• SHOPPING

    I Went Into the TikTok Swamp for Style Advice — and Came Back With Gold

    January 30, 2024

    I need to confess something before we go any further: TikTok intimidates me. Not in a polite, “I’m not sure I understand this platform” way. In a full-body, slightly overstimulated, why are there so many moving images and why are they shouting at me kind of way. Opening the app feels like being dropped into a digital battlefield where content flies at you from all directions. Blink and you’ve missed three trends, two dances, and someone reorganizing their pantry. I installed it for one reason only: my niece. She sends me videos of herself dancing with an expression of such…

  • SHOPPING

    Seven Pairs of Sandals That Let You Walk Lightly (and Honestly) This Summer

    January 22, 2024

    Summer always exposes our habits. In winter, ethics hide under layers. Boots conceal materials, coats disguise origins, and we can pretend not to think too much about what touches our skin. But summer is merciless. It asks your feet to breathe. It asks your wardrobe to shrink. It asks simplicity of you — and suddenly the question of what your sandals are made of becomes strangely intimate. This year, I found myself staring at my shoe rack with a quiet sense of embarrassment. One pair of tired sandals that have seen too many sidewalks. One pair of open heels that…

  • DIY

    Unbuttoning the Ordinary: How a Thrifted Men’s Shirt Became Something Entirely Mine

    December 1, 2023

    Let me clarify something before we begin: this is not a tutorial. There will be no neat step-by-step instructions, no measurements in centimeters, no tidy diagrams with arrows pointing at darts and seams. This is something softer. A wandering reflection on what happens when you take a men’s button-down shirt from a thrift store and decide it deserves a second life — and maybe you do too. Because that’s really what a thrift flip is, isn’t it? Not just fabric rearranged, but identity gently renegotiated. I found the shirt on a Tuesday afternoon when I had no intention of buying…

  • FASHION - SHOPPING

    Dressing for Heat Without Melting: The Fabrics I Reach for When the Sun Is Ruthless

    November 17, 2023

    There is a particular kind of summer day when stepping outside feels like opening an oven mid-bake. The air doesn’t move. The pavement radiates. Even your thoughts seem slower, slightly glazed. On those days, style becomes less about aesthetics and more about survival. And yet — I refuse to surrender to limp tank tops and synthetic despair. Heat reveals things. It exposes poor tailoring, questionable fiber choices, and the quiet lies we tell ourselves about “breathable blends.” It also reveals something else: how deeply modern fashion has drifted from climate logic. We have access to centuries of textile intelligence —…

  • STYLING

    When You Hand Over Your Wardrobe to Someone With Taste

    November 15, 2023

    There is a particular kind of vulnerability in opening your closet to another person. Not the curated version. Not the “I just reorganized by color and vibe” version. I mean the real one. The shelf with the impulsive sale purchases. The trousers that almost fit. The dress you loved in theory but somehow never wear. The sweater you keep for sentimental reasons even though it pills like it’s auditioning for a snowstorm. A few months ago, I decided to stop buying clothes for a year. I said it out loud before fully understanding what that sentence meant. It sounded reasonable…

  • FASHION

    The Woman Who Finds Treasure in Other People’s Castoffs: On Cherelle and the Art of Thrifting

    November 11, 2023

    Some people shop. Cherelle hunts. There is a difference. I have known her long enough to understand that what looks like luck is actually literacy — a deep, intuitive fluency in fabric, silhouette, decade, and possibility. We used to work together in a vintage store, back when I had just graduated from Art School and still believed that curating racks of old denim and silk blouses was a temporary detour before my “real” life began. Looking back, that shop was more educational than any lecture hall. And Cherelle was its quiet professor. She could scan a rack in seconds. Not…