The List: Enormously Decadent, Mega-Jumbo Bottles of Fancy Moisturizer, and Other Seasonal Delights.

Stock-ups and pop-ups!

Let the stock-up begin.

Big, well-advertised sales like Amazon Prime Day and Nordstrom’s Anniversary Sale are designed to create urgency. Retailers run discounts for a short window, which incentivizes people to gobble up bargains — and potentially over-consume.

My number one recommendation is to use these sales to grab the items you already buy at a lower price than you usually pay. This will avoid decision fatigue (and a whopping Amex bill).

The smartest buys are what I call the “stock-ups and swap-outs”: socks, underwear, activewear, beauty/grooming, luggage, back-to-school, and home. These are the things you go through a lot of, the stuff that needs replacing, and the un-sexy but necessary items (vacuum cleaners, teacher’s wish lists) that get us through life.

For example, if you’re already a daily Augustinus Bader Rich Cream user, the super-jumbo bottle is down from $540 to $430 during Anniversary Sale — a significant savings. I love Lunya’s Washable Silk Short Pajamas and cycle in a new set every year. So I’m going to catch them on markdown. I also need setting powder and setting spray …because summer. I love that I get one of Hourglass’ super nice brushes in the set, and I prefer the mini bottles of setting spray for portability — during the sale, it’s two for one. That’s a purchase that makes sense to me.

These sales are also a great opportunity to toss expired makeup and replace favorites at a better value, like my beloved Westman Atelier highlighters and bronzers. I always keep these zit patches around. And everyone I know raves about these expandable Longchamp bags for bringing back their Euro summer shopping hauls.

I’m a grown-ass woman who never has to go to class again, but I still love school supplies. Back-to-school shopping was the best. Second-grade me would have died for these pastel gel pens. If you have some extra room in your budget, reach out to your kid’s incoming teacher and ask if there’s anything she needs for her classroom that the school won’t pony up for. Prime Day also has loads of stuff for the college set. The obvious laptops and bedsheets aside, may I suggest a water flosser? Dentist appointments will be few and far between the next four years.

If you’re the plan-ahead type, it’s also a great time to buy and stash away gifts. For example, if you have a little in your life like my nephew who lives in Crocs, you know Jibbtz on sale = a win. My sister will hate these light-up numbers, which means I’ll absolutely be buying those for him, too. He blows through clothes, either from playing outside or growing like a weed; this t-shirt has his name all over it. His birthday is in September, so I’ll snag it a size up and save it for then. For a big kid, an instant camera makes a great gift — or even for an adult. I keep one around and snap photos of dinner party guests, Warhol-style.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t get yourself a little treat if you see something you love! These Celine sunglasses are a lively vacation snag at Anniversary pricing. (These too!) If you’re a home cook, my Mom swears by her Instant Pot for stocks and soups. Or maybe the discount means it’s finally time to get that Vitamix you've been wanting. You get it.

Anyway, that’s enough of that. Onto this week’s list.

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The List:

Toteme’s Filicui pop-up.

• I love summer retail. Its frivolity aligns so well with the time of year. Not to say these concepts aren’t substantive, but who really needs luxury skincare? This is shopping for pleasure’s sake. Goop, ever the tuned-in team, is popping up in Il Buco Vita, one of my favorite Amagansett spots, with a curated pharmacie of French beauty favorites that I am excited to visit. And our friends at Toteme (coincidentally the team that introduced me to Il Buco, just weeks after I moved to New York) have erected a pop-up in the very iykyk Filicudi, awash in blue to match its perch overlooking the sea. Similarly quaint, Malene Birger has chosen the Greek island of Hydra (at Melisses Gallery) for their summer residency, which, striking a similar note to The Row’s presence in Amagansett, will feature a curation of items worth the ferry from Athens. Per Forbes, that means “a special curation of titles by Hydra Book Club (founded by American-born curator and local resident Josh Hickey), bespoke monogrammed pottery by ceramicist Vittoria Berardinone, beeswax candles from the local port, olive oil soap by Rafalias Pharmacy and Mediterranean tea by Daphis and Chloé.” To all the girls in our chat volleying travel recs, take note!

• MyTheresa’s second-annual summer pop-up with Flamingo Estate deserves a bullet point of its own. I was in town for the opening party, which I can only describe as “surprise and delight-ning in a bottle.” As an elaborate and joyful toy race track whizzes around, shoppers can peruse an enormous former East Hampton auto body shop packed to the brim with MyTheresa’s trend-driven buy of clothes, shoes, bags, and fine jewelry. It’s like a high-concept department store. To the left, Flamingo Estate’s Inconvenience Store flanks the track, which, like last year, is merched with a generous spread of the brand’s garden-driven delights. At the dinner I hosted with Alex Mill a while back, Alimentari Flaneur’s Daniel Soares, our resident renaissance man and gourmand, introduced me to Harry’s Berrys. They’re like, thirty dollars a pint, but the best strawberry you have ever tasted. Richard at Flamingo has fashioned Harry’s into a dehydrated, spicy, jammy treat jarred up and on offer that’s very “if you only get one thing.”

Flamingo Estate’s “Inconvenience Store” at MyTheresa’s Railroad Racetrack East Hampton pop-up. No detail was overlooked, down to the brown paper grocery sacks that say, “Mother Nature is the last great luxury house.”

• I’m biased about our chat, but it’s one of my favorite places on the Internet. The women there are so cool! I see you all asking for Paris shopping recs, making friends, sharing beauty intel, and debating the merits of shoe fits and jewelry quality. If you’re not there yet, not only is it a great community, but it might be one of the only places online where you can get answers about fit, fabrication, and care directly from brand founders like Emme Parsons, Alisa from High Sport, and

  Megan Alida Strachan
  from Dorsey. Ghia’s
  Melanie Masarin
  once gave the whole gang her Matches login so we could take advantage of deeper private sale discounts! A girl’s girl if there ever was one.

• I get a lot of DMs and emails about belts. I get that. It’s kind of a tough hunt, given you’re generally choosing between something very good-looking but ubiquitous (and potentially prohibitively expensive) like Khaite’s Benny belt or something affordable but blah. Dechance and Aureum have become my go-to recs, given their heft and proximity to Khaite’s styles at a more competitive price point. (JESS20 for 20% off at Aureum. You can always check our codes page for updated discounts.)

• I think I’ve finally found my white summer bag.