Do The Twist

Chemena Kamali was designing a line for Frame when she was named Chloé creative director, and her pieces are now available. I popped into the Frame shop to try these Camille slingbacks. The twist detail gives them a cool Emmanuelle Alt vibe and I’m wearing them with slim jeans and an oversized sweater.

The Row Boots

These FW24 The Row boots are just what I’ve been looking for. Sadly, I’ll have to wait until next fall.

Bits & Bobs

I watched Past Lives, starring Greta Lee, on a flight last week and it is excellent. Marcheline Isabelle posted recently on Ms. Lee’s red carpet looks. Inverno, poet Cynthia Zarin’s first novel, is next in the queue — I want to finish it before I hear her speak this Thursday. Bows are everywhere so I pulled out my Jennifer Behr Gretta. I bought a pair of pumps from The Row’s Resort collection and love them. The ones above are the SS24 version and here. It would, undoubtedly, be sacrilegious to reupholster Mother’s Frances Knoll sofa in a floral print, but I’m tempted. This Nuxe body spray that I picked up at Monoprix in Paris is lovely. Next trip to Paris is late March/early April and I want to see Exteriors — Annie Ernaux and Photography at MEP. The exhibition “celebrates the close relationship between photography and the writing of Annie Ernaux, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2022, through texts from her book Exteriors (Journal du dehors) 1993, and photographs from the MEP collection.” Lastly, these Prada trousers are something my wardrobe is lacking.

Sterling

I’m sure many of you received this Kendall Conrad email yesterday, too. Silver jewelry is roaring back and it looks especially stunning styled with KC’s wrapped cuff and cream fisherman-knit sweater.

Wrapped, Tucked, And Cozy

When I spied the image above right in a collage on Uniform, it reminded me that Jil Sander’s 1997 F/W collection was an all-time favorite. Wrapped, tucked, and cozy are appealing to me right now. I suspect that both Gauchere and Phoebe Philo were inspired by this collection.

Paris Dispatch

As I wrote last year: Paris in January is great — no crowds and the city feels intimate and relaxed. It was frigidly cold, but no more so than NYC. I took the Max Mara Cube vest and parka, both pack down to nothing and were toasty. This was a long overdue mother-daughter trip. We stayed at Chateau Voltaire, roamed the quiet city, and found the Chanel Ballet Flats in her size. I couldn’t resist the camellia embossed denim slingbacks, they’ll be great with jeans come spring. Artist Léon Comerre’s 1903 painting of his daughter Géo hangs in the Petit Palais. Her blouse and skirt are timeless and I would happily wear them today. Jeanne Damas’s new book La Vie En Rouje was released this morning in France, however, I got back to New York last night. It will be available here March 1. Guerlain’s newly launched fragrance Aqua Allegoria in Nerolia Vetiver smells divine and I appreciate that the beautiful bottles are refillable. Finally, Louis Vuitton will open its first branded hotel on the Champs-Elyseés, and while under construction the building is wrapped as an LV trunk. It is something to behold.

Lighten Up!

Snow is heading our way, first of the season, and it got me thinking about white, off-white, cream, and ivory. The above four items jumped out at me from a recent Net-a-Porter preview email. The Toteme hooded leather jacket and Peter Petrov satin shirt dress are like a siren’s song, dangerously leading me to thoughts of warmer days ahead.

Toteme ribbed cotton-jersey top and Caravana cotton-gauze pareo

New Newsletter: Uniform by Ali Pew

The stylist and former Goop fashion director, Ali Pew, recently launched a newsletter, Uniform. Ali has great taste so I’m going to give her a follow. Thank you Lauren Indvik, the FT’s fashion editor, for the heads up on Uniform. Lauren is one of my favorite sources for industry news and she, also, has a must-follow newsletter.

Reader Poll: What Was Your Favorite Purchase of 2023?

In a comment on the previous post, Laura asked “Preston, do you ever poll your readers and ask them what their favorite purchase of the past year was?” Great question and I hope everyone will weigh in. I, obviously, failed the buy-only-five-new-items-in-2023 challenge, but I was mindful of my purchases and there were things I took a pass on with the challenge in mind. Above are my six favorite purchases and I posted on each of them, except for the navy Comme des Garçons dress. I suspected that you would think I was off my nut for buying a dress with smocking and a Peter Pan collar — which were indeed not me — so it just hung on a rail. Once the collar was removed, I wore said dress to numerous events and received a shocking number of compliments. It’s great with both the Celine boots and The Row pumps. The Saint Laurent bucket bag is hands-down an all-time favorite purchase, not just from 2023. And, the Gauchere and Phoebe Philo wrap skirts are comfy and cozy — a win-win for sure.

Your turn.

Looking Forward To Spring

At the risk of sounding scrooge-y, I am happy that the holidays are in the rearview. Having the girls home — this year included a fiancé — and getting together with friends, are always wonderful. However, the onslaught of holiday gift guide emails that inundated my inbox was overwhelming. A funny aside: as a child we never used the word “gift” in lieu of “present”, a gift was a talent or aptitude or even, divine. Scented candles and cashmere socks did not fall into the gift category… Don’t get me wrong, I love finding the perfect present, but now that my girls are grown it’s harder — they buy whatever they need and rarely have a list for me. Instead, my younger daughter is meeting me in Paris next week and we will roam the city, and a ski trip with my older daughter is in the works. While I’m with each of them, I hope to find a few things that they wouldn’t necessarily buy for themselves.

And, this brings me to spring. Now that we are post winter solstice, the day-to-night ratio will start to shift and the daylight hours will microscopically get longer. Just knowing that one day soon I will not wake in total darkness and that the sun won’t seemingly set moments after lunch, gives me hope. An upcoming trip to Los Angeles to see family is also fueling this spring fantasy. New sandals and a crossbody bag are on my spring wishlist, and I’m going to try these at Soeur next week.