Two of my vorite bloggers wrote about Louis Vuitton just recently.
I need to add to my earlier post. Let me hasten to add, it&8217;s nothing specific you all have said, just a set of feeling and thoughts I&8217;ve had since I wrote this morning. Probably unthinkable and unfeelable until I got that first part out of the way.
Green Beaded via Bluefly
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You might be interested in a philosophy for bathing suit coverups. &8220;Wait,&8221; you say, &8220;Philosophies are not required in this realm. Just throw on any dang thing!&8221; But think about it for a minute.
A winner was born.Diane Sibon, congratulations! Please email me at the Skye Peale address to the right, with your address, and I will ship these off tout de suite.
Have a lovely weekend. I hope your dear ones are sleeping nearby.
Jewelry lovers are not left out of the fun. Alexis Bittar, my vorite non-precious metal guy, has abig sale on now. Just in case you were dreaming of bronze Lucite danglers. Don&8217;t we all want to participate in the Steven Tyler-induced feather trend? Down from $295 to $147.50. Black tee, black pants, and you&8217;re surprising all kinds of people.
Deconstruction aside, I encourage you, if this is happening to someone in your life, to forgive. To anneal, if you can, what&8217;s shattered. It may or may not be their ult, and in any case, there&8217;s no more to be gained from shame. What matters is the children, and that&8217;s where we ought to focus our societal heart.
Brora. Classic styling with a slight edge, low v, arms a little long, banded waist, hand to die for, i.e. strong, a little prickle that softens to heavenly. List price 195, on sale for 145. (This comes out to about $225. Conversion viaXE,but we&8217;re full service around here.)Kept, with the hope of more in future.
I do love giving you guys presents. I think I&8217;ll try to beat the bushes for some more giveaways.
Floaty Blue viaLotty B.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Perfectly serviceable.True Navy is just that, true. Not too dark, not too purple, not too perky. V is moderately deep. No shaping of note, but nothing wrong either. I worry only that the cashmere is slippery because, as theQueen of Cashmere told us in her extremely useful interview here, it&8217;s of lower quality and has been &8220;washed&8221; for this effect. We will have to see how the knit endures.
Or visit Delia Loyd, who often writes about how to stay married, atReal Delia.
And there you have it.
In case you are thinking, &8220;Oh that looks complicated,&8221; here&8217;s what, it&8217;s not.Behold the instructions. I pull my hair back with one hand, as though for a high ponytail. Then I hold the ponytail and twist. Just before the twist starts to kink, I wrap it around the place where a rubber band would be. If, of course, this were a ponytail, which it isn&8217;t. Then I take the fork in my free hand, turn it upside down with the curve of the prongs cing away from me, dig it into the top of the formed bun, and then flip it so the tine are now pointing down and curved towards my head.. Then I gently wiggle it back down through my hair next to my scalp, until firmly imbedded. In my hair, not my scalp. You&8217;d think I didn&8217;t need to say that, but given my lack of small coordination, in ct, I do.
Now if you purchase without a philosophy, you&8217;re at risk of winding up bedazzled, terry-clothed rompered, or doomed to a bilious shade of lavender. Fashioned of horrid cotton crepe, no less. And don&8217;t even think about buying your coverup in resort-land. They will charge you a premium the likes of which is rarely seen in the temperate zone.
On the one hand, why pay attention? Divorce is common. Just because these are mous people? No. No. Because divorce is heady and raw and difficult, and remains one of our most uncivilized processes.
The highlight of our evening was a nighttime swim. Imagine this pool, illuminated, dark sky and city lights in the windows. Imagine most of us sat in the alcove you see at back, while the niece and her ther swam. We all felt thethis is specialswitch click on, tick, endorphins and recognition spreading throughout our bodies. This can happen anywhere, especially with mily. Hospitable water ups your odds.
Olive Green via
Second, we have Miss Sophie, of Les Anti-Modernes, with abrief discourse on her Sofia bag. Miss Sophie is in Shanghai right now, so I didn&8217;t have lunch with her at all.
You know that we haven&8217;t solved marriage, don&8217;t you? Especially modern marriage. People have been tying the knot for centuries, but only pattern we know now for, what, 70 years? Give or take. We allowed love in, and free choice, then justice-infused divorce. Thus we found ourselves here. With a difficult and apparently intractable pain in our heart.
You&8217;re gonna be in a bathing suit most of the time. (Much better to wear a wet bathing suit until dry, than to remove it and have to put it back on again, still wet. Blurgh.)
I am not saying there there is no virtue in trying, and hanging in there, and persevering.
Maybe you eat in the morning. Maybe you don&8217;t.
I&8217;d give you a link for purchase, were you so inclined, but I bought the dang thing from a woman at a street craft ir. Perhaps she was a magic hair witch, appearing only once every 100 years. The combination of wood&8217;s lightness with metallic paint is kind of unbeatable.
3. If you are off to the tropics, wear a floaty tunic.I had always relied on sarongs but frankly one tires of knotted ends and sunburned shoulders. Here&8217;s what I found myself yearning for, inHawaii. This silhouette is going to look good on most everyone. (Of course, if you are traveling by sailboat, the game changes. A good marinire and some baggy chinos will more than do.)
I made a list in Google Docs, as one does. Had I drawn someone with a question mark I would have emailed them prior to announcing, to make sure their comment was in ct an entry. The analog, verbal world doesn&8217;t always translate without ambiguity to the digital, numerical world. Such is life.
1. If you are on a rustic vacation, i.e. theSwedish Archipelago, Maine, or a mountain lake, wear a button front shirt with long sleeves.After all, you&8217;re hiding from the sun as much as anything else. To say nothing of the possibility that someone might ask you to gut a fish.. Chambray is nice.
pure privilege catalogLand&8217;s End
I am only saying that when it&8217;s all over, if there are children, more attention should be paid to their well-being than anything else, including shame. That society might want to scaffold the process a bit more carefully. And if I am truthful, I am saying all this now and wishing I could have said it 35 years ago, and 25 years ago, and 20 and 15 and 10 years ago. But I didn&8217;t know.
Speakingpure privilege catalog Privilege of which, Happy Lunar New Year to all. We love our tourists in this city, we depend on you. So please come visit some time, even if you&8217;re not going to stay at the St. Regis. May and September are particularly nice, and don&8217;t forget to wear layers. You&8217;ll wind up carrying your kids&8217; fleeces, but life is ever such. Besides, we&8217;re very good at salads.
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I am not saying shame should not be felt over infidelity, abuse, neglect, misuse, deceit, denial.
For example, what do you think of this little red peplumed Moschino number fromYoox? Techno-bric, zippers, motorcycle cuffs. $232.00 down to $79. Over a ladylike pencil skirt, maybe in apricot? With gray yoga pants, on a weekend? One never knows until one tries. At $79, trying is feasible.
I am not saying that if you&8217;ve promised to care for someone and you break your promise it&8217;s a good thing.
This is what I worehere. I love this piece, but inall honesty, it&8217;s not really a work sweater. I bought a size M, returned it thinking it was too big, and realized upon receiving the S that it&8217;s SUPPOSED to be big. I couldn&8217;t bear to return yet again, so I wear as is. But since it&8217;s a) of lightweight cashmere b) a little tight in the arms, I can&8217;t wear a button front underneath. If this sweater were to magically appear in a black, or, I dunno, forest green, I&8217;d buy two in a size and live in them on the weekends. At a guess, Madewell relies on the J. Crew cashmere empire, so I&8217;d recommend aJ. Crew v-neckif the styling and colors suit you. ($168)
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I am not saying that a marriage without children has no meaning.
A coverup may be worn more often than anything else.Let&8217;s say you don&8217;t bother to bring anything special. No harm done. But that&8217;s a lot of hours logged in the only big t-shirt you own. Which may or may not belong to one of your children, and may or may not sport subversive or prone language.
If you&8217;ve still got some energy, or the kids do, head up past Market Street. You&8217;ll come to another part of San Francisco that children love. Me too. Chinatown.
EDIT: Aaaack! There was a 22 and I iled in my efforts to be wholly ir! I&8217;m very bad at numbers, have I ever told you that? Hostess of the Humble Bungalow, she of thewonderful dinner parties, will receive an apology present to make up for my quantitative shortcomings.
Let me add a few additional data points from my chequered cashmere past. My mother gave me a Bloomingdale&8217;s private label black v-neck two years ago. I like the silhouette,here, but it&8217;s pilling like crazy already. Four or five years ago my sister gave me, at my request, a navy twinset fromIsle of Skye. It&8217;s too scratchy.I want my cashmere tough but not hostile.My vorite sweater ever, shownhere, came fromTSE. They&8217;re doing a lot of yellowish this year so I&8217;m out of luck. Those who vor burned hues, enjoy.
(By the way, we don&8217;t say swimsuit in my culture. I have no idea why.)
I will add that I pass right by allBrunello Cucinelli, despite the mythic mountain village which ostensibly knits their goods. I cannot imagine anything worth five times what I paid for Brora. Unless it has magic powers to fly me to Italy, in which case, value granted.
pure privilege catalog Privilege,
You&8217;re not going to want to wear only a bathing suit to eat, or walk through lobbies, once you pass the age of about 15.
The taupe, gold, and grayed blue palette speaks to me like Morgan le Fay across a gin martini. Seductive, ageless, with a twist.
If you go on vacation some place hot, very few of those cute shorts and pique dresses will make it out of your suitcase.
My new friend makes me feel graceful. Even when I&8217;m just going to stomp around in black pants, a loose sweater, and comfortable shoes.
Dinner will come round eventually. The bar doesn&8217;t seem to mind if a well-behaved kid, and her many adults, settle into a post-prandial so. We ate, by the way, atProspect. Very good place for groups in which some eat a Mad Men kind of diet, and others prefer the nose-to-tail approach. SF foodies might take their cousins from elsewhere to dinner, quite happily.
Today I read that Heidi Klum and Seal may begetting a divorce. Not confirmed, but the story&8217;s out there. The other day Dooce, perhaps the most well-known female blogger of all,wrote that she has separated from her husband.
One final thought. What about crochet, mesh, or lace? I believe they are fine for certain ages, either under 25 or over 65, but awfully difficult for the rest of us.ThisI wouldn&8217;t wear anywhere, at any age. Besides, the resultant tan lines are confusing at best.
Chambray viaL.L. Bean
Sales are the perfect time to experiment with clothing outside your comfort zone. Try new colors, shapes, suppliers. (Suppliers? What do we call the places we buy? Vendors? Dang, I really have gone back to the corporate world.)
For the first time in my adult life I can put my hair up with relative ease. What&8217;s more, I can put my hair back up, once I&8217;ve inevitably disturbed Version 1.0. I like this &8216;do without a collared shirt. Somehow it seems to go better with the slightly artsy vibe of an open neckline. What? To a Sturdy Gal, collarless is close to artsy.
Navy Stripes viaJoie a la Plage
This sweater felt like the Land&8217;s End version, but was shorter in the torso and longer in the sleeve. I was so mad that the Blue Haze was in ct Smog Grey thatI bundled everything back up and returned it on the next post. At that point they were out of Indigo, so I broke up with Pure and am still sulking in my tent like Achilles.
Lisa
Or give Brooks Brothers a go. The talented designer on their bag team is a irly well-kept secret. If you want to branch out with a pastel for spring color blocking,perforated aqua leatherseems quite the thing. Down from $298 to $119.20. If the patent trim strikes you as too-too, they&8217;ve got classics onsaleas well.
Well this is what cashmere is supposed to feel like.Tough &8211; but another dimension of soft altogether. Wornhere, this is the sweater I want to put on almost every day. Roomy enough for a button front underneath, sufficient shape for a little je ne sais quoi. A term I use advisedly, as in I really can&8217;t articulate what gives this sweater such silhouette style. BTW, for anyone converting to British sizes, I&8217;m a size 4 in J. Crew tops, and a size 12 in Brora sweaters.
Madewell. The model I bought is called the Cabin Sweater for good reason. Styled like a loose-middled long-sleeved pocket tee, very boyfriend-esque. One could wear it quite happily in, yes, a cabin. Hand, soft, not slippery, not heavy.Kept.$158 list price, only XS remains, on sale for $99.
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I mean in no way to minimize the pain of marriages&8217; end, or our desire that they last. I am only asking that we start to tease out the next thread of thinking and expand parameters under consideration. That&8217;s what one does when problems don&8217;t get solved in a reasonable period of time.
Nobody wants to look like an unrelenting rectangle, cashmere or otherwise.On to the glorious v-neck. And on to a sampling fromLand&8217;s End,Madewell,Pure Collection, andBrora.
And now, maybe, I can say I hope you are having a wonderful weekend and I do apologize for having dug up sorrow in the deconstruction.
I think it&8217;s time to relinquish shame. You like breakst? Eat it. You don&8217;t? Ignore with impunity. Never mind the diet pundits. 55 years of life have convinced me that breakst is one area where everyone gets to decide for themselves.
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Lately I&8217;ve been buying, or attempting to buy, a ir number of cashmere sweaters. As I have said,my primary winter uniform at this new job is a cashmere v-neck with button-front shirt underneath.In the old days, i.e. my 40s, I wore cardigans over tees. Something, I can&8217;t quite figure out what, happened to my midsection, rendering my former strategy a good deal less flattering. My shoulders, however, remained broad and overly dominant in crewnecks.
So, should my admittedly somewhat tenuous logic have convinced you, here&8217;s a conceptual framework
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Quite sneaky, thoseVuittons. Capitalizing on society&8217;s love for logo-led luxury, but quite capable of the Real Deal. Don&8217;t count out the French economy, ifArnaulthas anything to say about it.
Bear with me. Imagine an engineered system. In this case, the design center being the care of children. But let&8217;s say that system has a particular sub-system with a high ilure rate.Let&8217;s say, hypothetically, that one has to house rocket engines in glass, and that no matter how much time you spend optimizing the design, explosions happen.Don&8217;t you then shift to designing the ground below the rocket, to minimize damage? Don&8217;t you then start working on your glass-melting processes? Your recycling, if you will? Systems should degrade gracefully.
Last weekend, my sister, brother-in-law, niece, significant other, and I, had a sleepover at theSt. Regis in San Francisco. Separate rooms of course, and I don&8217;t think anyone slept on the floor except the dog, but calling it a grownup sleepover wouldn&8217;t be too r off.
You might want to know how the brands compare. Well, no sooner said than done. We&8217;ll take the business approach, leading with an executive summary.
This is one of my most vorite hotels in the world. Since it&8217;s in the Starwood network, they take Starwood points. Booyah. Given its dignified, urban decor, sleek with exotic woods and unpolished marble, one might think it suitable only for ncy sorts. In ct, one could not find a better reward for umpteen nights in Sheratons, and the resultant time away from home, than to bring the mily to San Francisco.
And when the joys of hotel living pale, one can saunter out. Those flowers will still be sitting in the lobby.
Do watch the kiddies&8217; noggins in the enormous bathtub. Luckily you can see the tub from your lush bed, if you open the panel between rooms. Notice the artwork hanging on the bedroom wall. Artwork abounds.
But balance my ideas here. Go and readMiss Whistle, a blog by Bumble Ward. She posts a lot of poetry, but in between poems you&8217;ll find some absolutely painful and beautiful writing on the startled end of a long marriage.
Because everyone has an imagination, even the Sturdy. Maybe especially the Sturdy. Have you found anything thrilling in the winter sales?
Yours in analog friendship,
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Let&8217;s presume, just for the sake of deconstruction, that the primary driver of society&8217;s focus on marriage should be the welre of children. In that case, given that it appears to be so hard to stay married, should we maybe spend more time understanding the real machinery of child nurture, than on marriage endurance itself?
First, we have the INIMITABLE Maximinimus,on about LV trunks. And yes, I did need to use the vociferous upper case. I had lunch with Maxi last week and the man is sui generis. Writes the heck out of everything and gives good advice, too.
Blue and Yellow viaJoie a la Plage
This is the part where we give more information for you executives who have not already begun to yearn for your email, or, these days, check it on laptop or mobile device.
The whole mily will be happy aboutbreakst. From the silver teapot to the truffled frittata to the brioche French toast. Delicious.
Madewell
Perhaps you&8217;re thinking of a voyage to sunshine. Perhaps you&8217;re dreaming of summertime&8217;s arrival. Perhaps you live in Australia, where it&8217;s already shown up.
Happiness is a private matter.
Of course, you might want to move the bedroom succulents if you bring very young children. Otherwise, they make for nicely focused meditation. We&8217;re big meditators here in Northern California.
Plaid viaSteven Alan
I generated a random number, as one does. I suppose Get Your Own is the analog component to a digital Random Number. Purpose compared to Fate.
.
I am certainly not saying that Kim Kardashian has it right.
The St. Regis is right next to San Francisco&8217;s convention center, Moscone. And in true California style, we&8217;ve got a garden slash park slash skating rink up top. It&8217;s called Yerba Buena. Take a merry-go-round, a park with giant slide, add modern architecture and our January blue skies. What&8217;s not to like? (OK, so you may have to ignore the smell of marijuana. Apparently the name, Yerba Buena, has multiple meanings. It&8217;s California. What can I say?)
Other people swear by Eric Bompard.Thismay be my next experiment, on sale (~$205) until February 14.Especially ifDuchessewill tell me what size I ought to order.
I am not sure whether it&8217;s good news or bad that with cashmere, apparently, one gets what one pays for.On the other hand, even when one pays less, it&8217;s a very nice sweater.
The world is full enough of should already. Enjoy your toast, your smoked salmon, your egg white omelette, your cruller. Or not.
2. If you are in a Northern Hemisphere spot during the warm season, or at a neighborhood pool/lake, go sporty.Navy blue and military green are always appropriate near water. Sad but true; borders have been historically risky. Here&8217;s an olive weave.
Secret tip. Don&8217;t buy your coverup to match your bathing suit, per se. Buy it to match your skin tone. Because the suit will be, for the most part, you know, covered up. This one would do my skin tone good &8211; although the transparent silk offers little help with sun avoidance.
Am I serious? Privilege? Yes. At least when Im not joking. While privilege can teach you what shoes to wear with navy blue, and how to do beige linen at all, nothing beats the privilege of being alive. So lets talk style, in the context of culture, and look at beautiful things. For more, please gohere. Or you can reach me at my email: [email protected]. Thats the name I wanted to be called when I was 16. Ah. 16....
Nobody wants to get divorced. It feels horrible. So personally horrible inmy casethat you may want to discount everything I say. But even if I take my own reaction with a grain of salt, the analysis troubles me. All kinds of institutions spend all kinds of energy on the wrongness of divorcing. And yet it happens, frequently. Here&8217;s my question. Do we need to, if I can use the term, deconstruct?
Pure Collection. Shorter than Land&8217;s End, more nipped in round the waist, hand similar to Land&8217;s End, color WAY off from web and catalog.Returned.$138 list price, on sale for $70-$103.
Where you will sleep in a bedroom like this.
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Are we, as a society, taking the wrong approach? Is all the cultural language around staying married only sound and fury? I&8217;d like a closer look at why we think it&8217;s best to stay married. While we see all sorts of data saying it&8217;s best for children, which I will not dispute, while the religious have their codes, what other remarkable benefit or virtue to long marriages can we find? Other than preservation of capital, and happiness, I cannot think of one.
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Feel free to ignore all of the above advice.Water is the great leveler. It&8217;s hard to maintain dignity when you&8217;re soaking wet, and may not be worth the effort.But if you, like me, are pursued by the Devil of Appropriate, I&8217;m happy to deconstruct until the manatees come home.
I will confess one thing. The Nike-styleswooshatop my head? The sort of 1940&8242;s wave? Wholly serendipitous. Couldn&8217;t do it again on purpose. But one should never look the Hair Gods in the mouth. Onwards and literally upwards.
You can imagine what that might look like, the way things might change.
