Shoes are my favourite way of turning an outfit into something directional, polished or effortless, without changing many things. In a world where (sadly) most of the people buy and wear similar clothes, shoes are the easiest way to create tension and add something people will remember about a look.

Instead of asking myself “Does this match?” I rather like to think about “Does this make my outfit look more interesting?”.

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Over the past years I collected some shoes which are not pretty in the first place, but somehow add a contrast to my rather minimalistic wardrobe.

Here are my favourite ways to style TWST:

- Bermuda shorts with boots

- Sweatpants with ballet flats

- Leggins with pointy toe heels

- A long, blazer like coat and some Salomon Sneaker

- All black outfits and a pop of red or white as a shoe

- A white summer dress with heavy boots

- A suit with flip flops (very Olsen I know)

The list goes on and on and so easy to adapt to your own closet.

My most worn shoes this year had been my Tabis. The boots and the ballet flats are not only ridiculously comfortable, but the easiest way to add an unexpected element.

Me by Moritz Scholz for Getty Images

The shortcut for the Wrong Shoe Theory might be to buy a little weird shoe that just adds a little something to your looks. Here is my selection (or wishlist, to be precise).

Balenciaga Zero Sneaker

Dries van Noten Sandals (my obsession for years)

Birkenstock Clogs

Salamon Sneakers

Just the weirdest and coolest Dries Heels ever?

The Row Shearling Mules

Tabi High Boots

Bottega Heels

But the best thing is you actually don’t need to buy anything new, you can just go to your closet and create something that feels like YOU!

I hope you feel a little inspired to style your shoes and add a little spice in your everyday life.

Yours, Isabelle xx

Our closet for AD Germany Image originally published by Architectural Digest. All rights to this photograph belong to Architectural Digest./ Shot by Charlotte Schreiber

Over the years I've collected a small arsenal of tricks, some learned the hard way (you should never hang heavy cashmere!!) some stolen shamelessly, all tested on my own increasingly opinionated wardrobe. Here's everything I know about turning chaos into something you actually want to open every morning.

1. Empty It Out Before You Sort It Out

You cannot organize around the problem. Everything comes out first. Every hanger, every mystery scarf, every pair of jeans you’ve been “getting back into” since a presidential administration ago. Pile it all on the bed. Yes, all of it. It will look like a crime scene for about twenty minutes, and this is correct.

Now sort into five piles: keep, maybe, sell, donate and store. (The store part is what changed it all for me, because I had ton of things that I am not wearing at the moment but that I cannot let go of either.) The “maybe” pile is doing you a favor, it lets you postpone a decision without making a mess of the other three. Come back to it once everything else has found a home, and you’ll be surprised how easily half of it graduates straight to donate. Seeing the full volume of what you own, laid bare under bedroom lighting, has a way of sharpening your judgment that scrolling past it on a hanger never will.

2. Pick a System and Actually Commit to It

There is no morally superior way to organize a closet, only the one you’ll maintain. Color-blocked and editorial, like a very small department store. Grouped by category, blazers with blazers, so your brain doesn’t have to hunt. Or ranked by how often you reach for it, favorites at eye level, aspirational pieces exiled to the back. Pick one. I personally group by category, then colours and length (for example: buttoned shirts, from white, to grey, to color, to black and within each color category shortest to longest.)

3. Hangers Are Not a Detail, They’re necessary

This is the one piece of advice people roll their eyes at until they try it: throw out the wire dry-cleaner hangers and the slippery plastic ones immediately. Not eventually, immediately. Replace them with thin, non-slip hangers in a single material, these are my personal favourites. Beyond the fact that a rail of matching hangers looks instantly more expensive than it is, felt actually grips fabric, so your silk blouses stop puddling on the closet floor.

4. Off-Season Is Not On-Duty

Your closet is a stage, not a warehouse. Whatever you’re not wearing this season doesn’t need a front-row seat. Pack it into storage boxes or vacuum bags and move it to a basement, a top shelf, anywhere. This does two things: it makes your daily choices easier because you’re picking from a smaller, more relevant selection (the vacation closet paradox: the less you pack, the more creative you get with your things and the outfits usually look bomb?!). I swap it twice a year usually March and October.

5. Use Every Wall, Not Just the Rail

The inside of the closet door is basically free square footage that most people ignore. Hooks for belts, a slim jewelry organizer instead of yet another drawer, a shoe rack that goes vertical instead of eating floor space, all of it adds capacity without adding a single extra shelf. Jewelry especially deserves better than a tangled bowl; a hanging organizer or a small stand keeps things visible, which means you actually wear them instead of forgetting they exist.

6. One In, One Out (No, Really)

The single habit that keeps a closet from sliding back into chaos six weeks after you’ve done all this work: for every new thing that enters, something else has to leave. It sounds almost too simple to work, and yet it’s the difference between a closet you organize once a year in a panic and one that basically maintains itself.

7. Not Everything Wants to Hang

Cashmere and heavy knits shouldn’t hang. Over time, gravity stretches them out of shape at the shoulders. Fold them and store them flat on a shelf or in a drawer instead.

Shirts want the opposite treatment. Give them a bit of space on the rod so the fabric can fall straight instead of crushing against its neighbor and creasing.

As a rule of thumb, anything structured or prone to wrinkling gets a hanger and some room. Anything soft or knit gets folded and left flat.

None of this requires a walk-in the size of a studio apartment or a full weekend lost to Pinterest boards. It requires about two hours (maybe four if you add a little Carrie Bradshawish outfit evaluation with your friends), four piles, and the willingness to admit that sweater is not coming back into rotation. Do it once properly, and every morning after starts to feel a little easier to dress like the best version of yourself.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention: if you need a little motivation, go watch Kendall Jenners latest Vogue Youtube video about her closet.

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I hope that helps a little!

Yours, Isabelle xx

Jude the Brand

Currently responsible for the shoes and bags everyone will soon be pretending they found first. Consider this your head start.

Almada Label

An all-time favorite, and I say that as someone who has been a fan since the very beginning. Can’t wait for the debut at CPH FW!

Nho Girl

What started as a vintage label has now added Nho Girl Classics, and it’s solved the eternal problem of the basic. Essentials done perfectly (and in a very hot way if you ask me)

Holli Worldwide

If summer had an official uniform, Holli Worldwide would be issuing it. Their pieces are instantly iconic while still feeling a step ahead of everyone else.

Easton Marley

For the woman who is classic on the surface and considerably more interesting underneath. Easton Marley trades in restraint with just enough edge to keep things chic.

Please let me know about your favourites in the comments.

Yours, Isabelle xx

The religion of my adolescence was The Hills. Lauren Conrad’s bags were my scripture, and owning something with a hardware clasp and a waiting list was, frankly, the entire plot of my teenage years. My first summer job existed to fund exactly that habit, and it eventually bought me my first pair of YSL heels, genuinely expensive, genuinely saved for, and genuinely a pair I could barely walk in (I wore them anyway). Years later, once I’d studied fashion (surrounded by people who could recite prices for pieces none of us could afford) and started modeling internationally, my first real campaign checks let me walk into a store and buy a bag the same day I wanted it. No saving, no spreadsheet, no negotiation with my own conscience.

It felt, at the time, like arrival. Everything I’m about to say complicates that feeling.

The Great Unboxing

Something has shifted, and I did not see it coming (that fast).

Open Instagram on any given day and you will be handed, algorithmically, an unboxing of a bag whose price tag clears several months of somebody’s rent. The overwhelming impression is that everyone can afford one of these now (in parentheses: they almost certainly cannot), but that is precisely the sensation social media is engineered to produce. Accessibility as illusion. Scarcity as content. A market so flooded with the imagery of luxury that the imagery has become more available than the actual thing, which was, until recently, rather the point of the actual thing.

Here is the theory I’ve arrived at, and I hold it with the confidence of someone who has thought about handbags more than is strictly dignified: luxury goods used to be what was left over. You bought the apartment. You bought the car, or you didn’t need to, because you already had one that worked. You took the holiday. And then, if there was anything left in the account after the down payment, after the mortgage, after the unglamorous adult machinery of a life fully assembled, you bought the bag. The bag was the dessert course of a meal you had already, demonstrably, paid for.

What’s changed is the meal. Property has priced an entire generation out of the down payment. Everything costs more than it did, and it costs more in a way that doesn’t correct itself. So people have, understandably, taken the big-ticket items off the table (not by choice, exactly, more by arithmetic) and redirected that appetite toward the one category of aspiration still notionally in reach: the absurdly expensive bag that lets you feel, for the length of one commute, like you belong somewhere you have not actually arrived. Which is its own kind of poignant, when you sit with it. You’re buying the punctuation mark for a sentence you haven’t written yet.

And here is the part that actually killed it, I think, more than the economics did: everyone doing this at once made the whole exercise stop being interesting. Status, definitionally, requires scarcity. You cannot signal that you are one of the few if you are, self-evidently, one of the many. Twenty years ago, carrying that bag meant you were one of a handful of people who could. Today it means you were one of several million people who saw the same unboxing video and decided, this weekend, to participate. The oversaturation didn’t just dilute the bag, it evaporated the entire premise the bag was selling.

I think this is exactly why so many people I know have quietly stopped buying the It-bag and started buying something else instead: vintage pieces that cannot simply be reordered, houses that sell you craft rather than crest, things whose value is legible without a logo doing the talking for them. Not because they’ve stopped caring about beautiful objects (god, no), but because the logo stopped being able to say anything true.

The Maths Stopped Making Sense

There’s a second, quieter shift, and it has less to do with markets than with what people have started to mean by the word luxury itself. Is it really luxury to work yourself into the ground for a bag you have no time left to actually carry anywhere interesting? Or is the greater luxury the pay cut, the shorter week, the actual unstructured hours with your own children, which no boutique on earth will sell you at any price?

I want to be precise about who I’m talking about, because this isn’t a critique of the truly wealthy: the woman who can simply buy the entire couture collection because the number on the price tag long ago stopped registering as a number to her. That’s a different conversation, and not a very interesting one. I’m talking about the people actually making the trade: the holiday or the handbag, the renovation or the recognizable orange box. That is where the real philosophical work is happening, in the choosing, not in the buying.

Belonging Is Not the Same as Broadcasting

None of this means fashion has stopped being a language. It hasn’t, and it won’t. Clothing will always be how we tell strangers, before we’ve said a word, which tribe we’re auditioning for. That instinct in me, the one that wanted Lauren Conrad’s bag before I understood what wanting it meant, isn’t gone. I don’t think it’s gone in anyone.

What’s over, genuinely, I’d argue, terminally over, is the specific idea that a designer bag functions as an index of status: a reliable, legible, external proof that you have made it, whatever it was supposed to be. That function required the bag to be rare, and the bag is no longer rare. It is content. It is a Tuesday. It is, increasingly, a slightly desperate cover charge for a party that stopped being exclusive the moment everyone got the invitation.

So, is luxury fashion still an expression of status? I’d say it’s an expression of something: of longing, of nostalgia, of a very old and very human wish to be legible to other people at a glance. It has just quietly stopped being able to prove the one thing we always secretly asked it to prove. And maybe that’s not a loss so much as a correction. The bag was never actually going to tell anyone who we were. We were always going to have to do that part ourselves, on foot, as it turns out, in shoes we can actually walk in.

If you made it that far, thank you for your time! Please let me know you thoughts on this topic in the comments.

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Yours, Isabelle xx

I’m also, unapologetically, a preloved girl. Call it thrift, call it taste, but I simply refuse to pay retail when the exact same piece is sitting online for half the price, patiently waiting for someone with a little more patience than impulse.

So, to bring you a little joy (and maybe tempt your wallet just a touch), I’ve put together a big edit for you to shop. I spent hours combing through digital racks and listings to track down the most beautiful vintage and preloved pieces out there (I am talking Phoebe Philo’s Céline and Tom Ford’s Gucci!).

I hope this list sparks some inspiration, and that you find something that finds its own beautiful little spot in your home.

Happy shopping!

Bags

Hermès Red Box Clutch - please buy her otherwise I will do it

My dream Hermès bag - FOR YEARS

Hermès Aline Canvas Bag - on my wishlist for years

Hermès White Leather Bag - perfect summer bag

Etro Canvas Bag - SHE IS SO CHIC

Bottega Veneta Dream Clutch - maybe one of the hottest finds here?

Tom Ford for Gucci Bag - at the best price point

Dries van Noten Leather Tote - if you want to look chic while carrying a laptop

Shoes

Manolo Blahnik Satin Floral Mules - I pray you have size 39

Vintage Chanel Flip Flops - made by Karl of course

The Row Tweed Ballet Flats - and they sparkle I’m not okay

The Row Sandals - on my wishlist since years

Jackets & Blazers

Phoebe Philo by Céline dream coat - wish it was my size

Coolest Gucci blazer on planet earth - inspired by

THE Dior Blazer - so chic

Another Philo for Céline find

A Tom Ford for Gucci Leather Blazer - hottest thing on my list

The perfect little black Chanel jacket - a must have I’d say

Summer cashmere as a Chanel Tweed

Dries van Noten Coat - such a gem

Calvin Klein 90s Blazer - maybe I buy it after the upload

Clothes

Margiela for Hermès Vest - a true collector’s piece

Yohji Yamamoto Skirt - pure perfection

Phoebe Philo for Céline dress - her cuts are perfection

Céline 2010 knitwear - the best era for knit by PP

Dries van Noten Dress - if summer was a dress

Hermès Shirt - and the price is a steal

Doen Summer Dress - for your summer vacation

Accessories

Chanel Cambon Wallet - would use it as a clutch as well

Vintage Cartier Tank - bought mine this year and I wear it nonstop

Céline cat-eye sunglasses - 2010 as it’s best

Hermès silk scarf - might be the coolest I ever found

Hermès silk scarf - for the monochromatic people

Céline by PP bracelet - so chic with a simple shirt

I hope you enjoyed my selection and the work and love I put into it.

Send it over to your vintage loving friend here:

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Yours, Isabelle xx

I have to start with a thank you. I started this Substack four days ago, and somehow it has already climbed to #50 on the Rising charts in Fashion & Beauty. Of all the unexpected sources of joy in my life right now, being on Substack is genuinely one of the biggest, and that says a lot, because most days I’m sitting in front of a screen anyway. But there’s something different about this one. It’s not a job, nobody is asking me to be here, and yet writing to you, even after just five days, has already become one of my favorite parts of being online. So: thank you for reading, for the warm welcome, for being here from the very start.

Which brings me to today’s post, a round-up of everything I’ve been loving lately, across the categories that actually make up my life: beauty, fashion, interior, and the non-material things that don’t fit anywhere else but matter just as much (if not the most?)

Oh and since I live in Germany and we have some weird laws, I need to declare this article as an ad since I am recommending things (or Werbung, as we say).

Werbung

Beauty

Chanel Hydra Beauty Lip Serum I’m not usually someone who reaches for a “serum” on her lips, but this one changed my mind. It sinks in instantly, no stickiness, no glossy film, and my lips just look plumper and feel genuinely cared for. I only noticed how much I love it when I forgot to pack it :-)

Dry Brushing I’d completely forgotten how much I love dry brushing until I rediscovered my brush at the back of a drawer a few weeks ago. Two minutes before the shower, a bit of pressure, and my skin already looks different: smoother, more awake, somehow less tired than I feel. It’s not glamorous and it’s not a new product to buy, but it’s the best thing to get my lymphatic system going:

Caudalie Eau de Beauty This is, without competition, my refreshment of the summer. One spritz on my face on a hot day and it’s like someone hit reset: cool, faintly floral, completely revitalizing without being heavy or sticky. I keep one bottle in the fridge and another in my bag, which tells you everything about how often I reach for it.

Fashion

Floreflore T-Shirt I’d had Floreflore on my radar for a very long time, but kept talking myself out of it, telling myself I could surely find something almost as good for less. I was wrong. I don’t think I’ve ever owned a t-shirt that does this much for how I look (the cut, the fabric, the way it falls), the kind of basic that makes you rethink what a basic can be.

Reyem Balloon Pants I’ve rarely had a single piece of clothing get stopped by strangers on the street as often as these. They’re proof that one item can completely transform a look. Pair them with the plainest top and you instantly look like you tried, even on days you absolutely didn’t, and they’ve become the easiest way I know to make an outfit feel finished.

Havaianas I now own them in red, black, and white, and I always go for the ones with the thicker strap. There’s nothing fancy about them, which might be exactly why they work: easy, comfortable, and somehow still the coolest shoe to wear all summer. They’re proof that the best summer shoe doesn’t have to try very hard.

Interior

Louise Roe Pasta Plates I picked these up in Copenhagen and they might be the chicest plates I own, though I have a feeling pasta will be the least of what ends up served on them. There’s something about Scandinavian ceramics that makes even the simplest dinner feel a little more considered. Consider this a preview of many non-pasta meals being plated far too carefully.

Vintage Japanese Ceramics Collection Our little vintage ceramics collection keeps growing, piece by piece, and I genuinely look forward to it every single day. There’s something about unwrapping a new find that never gets old, and each piece has its own history and its own slightly imperfect shape, which is exactly what makes it better than anything new. (Tell me, would a guide on where to actually find good vintage japanese ceramics be useful? I have thoughts.)

Nordic Knots Linen Bedding Nordic Knots just released the most beautiful linen bedding, and I’m obsessed with the colors. It’s the kind of linen that gets better with every wash, and on hot nights it keeps me cool.

Nonmaterialistic Things I Loved

1. Being here on Substack. I already said it above, but it deserves a proper spot on this list: showing up here, writing, hearing back from you sweet humans. This is such a beautiful spot on the internet.

2. Gardening. I know, completely unexpected from someone with a job that’s almost entirely digital. But honestly, nothing compares to quietly digging over a bed on a Sunday afternoon and watching my strawberries actually grow into something real. It’s slow, a little dirty, and probably the most grounding thing in my week.

3. Complimenting strangers. I started complimenting strangers: a coat I love, a haircut that suits someone perfectly, sunglasses I’d steal in a heartbeat. It costs nothing, takes five seconds, and somehow makes my own day better than theirs. I’d genuinely recommend it as a free, instant mood lift.

Thank you for reading and subscribing!

Refer a friend

It would mean the world to me if you would recommend my Substack to a friend.

Yours, Isabelle xx

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I got through quite a few books this year, but these five are the ones that really stuck with me. Here they are, in no particular order.

Life with Picasso - Françoise Gilot

Oh.. this one made me feel so many things. Gilot was an artist in her own right, but for years she was mostly known as “Picasso’s muse,” and this memoir is her quietly reclaiming that story. She writes about their relationship with so much clarity and self-respect, even when describing the parts that clearly cost her everything to put out in the world. It’s also just a fascinating window into the art world of that era.

Three - Dror Mishani

A slow-burn psychological novel told through three women, all of whom end up connected to the same man without realizing it. Mishani writes with so much restraint that the dread builds almost without you noticing. It’s som minimalistic but stills says so much. I didn’t see where the story was going, and the ending sat with me for days.

Bitter Sweet - Hattie Williams

This is the kind of messy, magnetic novel I used to devour in my twenties, and I loved revisiting that feeling. It follows a young publishing assistant who falls into an affair with the famous, much older author she’s idolized for years, and it’s so much sharper and more uncomfortable than the premise suggests. Williams writes desire and self-delusion in a way that felt almost too honest. I could not stop reading.

Yesteryear - Caro Claire Burke

Let’s say I saw it all over the internet and the story did not appeal to me at all. Then I bought it, just in case, and started reading. What can I say? For me, this one is a quiet masterpiece about the question so many women are still wrestling with: stay-at-home mum or career woman, and why does it have to be a choice at all? On the surface it's a "trad wife" influencer waking up in 1805, but underneath it's really about all the weight we carry on our shoulders, and how much of that weight society puts there without ever naming it. Burke tells it with so much subtlety that it never feels like it's lecturing you, yet I kept catching myself questioning things I'd never really questioned before.

Heartburn - Nora Ephron

A reread for me, but it earns its spot. Ephron turns the collapse of her own marriage into something darkly funny, sharp, and oddly comforting. It’s short enough to finish in a weekend and somehow still says more about heartbreak than most much longer books manage.

If you’ve read any of these, or have something you think I should read next, please tell me.

Yours, Isabelle xx

For the past few years, Instagram has been the most important platform for me. Gosh, I shared so much of my life there. From my favourite morning coffee to the day my first child was born, an overwhelmed picture of my husband and me when we bought our house. The small milestones and the big moments. And I shared all of it with people who have genuinely grown close to my heart over the years, followers who told me so much about their milestones while celebrating mine.

But.. I actually come from a completely different corner of the internet. At fourteen, I uploaded my first outfit photos to Lookbook (anyone remembering that? The OG platform?!) That’s where I really discovered my love for taking pictures and sharing things that inspired me. From my first expensive candle (that I bought from the money I made on my vacation job) that I arranged next to my mum’s peonies in my bedroom, to the best gelato I ever ate - it was fast, easy and cute. And I loved every single thing I did (looking back at these pictures - of course I loved it, these things were not qualified for creative mental break downs that I have nowadays).

The last years, the beloved algorithm came creeping in and took away the tiny moments that everyone loved to gently replace it with dopamine videos or 10 picture posts that offer ton of value. Because of course, we could all optimize something in our own life!!

And that’s exactly why I decided to start here on Substack.

I want to use this space to share things that inspire me, whether or not they perform well. I want to show you things that have sparked something emotional in me. A book that gave me a different way of thinking. Things I’ve found that I want to share with you here, exclusively. (I am planning on linking curated vintage finds? What do we think?) Or just the wild thoughts that pile up in my head, about motherhood, fashion, beauty, art or just everything that doesn’t quite fit on Instagram.

I hope to create a small, lovely space here for all of us. And I always welcome constructive feedback. Please feel free to tell me what you’d like to see or read here.

Yours, Isabelle x