’t actually smoke.

• Speaking of smoking, this cigarette case from Esencial Hogar! Hello! I’m kind of obsessed with Celina’s brain. Also consider this from The Rolling and The Stoned.

• If your chosen vice is bubblier and you got it like that, swaddle it in this.

• I think vintage Lacroix (Christian, not Pamplemousse) is hot on the heels of Romeo Gigli for a certain breed of vintage collector.

• It’s the same breed of girl who was buying Heirlome three seasons ago, while you’re only now being put on.

• Have any of you tried the buzzy NAD+ Smartpen from Remedy? I am so curious… is it gonna make my stomach lurch like the IV?

• Coco Beach, amirite???? But like also, that’s not a shoe girl, that’s a sh—.

• Rohe, keeping it cool as hell.

• Have y’all seen these wild HABELO hand gloves at Violet Grey? If we’re just now meeting, I have this thing with my hands. I am obsessed with the identity politics of manicures and study ring stacks like an NYU 2L with 100k of debt on the line. So this is riiiiiiight up my alley. You could use your own hand cream (like Soft Services Retinol, maybe?) or HABELO’s hand serum, specifically formulated for those gloves. (THELOVELIST15)

• On my Spring art to-do list: Lisa Yuskavage at David Zwirner, Domenico Gnoli at Lévy Gorvy Dayan, Ruffles and Ribbons at The Frick (thank you for the heads up on this one, !).

• DORSEY TURQUOISE IS BACK (!!!)

• ^^ (the grail was these)

• ^^ (but one day I’ll find this in my size too, mark my words)

• A tisket, a tasket, your phone demands a basket.

• I do declare that the same girls to swoop in on Colleen Allen’s current cloakage will next descend upon Conner Ives’ splendiferous demi-couture coats, preorder now to break them out the second that first leaf drops in the fall.

• Friendly reminder that the savviest readers know product excavations drop in THE SHOP first. (It’s like, really good.)

• All the girls want the “Nina Park lip” and Mary Phillips’ underpainted complexions. The latter is pretty easy to achieve now that Mary has her own product line. The former is a bit more technique-elusive. I’ve found that a new-to-me line called Finding Ferdinand (gifting Gods, being useful!) makes this sheer blackberry balm-stick situation, which, with a few swashes over a blurred lip line, pulls off the effect in mere seconds.

• Diptyque has completely overhauled its packaging. Fear not, we aren’t in “new Coke” territory: it’s the same chic, just tweaked— and now they’ll soon be refillable, too.

• Speaking of easy ways to fragrance your house, one of the sneakiest is to wash your linens in something divine like dEdcooL or Glamour Wash (silliest name, best product), then boost it with something low-key drugstore-y, like Downy Boutique Botanicals. Yes, Downy. I like Peonia (duh, Peony) and Folia. Skip the Citrica scent. For New Yorkers who send their laundry out, just throw it in the pickup bag.

• I think it’s kind of apropos for Marc Jacobs to stage a comeback somewhat timed with Devil Wears Prada dos and the Met Gala. We got the Marc by Sofia doc (PS Sofia’s beach house!), the summer relaunch of Marc Jacobs Beauty (thank you for that tip!), and the hard-launch seeding campaign for his new THE SCENE bag, which I guarantee you’re going to start seeing everywhere very, very shortly. I like that straight out of the gate, it’s coming in a menagerie of sizes and colors. And the price point, by comparison to a lot of other designer things out there (the medium is $465), isn’t as eye-watering.

• Downy and Ruggable, who am I? But honestly, the Ruggable x Scalamandre collab is… pretty rad? Like, I now have one in my living room if you need proof of said radness.

• I just got back from the beach, and damn if it isn’t already sweltering in Florida. It sent me down a cheap-and-cheerful rabbit hole in search of cute hot-weather dresses. From the Reformation: this dress, styled with this bag. Or this for a summer wedding! From Ann Mashburn, this ladylike linen shift. And from COS: this cutie pie puff-sleeve, or this super-forgiving white shift — with sleeves, if you prefer.

• When your dog is that girl, reach for Biche, founded by Beauty Editor Alexandra Pauly. One of the ways Alex earned her rescue pup Cam’s trust after adopting him was by building a regular hands-on grooming routine. Throughout the process, she quickly realized how lackluster the pet grooming products on the market were. They paled in comparison to the beauty products she constantly tested as an editor. So she fixed that.

• DL1961 got the pink jeans memo, too. The wide leg!

• POV: You’re a guest at my wedding. This! This! THIS.

• And then, slather yourself in this delicious potion from Kindred Black because the ceremony is on the beach!

• This, with jeans. A Millennial “going out top”, but less Forever 21 and more Forever 35 due to her doctor and skincare regimen.

• I like when Tory Burch does random pops of freaky, like with this bag. But also, did you see she brought your favorite top back in a new colorway?

• Behold, the platonic ideal of a white summer dress. Style with these. Or these. Or this.

• Met The Vin Store’s (TikTok-famous) Dad at Current Affair and kind of obsessed with this family.

• I wish I’d had these for Cowboy Carter.

• Wild fantasy alert! GOOD GOD.

• GOOOOOOOD gOD.

• And the wildest fantasy of all.

Five years of this newsletter, no social.

That was on purpose. For years, I refused to give The Love List its own Instagram. I said I’d never do it. The newsletter was the newsletter. My feed was my feed. I liked the line.

What can I say? I got over myself, changed my mind, and hired some help.

The newsletter now has its own home on Instagram!

FOLLOW THE LOVE LIST ON INSTAGRAM

@thelovelist.wtf is the brand. @jessnellgraves is still me.

You need an incentive? Oh, fine…

Last year, Lauren Santo Domingo coined the term “Silly little bag” in our newsletter. We shortened it to “SLB”. She said everyone needs one, and I agree.

How about two?

It’s the Substack Starter Pack: SLB Edition.

Take your pick from two sold-out bags: Valesque’s viral “Thea“ SLB in pink or The Row’s gold mesh “Imogen” mini tote.

In each, an array of goodies: sunnies, fragrance from Memo Paris and Perfumehead, jewels from At Present, Julietta’s sold-out “Opiyum” collar, and more.

Head to Instagram to win.

Win Yourself a SLB on IG

People on this platform copy me. Shamelessly, sometimes, and with a specificity that crosses from flattery into plagiarism. I see my outfit collages restaged. I see my market work lifted almost whole. I see the structure of my newsletters reproduced, my phrases repeated back to me without attribution, my voice mimicked with an uncanniness that stops being charming, my ideas and archetypes blatantly stolen, the exact colors I use in my graphic design showing up in somebody else’s template two weeks after I’ve used them. I see editors from larger publications lifting my ideas, and voices on other platforms riffing on my work, without attribution. Woof.

Am I annoyed? Yes! I would be lying if I said I wasn’t. I have spent twenty years developing this point of view, and it is, at minimum, mildly insulting to watch it get Xeroxed in real time by women who have put in twenty months, and by publications that should, frankly, know better.

But! I have decided that if people are going to copy me anyway, I might as well save them a step and tell them how the whole thing actually works.

So here is the shopping newsletter playbook. I wrote it, and I dare you to do it better.

Let’s be clear: I am first and foremost a writer and an editor. Not an editor in the grammatical sense; an editor in the way a magazine has an editor — someone whose job is POV. This is the part most people building in this space get wrong, and it is the part I want to begin with, because everything else I say in this letter follows from it.

I did not set out to build “an affiliate business” (ick). I did not set out to build a media company (oops). I set out to write and to edit.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the anonymous fashion Substacker and the $275K that scandalized the internet. It got shared! It got quoted! It got the kind of comment section that made me love my readers more than I already did.
But the response I wasn’t expecting, and the one I want to answer today, came into my inbox.

It came from dozens of women. Writers, mostly, some with small newsletters, some with none yet, all of them asking some version of the same question.

How did you actually do this? Would you tell me? Would you help?

Yes, I will help! That is what this letter is.

The earlier piece was about my right to be paid for the work. This piece is about the work itself, and how you can do yours. There is no formula, and I would not trust anyone who told you there was.

But there are things I know now that I wish I had known at the beginning. And if you’re going to copy me, at least do it with the full instructions. But mostly, this is just here for anyone who wants to dip their toe into this world — there’s a feast happening in real time, so pull up a chair and join me.

1. Your newsletter is Bergdorf Goodman. Or is it The Gap? Decide.

The reader who opens a newsletter is not being interrupted. She is not scrolling past you on her way to something else. She chose to read. That is the most valuable permission on the internet, and almost nobody talks about it that way.

Treat the inbox like the storefront it is. Merchandise beautifully. Know what’s on the floor. Help people think about how these objects will integrate into their lives. Speak to their function and care. Present a great experience, whether or not anyone makes a purchase.

Respect those who came in. Don’t waste their time. Write something worth their attention, in the voice they subscribed to, and the rest follows.

2. You need three things, and most people have none of them.

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Every year around this time my inbox fills with the same pastel-scented press push. Peonies! Spa robes! A candle that smells like “her!” The Mother’s Day industrial complex has a specific tone that I find punishing, mostly because it flattens mothers into a single sentimental archetype. My own mother, for the record, would rather be sent a good book and left alone.

What follows is the opposite of that. A handful of considered indie brands I actually shop, most of them founded or co-run by women who are themselves mothers, most making things that will outlast the peonies by about forty years.

FEWER FINER // Brooklyn, NY

started Fewer Finer in 2018 out of what I can only describe as a devotional relationship to small, significant objects. The brand operates out of a townhouse in Williamsburg. Custom work ranges from heirloom re-imagination to hand engraving. This feels like being invited into someone’s home.

Madison made me custom charms of my dogs, Hank and Birdie, and I cannot think of a more treasured gift. If your mother has a pet she talks about more than her children (we all know one), this is the gift.

DEAR CECILIA // Los Angeles, CA

Dear Cecilia is a bag line built, as the tagline goes, “for the love of horses”. The whole proposition is equestrian without being costume-y, which is harder to pull off than it looks. But Mom doesn’t have to be a regular in the tack room to partake.

The piece to know is the Leonora canvas tote, which has become my personal argument for the chic mom bag. It holds everything a mother actually carries without looking like a diaper bag or a tote from a literary festival. I would give it to a new mother and a mother of teenagers with equal confidence.

LILY EVE // New York, NY

Lily Eve does one of my favorite sleights of hand in contemporary accessories: clutches sewn from vintage Hermès beach towels, coats cut from Hermès blankets. The logic is perfect! You take an object that was already Hermès, already beautiful, already archival, and you turn it into something wearable and one of a kind. The coats especially have a collector energy I find hard to resist.

For Mother’s Day, I would point you toward a Cabana clutch in whatever towel she happens to have in stock when you look. Each one is different. A mother who already owns her good handbags and doesn’t need another one will understand exactly what she’s looking at.

CASA GUSTO // West Palm Beach, FL

Casa Gusto is Valerie and Besty Smith’s Palm Beach studio, and it is the single most romantic retail experience in South Florida. Everything in the store has a hand in it somewhere, but the papier-mâché is the draw for me. Flowers, fruit, whole trompe-l’œil tableaux, all made by hand in their workshop, all looking like something pulled from a seventeenth-century still life.

The Tole flowers are the move. A single papier-mâché tulip or geranium in an antique pot will outperform a $200 bouquet on every axis. It lasts forever. It photographs better. It signals that the giver knows something. For a mother who already has the house and the garden, this is where to find her something she has never seen before.

LA BONNE BROSSE // Paris, FR

La Bonne Brosse is the French hair brush brand that has taken over every beauty editor’s bathroom in the last two years, and the hype is warranted. The brushes are handmade in France from cellulose acetate and boar bristle, in candy-hued colorways that belong in a Slim Aarons photograph. They feel weighted and arrive in a ceremonial little box. Give a mother the N.01 Universal, which is the all-purpose brush, in whatever shade matches her vanity.

STEPHANIE WINDSOR // Los Angeles, CA

Stephanie Windsor deals in vintage watches, and she deals in the ones I want. Her eye runs toward the 1960s and 1970s pieces that most dealers overlook in favor of the obvious Rolexes: small-case Cartiers, Piagets in unexpected stones, an ADP that used to live on a woman’s wrist at a lunch. Her curation is flawless.

A vintage watch is the gift that will outlast the giver. Stephanie’s inventory moves, so the advice is to look now and buy when you see it, not the other way around. Your mother will wear it for the rest of her life, and your daughter will wear it after that.

MOTTE STUDIO // Los Angeles, CA

Motte is Claire Bigbie’s studio, and the work sits at the intersection of functional object and sculpture in a way that stopped my scroll dead in its tracks. The tulip candles are the signature. A hand-sculpted flower wrapped around a waxed base, each one a real candle, each one too beautiful to actually burn. I have never lit mine. I don’t plan to!

The wine swans are the other must. It is an object that makes a dinner table. For a mother who entertains, or a mother who simply likes beautiful things, Motte is where I would shop first.

ST. ROSE // Australia

St. Rose is an Australian perfume house that has been flying under the American radar for too long. The compositions are restrained: no gourmand cloud, no oud assault. French Poetry is the safe bet for Mother’s Day, a clean musk with a hint of bergamot that works on anyone.

UNDERWATER WEAVING STUDIO // Brooklyn, NY

Underwater Weaving is a Brooklyn basket studio founded by ’s Erin Pollard and her mom. The baskets are hand-woven in sculptural shapes that owe more to ceramic practice than to traditional basketry: curved forms, asymmetric silhouettes, pieces that function as vessels but read as objects. The craft is old, but their point of view is contemporary. A crafted basket is a sleeper Mother’s Day gift. Pragmatism, but make it chic! It holds the mail, onions, her laptop, or nothing at all. Or for an activity to do together, buy the basket kits and DIY.

MARIE DAÂGE // Paris

Marie Daâge is the only fine china line I would register for now, and I stand by that. The house hand-paints Limoges porcelain to order in something like three hundred color combinations, which means you can spec a set in exactly the oxblood-and-ivory or the pale-blue-and-gold you already see on your mother’s table. The custom element is what separates it from the competition.

For a mother who entertains, a set of dessert plates in a color she loves is a gift that will be used at every dinner party she hosts for the next thirty years. The custom lead time is real, which is something to flag if you are reading this close to Mother’s Day. Order now for next year, or order a single piece from ABASK’s ready-to-ship inventory.

SANGRE DE FRUTA // Vancouver, BC

Sangre de Fruta is Allison Audrey Weldon’s botanical apothecary out of British Columbia. Glass bottles, letterpress labels, a color palette pulled from a seventeenth-century herbarium — swoon.

The body serum in Garden of Earthly Delights is the Mother’s Day pick. Rose, neroli, jasmine, bergamot — it’s really a whole floral cabinet. Give it a little something extra and tuck in a packet of their bath salts.

Greetings, earthlings! That sentiment feels apropos after weeping so many tears over our heroic astronauts last week. It was nice to feel proud of our country for one fleeting moment. I haven’t felt that way since I leaned over to my French friend at the Beyoncé concert last summer and said “Dare I say I feel… patriotic?”

Aside from being overly invested in the moonbound journey of four strangers (a much healthier fixation than say, Scamandal or whatever we’re calling the Summer House debacle… poor Carl, he’s a mess) I’ve been a social butterfly now that sunshine is touching my shoulders again.

The Love List’s team is growing, and we’ve welcomed a FT Marketing Director, Lauren Kranc, to the fold, a co-hire with (she and I have something in the works too). Thank you to our buddy and the highly effective Feed Me job board.

With the extra bandwidth, I have the time to attack some of the loftier goals we have for the back half of the year. After my wedding in July, we’ll kick off anniversary celebrations (The Love List is 5 years old, ahh!) which Lauren will help spearhead. I decided to throw her into the fire feet-first and send her to New York Bridal Fashion Week, which she crushed — recap here.

Meanwhile, I still don’t have a wedding dress, but I did find some other worthy closet additions at the city’s best vintage show, A Current Affair, over the weekend.

I found a stunning Chanel brooch as one of my “something blues”, a 1996 runway Donna Karan capelet, a wildly cool 90’s Chanel khaki trench and trouser set, a perfectly patinated Jil Sander leather car coat, a just-enough worn-in David Bowie concert tee from the 70s, and some other goodies I’m saving for my wedding day, which is drawing ever closer (3 month countdown!). Since the wedding has a rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, ceremony, reception, and after party, I have a lot of opportunity to change into different looks.

Despite it all, I’ve still had plenty of time to do market work. Here’s what’s noteworthy this week.

• I had a restorative kiki with some girlfriends last weekend that led to some plotting (Gigi Burris x The Love List coming sooooon) and then a wonderful dinner the other night hosted by for her friend , who just published an excellent book on one of my favorite pastimes, journaling. The Big Unlock is her guidebook to the simple profundity of working through your feelings on paper. (Speaking of Meg, the new Dorsey drop is beautiful.)

• Summer must be nigh, because Club Moda is back! The exclusive Juju Vera earrings are beckoning me — they scream Coastal France honeymoon. Would look great with a generous swish of Westman Atelier’s new Sun Tone Bronzing Creme. (The phone cords are also kind of amazing).

• Métier now has a permanent home in New York. Hello, 142 Wooster.

• Two very different holidays are on the horizon, depending on your observance: Mother’s Day and 4/20. For the latter, I’ve been a big proponent of California-style sobriety as of late, opting for things with a very subtle buzz and no hangover, like Cann (the new elderflower is delicious but I’m a forever roadie packet girl) and The High Confectionery’s Marionberry Sleep Gummies.

• For the former, I think about my own Mom, who loves two things: cooking and being cozy on her porch. Swaddled up in this, maybe? Full Mother’s Day gift guide coming post haste…

• I feel like I might need this.

• Sleeper brand alert for the minimalists and CBK-devotees: Aussie label YANETH.

• I think we might be doing Puka shells again (????)

• I hate to tell you that this $76 (!) deodorant has been illuminating for me and my highly sensitive skin…

• Now that warm weather is here, I’m officially switching my oily scalp over from shampoo and conditioner to salt scrub and conditioning mask.

• Holy shit. This under your sunscreen, trust me. (Add this perennial favorite to your cart while you’re there.)

• If you have a relative named Chip or Muffy, this is going to be your jam.

• A spring sale at Porta, you say?

is one of my favorite people to talk to about almost anything. She grew up in Lyon, spent her summers on the Mediterranean, and just published her first cookbook, Riviera, which comes out this month and distills all of that into workable recipes you can make on a weeknight in a small kitchen. It’s the food she grew up eating, and it’s also the world she built Ghia around: the nonalcoholic aperitif that turned the aperitivo hour into a brand universe without ever needing a drop of alcohol.

Melanie is one of the best brand builders I know, but she’s also just a person with an absurdly good eye. I love that she’ll find a Chanel jacket in Tokyo for $600 and $31 Miu Miu trousers on consignment and see no contradiction between the two. She writes on Substack, splits her time between New York and Paris, checks Vestiaire Collective and The RealReal twice a day without apology, and has the kind of no-nonsense tact that makes you trust her immediately on everything from a hand cream to a hotel.

This is how she shops.

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Fashion & Style

The best fashion investment I ever made was: buying a Chanel jacket in Tokyo in 2019 for $600. It fits like a glove. Only in Japan can you find something like this in a size 34, perfectly preserved. I wear it only a couple of times a year, but it’s a forever keepsake.

My uniform (the thing I reach for over and over) is: a chunky crewneck from CO and their clutch, which I somehow wear most days and nights. I love everything that brand makes. It’s quality but unfussy. It’s also more cool than chic which I like.

Something I just bought to wear this season is: the grey Rohe top you influenced me to buy! I love it so much. I also bought The Row tassel loafers and have zero regrets. I am exactly what retailers describe as a “shoe customer.” I’ve been wearing them nonstop with chunky socks from Comme Si, especially the merino wool ones, which I think are a sleeper hit.

Something in my cart right now is: the Liberowe knit cardigan. It’s very on sale (40% and extra 20%), but sadly still somehow very expensive.

If I could, I’d spend all my money on French and Italian vintage furniture.

The piece I’m always repurchasing is: Falke Matt Deluxe 20 DEN tights in black. Non-negotiable.

My ultimate fashion grail is: this jacket from the Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2014 show. I’m a huge Nicolas Guesquiere fan. I also found that one in Tokyo, on a different trip.

The best under-$100 fashion buy I’ve ever made: these $31 Miu Miu slacks from The RealReal. I’m a RealReal and Vestiaire Collective superuser and proud of it.

Beauty & Wellness

The best money I’ve ever spent on a beauty treatment is: actually money I’m about to spend. I’m saving up for a bleph this year. I have one droopy eyelid and genetic eye bags—both my grandfather and my mom had the same thing. Instead of thinking about it every single day, I decided I’m just going to do it. This is 35.

A beauty product I’m constantly reaching for is: U Beauty Super Hydrator & Bisou Balm in Bonbon Myrtille.

The products I buy in multiples so I never run out: Merit mascara, the Make Beauty Nano Brow Pencil, and the Ceremonia Pequi Flyaway Brush.

The most overrated beauty product I’ve tried is: La Mer cream. I truly don’t get it.

A beauty product that actually changed my skin, hair, or life is: the Crown Affair towel and the Roz hair oil. More broadly, moving away from dyes, sulfates, and silicones completely changed my hair. It took me over 30 years to embrace my thick, curly hair, but now I get compliments on it all the time.

Absolutely essential in my bag is: cuticle oil, lip balm, gum or mints, my keys, a loose credit card (I’m chaotic like that), and Zofran. I have endometriosis and can, at any moment, have an episode and start throwing up uncontrollably, so it’s not optional.

My desert-island beauty product is: sunscreen. My French dermatologist taught me to use Differin every single day, and I’ve been doing that for 15 years—but no one needs that on a desert island! Sunscreen matters though! I love this one from U Beauty, and I also think Sofie Pavitt is working on one, which will probably become my favorite since I love everything she makes. Another desert island bring is Ghia, obviously. Very refreshing on an island and drinking booze ages you.

A wellness splurge that was actually worth it is: my red-light mask.

Recommendations & Rituals

Something I use because a friend recommended it is: this protein powder I swear by. I just mix one scoop of the chocolate flavor after a workout. It’s clean, doesn’t bloat me, and actually tastes good.

Something I recommend to all my friends is: this digestion tea by my friend Natazia as well as this 9 euro French pharmacy hand cream that is truly the best (purple cap, not blue cap).

In my opinion, everyone is sleeping on: 440ME. They make the best lightweight knits.

My favorite beauty treatment in my home city is: a facial at Raquel Medina. It’s an expensive addiction.

Whenever I’m in Paris, I always: get baby Botox at my French dermatologist’s office, Marie-Serre Polons. She only works by referral, but she’s incredible. If you DM me, I’ll send you the referral.

_________ is a brand I love supporting because: Tigra Tigra, because their pieces are really fun, playful, handmade in India and the founder Bailey is also the creative director of the Elder Statesman and is absolutely amazing.

The store, brand, or designer I wish more people knew about is: The Park, they make the most luxurious basics.

The app or site I check daily for shopping inspo is: Vestiaire Collective / The RealReal (2x per day, really).

Home & Lifestyle

Something I just bought for my home is: a charcoal drawing from the BBDW auction. I’m currently hunting for the perfect vintage frame for it.

My go-to hostess gift is: a beautiful vase with flowers. It doesn’t have to be expensive but it’s so much better than the stock shit you get from florists. So many people don’t own a nice vase, and it genuinely drives me crazy.

The indulgence I will always justify is: local, organic food.

Wildcard

My most regretted purchase was: buying a brand-new Kelly bag for my 30th birthday. I immediately knew it wasn’t me. I don’t like to look expensive. I loved the two-year hunt for the leather appointment, but once I had it, I gave it to my mom for her 60th. Later, I bought a super beat-up Kelly for $2,000 from a random French auction, and I love that one infinitely more.

The last thing I DM’d a friend saying “buy this” was: this morning, I am helping a founder friend style herself for a big shoot and I sent her these Kallmeyer pants.

The best shopping advice I’ve ever been given is: shoes don’t get bigger (even though your magic substack chat seems to always have amazing pairs in a 38, aka one size too small for me).

I knew I was a “shopper” when: at 14 years old, I decided to iron all my neighbors’ clothes for five euros an hour to save up for the Marc Jacobs mouse flats. I wore them to shreds, and my mom got them resoled and they are still in my bedroom at her place.

More to Love…

There is no wrong way to collect jewelry. You begin with instinct and interest, and hopefully your collection becomes a lifetime pursuit. A ring from a bubblegum machine can mean more to the wearer than a Graff diamond. And while you’ll never catch me choosing Baublebar over Bulgari, the subjectivity is what creates not just value, but sentiment. That’s what makes the hunt so thrilling.

I’ve never kicked something sparkly out of bed. But I’ve also never bought a piece at retail or because someone on Instagram wore it. Everything in my collection exists because it tickled something in my brain and heart (and Amex, oops) at once.

There is a difference between appreciating beauty and possessing it. I have held pieces that made my chest tighten and put them back down. Not because they weren’t extraordinary, but because wanting something is not the same as it being yours. I sound woo-woo, but jewelry is emotional for me: I believe that the pieces that belong in my collection will make the case for themselves. My job is to listen.

What follows is my exhaustive, very personal guide to thinking about jewelry as a collector rather than a consumer. My sensibilities, like my collection, are my own — there is no right or wrong here. But I’m going to let you in on how I think, how I buy, and how I’m building a collection over a lifetime.

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The Three Families

Understanding What You Actually Collect

Most people think they have “a jewelry collection.” What they actually have is a jewelry box. A collection has a thesis.

When I laid out everything I own that I consider worth insuring, I didn’t see a random accumulation. I saw three distinct families, each representing a different reason to buy and a different kind of satisfaction.

Family One: Artisan Gold: These are the pieces from small, living ateliers—designers I know, people operating more like independent fashion houses than corporate jewelry brands. Sherman Field. EREDE. Lisa Eisner. Lucy Delius. What unites them is the handmade quality, the proprietary alloys, and the fact that these designers developed their own gold colors and their own chain-link constructions from scratch.

Sherman Field spent nearly a year developing their signature 18K yellow gold—a warm, buttery hue that reads almost antique. EREDE uses certified recycled gold with lab-grown VVS diamonds, positioning themselves at the intersection of fine jewelry ethics and Art Deco geometry. Lisa Eisner sources turquoise from long-closed American mines and wraps it in bronze claws that look like they were taloned after a night of Ayahuasca.

Is a python bag just a python bag? Or is it something else entirely when it’s Nancy Gonzalez — whose bags now carry the particular frisson of a designer doing federal time for smuggling the very skins she built her empire on. Is it different when The Row makes yours to order, no logo, your initials blind-stamped inside where only you know they’re there. Or when your friend’s husband sources sustainable American alligator from the Everglades and hand-stitches each bag in a workshop you’ve actually been to. Or when Khaite introduces exotic skins and suddenly everyone acts like they discovered reptile.

It’s the same skin. But it’s never the same bag! The material is the starting point — the provenance, the relationship, the context, the story of how it came to you — that’s what makes it yours. Jewelry works exactly the same way.

When I buy from these designers, I’m not buying a brand, I’m buying a hand! I want to know who bent the wire, who selected the stone, who decided that the hinge on those EREDE studs should have exactly that weight and exactly that click. This mirrors how I approach everything else about The Love List: I want the person behind the thing. The relationship is part of the value!

Family Two: Victorian and Antique Estate. The opposite logic applies here. Many of my antique pieces are unsigned, un-branded, and they come from a time before jewelry “designers” existed as a commercial category. A pair of Victorian rose-cut diamond drop earrings with black enamel, circa 1860. A cobalt blue guilloché enamel ring with seed pearls and rose-cut diamonds from roughly the same era. An Art Deco platinum bombé ring fully pavé-set with old European-cut diamonds from the 1930s. Gleefully OTT David Webb turquoise cabochon earrings from the 1970’s.

Nobody made these pieces for a lookbook. They survived 100 to 170 years because the craftsmanship was extraordinary and someone, at every generation, recognized that and kept them safe.

When I hold my Victorian enamel ring, I am holding a technique. That’s what I’m paying for. The hand-engraved shanks, the milgrain detailing, the guilloché enamel that someone spent days applying layer by translucent layer—this is labor that doesn’t exist anymore at any price point.

I like the treasure-hunt intimacy of an antique dealer who knows my eye and sets things aside for me. That relationship is the collecting experience I value. And while there’s nothing wrong with an auction paddle, the impulse and adrenaline of it personally triggers my anxiety.

Family Three: Iconic House Watches. The only branded luxury pieces in my collection are all watches: a Cartier Panthère mini in full 18K gold, a Cartier Tank in vermeil, a Franck Muller Curvex in 18K gold. Notice what’s happening here: I let the heritage houses do what they do best: cases, movements, legacy, the cabochon crown, the Roman numeral dial… but I don’t hand them my wrist and my ears. It sort of defies logic, but I promise it makes sense to me. In my head, it grounds my collection in something substantive but easy to clock.

This is an important distinction for collectors! A full Cartier jewelry wardrobe is like walking into a furniture store and buying a living room set. A Cartier watch paired with Lisa Eisner turquoise studs and a Sherman Field bracelet is a point of view.

Trust Your Eye As Much As Provenance

Half of my most valuable pieces are unsigned!

Here is something the big-house jewelry industry prefers you don’t internalize: a signature does not make a piece good. It makes a piece sellable.

My Art Deco platinum bombé ring is unsigned. It has no hallmark inside the band. It was made by a jeweler whose name is lost to history, sometime in the 1930s or 1940s, and it is one of the most magnificent rings I have ever seen—a full dome of old European-cut diamonds in platinum, with milgrain detailing on the horizontal bands that could make a modern jeweler weep.

I bought it from an antique dealer in Carmel, CA for $6,000. Its estimated insurance replacement value is $12,000 to $18,000, pending a formal appraisal. The range is wide because the exact carat weight hasn’t been verified—I estimate 3 to 5 carats total based on visual assessment—and that number will determine where it lands.

Now, if that same ring had “Cartier Paris” engraved inside the shank, it would be a $40,000 to $80,000 ring. Same platinum. Same diamonds. Same craftsmanship. The signature would multiply the price by four or five. That’s the provenance premium, and understanding it is one of the most important things a collector can do. Because when you subtract the premium, you’re left with the object. One isn’t necessarily better than the other, I love jewelry of great provenance as well, but you need to know when the provenance has real value and when you’re just paying for a name.

My Angela Cummings for Tiffany positive/negative earrings are the exception that proves this rule. They’re signed, they’re branded, they’re from a discontinued and collectible line. I bought them for approximately $2,500. Their estimated replacement value is $4,500 to $5,000. I didn’t buy them because they said Tiffany on the back. I bought them because the black jade against the 18K gold, in that spotted dome pattern, in inverse colorways, is one of the most sophisticated design moves in American jewelry. Angela Cummings understood the relationship between positive and negative space the way an architect does. I wanted the earrings. The provenance was a bonus!

I think that’s the true shopper’s trick, right? Learn to see the object before you read the stamp. But also don’t let the stamp be the reason you don’t grab a piece you love.

Mixing Eras Without Looking Like a Costume

The material palette is my through line.

I wear Victorian rose-cut diamond earrings from the 1860s with a Sherman Field 18K anchor chain bracelet made last year. On paper, this kind of breaks the rules. In practice, it is the most interesting arm-and-ear combination I own. The reason it works is material consistency: warm gold, white diamonds, handmade construction. The eras are different, but the fundamental values are the same.

When I look across my entire collection, I see a throughline that I didn’t consciously plan but that my eye enforced: warm gold tones, black and white contrast, and dimensional forms. The Angela Cummings earrings are black jade on gold. The Victorian drop earrings are white diamonds on black enamel on gold. The EREDE studs are white diamonds in ribbed gold. The platinum bombé ring and the white gold cluster ring are the only cool-toned pieces, and they’re both diamond-heavy cocktail rings that exist in their own evening context.

If you want to mix eras successfully, here is the rule I’d offer: pick your metal family and stay in it. If you live in warm gold, stay in warm gold across centuries. If you’re a platinum-and-white-gold person, commit to that. The era can change. The silhouette can change. The designer can change. But the color temperature of the metal is what makes everything on your body look like it belongs to one person rather than five different people who got dressed in the dark.

Can you mix metals? 100%. But think of it like building a wardrobe: you want great jeans, but you don’t want all jeans, all the time, right?

For me, the one exception is contrast pieces. Like a single cool-toned cocktail ring against an otherwise warm-gold hand, for instance, can be the most arresting thing in the room.

How to Buy Well

Price, Patience, and the Dealer Relationship

I have never paid retail replacement value for anything in my collection. Not once. I’m consistently buying at 40 to 70 cents on the dollar of what it would cost to replace each piece today. This is honestly a combination of luck and method.

Buy from resale platforms early and often. The RealReal, 1stDibs, Farfetch pre-owned, and The ReSee in Paris are where I’ve found some of my favorite pieces. These platforms are the great equalizer. Pending condition (and that’s a big one) you are buying the same object that a retail customer pays full price for, minus the boutique experience and the shopping bag.

Cultivate one or two dealers and be loyal. That relationship means I get first look at incoming pieces that match my taste. The dealer knows I like bold forms, warm gold, old cuts, and enamel work. They set things aside. You cannot replicate this on the internet. The algorithm does not know you like that, babe! At Richter’s in Palm Beach, Emma Richter immediately clocked my Angela Cummings for Tiffany earrings and instantly got my vibe. I didn’t buy anything that day, but now she knows what I like, we have each other’s numbers, and she’s texting me things she comes across at auction, estates and shows. Do you really think your girls Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are just floating into F.D. Gallery and pulling from the case?

Know your designers. I bought my Lucy Delius necklace at a great price because the designer is a friend. I bought some of my Sherman Field bracelets at meaningful discounts, but the first thing I ever bought was full-price before I ever knew Danielle. This is not about extracting favors. It is about existing in a community of people who make beautiful things and supporting them directly, which sometimes comes with the privilege of insider pricing. If you love an independent jewelry designer’s work, buy from them directly, wear their pieces visibly, and tag them when it’s appropriate. The relationship builds from there.

Understand the difference between purchase price and replacement value. Your insurance company does not care what you paid! They care what it would cost to replace the piece at current retail or equivalent market value. This is why you should always log the higher number. Say you have a pair of earrings that were appraised at $7,000 several years ago and you paid $3,500. The replacement value today is $7,500 to $9,000. That’s the number that goes on the insurance policy—not what you paid, not what you could sell them for tomorrow, but what it would cost to find another pair of equivalent quality, era, and condition.

Building a Wardrobe, Not a Vault

If it lives in a safe deposit box, it is inventory!

I wear my jewelry. All of it. Nothing sits. This is important because it shapes how I buy. Every potential purchase has to answer one question: when will I wear this? If the answer is “special occasions,” it had better be extraordinary. If the answer is “every day,” it had better be indestructible. If the answer is “I don’t know, but it’s beautiful,” I walk away.

The way I like to collect, a collection is functional. I’m not a “wait for fancy guests to use the good silverware” person. I say use the good silverware every day. Same mindset for jewelry. Just insure it and be smart about when and where you wear your pieces. If Kim Kardashian has taught us anything, it’s not to flaunt your diamonds on Instagram.

Think of your jewelry collection the way you think about your closet: you need the everyday pieces (studs, a chain, a bracelet), the occasion pieces (cocktail rings, chandeliers, a serious watch), and the bridge pieces that move between both worlds (a great pair of gold hoops, a diamond drop earring, a vintage brooch that pins to a blazer lapel on Tuesday and a black dress on Saturday). If any of those three categories is empty, you have a gap. A gap isn’t bad, it’s a challenge, it’s a hunt! You have a whole life to acquire these things. Take it slow. Savor it.

What to Collect Next: The Lifetime View

A collection is never finished. But it should have a direction!

My collection is pretty well-rounded. But here’s what I’m looking for next, some of which is structured as a framework you can apply to your own collection.

The everyday chain. I don’t have one yet. Something heavy, warm gold, handmade, that I put on and never take off. Not a pendant necklace, not a layering piece, not a locket. One chain, maybe 18 inches. This is the foundation piece of any serious jewelry wardrobe, and I’ve been waiting for the right one rather than settling. Sherman Field makes a chain that would be the natural choice given my existing relationship with the brand. But a vintage Cartier or Bulgari chain from the 1970s would add the estate-meets-modern tension that defines my best pieces. I’m holding out for the moment of recognition.

The right-hand ring. Say I have two cocktail rings (the platinum bombé and the white gold cluster), both of which are evening pieces. What I’d be missing is the ring I wear on a Tuesday—a signet, a cigar band, or an interesting thick gold band. This is a piece that a friend could make for me, or that I could find as a gorgeous Georgian or Victorian gold band at one of my antique dealers. It needs to have the weight and warmth of my bracelets but exist on the hand rather than the wrist. I think if you wear a wedding ring daily, you need a right-hand ring of some sort to make it look right. That’s my opinion!

The Victorian brooch worn as a pendant. We have Art Deco’d to death. Murder on the dance floor. She dead. But Victorian? I already love the era. A gold and diamond starburst, a crescent moon, or a floral spray brooch—something I can pin to a chain and wear at the throat? This bridges my antique collection and my everyday gold.

The museum-quality signed antique. Long term. A Castellani, a Carlo Giuliano, a Fabergé, or an early Cartier Art Deco brooch. This is the piece that anchors a collection with historical weight—the one that a curator would want to borrow. I’m not hunting for it. I’m letting it find me. But I’ll know it when I see it, because by the time it crosses my path, I’ll have spent years training my eye on exactly this kind of object.

THE TL/DR: MY COLLECTOR COMMANDMENTS

1. BUY THE OBJECT, NOT THE NAME. Learn to see before you read the stamp. A magnificent unsigned piece will outlast and outshine a mediocre signed one every time. The provenance premium is real—understand it, and decide when it’s worth paying and when it’s not.

2. KEEP THE METAL PALETTE COMPLIMENTARY: Mix eras, mix designers, mix silhouettes—but stay in your metal family. The color temperature of your gold or platinum is the invisible thread that makes everything on your body look intentional.

3. NEVER PAY RETAIL IF YOU CAN HELP IT: Resale platforms, estate dealers, designer relationships, and patience will consistently get you the same object at 40 to 70 cents on the replacement dollar. The boutique experience is not worth the markup, unless the boutique experience is the point, in which case, go off!

1. CULTIVATE DEALER RELATIONSHIPS: Find one or two antique dealers whose taste overlaps with yours, buy from them repeatedly, and let them learn your eye. The best pieces will never make it to the display case.

2. WEAR EVERYTHING: A piece that lives in a safe is not part of your heart. Before you buy, answer: when will I wear this? If the answer is never or someday, put it down. Unless of course you’re Princess Kate, in which case, what are you doing here girl?

3. PRIORITIZE CRAFTSMANSHIP, QUALITY AND WEIGHT OVER SCALE: A small, heavy, beautifully made piece will always feel more expensive than a large, light, flashy one. Hold it in your hand before you look at it on your body. This is when you want a fat booty and not an Ozempic diamond.

4. INSURE YOUR COLLECTION: Your insurance company doesn’t care what you paid. They care what it costs to replace. Always log the higher number. Get the pieces with uncertain carat weights professionally appraised. Protect the collection you’ve built.

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Air travel has been spotty at best lately. Twice already this year, I’ve landed somewhere without my luggage, both times with an event looming.

You know what’s in just about every city? A Sephora.

This is when everything I know about beauty products actually matters. I’m not browsing. I’m not curious. I’m not here for the new launch or whatever showed up in my TikTok feed on the plane. I’m in lizard-brain mode — power-shopping for the exact things I know will work, on my face, tonight, with no margin for error.

These are my ride-or-dies! The stuff that has survived every gifted alternative and every phase where I thought I’d found something better.

I’ve mentioned most of these products before, scattered across years of newsletters and recommendations. But I’ve never sat down and put them all together, and after the second lost-luggage incident, I figured it was time. Think of this as the text I’d send if you called me from Sephora with twenty minutes to pull it together. Because I’ve been there, sis.

The Sephora Savings Event is coming soon, 4/10-4/20! Everything is on sale; use code SPRINGSALE to shop as many times as you want, the code has no limit to how much you can use it. Rouge gets 20% off from 4/10-4/20, VIB 15% off from 4/14-4/20, Insider 10% off from 4/14-4/20. All Sephora Collection will be 30% off from 4/10-4/20.

P.S. You can shop my full Sephora storefront.

And remember, you can always refer to our skincare glossary to look up ingredients.

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SKIN PREP

U Beauty — The BARRIER Bioactive Treatment

PDRN — polynucleotide — is a DNA repair ingredient that was, until recently, mostly used in clinical settings. U Beauty put it in an overnight treatment, and the result is legitimately noticeable skin texture improvement after one use. I apply it the evening before anything that matters, and my skin holds product differently the following day. It’s smoother and more receptive.

Dieux — Deliverance 3-in-1 Repair Serum

Niacinamide for redness, tranexamic acid for hyperpigmentation, peptides for barrier support — Dieux put three actives in one serum and somehow managed not to make it irritating. I have sensitive skin that reddens easily, and this is the one thing that has consistently improved my overall tone. I always like to have it on hand when I travel because it’s a fix-all for skin freakouts in new climates.

Tatcha — The Dewy Skin Cream

Hadasei-3 complex is Tatcha’s blend of green tea, rice, and algae — it sounds like a lot, but it reads on the skin as just very good hydration, the kind that plumps without pilling under anything on top of it.

Ultra Violette — Future Screen SPF 50 Mineral Sunscreen Serum

Mineral SPF without the white cast or the texture of a cream — it’s zinc-based but formulated to apply like a serum, which means it actually layers under makeup instead of balling up under it. I press it in while my skin is still slightly damp from moisturizer. SPF 50, fragrance-free, and it disappears. A perfect primer.

BASE FACE

M.ph by Mary Phillips — Underpainting Face Highlight & Contour Palette

Mary Phillips built her technique around working with the face’s existing shadow and light rather than drawing on top of it — this palette is that philosophy in product form. The contour is cool-toned and matte, which is what makes it read as shadow rather than bronzer. I apply it with a fluffy brush under the cheekbones and along the perimeter of the forehead. My face looks better in person, but in pictures it’ll really knock your socks off.

Westman Atelier — Vital Skincare Complexion Drops in Atelier III

The formula is skin-care forward — hyaluronic acid, squalane, vitamin C — so it functions as much as a treatment as a base. The finish is dewy without being wet, and Atelier III is the exact shade of my skin when it’s behaving. Apply it with a damp BeautyBlender.

Saie — Sun Melt Natural Cream Bronzer in Light Bronze

Cream formulas pick up and blend with the skin’s own oils in a way powder never quite replicates; the result looks lit rather than dusted. I use my fingers, which sounds imprecise but is actually the best tool for this: a little product warmed on the fingertips, pressed across the temples, the top of the forehead, lightly over the cheekbones. It never reads orange.

Westman Atelier — Baby Cheeks Lip + Cheek Blush Stick in Bichette

The pigment is sheer and buildable, which matters — a blush stick that goes on too intensely is almost impossible to correct! Bichette is a cool-leaning rose that mimics capillary flush, which is why it reads as your own color. I tap it on with a finger, blend upward toward the temple. It works on the lips too, pressed directly onto the center and diffused out.

Laura Mercier — Real Flawless Translucent Pressed Powder in Translucent Honey

The technique is pressing, not dusting — the included sponge picks up just enough pressed powder to set without layering. I concentrate it on the T-zone and under the eyes, where creasing happens. Translucent Honey is specifically formulated to avoid the flashback and ashiness that most translucent powders deposit on medium-to-deeper skin tones.

Saie — CitySet Ultra-Fine Mist Setting Spray

The mist is ultra-fine, which means it doesn’t disturb what’s underneath; it just softens the edges between products. I hold it about eight inches from my face, two spritzes, let it dry without touching. My makeup looks the same at 10 pm as it did at 8 am. Boom.

EYES & BROWS

Glossier — Boy Brow in Brown

The wax-and-fiber formula coats and lifts each brow hair individually rather than mattifying the whole brow into one drawn-on shape. I’ve been using it since 2016, and I have genuinely never found a reason to rotate it out. One swipe, maybe a second pass on any strays. My brows look full, groomed, and entirely like mine.

Sarah Creal — Eyes Up 24H Creamy Kajal Longwear Eyeliner in Rich Cocoa

A kajal formula means it’s soft enough to apply on the waterline without tugging, and the Rich Cocoa shade is warm enough that it opens the eye rather than making it look heavy or aged, the way black can. I apply it along the upper and lower waterlines and lightly smudge it with a fingertip. The 24-hour claim is not marketing mumbo-jumbo — I have tested this many times in the elements of New York City, and it has held!

ILIA — Fullest Volumizing Mascara

The brush is a full, rounded doe-foot shape that deposits a lot of product without requiring multiple passes — two coats and the lashes are coated, separated, and visibly thicker without any of the clumping that usually comes with volumizing formulas. It also doesn’t flake by midday, which used to be my constant complaint.

LIPS

Sarah Creal — Lip Grip Peptide Priming Treatment

The peptide complex here does two things — it fills in fine lines on the lip surface so color applies evenly, and it creates a tackiness that keeps everything on top of it from migrating. I apply a thin layer and let it set for thirty seconds before going in with color. My lip products last visibly longer when I use this. It’s not a glamorous step, but it changes the outcome.

M.ph by Mary Phillips — The Overliner Lip Liner in Double Shot

The trick with overlining is shade selection — too dark, and it looks crazy. Double Shot is a warm, skin-toned nude that maps almost exactly onto the shadow just outside my natural lip line, so the effect is volume rather than pencil. I trace about a millimeter past my lip border, then press my lips together to soften. People ask about my lips being “done”. I credit this.

Summer Fridays — Soft Serve Lip Butter Balm

A shea and mango butter base means these wear like a treatment rather than a gloss — they condition while they color. Birthday Cake is my everyday shade. The scent is also genuinely nostalgic, a little shot of joy every time you apply.

HAIR

Crown Affair — The Hair Oil

Squalane and moringa oil are the formula’s centerpiece, both of which absorb quickly and don’t oxidize the way some heavier oils do — meaning no rancid smell after a few hours, which is something I did not know to look for until I encountered it. I use a few drops, emulsified between my palms, then work through the mid-lengths and ends on damp hair before I blow-dry or after I air-dry. The shine doesn’t come at the cost of volume!

Chris McMillan — The Smooth and Tame Hair Wand

What a nifty little tool. I use it to smooth zany baby hairs on my crown and the pieces around my face, then toss it in my bag. It’s also amazing for those slick-back days. Chris McMillan has been doing Jennifer Aniston’s hair for thirty years. That's enough credentials for me!

TOOLS

Beautyblender — Original Beautyblender

A damp Beautyblender bounces rather than drags, which means it presses product into the skin for a natural-looking finish. Product doesn’t sink into the sponge either, so a little bit goes a long way. It is not replaceable by any “dupe” I’ve tried.

Sephora Collection — The Total Brush Set

Brush density and shape determine whether a product diffuses or deposits — a too-sparse brush sheers out the color you wanted opaque; a too-dense one places product exactly where you don’t want it. This set is well-engineered for the price: the tapered powder brush is the one I use daily for bronzer and blush, the flat foundation brush doubles as a contour tool, and the smaller detail brushes are precise without being fussy. Everything you need, without an eye-watering price tag. All Sephora Collection will be 30% off from 4/10-4/20.

Shiseido — Eyelash Curler

The curl bar is slightly wider than most, which means it catches more lashes per press and holds the curve without crimping. I clamp at the base for three seconds, then walk the curler up the lash in two more passes. Nothing I’ve found makes my eyes look more open without any product involved. An un-skippable step!

SHOP THE SALE

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• Maybe it’s all the tulips in my house right now, but I’m especially into PINK this spring. Liffner has a powdery lizard turnlock clutch that hearkens to the glam boudoir vibe of The Grill’s ladies’ room (a suede option from Khaite if you fear no liquid), while Westman Atelier just launched their blockbuster Baby Cheeks stick in a peppy shade of watermelon. Donni’s taffeta silk pants somehow make more sense with a perfect white tee than a fancy shoe. Toteme has slim and crispy shirting. Attersee has a bubblegum cotton shirtdress that’s already restocking after an early-season sellout. Even Maria McManus is getting in on the season's shade: her new denim collaboration with AGOLDE centers the color on slouchy, oversized silhouettes — my favorite is this shirt. Or maybe just a little something, like a tiny Hermes change purse or the wink of pink embroidery on Sezane’s enduring Conrad t-shirt?

• Speaking of pink, is the new Chanel giving fashion permission to be fun again?

• It’s officially TRENCH WEATHER. Some of us wait all year for this important but fleeting moment. Today I learned from that “it’s called a trench coat because it’s what people would wear during WWI while literally (digging) in the trenches in the rain.” Fashion, you’re the weirdest! Anyway, Toteme seems to have cornered the market this season with a panoply of options; fire engine red, caped, car coat, slinky satin… taste the rainbow, baby.

• Kallmeyer has finally given us that tremendously cool scarf blazer from last season’s runway. I do love a subversively preppy navy when the weather warms. If scarves aren’t your thing, RUADH has a slick riff on the style in a decisive cut.

• Speaking of outerwear, if last spring was dominated by the barn jacket, this one is all about the windbreaker. Options? The limit does not exist. Rohe! Attersee! TWP! Saint Laurent! Idk if this Dries is technically more trench-y, but the vibes qualify.

• Doen just issued a sexy collab with optical brand Garrett Leight — the retro “Ingenue” style cries out for a headscarf and a 1960’s convertible. After the bonnet/babushka winter we had, I definitely feel a headscarf summer brewing…

• Easter is right around the bend, which means if you’re old-fashioned and obey “the rules”, permission to wear white is nearly granted. But none of that stuffy attitude here: why wait? I like Tibi’s weirdo exposed-seam jeans (which closed the spring runway), the architecture of FFORME and Rohe’s sculptural cotton pieces, and the dorky-cool, twee way The Row has styled their evergreen Liisa pumps with a white sock.

• I’m headed back to Palm Beach, where it’s always Easter Sunday… at least judging by the way women dress there. And while I’m all for a (vintage!) Lilly or Pucci moment, I think the coolest girls are taking the splashy colors and prints of coastal Florida into their own hands, embracing dress brands like Alemais, Cala de la Cruz, Zankov, and Temily, or leaning into their sportier side with clubby (bath and tennis club, not night club) bits from Prada and High Sport. I would sooner have a lobotomy than wear a print in most cases, so catch me in lightweight, resort-appropriate solids from Matteau, Alaia, and Khaite that will pull double-duty out East this summer.

• Polo shirts are really having a moment, aren’t they? I like the classic sportswear vibes of this High Sport number and this baby from Soft Goat, but the dangerously plunging neckline of this Prada would be so cool over a swimsuit if you got it like that.

• These look really hot on the foot. Same with these.

• Emme Parsons’ new spring arrivals are all yum, but these in particular are singing my song for their ability to morph from a day to evening shoe.

• I guess it was inevitable that Desert Vintage would collaborate with The Row. But with their keen sourcing, they have also countered the argument of every person who has complained to me that there’s no such thing as a cool puffer. Boom. (See also.)

• So… Gala pants, but make them shorts? I’m in.

• I want this for my wedding day SO MUCH.

• The Rare Finds section of The Real Real is really something. Like, hello?

• I would like to carry a bitch around in this.

• Thank you, God, Allah, Jesus, The Universe, The Divine, and for Crown Affair’s repackaged dry shampoo in a cute purse-sized container!!!

• I dare you to wear one of these.

• You’re about to see these on every Row-clad minimalist influencer out there (complimentary).

• Has anyone tried Paire? Please report back.

• My parting style challenge to you this week: how about a little electric blue? Maybe like this, or this, or this? If you take the dare, lmk.

TWP’s vibe lands somewhere between a Helmut Newton shoot and a Nancy Meyers movie. The clothes represent an idyllic version of the peripatetic woman’s life, one who exists equally in town and country.

Founder and Designer Trish Wescoat Pound has one of the better second-act stories in American fashion. She built Haute Hippie into a $40 million business, lost it in 2015, retreated to her pattern room, and came back a few years later selling shirts to friends at Miami trunk shows.

One of those friends ran into Andrew Rosen — co-founder of Theory, and as it happened, Trish’s first boss — who complimented the shirt. By the time that lunch ended, TWP had a business partner. That origin story matters because it explains everything about the clothes: they started as something a woman made for women she actually knew, and they have never stopped being exactly that.

TWP is almost five years old and already on the CFDA calendar. The line — made within a two-block radius in SoHo, cut from Italian fabrics — has developed the kind of fervor that produces scenes like the one I recently saw in Palm Beach, where women descended on her clothes in hordes. I sat down with Trish to talk about starting over, what she puts in her bag, and why thong underwear is, um.. behind her.

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Jess Graves: You just introduced bags! Which are you reaching for most right now — and what’s actually inside it?

Trish Wescoat Pound: Right now, it’s our Howard Street Bag. I made one for myself in dark chocolate python - rich, understated, a little dangerous in the best way. It feels grounded but still indulgent. Very Paris.

JG: What’s in it at the moment?

TWP: Honestly? A hot mess. I organize it every morning with the best intentions, but by midday, it’s chaos again. I’m one of those people who has to set the entire bag on the ground and excavate it to find anything, no matter how carefully I’ve arranged it hours before. Inside right now, somewhere:

• My  Passport,  airline tickets, and a baggage claim stub

• The best pencils, some post-its, a leather notebook… plus a stack of linesheets

• Chantecaille mascara

• Westman Atelier coverup, blush, lips

• David Mallet salt spray

It’s a traveling office, vanity, and filing cabinet all at once.

JG: What’s the last thing you bought that solved a real problem in your day-to-day life?

TWP: A Topologie phone cord - the kind you can wear around your neck. Jorden Bickham introduced me to them. I was constantly losing my phone - in taxis, showrooms, and buried in my bag. It was becoming ridiculous. Now it just lives on me. Mine is bright green, which I love. It solved a very real, very daily problem. And I haven’t lost my phone since!

JG: Ooh, good for travel too. What’s one object you’ll never travel without, no matter how short the trip?

TWP: My Boy Crew sweater. I genuinely won’t go anywhere without it. Beaches, cities, flights - it’s always with me. There’s something about a great cashmere sweater that feels like armor and comfort at the same time. I love cashmere in general, but this one in particular has become a constant. It works everywhere — thrown over a slip dress, with denim, over a swimsuit, wrapped around my shoulders on a flight. The piece that makes wherever I am feel familiar!

JG: What’s the most beautiful functional object you own?

TWP: This question makes me want to buy more beautiful, functional things. I love a flask. For our Fall runway show, we made flasks designed to be worn around the neck. It’s practical, a little rebellious - definitely a conversation starter. Mine only has tequila in it. There’s something I’m always drawn to about objects that live in that space between utility and adornment. When something works hard but also makes a statement - that’s when it feels truly considered.

JG: I saw those flasks at the runway show and coveted them immediately. So decadent and cool! Where do you splurge without hesitation — and where are you surprisingly disciplined?

TWP: I splurge on travel - unapologetically. Travel, travel, travel. And food that truly feeds me. Experiences that expand me, inspire me, and change my perspective. I would spend my last dollar on a plane ticket or a meal that feels transporting. For me, those things are creative fuel. They inform how I see color, texture, people, and movement. Disciplined might not be the word I’d use to describe myself - not exactly my calling card. But I can be surprisingly restrained with the small, transactional things. Groceries, for example. The escalation of everyday costs feels outrageous to me, so I’ll question the little purchases. I’m thoughtful about the ordinary.

JG: What’s the most complimented item in your wardrobe?

TWP: My long reversible shearling coat. It never fails. I’m stopped constantly when I wear it. I’ve always believed outerwear makes the outfit. You can be in the simplest thing underneath - even sweats - but throw on the right coat and the entire look shifts. Sweats under shearling is actually one of my favorite combinations. It’s chic, but it’s also deeply functional - the balance I’m always chasing. (Our Long Aspen is unfortunately sold out, but we do have a shorter version available.)

JG: What’s a piece you’ve owned for years that still feels relevant every time you use it?

TWP: Vintage Levi’s just get better. A truly great pair is life-changing. The fit, the weight of the denim, and the way they soften over time. They work with everything, too: a button-down, a cashmere crew, a tailored coat, heels, or boots.

JG: God, good vintage denim just cannot be improved upon. What’s your non-negotiable when it comes to design — the thing you always notice first?

TWP: Fabrication. Always. It’s where we start. Andrew and I are truly fabric geeks. We work closely with our Italian mills and spend an enormous amount of time on development. The hand is the foundation. Something can look incredible on a hanger or in a photo, but if the hand isn’t right - if the fabric doesn’t feel as good as it looks - I won’t buy it. If the material doesn’t support the price point, it’s a no for me. The other non-negotiable is fit. You can have the most beautiful fabric in the world, but if the fit is off, it doesn’t matter.

JG: I agree. What’s the point if it doesn’t fit? I ruthlessly edit by those same standards. In that spirit, what’s one thing you’ve stopped buying altogether?

TWP: Thong underwear. At some point, I just decided: no more. Comfort wins, always.

JG: I cannot think of anything less cool than a thong. Discomfort is not luxurious. What does “luxury” actually mean to you, in practice?

TWP: Luxury is an intention. It’s time - time to develop something properly, to think it through, not to rush it. It’s ease - pieces that truly work in a woman’s life - ones she reaches for without thinking. And, ultimately, it’s quality and longevity. Something that stays relevant, that lives in your wardrobe for years. That, to me, is real luxury.

JG: Buy fewer, better things, take good care of them, wear them often! My ethos, too. It helps you edit mentally, as well. If someone wanted to understand your taste in five objects or fewer, what would you point them to?

1. TWP: Chunky cashmere. A substantial crew — especially at the end of cashmere season when it’s perfectly worn in.

2. Sneakers or worn-in Birks. Right now, I’m in the SFTM Adidas collaboration, but an old pair of Birkenstocks I’ve lived in says just as much. I like the contrast - polished but easy.

3. Vintage Levi’s. Denim on denim, always. I love my Levi’s.

4. Jewelry with meaning. A lab-grown diamond choker, or a stack of signet rings - with my daughter’s initials, mine. Pieces that are personal, worn for a reason.

5. A great bag or a piece of outerwear. One strong finishing piece. A great coat or bag can carry everything else. That combination - texture, ease, sentiment, and one defining statement - feels like me.

JG: Birkenstocks and denim, a perfect weekend uniform. Describe your perfect Sunday.

TWP: Home. In bed, watching a documentary or a great movie, with Jillian and my dog Theo. Simple. Or waking up in Paris together, heading straight to our favorite flea market, Paul Bert at Saint-Ouen. A sunny, full day spent walking around, inspired by all the objects of desire one can find there.

More Designer Dossier…

Greetings from somewhere above the Atlantic. I’m returning to the city after what may have been my best birthday ever. It kicked off with seeing Harry Styles play both host and musical guest at Saturday Night Live (a birthday treat hooked up by a very cool friend), followed by a glamorous after-party at The Grill.

Harry’s LEWKS were as exciting to me as the show itself — he donned everything from new Chanel to women’s Valentino, then finished strong with Zoe Kravitz at the afters wearing that new Connor Ives:

I got about three hours of sleep and was back on a plane by 11 am the following morning. (I wore this comfy French terry polo and pant set with a Row trench.)

Despite a couple of re-routes due to closed Presidential airspace (woof), we touched down in Palm Beach in plenty of time for a celebratory birthday dinner at Donna Karan’s swanky new waterfront restaurant, Tutto al Mare (yes, sister to Sag Harbor and Southampton’s al Giorno), with friends old and new. (We were too busy celebrating to watch the Oscars, but my favorite looks were Jessie Buckley, styled by Danielle Goldberg, and Pedro Pascal’s custom Chanel.)

After a relaxing handful of days, I’m headed into the next year of my life feeling rested and deliriously happy, having had a phenomenal trip where people really showed up for me and made me feel special.

Cheers to the privilege of aging.

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• In Palm Beach, we stayed in the Goop Villa at The Colony Hotel, which was just as chic and well-appointed as I remember it. I went for the opening a few years ago when everything was brand new, and they’ve kept it up well. This is my third time staying there, so it felt homey and familiar. (Every detail is considered, thanks in no small part to , who played a heavy hand in designing it.) If you’re traveling with a group, the villa has two spacious bedrooms and three beds, plus a gracious living area and functional kitchen. The hotel is dog-friendly, as is the villa, and we had a great time hanging out at Swifty’s and people-watching. I don’t know if it was the salty air, the pin-quiet bedroom, or the deep soaking tub, but I slept like a baby. It reminded me of why I keep choosing to stay here. Perfect for a girl’s trip.

  

• I didn’t peek at the brand of the sheets in the villa, but they made me miss my bed at home. Not that they were bad! But the crispy cotton of my own percale sets (I mention this because they’re on sale for 20% off rn) makes me homesick when I’m away — they are just so good, especially if you get hot at night. I truly missed them! They regulate my body temp like nothing else. I can’t wait to crawl into them tonight with my puppies.

• My skin loves the Florida humidity. I have to do so little when I’m in the 561! I just washed my face with Biologique Recherche Lait Dermo-S, slapped on a moisturizing sunscreen, and topped it with Victoria Beckham’s trusty Foundation Drops. A few taps of Saie blush, a swipe of Farah Homidi gloss, and I was done. I didn’t even bother with eye makeup.

• Gotta say, humidity doesn’t stress me out now that my hair is long. I just let it air-dry and do its thing (shout-out Nutrafol! Shout out Crown Affair! Shout-out Minoxidil!) when I’m at the beach.

• I have a whole-leg skincare protocol pre-beach: dry-brush, apply Lilis peel to dry legs, rinse. VEET! Then swipe with an exfoliating pad (I like Barefaced polishing pads or their toning pads). I promise you, no bumps, and you won’t even need to pack your razor.

• We had all kinds of fun with this little Super 8-ish camera that looks analog but acts digital. I stashed it in my bag just about everywhere we went and deputized a friend to grab footage. Bonus: it kept us off our phones.

• You’ve probably heard how great the vintage and estate shopping is in Palm Beach, and the rumors are not exaggerated. Lots of wildly rich old people in God’s waiting room, plus gobs of women who ditch wardrobes at the end of the season = wild stuff proliferating the resale shops. The Real Real produced some treasures, but won the day with a great Schiaparelli jacket we found hidden in an offbeat rack. We also did a lightning round at The Church Mouse, the infamous island-based thrift shop where you can find everything from kitschy seashell earrings for $15 to an 80’s Escada tweed suit for $200. I found a little “Town of Palm Beach Police” pin for $2 — a funny inside joke with my Uncle Brad, who, when we lived down there, always used to love to remind me that it’s the only police force in the country where a college degree is required. There’s also a fabulous edit at What Goes Around and a litany of funky consignment shops on Dixie Highway in the Soso district. I always stop on Georgia Avenue to peek at Casa Gusto, too — their boundless imagination with antiques always leaves me agog.

• On the second day of our trip, the skies opened up, and it poured. We made the best of it by doing some soggy shopping on Worth Avenue, where I was on a mission to find my “something blue” for the wedding. We hit all the good estate jewelry stores looking for all things sparkly and sapphire (Richter’s is still the best curation), but came up empty-handed. We didn’t fall short otherwise, though. We found incredible cottons and silks at Kattatly’s, where Mr. Kassatly was still holding court in the century-old linen shop. He helped us pick out quilted housecoats, pajamas, and tableclothes and told us stories about Palm Beach in the 1920’s, when his father ran the shop. After that, we wandered to my favorite little Italian paper shop, Il Papiro, all the way down at the end of Worth. The place is stocked to the hilt with hand-marbled home goods and stationery, and I had a new wastebasket on my wish list. We stopped into Chanel for curiosity’s sake, but they had, predictably, a very geriatric buy — and none of the new Blazy out.

• All this vintage scouting around sent me on a late-night Vestiaire Collective dig. They have a sleepy selection of designer and fine jewelry, but it hits: these Dior earrings, this Cartier cabochon brooch, these David Webb frog cufflinks, and this Dior collar necklace are all destined for some cool collector.

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Wow, y’all really got worked up about the anonymous “Fashion Substacker” making 275k in New York Magazine. First of all, no, it isn’t me. The magazine did reach out and ask me to participate, but I was hyper focused on editing one of the essays in my book and never got back to them. When the number was published, it went bonkers across this platform. Substack even internally reached out to me trying to sniff out the person, presumably to celebrate her, but I think it’s telling what a stir this has made.

It’s my birthday this week, and I wasn’t going to publish a letter. A little break! But no, the internalized misogyny of the internet never rests.

Nobody gasps when a male finance bro announces his bonus. Nobody clutches their pearls when a male podcaster reveals his ad revenue.

A major publication offered to profile my business: to tell the story of The Love List properly, with real numbers, context, the actual arc of what it takes to build something like this. And everyone I trust (people who know this industry, who love me) told me not to do it. Every single one of them said the same thing: it will put a target on your back.

And they’re right. I know they’re right! Because I make significantly more than 275k doing this, and the reaction to that anonymous woman’s number was already uncomfortable enough.

I have been building The Love List for almost twenty years. Through every format shift and platform change and industry implosion, through the death of print and the rise of social and the pivot to newsletters. I have been doing this work, consistently, longer than some of my readers have been adults. And I cannot publicly say what that work is worth without bracing for the kind of scrutiny that no male founder of a twenty-year media brand would ever face. That is the part that makes me tired. Not the work, but the freakin’ calculus I have to do around simply telling the truth about it.

The assumption — baked in, often unconscious — is that a woman writing about beauty and fashion for other women is a hobby dressed up as a job. That the work is soft, so the money should be too. That taste and curation and the labor of genuine expertise don’t count as “real work”. They do!

I got declined for an apartment I wanted once because the guy simply did not believe my income. He could not fathom that a girl writing to girls about girl stuff could make a girl rich. He then asked me to submit financials for my Tax Attorney husband-to-be.

The disdain is even worse, because it isn’t just surprise, it’s resentment. The sense that she “got away” with something. That money attached to a women, attached to a “frivolous” subject, is somehow obscene! It isn’t. What’s obscene is the reflex!!

And can we please retire the idea that this business model is some kind of scam waiting to be exposed? Subscriptions and advertising are how every magazine, newspaper, and media company has made money since the printing press.

This is not a trick. There is no trapdoor. Women building audiences, cultivating trust, and monetizing that relationship through brand partnerships and reader subscriptions is not a hustle that deserves an investigative piece — it’s just media, functioning exactly as it always has. The only thing new is who’s holding the revenue. Newsletters like this one operate on the same fundamental logic as Condé Nast, just without the corporate infrastructure and the thirty-person masthead.

The framing that there's something to expose here, that newsletters like this one owe the internet a confession, is condescending. I make recommendations. My readers trust me because I've earned it, and some of those recommendations come with affiliate revenue or paid partnerships, all of which I disclose. And if the model bothers you, you have options: You can unsubscribe. You can opt out. You can go read something written by someone who makes less money and see if that improves your experience. The free will is right there. Use it.

I am telling you this: the discomfort or disbelief you feel when a woman is compensated well for work you’ve decided isn’t serious is yours to deal with. I’ve got a newsletter to write.