Thoughts on style

December 14, 2024 | Vol. 125

Hi friends! In case you missed last week’s gift guide, here it is! I love putting it together and your feedback has made me feel so good. I love hearing what you’re getting others (and, ahem, yourselves). Back to our regularly scheduled programming…

A few recs aside, this week’s throughline is probably something about the psychology of dressing: the way we present ourselves on Zoom, the way movies transmit emotion via clothes, the way wearing an LBD (little black dress) makes us feel. It’s all very heady but not. At the end of the day, clothing plays a role in all of our lives, whether we think about it all the time or don’t. Let’s go:

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New Yorker writer Susan Orlean’s personal Substack is a refreshing, though serious, take on dressing and on life. I love the way she thinks and writes, generally, and this format offers frequent, casual insights into her method and mind. From this week, which is about how, even for Zoom calls, she puts on real shoes, she equates dressing for virtual meetings to reporting “too much”:

“What’s important is to know much more than you put on the page, because it will change the nature of what you do choose to include, and you’ll write with the confidence of someone who knows far more than they have time or space to tell you. It gives you a very desirable bit of swagger.”

Anyway, follow her here and peruse her New Yorker archive here.

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Off theme, but seasonally appropriate: Amanda Hess grew up disliking the Christmas movie, a genre seemingly made for older people—that is, until she became one. I so relate to Hess’ personal evolution and her piece puts words to my recent practice of turning on a Christmas movie, any Christmas movie, to lull me to sleep. In The New York Times, she writes:

“What I’ve been looking for, instead, is a totally uncompelling new television show — one that expects nothing from me, and that gives me little in return. The bad Christmas movie’s beats are so consistent, its twists so predictable, its actors and props so loyally reused, it’s easy to relax drowsily into its rhythms. The genre is formulaic, which makes for a kind of tradition. Now it plays through the winter like a crackling fireplace in my living room.”

This week, I’ve consumed Christmas in Notting Hill and Our Little Secret. I can’t recommend either of them, and yet, I also can—because if you crave what Hess is talking about, then, well, in some way that makes the film scholar in me quake, this fits the bill?

Designer Bella Freud launched a podcast recently called Fashion Neurosis and it’s a delightful format, in which her guest is invited to lie on a couch and she conducts what feels like a therapy session turned interview. There’s something about being horizontal on a sofa, staring into space, that encourages honest, free thinking, and slow speaking. It may be the only podcast I dare to watch (which I know is a thing these days).

As it turns out, I could listen to (watch?) actress Kristen Scott Thomas for hours. In her episode, she and Freud discuss Parisian dressing, the provocative nature of Miuccia Prada, and her character, MI5 boss Diana Taverner, in Slow Horses, a must-watch on Apple TV+. Of her early style inspirations, Thomas says:

“I’ve always liked the look of nuns. I love the flow of the veil and I love the sandaled feet. In Paris, I live in an area where there are lots of nuns, I don’t know why, and you see them with their just-above-ankle length skirts, and they go along with their shopping trolleys and they’ve got these flowing veils. There’s something really lovely about that.”

Of wanting to be a nun back then, she says, “The tragedy of me is that I didn’t really want to be a nun. I wanted the drama of it, I wanted the instant saintlihood… which is why I became an actress, because it’s quicker.”

Last week, I watched Maria at the iconic Paris theater with my friend Sara. The film stars Angelina Jolie as American-Greek opera singer Maria Callas during the final days of her life in Paris, following years of vocal decline and an otherwise tumultuous life. Callas was a unique character, particularly towards the end—a brazen and confident woman masking a vulnerable artist, lost without her voice. She asks her injured butler to move the piano from one room to another, as if for sport, to wield whatever power she has left. If for the costumes alone, I recommend the movie. Jolie’s performance is strong, too, at times magnetic. And she wears the gowns, hats, and opera coats the way few can. As Sara texted me later:

I did and, sad to report, it’s not just expensive but one-of-a-kind, made through a complicated 3D manufacturing process involving specialty yarns. Jolie was so taken by it, she wore it to the first dress rehearsal. Fawnia Soo Hoo writes in Refinery29, “The alabaster white color of the robe nods toward ancient Greece, in honor of the American opera singer’s heritage, while the flowing silhouette evokes a high priestess. Underneath, Maria exudes fragility in an ethereal nightgown made of sheer silk layers, with a dainty bow and intricate lace embroidery at the neckline.” (See, style and psychology really is a theme here…)

The other day my daughter asked me for soup. In her nearly three years of life, she’s never asked for soup before. She’s never tried soup. Spoons and hot liquids have always felt too unwieldy. But I conceded and made both minestone and split pea this week. As expected, it wasn’t quite her thing. But I get it; what she wanted was the idea of soup. Something warm and cozy on a cold day. Or maybe we could have just read Maurice Sendak’s Chicken Soup with Rice (twelve delightful reasons for soup, one for each month) and made life a whole lot easier.

The book is included in this adorable miniature nutshell library set, an airplane must-have and a great kids’ gift since the gift ideas never really end.

Inspired by Adele’s impressive, museum-worthy collection of long black dresses for her Vegas residency, I’ve opted to dig into black dresses for whatever upcoming occasion you have—or don’t have; it’s always good to have a black dress you like in your closet.

I love this sleeveless Totême maxidress with the t-strap in the front and tie in the back. Sexy, but not showy, in the same way this ever-elusive Victoria Beckham gown is.

This semi-structured organza dress by Khaite is ladylike with the right amount of edge. Speaking of Khaite, the Uma dress is forever in my mind.

For anything remotely beachy, this St. Agni plunge neck. There’s also a case to be made for this crystal-embellished Zimmermann dress.

I’ve always liked this Staud silhouette and, well-accessorized, it works in black, too. The sheer element is extra elegant in this one by new-to-me brand All That Remains.

Sometimes the simplest things are the most right, like this bustier gown by Co. Going in a totally different direction on the neckline, Jacquemus.

I haven’t yet tried it, but I like lacy things in theory, so this one by Simone Rocha and this one by Sea New York seem great. (Or this one if you want to flaunt your legs.)

If you like your gowns to feel like nightgowns. (This is not a bad thing.)

The one-shoulder Norma Kamali Diana gown has been around for ages for a reason. Universally flattering and comfortable. Let’s call this the updated version by Cos.

Bernadette, the Antwerp-based mother-daughter brand might just make me into a bow person.

The ultimate whimsical, but in some ways still serious, little black dress.

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Signing off with this shot from a Polyesterzine feature on Sofia Coppola, seen here wearing a t-shirt I now want very much. I already have my friend and vintage connoisseur Paige on the case:

More soon!