Friendships deepen, sunsets get more golden, chilly August nights turn into the coziest ones the kind you already miss while you’re in them. And you can’t stop wearing neutrals. But my favorite part is how it always ends: back in the kitchen, feeding whoever’s still around, plates everywhere, the girls half-asleep at the table, friends lingering longer than they meant to. That’s where the real soaking-in happens, not the beach, but the kitchen after. That’s the part I never want summer to let go of.

This, on repeat 🤍

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why late summer hits different…

xx Beck

I think about this a lot because I fell in love in the early 2000s. With Todd, obviously. But also with a whole way of being that doesn’t really exist anymore.

There was no social media. Maybe Facebook, barely. We called each other on the landline, an actual house phone, ringing in the kitchen, someone else picking it up before you did. If you wanted to see a person you just… showed up. Drove to their house and knocked, no text first, no plan, just the possibility that they’d be there. And if they weren’t, you left. No big deal. You made other plans.

And because you never knew what else was happening, no feed to check, no stories to scroll, you never felt like you were missing anything. You were just wherever you were. Fully. That was the whole trick of it. Presence wasn’t a discipline back then, it was just the only option.

We took pictures on disposable cameras and didn’t know how any of them turned out until the drugstore developed the roll a week later. So a summer was never really “captured” in the moment. It just sort of happened, and then you got the surprise of it after, half blurry, half perfect. The closest thing to posting was an away message on AIM, a song lyric, usually, something coded and dramatic that meant everything to the person you wanted to see it and nothing to anyone else. Someone would make you a mixtape, a burned CD with a Sharpie title, and that was the whole declaration. That was the text message, the like, the grand gesture, all in one.

And there was so much waiting built into everything. Waiting for a call back. Waiting to see if someone would actually be home when you showed up. Waiting for the film to develop. The waiting wasn’t a glitch in the system. It was the system. It’s what made the payoff feel like something.

I was also completely obsessed with my career in magazines at the time, ambitious, a little consumed by it, in the best way. And somehow that’s what falling in love felt like too. Not a distraction from the ambition. Part of it. Two things being fully true at once, with nothing pulling my attention six directions at once to dilute either one. Even the culture worked that way. You found out what was cool, what mattered, from a page you held in your hands, not a feed that refreshed itself while you slept.

That’s the part I miss most, I think. Not the landline itself. The singularity of attention. Loving one person, one summer, one career, one moment, all the way, because there was nothing else competing for the feeling.

So here’s to the loves that don’t survive Labor Day. The ones that live entirely in golden hour. The ones we don’t try to keep, because keeping was never the assignment. The assignment was just, feel it. All of it. While it’s here.

xx Beck

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Hosting has never been about throwing a party. It’s about creating a feeling: a table where old friends become closer, new friends become old ones, and everyone leaves with a memory they’ll carry long after the flowers have faded.

This week, we hosted our first garden dinner of the summer at my home in the Hamptons with my friend and creative collaborator, Stephanie Horton. Thirty-six friends gathered in my garden for a dinner that stretched well into the night.

Everyone arrived wearing the most beautiful LoveShackFancy and vintage dresses; pieces we collect not because they’re precious, but because they’re the ones we want to make memories in. As guests wandered through the garden, violinists played beneath the trees, rosé flowed, and conversations stretched long into the night. Somehow, the dresses became part of the story, too.

One of my favorite parts of entertaining is dreaming up every little detail alongside the people I love creating with. My collaborators know how to take the tiny ideas living in my head and turn them into something really special. Nick Jones and Justin Davis helped transform the garden into the dream I had imagined, overflowing with collected treasures, romance, and the magic that comes from noticing the smallest details. The tables were dressed in Secret Garden roses, Victorian lace tablecloths and candelabras. Hand-calligraphed menus rested on beautiful handmade paper, each place setting feeling more like a love letter than a table setting. My best friend Jordana Blitz catering company, Little Gem, created a beautiful plated dinner of fresh fish and steak that felt effortless, abundant, and distinctly summer. It reminded me of the most beautiful wedding, except instead of celebrating one couple, we were celebrating friendship, summer, and being together.

There are always details I obsess over, but I’ve learned they’re never the things people remember most. They remember how a night felt. The friend they hadn’t seen in years, the seat beside someone new who became an old friend by dessert. Plus the candlelight, the music, the laughter drifting across the lawn and the way no one wanted to leave. The best hosts aren’t the ones with the perfect tables, they’re the ones who make everyone feel like they belong there. That’s always been my favorite part.

Of course, the evening didn’t end at the table. The music got louder, the shoes came off, and by two in the morning we were swimming in the pool in our silk dresses. It was exactly how every great summer night should end.

I love entertaining because it’s never really about the flowers or the tables or even the food. It’s about creating memories. The flowers eventually fade. The candles burn down. The table gets cleared. But the memories remain. Here’s to gardens filled with candlelight, vintage treasures collected over a lifetime, dinners that turn into dancing, spontaneous midnight swims, and a house that’s always ready for one more person at the table. Because the most beautiful thing you’ll ever collect isn’t what’s on the table, it’s who’s gathered around it.

xx,
Beck

Dear July,

Thank you for bringing me home. Not just to a place, but to the feeling the one that lives in my mother’s garden, in the way the light hits the hydrangeas in the late afternoon.

Sag Harbor, you were the beginning of everything. Before the stores, before the shows, before any of it had a name you were just home. And somehow you still are. Time doesn’t rush here. It moves slowly and gives me permission to just be a daughter again, a girl in her mother’s garden, gathering ideas without even trying to.

This is where I find it every time, the inspiration, the softness, the reason I do any of this at all. My mom’s hands in her gardens. The wildflowers that don’t ask to be arranged. The version of me that existed before LoveShackFancy, who’s still in there, still barefoot, still dreaming in florals.

Home isn’t a season, but July gets closest to it.

xx Beck 🫶🌾🌅

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Every collection begins with a feeling. Before there's a sketch or a fabric swatch, there's usually a place, a memory, a color, or a tiny detail I can't stop thinking about. St. Tropez has given me so many of those moments over the years. It's one of the places that continues to fill my heart and inspire me.

Every summer, I come home with more than I packed. Not just shopping bags (although definitely a few of those), but little moments I don't want to forget. A faded floral tucked inside an antique shop. The blush of weathered shutters. A vintage ribbon. An embroidered tablecloth. Garden roses spilling onto a café table. The effortless way someone layers heirloom jewelry with a linen dress that's clearly been loved for years.

Those are the things I collect.

Not to recreate them, but to translate the feeling they leave behind. Over time, those little discoveries find their way into our collections. A ribbon becomes a neckline. A faded floral inspires a print. The colors of the Mediterranean quietly reappear months later. They evolve into something entirely their own, while still carrying the romance of where they came from.

This trip felt especially meaningful because, for the first time, I was joined by our Head of Design and our Senior Director of Design. It was such a joy to experience these places through fresh eyes and to share the little rituals that have become part of my creative process over the years.

Instead of rushing from one destination to the next or following an itinerary, we simply wandered. We ducked into antique stores, searched for vintage lace, embroidered linens, hand-painted ceramics, and beautiful little treasures. We stopped constantly to photograph peeling pastel walls, flower-filled balconies, faded shutters, and the tiny details that most people would simply walk past.

Of course, inspiration isn't limited to antique markets. Some of the best ideas arrive during an evening walk as the golden light settles across the water, or over a lingering lunch because the afternoon feels too beautiful to leave. Inspiration has a funny way of finding you the moment you stop looking for it.

It's rarely found in the big moments. More often, it's hiding in the smallest ones. A ribbon. A flower. A sleeve. The color of the sky just before sunset. That's what I love most about St. Tropez. It reminds me to slow down. To notice. To stay curious. Beauty has always been there. We just have to leave enough room to see it.

Watching our design team fall in love with the places that have inspired me for so many years made this trip even more special. Seeing the details through their eyes reminded me that inspiration is even more meaningful when it's shared.

I came home with a full heart, a camera roll overflowing with beautiful little moments, and endless ideas I can't wait to bring to life.

Every collection tells a story. This one may have begun with a stroll through the streets of St. Tropez, but I have a feeling it will stay with us for a long time.

There are certain places in the world that somehow become part of who you are.

No matter how much time passes, they still feel familiar. They hold pieces of your story. They remind you of earlier versions of yourself while somehow inspiring the next one.

For me, London has always been one of those places.

Every time I land, it feels less like arriving somewhere new and more like coming home to an old friend. The flower boxes spilling over windows. Rows of pastel townhouses. Roses climbing effortlessly over brick walls. Even the wonderfully unpredictable weather. There is something about this city that has always felt timeless and endlessly inspiring

I think my love affair with London really began when I studied abroad here in college. Every free weekend, I’d wander the city for hours, getting wonderfully lost and falling deeper in love with its history, its charm, and especially its vintage. Portobello Road quickly became my happy place. I’d spend hours searching through antique lace, faded florals, Victorian nightgowns, embroidered linens, and tiny treasures that had already lived a hundred lives before finding me.

Looking back now, I can see so much of LoveShackFancy beginning there. I didn’t know it then, but those weekends quietly shaped my eye forever. Even now, London continues to inspire me in the smallest ways. The faded colors of a row of townhouses. An antique lace collar tucked inside a little vintage shop. Fresh flowers spilling onto sidewalks. Inspiration finds you everywhere.

This trip felt especially meaningful because it began with something we’ll never forget. We gathered at Dante Mayfair to celebrate the opening of our 30th LoveShackFancy boutique, here in Chelsea. Thirty. THIRTY! Even writing those words doesn’t quite feel real

When you’re building something you love, you’re always looking ahead. The next collection. The next store. The next dream. You don’t often stop to look behind you. But sitting around that table, surrounded by friends old and new, people I’ve admired, collaborated with, and been inspired by over the years, I found myself doing exactly that.

Every boutique tells its own story. I think about opening mornings and late-night installations. Flowers arriving by the truckload. Ribbons being tied. Windows coming to life. Watching women walk through our doors and instantly become part of the LoveShackFancy world. Celebrating this milestone in one of my favorite cities felt incredibly full circle.

The next morning, I woke up at Claridge’s, one of my favorite places in the world.

Every stay feels just as magical as the first. Fresh flowers around every corner. Beautiful rooms. Thoughtful details everywhere you look. It never feels overdone. Just timeless. Some hotels are simply places to stay. Claridge’s feels like a place to dream.

One of my favorite luxuries while traveling is giving myself permission to slow down. Ordering breakfast in bed. Photographing little moments that catch my eye. Sitting quietly by the window before the day begins. Those are usually the moments I remember most.

And of course, no summer trip to London would ever feel complete without Wimbledon.

The white dresses. Linen jackets. Straw hats. Strawberries and cream. The perfectly manicured green courts. There is something wonderfully timeless about it all. I’ve always been drawn to traditions that continue simply because they’re beautiful.

It was only a few years ago I was here to open our first London location in Notting Hill down the street from Portobello market, the exact place I fell in love with vintage in college. It’s a magical place. A few weeks ago, I was here opening our Sloane Square store, another surreal moment. And now I’m back, and the all magic is still here. It all feels so full-circle.

As I packed my bags to leave, I found myself thinking about all the different versions of myself this city has known: The college student wandering Portobello Road. The designer searching for inspiration. The mother traveling with her family. The founder opening her 30th boutique!

Every visit leaves me with something new, even though London somehow always feels exactly the same. Maybe that’s why I love it so much.

Until next time, London. You’ll always have a little piece of my heart.

I still can’t believe how all of it began…

Sixteen years ago today, I married Todd and without even knowing it, I made the very first LoveShackFancy dress. Two love stories, born on the very same day. Out of love. Out of one dress. Out of a girl who simply couldn’t find the right thing to wear.

Let me take you back.

Todd and I started dating in 2003. It’s wild to think, we have been together for 24 years! I was 21 years old, a literature student at NYU, interning and freelancing my way through the magazine world. I was completely in love with words and stories and the glossy pages I’d grown up reading.

Todd was building his life from the ground up, and I mean that literally. He started in real estate with a hard hat on at the construction site of the Time Warner Center. Before long, he’d started his own company with his best friend and was renovating buildings all over the city. We were both busy building our futures. Me in magazines. Him in real estate. And somehow, in the middle of all of it, our love just kept growing. Todd was there at my graduation. And he’s been there for every milestone since.

By the time we got engaged, I was working as a Fashion and Beauty Editor at Cosmopolitan. I spent my days styling shoots, producing stories, and working with some of the most incredible women. Fashion was everywhere around me. Which makes what happened next even funnier. When it finally came time to plan my own wedding, I couldn’t find the perfect bridesmaid dresses anywhere.

So I made them.

My mom and I headed down to Mood Fabrics in the Garment District and fell head over heels for the dreamiest dusty pastel chiffons. We found an incredible pattern maker named Sabina, had our first fitting and together we created something I’d never seen before: an elastic halter dress that could be twisted, knotted, and tied however you wanted to wear it. We added raw-edged fabric flowers and ribbons gathered at the center. It felt soft and romantic and a little undone.

I wanted my bridesmaids to look like fairies dancing around me at my wedding. And they did. There may have been slightly more side boob than originally intended, but honestly? They were gorgeous.

Our wedding was planned by The Wedding Library, and it became the most romantic world I could have imagined. We married in front of an apple orchard beneath an antique arbor dripping with white English roses. The vision was the South of France meets The Great Gatsby meets Miss Havisham's garden from Great Expectations. Faded grandeur, overgrown flowers and a little bit of beautiful ruin.

The aisle was covered in rose petals. Everywhere you looked there were flowers. Flowers, flowers, flowers. Looking back now, I think that was the moment I fell in love with them. With flowers, romance and creating beauty. And, maybe, even with love itself. (Also, side note, the only marriage advice that really matters: compromise and flowers. Lots and lots of flowers.)

We chose June instead of August because we thought we'd outsmart the heat. We did not. A record-breaking heat wave rolled in that week, and despite my very best efforts, my hair was gloriously frizzy. Then, halfway through the ceremony, it started to rain. Not enough to ruin anything but just enough to make it magical. We had completely abandoned our rain plan, so everyone grabbed parasols and embraced it. Like most things in life, the unplanned moments ended up being the best ones.

I wore a Monique Lhuillier gown with a beaded bodice and the most beautiful tea-stained tulle skirt. Christian Louboutin heels. A Monique veil. Fred Leighton earrings. Todd designed both my engagement ring and wedding band himself. And my makeup artist, Tracy Murphy, gave me the longest lashes imaginable.

Right after the ceremony, my maid of honor and wedding planner cut the lining straight out of my dress so it would be easier to dance in. Which brings me to one of my strongest bridal opinions: A wedding dress has one job: to be your best dancing partner. My advice to every bride: give every dress you try on a dance test. If it can’t move with you all night, it isn’t the one. We danced our first dance to Otis Redding’s “That’s How Strong My Love Is,” my dress moved with me all night long and sixteen years later, it’s still hanging in my closet exactly as it was. I never had it dry cleaned! The hem is still stained with grass and it’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever worn.

There’s something else I just realized as I’m writing this. We got married the same year Instagram launched! There were no stories. No posting before the night was over. No documenting every moment with our phones while it was happening. We were just there. Present, dancing, laughing and loving. Sweating in the heat and running through the rain. Living it. Maybe that’s part of why I remember it all so vividly.

A month later, I wore one of those bridesmaid dresses to a friend’s wedding and my fate was sealed. I didn’t want to wear anything else. So I started making more in every color and print. I couldn’t stop. I started doing little trunk shows in the Hamptons, selling dresses to friends and friends of friends while still working full-time at Cosmopolitan. Slowly, dress by dress, it became the thing everyone wanted.

More than the first dress, my wedding was the first time I fell in love with creating a world. The flowers, the music, the tables and the dresses. Every detail telling the same story. My bridesmaids weren’t just wearing dresses. They were part of the story. The flowers weren’t just flowers. They were creating a mood. A memory. A feeling. In so many ways, my wedding was the very first LoveShackFancy event. The very first expression of the world I’ve spent the last sixteen years building. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what was ahead. I was simply making dresses I loved and sharing them with friends. But that was the beginning. The beginning of LoveShackFancy. Born out of love, one wedding, and one dress.

More to come next time on what happened next. 💕 xx Beck

P.S. If you want to make sure my letters actually land in your inbox and not buried in Promotions, pop my email into your contacts. And if this first one felt like anything real to you, forward it to one friend who’d love it. That’s how The Fancy Life grows.

I’m writing from my bed in the West Village, where most of my best ideas come to me. Sometimes it’ll be late at night, when the house is quiet and my brain has a million things going at once. Sometimes from my garden, surrounded by flowers, when I just need to slow down. Wherever I am, this is simply my place to get it all out into the world, in case anyone’s interested in reading it.

Long before the dresses and the stores, I was the girl blasting Jewel and Fiona Apple and Sarah McLachlan, writing in her journal in a New York bedroom with floral wallpaper, Vogue and Elle tears from the 90s all over the walls, and stacks of Sassy and Seventeen on the floor. I grew up in and around magazines, watching my mother build worlds out of words and images at Seventeen, where she was creative director. Somewhere along the way I started building my own world out of tulle and hand-dyed chiffon, but the writer never left. She just got quiet for a while. This is me letting her speak again.

A little proof of how deep this magazine thing runs: in 1997, at Riverdale, I started the very first women’s literary magazine at my high school. I’ll dig it up and show you. Then I worked in magazines for almost a decade. And two weeks ago, at our Soho store, we hosted a book party for our old Cosmo editors that took me right back to those years, all of us in one room again. So yes. Magazines are my passion. And this one is my new one for you.

And the season feels right. Summer, for me, is always a homecoming. A few anniversaries are sitting close to my heart as I write this. Sixteen years since Todd and I got married at my family’s home in the Hamptons. The wedding I designed my very first bridesmaid dresses for, the ones that started everything without my knowing it. Thirteen years since LoveShackFancy began, in that same garden, on the same lawn. Eight years since we opened our first little store in Sag Harbor. It’s where the brand was born. Where my marriage began. Where I am most myself.

Life is moving so fast right now, in the way I love most and also can’t quite keep up with. The girls just graduated from school. Stella finished lower school, which had me emotional, of course. How is she that big already. Scarlett turned thirteen a few weeks ago, an actual teenager, which I still can’t believe.

Then we went on the most special family vacation before camp, just the four of us. First, London, to open our new Chelsea store, which is so beyond stunning. I am obsessed. Number thirty. I literally cannot believe it. From there, we took the best trip to our favorite place in the world, Hotel du Cap in Cap d’Antibes, in the south of France. We’ve been coming since the girls were little, and lately I’ve been sneaking back when they’re at camp, but to be there together as a family again was so special. There’s something about the nostalgia, the traditions, the way that place somehow always stays exactly the same. We did a boat day over to St. Tropez for shopping and lunch at my favorite spot in the entire world, Club 55. It always, always feels like a homecoming. (St. Tropez and I go all the way back to my high school graduation, when my parents took me at eighteen and I sat in the back of the convertible blasting Moby on my Discman and fell completely, instantly in love. I’ll write a whole entry on that, with photos.)

Oh, and the Knicks won! NYC feels more amazing than ever. We spent the last few days in the Hamptons before heading back into the city, and now the girls are about to leave for sleep away camp. Then Ibiza and St. Tropez with friends, then home to the Hamptons for summer amazingness in my happy place. The kind of weeks I dream about all year.

The Fancy Life is the most personal thing I’ve ever made. Not a brand newsletter. Not a sales pitch. Not a polished campaign. A letter, intimate and a little messy and unedited, the way real letters always are. Because the fancy life, to me, was never about the fancy. It’s about romance, the everyday kind. The flowers on the nightstand. The long dinner that turns into a longer night. The dress you twirl in just because it feels good. The letter from a friend that arrives exactly when you need it. The little things that make a Tuesday afternoon feel like something. This is where I’ll put it all down: what I’m loving, the muses I keep returning to, travel and hotels and restaurants and parties, the music on repeat, Scarlett and Stella being ridiculous in our kitchen, and the honest founder stuff too, because the fairy tale and the reality live together. More than anything, I want this to feel like the letters that turned into texts. The thread with your best friends that runs all day long, the one that lets you ask anything, say anything, send a photo with no words. Romance, friendship, community. I hope this can be that letter for you.

I’m so glad you’re here. Pour yourself something. Let’s begin.

xx Beck

P.S. If you want to make sure my letters actually land in your inbox and not buried in Promotions, pop my email into your contacts. And if this first one felt like anything real to you, forward it to one friend who’d love it. That’s how The Fancy Life grows.

See you soon. 🌸