You know, the people who bridge the gap between the spiritual and physical worlds by leaving behind all of their material belongings and life’s pleasures?

Feasting on the elements and the winds.

Yeah…

At the time, I had rejected the matrix with an absolutism I needed to stake into the ground, and after a couple months of doing yoga, a shamanic course seemed like the obvious answer.

So not FULL on Shaman, as I need my comforts and iced coffee. They say to address one addiction at a time, people!

And yet, I needed an altar I could decorate.

Needless to say, the request rendered my mother speechless, and that’s saying a lot, because not even my most offensive actions while under the influence could produce a similar outcome.

I was afraid to feel, and have been afraid of…pleasure. For example, shopping. Shopaholism is real! Before I embarked on my phoenix rising from the ashes odyssey, blah blah etc, I got rid of 75% of my closet resolved that I would never need a nice dress again.

All invites revoked.

But as an experiment, I’ve really been trying to allow my sartorial headwind to blossom. This direction is more decadent. I have found that maybe a fur or bejeweled creative cap snaps me back into focus.

As a rebellion against the paths that I blamed for losing my sense of self, I found myself in a whimsical womb.

A repoussé, if you will. The metalworking technique where an artist hammers a malleable metal sheet from the reverse side to create a raised, three-dimensional design on the front.

Et Voila!

Malleable and mutable.

In fact, through different mediums and ubiquitous material that transcend the winds and water, my original request to embark on an elemental revelation proves resoundingly shamanic in principle.

A sense of being unmoored to the agreements laid out before me.

The elements I work with today are initials etched in tags that betray a nurtured prayer, a full moon on the eve of my Saturn return, the singular spot of sun my dog wants to bask in among the trees’ morning shadows. Peering through the doors of the neighborhood dry cleaners’ to discover a wedding reception in slow motion.

The bride and her father dancing to latin music in the middle of a room where racks of clothing hung just the day before.

I am searching for the moment time stops, penetrates the medium and proves the material is substantive.

A journal becomes a pen becomes a songbook becomes a cameo of my dog.

Now I want to show and tell the products of my pleasure.

(BTW I merchandised my book shelves for this).

PSA: This is also executed through the lens of fashion from the 1936 fashion feast that is My Man Godfrey. (because obsession).

PAJAMA (BIRTH)DAY

This felt like Orphan Annie turns 27. No but seriously, the lore is that I was Annie. ‘Nother story for ‘nother time! Not to mention it’s got the frog clasp sass and crisp collar that has been flooding our aesthetic feeds this summer. It was a novelty, celebratory piece that I know for a fact I will don as separates or all at once with my designated holiday party emerald velvet pumps. These also don’t break the bank, make you feel SO extra and luxurious. As a redhead, I also don’t gravitate towards red, but the color was the cake and the candles. Here is something similar tagged as RARE.

Drewelry

I am on a jewelry journey and having so much fun. These are pieces that I drooled over and now make getting ready feel more well rounded.

What’s That! (please finish it for me)

I merchandised the aforementioned bookshelves switching between these two hats. What I thought at first was a conch-like piece hiding in a leather goods case was in fact, a HAT.

As hide was originally used resourcefully for durability has proven to be the unexpected textured piece that takes an ensemble from gooood to grand. This piece, specifically, is a steal from the original Gus Mayer department store. While today they house Juicy Couture, this was a rare find.

As for this bay beauty, My boyfriend opted for the fur too high up for either of us to reach, and I just went with it. Woe is me. Will pair with this film fashio masterpiece in another lifetime. Anyone up for an archive heist?!

Honorary Objects

All of these images and objects bridge that gap between the spiritual and physical worlds for me. I recently watched the Martin Margiela documentary and realized how much he underpins even the most mundane thrift finds.

Most Pinned

I first became aware of the popularity of taxidermy beyond bucks mounted as trophies on a wall when my coworker told me that she included her stuffed monkey in her engagement photos.

Hold on a minute…

I then read about the Brazilian blue butterflies at Deyrolle’s in Marin Montagut Timeless Paris, and I was absolutely mesmerized by the winged creatures suspended in frames and arranged in mosaics. Now, I have my very own.

Original Sin

This piece so resolutely drew me in that I flipped my Holy Bible open to Genesis. These are details that just take us beyond a conversation piece to a visual pleasure points. BTW, God scolded the snake first.

Rodeo Clown!!

Once again, I am completely influenced by my coworker. It’s fun to surround yourself with people who have completely individual taste. I drew her clown, found a clown in the wild, then threw on a clownlike outfit. Pirate? It’s the exaggerated collar life for me.

Wouldn’t be a post without a Dolly tribute

Excessory Edit - Fall is Mystique and Feminine!!!

Heigh ho…

The text chime came through my car speakers as I pulled into a strip mall parking lot, and I breathed a sigh mixed with relief and anticipation. I was grateful that I trusted my gut by throwing on a bright green ruffle number on top and my calf-hair heels thrifted for three buckaroonies the Friday before, however the red neon signage above the neighborhood tavern tugged at my nerves.

It had been two years since I went out without my boyfriend or a family member. Crazy I know, but healing your brain takes timeeeee. After exchanging dog day dilemmas with my coworker, I figured I needed a place to wear all of these outfits I have been planning in my head.

And maybe some girlhood? Maybe?

A couple of girlfriends I met this summer invited me to go watch a Madonna cover band, and at the 11th hour I opted in.

I almost ducked back into the drivers seat, but a deep breath told me chin up. Shoulders back. Glancing at the small notebook I got at Bunny Mellon’s Virginia home, I decided to leave it behind.

Another development from the past two years, is that I have found myself hanging out with people 30 even 40 years older than me. I guess that comes as no surprise because of what I do for work? I digress.

The point I am getting at is we take ourselves so seriously in, especially, our late twenties, to refine ourselves as facsimiles of adults that it’s a stunning observation wherein folks that have stood where I stand still yet fill their lives with as much vibrancy as possible.

With pearls and curls, dangling heart earrings, glossy lips and a crucifix, we sipped on cocktails (mocktails), and they told me what it was like growing up witnessing the stardom that was Madonna.

They broke into the bows and fishnet tights, conical bustiers and oversized vogue suits that rippled throughout each of her “eras,” trendsetting at every turn. And how she specifically was able to reinvent herself alongside every creative endeavor.

Here is a fun gallery of her outfit evolution.

I was also struck days later by Vogue’s birthday post for her, and one photo of her in her English countryside madonna-verse. I was first introduced to Madonna when she starred in Evita, belting ‘Dont Cry For Me Argentina whenever I could locate some good acoustics. and later I became aware of her lifelong work. This little hole made me realize that a woman can be all of these things. How she can wake up to birdsong and tether herself to nature through muddy paths and also walk the red carpet at the VMA’s in a slinky blue silk collared shirt. AND take home the trophy with a string of pearls around her neck.

I’ve done a dive of sorts into jewelry in the past couple of weeks for something fun coming up, and my generous employer allowed me to take home yet another gem, well rather, pearl. Can this count at Lot #2? (If you missed Lot #1, she’s floating on the Seine.)

From Pearls: A Natural History by the American Museum of Natural History and The Field Museum (2001), the pearls we covet today come from the process of perliculture, the science born from supply and demand finally perfected in the 20th century. And still, it took decades to be widely accepted.

One is an accidental obstruction within a mollusk and the other, controlled. The latter are the lustered bulbs we know and love today. Ancient Romans viewed them as tears from God’s while other cultures from antiquity followed the dew theory, wherein the mollusks “yawned” and the droplet impregnated the shell. (As always, Thank You, Pliny the Elder.)

Fine and cultured, the distinguishing descriptors of the gem on whether the pearl is natural or a product of perliculture, echoes feminine dynamics of today. Both iterations are real yet separated by grain constitution, and some circa-dating.

So, there I was with my two friends, with experiences that spanned four generations, and to make me feel included, they gifted me a wooden cross to juxtapose my frilly blouse, waiting for the Madonna cover band to start.

Ironically, it wasn’t a Madonna cover band at all, in fact, the headliners were a group named Material Girl. The closest they got to the “Like a Virgin” singer was Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,’ after which we exited in high spirits.

We can certainly argue false advertising, but it was the perfect amount of this is not how we thought the night was going to go.

An absolute pearl-wind.

Some Pendent Pandering…

Tassels are fountains, buttons are sprinkles, girls are pearls and there will be, as history has proven time and time again, a pendent or symbol to fill a soul’s identity hole at exactly the moment it is meant to.

Maybe you accept that your own individuality is the perfect pendent, like everyone’s favorite princess.

A Madonna or Mary at the local dive.

Wait… that got parabolic fast! Humor me.

Because in the garden of good and evil, we will all adapt to every accidental and intentional obstruction, fine and cultured, until we are polished to our most refined sheen of self.

Heigh Ho…

Like…

Last week, I merchandised a cowboy corner in the shop window to showcase the latest Strokes “Reality Awaits” album cover, and the next morning a guy wearing a western ensemble mounted a painted horse across the town square. To make it even more literal, we also put a certain musician’s latest release in the window and by Thursday, they were walking through the door with security detail in tow.

I am an apprentice to the art of merchandising, and also the indirect signal the practice sends out to the universe.

The conductor of chance waves his wand, and we anticipate the first undulation of the day from our green room behind the turn of the century National cash register.

Sometimes the cubby is a judge’s box.

We witness the magic of tourists, parents officially off the summer clock and couples out and about eager to peruse the cabinet of curiosities. Needless to say, the more “we” rebel against AI, the more air conditioning we let out of the shop.

The door is always swinging,

Speaking of torque, I have truly never born witness to so many buckets of waterworks shed by a single summer. Sunny one minute and torrential the next. Patrons mime the energy from performing magic tricks at the register to treating our sound system like the juke box in a diner. At the last second, someone is spilling coffee all over the creaky wooden floor. Millennials donning socks with sandals and a necktie fashioned Rambo style try to bargain.

At times, it feels eerily like middle school. Some locker conversations we want to forget and some we will never. One minute we are immersed in a barnyard explosion and the next a riveting conversation on vintage watches or Japanese ikebana. Giggling all the same.

Life is Camp that way.

This is not my first retail rodeo, so I know that each day begets more scraps for a moodboard. Or maybe its more like a tableau. Some days are people days and others are meant for alphabetizing the record collection.

However, no matter who comes through the doors, it is imperative that we treat everyone like an honorary guest.

On hospitality and beauty PLEASE read this recent stack .

at this point has been an invaluable resource for me in the creative world and sent me this podcast. I have been trying so hard at making my substack a selling point, and yet my tunnel vision was decentered by the “earthy and accessible” words of art critic Roberta Smith.

The line she straddles to survey both the art and writing worlds by nature immerses her in pretension, and yet, she never let’s the function of ego when it comes to taste cloud her judgement. In fact, she will pen an entire Times article as to why she was wrong.

I’ve realized that my writing, for the most part, has been inhospitable.

As a writer, I have been an expectant clerk behind a desk leaving it up to you to figure out the store on your own. Or that you a savant about whatever it is lured you in.

And I haven’t even begun to close my own taste gap.

Thoughts of grandeur and table assignments led me to narrow my audience down to one person, or publication, for that matter.

I can talk about filling the negative space for the sake of nuance and performance, if we think of writing first and foremost as a visual art, but if I have isolated readers because I have exhausted them before reading the first word, then I have convincingly left that negative space unfulfilled by leaving people out.

By adhering to an imaginary editorial deadline, I have warded off my “why.”

Which is the magic of waking up every morning and seeing what the world has to serve me on a silver platter.

Exercising one’s so called zone of genius shouldn’t lead to burnout or blurt out the word that fits best at the end of a sentence. Icing out all the other possible verbiage.

Words are not props for a display window, but rather, strategic tools.

I can’t people please an individual that is most likely never going to read my substack, molding myself to a style based on assumption as my discernment mildews all the while.

Am I on here as an auctioneer with a gavel and an elocutionary propriety?

Certainly, not.

I am a docent. For we are all museums of everything we have ever noticed.

This entire journey is a sitcom episode about “how many lessons does it take for me to realize I just need to be myself.”

Here is my concerted effort to strike a balance between trying too hard and just sharing what I love. Naturale of nature. According to my aforementioned guru, during our Monday Creative admin which happened to lead me to the hobby aisle at Home Depot, the trend is to walk out the door as if being yourself is the next look going down catwalk.

In this day and age it’s not about being in the right place at the right time, but rather which message, or image, moves you at which moment.

Here's what I’m visually and mentally merchandising this week.

Brain dump edit, because I have no idea where any of this is going either.

A tartan book laying on the desk led me down an ancestral rabbit hole!

Antique Trivia: Silver Vinaigrettes

An edits with some links and such!

Here’s, to finding the balance between fits of genius and the flow state. Striving to already be there but instead sinking into the process. And accept that, pardon my french, “it’s kind of chic" to have no idea what you are doing.

Heigh…ho

Mary

Under the foundation of a house.

When I was three years old, my parents were building the home in which they would raise two little red headed girls, and as we waited for my younger sister to arrive, I spent many days with my father at the construction site, discovering the catacombs beneath the beams and aluminum pipes.

Yesterday morning, I set out to replace the filter of the furnace in our pre-1968 rental, and me, being well, me, I couldn’t resist the symbolic parallels that tugged at me.

I have a hunch that my Saturn is beginning to return 30 days away from my 27th birthday. So, that tells me to meet every day of this month with a particular intention, from treat myself moments to digging up the magpied wad of lessons I skimmed over in the past year.

Not to mention 23 months of sobriety. Exposure therapy.

After my thoughts on spelunking, I am considering what August means to me, apart from another trip around the sun. I am brought back in memory to the house under which I used to crawl and the pastures where I performed ballads for the grazing horses.

It is always that particular green color. I think of the infinite blades of grass and foliage that make way for new hues untapped by a painter’s palette.

The green that takes over as a late summer ode, adjacent to the birth stone assigned to August, peridot, chartreuse day dreams dusted with a supernatural layer of sunshine.

If June is the vinedresser, then August is the harvest.

Before we slip into autumnal uniform dressing, let’s wrap ourselves in shades of growth once more.

A few Mondays ago, I realized that I had been remiss in my foraging activities over the weekend. No knick knacks or thrift finds to admire on my mantel or a hanger. It’s a craving I can only compare to that of my former alcohol urges, a whole other can of worms we can unpack at a later date.

Today I worship carbonation and found objects.

So, I drove to a fabric warehouse looking for scraps. Tassels, fringe, pom poms, striped samples, buttons and greek key motifs piled up in my arms.

They say you trade one addiction for the other. But substance abuse is a matter of wellness, and I can’t think of a more fulfilling remedy than creativity.

Even if you have no idea what you are going to do with said things… yet.

For every life lesson there is a horticultural metaphor. We tend to these gardens, tow the soil, sow the seeds, etc. However, this has been the rainiest summer in my recent memory. Jungle level precipitation, from retrogrades to deluges down the street. Street style has suffered, if there is such a thing in Georgia. The less is more philosophy that complements summer heat waves lined with linen and breezy layers has given way to weeds.

There’s been no point in pulling them though, because it will just rain more tomorrow.

What has sprouted are evenings chasing fireflies as I watch my brindled bully swipe a frisbee out of the air, a sartorial impulse secured by safety pins, and striking balance between minimalist and maximalist sensibilities.

How can we go with the flow while simultaneously planning living art?

Margiela drove stick shift by celebrating the unfinished. Jonathan Anderson’s Dior is tucked to perfection.

Each has a heritage. A story. A kaleidoscope of original and referential excellence.

Somewhere between Amy Smilovic’s Creative Pragmatist and pinning a flower to a Costco shirt to alter a silhouette, we are unlearning the notion that rules must be followed while respecting that systems absolutely work.

Frameworks are even better.

In the process of shearing back vegetation in the wild, I have added 30 + items to my closet this month, so I decided to conduct a little analysis to take a look at the color foundation that gives way to whimsical touches.

Like an underpainting.

I am no mathematician, but I think we can all agree that numbers say a lot. These pie slices act as vessels for the filling. Seventy-nine percent earth and neutral browns ground me, whites clarify, blues and greens echo the gardens I’m consciously and subconsciously tending. Just like in recovery, the foundation is everything. It’s why I can safely pin freely, why the embroidery is implicitly earnest, why the fringe finds its place without fighting for it. The tassels meant for curtain tie-backs I pulled from that fabric warehouse? They land because the base says yes before they arrive.

Then there’s the 12% of intentional jewels. A red dress becomes a canvas for my creativity. A purple piece tempers my experiments. Personal style isn’t about rejecting color. It’s about respecting it so much that every hue has to earn its place in my story. Even if the red is reminiscent of the velvet red number I wore in the finale of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. Or $3 black Stuart Weitzman pumps take me back to boarding school drama a decade ago.

You rewild your wardrobe with the seeds that may have shrivelled but wake up the moment a rain drop slips down a weed’s stem.

In third grade, I attended the Father/Daughter dance at the convention center in our South Georgia town, and I vividly remember the metallic dress my grandmother and I secured at Belk that week.

At the last minute, I reached for a leather jacket in my closet.

While all the other little girls were dressed to the nines in their pink puffy sleeved, smocked numbers, I remember my friend running up to me and saying, “You always have to do a little something to your outfit don’t you.”

I smiled and ran to the dance floor.

In the Primacy of Drawing by Deanna Petherbridge, she takes us all the way back to Pliny the Elder’s tale of the original illustration.

Before her lover embarked on a long journey, a woman wanted to capture his likeness to remember what he looked like by lamp light. The act is using the shadows to trace his outline. The story then goes that her potter father pressed clay into the outline to create the first portrait relief.

A fable at the end of the day, but ultimately, this links symbolic creation not just to human longing but to the feeling of absence. So much of what has been created throughout human history has been intended to fill a void.

In that spirit, here are 4 ways I filled the absences evident in my outfits.

1. Rosettes

Rosette’s anchoring my shoulders. A little something something.

2. Pins on pins

   I truly was about to walk out the door in my boatneck zara cap sleeve tee. A voice whispered and stopped me in my tracks as I went to turn the knob on the side door. In a mad dash, I threw on an oversized men’s shirt and made it an asymmetrical study with a floral piece from my grandmother’s closet. I have a hunch that she made this one herself due to the condition of the pin.

   

3. TEXTURED

This one was a study in pattern recognition. Reading what you write, seeing what I grabbed at random at the thrift shop or the fabric store, a style story came to life. Certainly rooted in Chinese traditional attire through the pankou clasp and South Asian sartorial outfitting through the tassel, there is something regal about the way the textures tickle our neurological transmitters.

4. Needle & Thread

When I walked into yoga on Saturday morning, the last thing I expected was that my yoga instructor had a bag full of vintage goodies for me. To be loved is to be known!! As well as having a signature look. It puts you on your friends and families radars when they are out foraging themselves.

I excitedly tried the sweet shirt on at home, and all I could think was that this top would be my first victim of embroidery. A shell no less. Some pearls that came with the embroidery kit from Amazon, et voila!

A totally customized keepsake.

Right now, the internal GPS is telling me to add. Not subtract. The addition is intentional. Hand-made, a flash of inspiration while doing the dishes, a loose interpretation of an outcome yet to materialize.

Each decision goes with the flow of the system you have created all on your own. And by definition, that is wellness, creative freedom and pure joy.

You aren’t working for the content machine anymore, instead you are freeing your mind of the attachments relative to what is expected of you.

If you control your own expectations, you will find yourself subconsciously and quite literally rewilding your wardrobe in every medium while lounging on a purple picnic blanket.

I said I was going to do something fun at 400 subs, and now that I am almost to 500, I thought I might as well introduce not one, but two series!!

Here is the first one I introduced last week, Lot #1. ICYMI

This second extension of Little Edits is inspired by radio host Ira Glass’ astute concept, The Taste Gap. Once a month, I am going to sit down with a designer, fashion expert, creative founder or someone that has a distinct eye to uncover how they bridged their own taste gap.

Because, as someone who wants to potentially pursue a myriad of creative endeavors, it’s helpful to know how skills are truly sharpened. How does one go from curator to creator? What does it take to align taste with ambition?

Whether that person is a veteran of their industry or just starting out, there are lessons to be learned at each step of the process. From the mad dash of momentum to the marathon of relevance, how does one get a brand to a place where it doesn’t have to trend chase, but rather, acquires its own trade secrets?

Subscribe now

Let’s get on with it!!

Meet Kevin Francis O’Gara…

I first encountered Kevin Francis at a photoshoot three years ago when he had platinum blond hair, a glorious selection of outfit options, and the biggest smile, as you can probably suspect from the above photo. A stressed editor’s dream subject!!

However, I soon realized that he was more than a pretty face. In fact, he was already a seasoned interior design player. Now his designs have been featured in publications like Domino Magazine and House Beautiful, as he effortlessly intermingles the gravitas of an old soul with a youthful eye for harmonious composition.

His story is a testament to killer taste and an equally acute vision.

Before the influencer landscape, unfettered digital access to design sensibilities, and the personal brand barrage of today, Kevin took to Tumblr in 2015 to establish his own unique point of view.

Design was in his blood before he was born. With both sides of his family representing five generations in Atlanta, Georgia, he was exposed to the philosophy of creating pieces meant to stand the test of time. From chintz to Bergère armchairs, at each corner in his house he discovered a study in enduring craftsmanship. It was only a matter of time before Thou Swell, the design blog where he established his New Regency style, became a calling that would echo into the worldbuilding principles of successful brands today.

At a young age, he had an intuition for the industry and a path he knew he wanted to follow—born out of a love for photography and graphic design. “I wanted to be creating images instead of curating the images I was finding,” Kevin says about his creative reserve. From discovering lifestyle bloggers to creating a signature blog format, brands were tapping him when he was a sophomore at Cornell University.

When he coined New Regency in response to the nature of trending labels, it ended up becoming a foundational exercise in defining his nuanced style. “My style doesn’t really fall into a bucket. Regency represents both neoclassical design and the lighter Regency era that incorporates softer color palettes, while also summoning the grand proportions of Hollywood Regency. Pulling from both of them, but then also suggesting that there’s something fresh and...a little whimsical.”

Grandeur and glamour anchored by design periods beloved by generations, a modern outlook, and of course, a little bit of Southern flair.

And how did a 20-year-old have the tact to pull this off? Not only did his classic yet distinctive taste attract household names who gave him the creative reins for collaborations, he spent his summers interning with the prolific design guru Suzanne Kasler. Not to mention, he had been making a name for himself in Atlanta’s design scene since high school.

Admittedly a right-brain-oriented entrepreneurial spirit, his first collection, designed in his dorm room, was drawn from an aerial image of the gardens at Château de Villandry. The debut Labyrinth collection was a testament to the impact he would later make by inviting his audience to think boldly and playfully in all aspects of the home.

The result was a beginning of transportative collections to come.

With so much success outside of academics, he understood that his time would be better spent diving head first into the deep end instead of stuck in a CAD lab in Upstate New York. In 2018, Kevin Francis Design was born. While Thou Swell would eventually be acquired by a media company in October 2021, his focus shifted immediately to what he does best: create. “I have a very big picture thinking mode that’s very hard to turn off.”

Under KFD, he built a business that encapsulates his market acumen, skillset, ambition, curation, creation and eye: a full-service design firm, his blogging legacy in “The Francis Files,” stripes and chintz, and the lifestyle his audience wants to inhabit.

When it came to inspiration, Kevin long admired Nate Berkus as a model for his own career. “Berkus was one of my first moments where I saw a career path that I wanted. He was able to take his really well-developed and high-end point of view and ultimately translate it across so many markets, avenues and opportunities…I never wanted to be just for designers or out of reach.”

The Trade Secrets

Kevin pursues logistical ease and quality of the highest order with an intense fervor. Through trial and error, he has discovered it’s smoother to test samples from several suppliers than to put all his eggs in one basket. This approach reveals not just the quality of different makers, but also their lead times, efficiency, and responsiveness… information that compounds with each collection.

Learned from his market experience, Kevin eliminates the middleman. Working directly with suppliers in Bhadohi, India—where 75% of the country’s rugs are made, he relies on a color system that standardizes hues across continents, solving the problem of hand-dyed variations that once plagued his early collections.

The Taste Test

His taste philosophy suggests that the difference between exposure from Pinterest versus reading a shelter magazine or slipping through a coffee table book is the context. “That taught me so much...even if I don’t remember the pattern the first time...you start to see these common things where it’s like they used a chintz fabric on the accent chair. You start paying attention to the ways people put things together,” he says of reading the fine print that most people flipping through magazines overlook.

Then, there is the language of the industry. Building design vocabulary requires looking at each object or texture as though you are going to index it away. Exposure must then become absorption, and Pinterest pins are a hindrance to that.

When it comes to a full-service approach, Kevin says it’s all about how you respond to the architecture. “If you’re lucky enough to have a defined architectural style...making sure that you’re complementing the architecture is kind of like the foundation. It doesn’t really matter if you love it...if it’s not complementing the architecture, it’s never going to look right.”

The key is precedent. If you can locate the precedent, the design decision is no longer fleeting but rather rooted in history. It has purpose beyond the seasonal algorithm, filtering out trends that don’t serve the bones of the space.

What’s Next

But Kevin’s big picture thinking mode is already three steps ahead. His next moves reveal an architect who understands how to make design accessible without sacrificing integrity.

Florals are expanding beyond the sofa at sister brand Marigold Furniture. Ottomans and accent pieces within the chintz brand are launching, recognizing that a full floral sofa intimidates many, but an ottoman? An ottoman is a gateway. “I wanted to show people that it wasn’t that scary,” he says. Armchairs will follow.

Luxury performance fabrics at his other brand, The Striped Sofa Co., are getting an upgrade too. Because, come on, there’s no such thing as too many stripes!

Simultaneously, he’s launching a neutral rug line grounded entirely in texture. New Zealand wool, cashmere, alpaca, silk materials so refined they don’t need color to sing. This is design for people who have learned to listen.

It’s neurological.

And then there are the swimsuit bottoms. Because why should the philosophy stop at the threshold of the home?

Kevin’s innate compass for the sensory nature of design, balanced with knowledge-based necessity of the industry, lends itself to the success that is Kevin Francis Design. The inspiration continually flows. Concepts lie in wait for the right moment. And his world is an extension of an individual who forged his own path in a competitive industry at a young age.

And at a young age, he is thinking about more than the impact of his designs out in the world, but also the backend, KFD’s Green AI initiative allows the small business to create aspirational product imagery without the constraints of traditional photography.

“Ultimately, as a designer, the biggest goal is to have the biggest impact in terms of making things more beautiful and more supportive of one’s lifestyle.”

There’s no turning off the tap.

As a tribute to his blog sign off-

XOKO

ON A HOT GIRL WALK? LISTEN HERE!

For Marigold:

Striped Sofa Co

Follow him on Instagram

Check out how he decorated his own New Regency apartment here: 2022 HOMEWORTHY TOUR

Surrounded by centuries of physical media in the wunderkammer I spend my time in, I thought we might travel back to the gardens, gatekeepers and throne pretenders of the past, thread them through the cultural quirks of today, and top them off with the perfect measurements of saudade, serendipity and sprezzatura.

Because aren’t we all on this holy grail quest to quench longing, lock lips with luck, and melt into an effortless existence.

I have found that by going back in time, you can tap into a little bit of all three.

So without further ado, Lot #1 Paris, 1895

For all intents and purposes, Paris is HER. Richard Harding Davis, a wartime correspondent, has just penned About Paris, a travelogue determined to capture the essence of the city of lights found in the fashions, politics, entertainment, restaurants and streets. Through four main sections—the Streets of Paris, the Showplaces of Paris, Paris in Mourning, The Grand Prix + Other Prizes, and Americans in Paris—the takeaways read strikingly relevant today.

Living in the Present

Davis’ record starts where so many travel accounts often do, on the “unimportant” streets which only its residents hold in high regard. The street as the anchor of action levels the playing field for those across oceans. We all know that street. The balcony dripping in vines, the eccentrics on corners, curmudgeonly shopkeepers, the concierge stationed at the door.

We also all know busy bodies, scheduled spectacles, and names shrouded in short-lived celebrity that take residence either two doors or two blocks over. In the instance of Davis’ street, it was a poet.

Those in 1895 taking this quiet thoroughfare to access the Rue de Rivoli, which ran parallel, or the Rue Castiglione, which ran perpendicular, to the author’s street sometimes stopped at a plaque to honor the poet’s life, but the real attraction was the men and women leaning over the balconies for the view of a red setting sun and the starting pistol which commenced the overture wafting from the Boulevards.

In this chapter, Davis lays the groundwork for his prevailing message:

“Those that have enjoyed life fully, had gotten out of the present all that the present had to give.”

And without living in the present, our correspondent would not have been able to capture the rhythms of the cobbled street in such high resolution.

The Highlight Reel

Known for its luminosity, men and women ignite Paris’ gas lamps each night, throwing ubiquitous spotlights on the social dances of the night. Davis sits at Café de la Paix, our vantage point for observing the city’s underbelly, witticisms and café politics, showtime spots where women high kick into the wee hours and opera houses fill with critics and dreamers.

We round the corner and happen upon the frenzy to see and be seen on the Champs des Élysées, or in our case, insert instagrammable destination.

Yet Davis doesn’t just offer the highlight reel. He illustrates morbid murals detailing crimes of those with regular seats in salons. The many ways in which a visitor can travers Paris starting the sewers to streets to the top of the Eiffel Tower in half a day. Logistics mind the clock, but in 1895, he recognizes a population that still longs for the Paris “before”—harkening to provincial windmills as the Moulin Rouge blazes red, overshadowing bucolic reprieves from the Second Empire.

“We are always ready to doubt whether that which has passed away, and which in consequence we cannot see, was as remarkable as it is made to appear. We depreciate it to console ourselves… perhaps it is true that Paris was more careless and happy then.”

In this age, we are beyond consolation. Our souls long to wind back the clock, forget the digital age, links and all.

Image Is Everything

When the president of Paris is assassinated, we observe a cultural comparison. In America or England, the public reacts to the vacant position. Yet the Parisians carry on, shock rendered them numb, or rather, apathetic.

Still, the global pendulum swings, and the citizens must perform grief for cameras they can’t see. Papers post telegraphs from emperors and tsars. Parisians barter for balcony views of the funerary parade. Whispers spread that the country might return to fashionable splendor and unused ballrooms might once again fill with the drunk and merry.

When it came to reelection, the chamber at Versailles garnered lackluster interest, settling on a single ballot hinging on this: the President of France needed to look good on horseback.

Elections have been won over less.

Gatekeeping

Davis establishes himself as an expert turn-of-the-century travel blogger. He recommends avoiding the futile search for a fiacre after the Grand Prix by stopping within sound of a particular waterfall, or coordinate a carriage exchange at the restaurant among the trees. The only difference being that one route helps you avoid scuffs on freshly shined shoes.

Then he sets chic straight.

Once home from the races, the night evolves into one big party to end all parties. Social classes are left behind. Ladies get their one night out in public, opera coats falling halfway down their shoulders. Companions of princes and hired dancers float on the same stage, smiling at one another, famous in their respective worlds.

This is chic. No rules. Organic juxtaposition. A serendipitous snapshot of life. A glimpse into the divine.

Say less.

Davis also encounters the Forty Immortals of the Institute of France, a group 40 elected intellectuals from all disciplines. The gen pop’s opinion splits: reverence or revulsion. Scholars who walk through the Academy doors “lose all sense of originality,” yet the executive power beheld by the amorphous institution establishes the chosen as gatekeepers of taste. One such example is the Fête de Flowers in the Bois de Boulogne. For a couple of francs, city-goers are allowed to claim their spot for the ceremonial festoon of florals, yet the same sponsor literally closes the gates on the world’s most erudite.

Does this sound like anyone, or any entity, you know?

Instagram vs. Reality

Davis’ final chapter hinges on anthropomorphizing Paris and the preconceived notions Americans have before they have spent any time in Her embrace. For centuries, humans have taken a spot on a bench by the Seine, hoping to win Her heart, yet the city of love often spits the underprepared back out. Back across the sea, to the provinces, the rivieras. The “Dreamer” trope persists, but just like our society today, Paris moves on to better things. Someone will always be prettier than you, more artistic than you, richer still but like addicts, American’s and more chase Her approval, self-medicate against the existential weight of it all.

Our travel expert’s biographical conclusions on the different classes of visitors that enter the city, are almost like a quiz you might find online. Which type of American in Paris are you.

Hopeless, humbled, hedonistic, hypocritical or heartbroken.

The man or woman that surfaces unscathed from the labyrinthine Lútece, Paris’ ancient moniker, turns their time abroad into something impactful, instead of leaving pieces of their soul on the boulevards.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

The emotions of those Americans in Paris in 1895 are no far cry from our desire today. Still performing for cameras we can and can't see as we long for a version of the city, a golden age, always another advantageous time for living more beautifully. But maybe that's not the tragedy, perhaps that's the point.

If we keep digging, we can bring that beauty into our own timeline.

Fire shot up my ankles as I wrestled with my phone in an attempt to balance it on a knot in an old oak. I couldn’t believe it had taken as long as it did.

To get bitten by ants, I mean.

All too familiar was the feeling of the tiniest creatures taking advantage of the amenities—hors d’oeuvres at cocktail hour (it’s 5 o’clock somewhere). A high summer faux pas that I should forget my outdoor rearing by not checking for those pesky red hued hills with holey jelly flats as the only barrier between my bare feet and a sharp bite.

A wannabe in the wild. Seriously, a neighbor glared at me from the sidewalk probably thinking to himself, “Damn, we’ve got ‘em down here, too.”

A great migration of content critters takes over a southern Stars Hollow- an invasive species. You would think we like to go north for the Summer. I tried, but the hand of God said stay.

The itch creeping up my legs got me thinking of the realities of a Georgia July. As we weed through vacation content from those basking on the Italian riviera, New England coastal constituents donning breezy broderie, and cowboy hat silhouettes set against western sunsets after a day of trail rides and skyline-less hikes, a big sky and the sound of spurs as the spotify playlist, it can become difficult to romanticize the regional flavors of our landlocked lagoon.

Before I drive it home, I would like to reference what saw on that Chanel runway— material stripped down to ground-level fables, Jack and the Beanstalk, reflecting soil and sky, straw strutting down the catwalk and larger-than-life florals oozed whimsy with every heel click counted under the blooming archways.

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While I do live above the gnat line, when I think of a summer down here, I can’t help but flash back to layers of noseeums thicker than the foundation melting off of our faces. Hair levitating higher than heaven from the humidity, raised more by horse fly surprises. Sea insects that skate the floor of the ocean and wash up on the shore - periwinkles and conchs left out to dry for our collections. Sea nettle, Bumble bees, lady bugs, butterflies, praying mantis and love bugs that cling to the edges of white paint on grandma’s blue ceiling of her screened in porch.

While everything is seemingly airy, and glowy like glass and salty from dips in the Mediterranean, bug motifs represent the crunchy underbelly, all creatures great and small.

So, let this post be a testament to letting the edit find you.

Not to mention, so many of the beetles that crawl between floor boards, dodge our shoe’s soles and find rest in our cashmere packed cedar chests are the reason for the very design that materializes before our screen weary eyes.

Textiles and insects are inextricably linked through natural fibers, dye clothes, silk from moths of the same name (Silkroad anybody?).

Going back to the Victorian era, a publication by the name of Punch included in the editorial lineup satirical illustrations of women “Fashioned from Nature,” which I stumbled on through this fantastic Medium article. The fantastical designs punched at discourse surrounding spheres of domesticity, and the first petition for women’s suffrage in the UK in 1866, extrapolated further in a blog post by the Winchester School of Art Library 2012.

From the symmetry of entomology to the very matter of which the invertebrates of our earth are constituted, there’s something to be said of the beetle’s jeweled tones, polka dotted ladies, sheer cocoons that turn into butterfly wings, and horizontally striped pollinators.

In the meantime…heigh ho…and watch out for ant mounds.

Reasons I am bummed:

is in the city (I got one of her 53 “Knicks in 5” hats and had this made-up scenario that I would attend said pop-up and we would have a moment of comradery. is on Hester Street with The Anteros Line on full display, I was going to tap for mocktails at a sober friendly haunt, and whatever Taylor Swift has planned, even if the rumours are true and she is already a wifey, was going to unfold onto the very streets down which I intended to march my ballet flats. and I were going to form our very own style content cult, parading down 5th Avenue with New York style pizza in hand and pitching characterful corners for the perfect lens moment. Also… the Hamptons — my design eye was losing sleep over the preppy potluck that hovered on the horizon.

There is a whole slew of disappointment I could tie up with a bow.

My curiosity was also driving this trip, as I understand with my whole being why the New York or Nowhere phenomenon is instilling hope into the city, and now, that same energy is radiating from the North American stadiums that are hosting the entire world in a heat wave.

It’s positively contagious. I wanted to catch it myself.

It takes a grand gesture to elate millions of city dwellers and prompt them to flood from their perches in the sky and take to the streets. Especially during June Gloom. I am jealous, clearly. Who doesn’t want to be where everything is happening all at once.

On the flip side, we tend to assume new personas on vacation, new lifestyles, and I have a feeling the universe is telling me to take a longer look at my own.

Besides, there’s something so American about hunkering down at home and lighting the fireworks off the dock yourself, with the people you love the most at places full of generational memories.

So, below I have rendered afresh a Fourth of July blog post I wrote in 2021, resurrected pre-sober Mary because she and I are still very much the same young lady with the same voice, and take you all into the hard pine cottage and Atlantic playground of another era that has seen me take my first steps and fall on my butt in rock bottom: Tybee Island.

From this moment forward, you are now on Tybee time.

Tybee Time Non-negotiables:

• Straw hat to saturate in bath temperature salty water

• A big fat book - we’re getting drunk on intellect

• Salt & Vinegar chips with a tomato sandwich

• You must become a minimalist - an x large t-shirt, thick sandals to protect yourself from stickers, a designated towel in the linen closet

• Something bubbly!!!

• A broomstick and a red rubber ball cut in half for “Half Rubber” (a beach friendly game created by my grandfather and his friends)

Now, I am handing the phone to 21 year old me.

GO FOURTH AND BE MARY

July 4th of the year 2021 started later than I would have preferred due to a slight hangover courtesy of my new favorite drinking hole: Huckapoo’s, located at the north end of Tybee Island, Georgia The drinks are far too strong and the employed far too friendly, however, I highly recommended befriending a local so as to enhance your experience while navigating this slice of redneck riviera. (Mary today: this was a whole saga in itself) There is no better opinion than that of someone who lives here year round, so please, take notice of the local population, even if it leads to a slight headache come Saturday morning.

Independence Day played out as the hours passed with the ultimate goal of frying in the pale sun near the back river. Orders of business took the forms of a coffee run and a tour of the Adams’ Cottage, where the other half of our family enjoys their view of little Tybee, which I had not had the privilege of glimpsing in over a decade. A fun piece of trivia: the very same house was used in the making of “The Last Song” and for those of us raised by Miley Cyrus’ fame, that little fact is more exciting than one might expect. We enjoyed a summer bearing witness to one of the greatest celebrity love stories of all time!

*cue “When I Look at You”

Speaking of great stories, a visit with the Adams’ does not come without a brief history lesson. My mother and I, the only ones interested in taking the tour, learned that the father of our cousin, Berta, was in fact an immigrant from Poland, survived the Holocaust, and became a freedom fighter alongside the Bielski Brothers. A heavy story with the proper measurements of patriotism and remembrance.

A mobilization to the beach prompted iced coolers and lathering ourselves in SPF 50, necessary for a complexion of red hair, blue eyes, and freckles. Although, seeing that this might be the last summer unconfined to an office building, I welcomed a can-can with skin cancer, in an attempt to test the ability of my melanin in making me golden.

Tents, flags, and umbrellas filled the beach, and I believe every race, status, and age descended upon charming Tybee on Sunday afternoon. As the sun’s strength grew, so did the level of intoxication, which became welcomed entertainment. It is a fact that a tybee island brochure, the actual name I can’t recall, advertises “People Watching” as the 7th activity in which to partake on the island.

Directly behind us sat a coven of SCAD students, morphing into a pile of bodies as they exchanged different colored pills between locked lips, quite the spectacle for our family of four. Shortly after we properly examined that lot, a group of eight or nine women paraded down the beach in matching hot pink t-shirts and denim Bermuda shorts. Their first order of business was lunch, which sent our stomachs back to the house for a satisfactory sandwich and leftover Caesar salad from Lighthouse Pizza. For my sister, it was the remaining kettle-cooked chips.

Upon returning to our spot near the back river, we passed a group of women, each representing a color of the rainbow in their hair: lavender, blue, green, blue and green together, etc. A tent had been planted near our spot, situated deep in the sand over a frustrated wife who had to hunch her back just so to exist beneath it. We suspected that being able to watch her husband and children frolic in the waves outweighed the passive aggressive commentary accumulating in her thoughts.

Unlike the self control exhibited by the discomforted wife, several conversations from multiple tents spilled out of their respective bubbles, peers attempting to excuse the actions of a comrade on the basis of intoxication, making all of us chuckle. Fourth of July- properly celebrated and inebriated.

Amidst the talking and eavesdropping my father was taking his own shoreline survey, after which he made quite an astonishing conclusion. Through simple deduction he decided that (and I will quote him so he knows I am not robbing him of his idea):

“Tybee is the only beach in the entire world where, on July 4th, an equal profusion of cigarette butts and boiled peanut hulls can be found at the high water line, and, in fact, together they surpass the number of shells exposed by the sea upon its beaches.”

The study overtly verbose for comedic effect.

Fleeing the beach just before the water took over our plot of chairs and towels and books, I noticed abandoned Tommy Bahama loungers left behind for a beach stroll, along with a wagon, a pair of shorts, and a cooler. Uncharacteristically, I approached the lonely chairs, and pulled them back a yard or so from the water line. My own shoreline survey inspired in me an altruism which caught the attention of the beach-goers to my right, as they surmized theft before becoming enlightened on the reason for my action. I was simply trying to help. Maybe, just maybe, there are those who think beyond the threat of sun poisoning or that fourteenth Michelob Ultra of the day. To the latter I took the power of thought out of the study and deemed it an uncontrolled variable.

Arriving at the house, I found my father examining his shell collection transported from Figure Eight Island in North Carolina. His entrepreneurial attempt to start an earring line had been rejuvenated by the idea of making imperfect things pretty, charity for the broken objects in the world with a splash of gold or silver paint.

How does one turn a porous shell into a pendant worn by a woman in Montauk? The world may never know, but it’s a nice subject to contemplate.

A trip to Chu’s, guacamole made to taste, and a hammock rest occupied my sunburnt siesta. The hammock swung in the breeze, shadowed by the Tybee sun and added a certain depth to relaxation.

My mind wandering to the shrimp we were to eat for dinner evolved into an exercise in precision.

Break, peel, eat. Break, peel, eat. Break, peel, eat until the amount of shellfish exceeds the gallons of water streaming through my body.

Conversations flow through chardonnay and the beginnings of America, topics that prepared us for the beach descent to watch the fireworks.

At the end of the fireworks display my sister and I raced back to the beach path to beat the crowds, bladders on the verge of bursting. As I broke through the masses, I welcomed the annual reminder that the world is huge even between the front step of a century-old cottage and the North end of Tybee Island.

A true taste of America.

Premonition - Tybee Poem Written By My Father, John Peeples

Twenty-eight and single.
  Married to the idea of being both a successful lawyer, and a romantic husband. 
Desperately trying to convince myself that my girlfriend of several months was the answer to the latter quest.  
She invited me to a Friday dinner with a married couple who were spending the week at an unused summer house owned by an elderly woman on Tybee Island.
We arrived as the sun sank, and I beheld a structure nearly as old as its owner.  
Its exterior was as tired as my affection for my companion.
Its interior was as antiquated and depressingly dark as my feelings for my date.  
The conversation at dinner was shallow, and burdened with false humor as bleached and stale as the bare walls and ceilings of the house.
I excused myself from the table and found an unusual vantage point that offered a view from the staircase through an interior window looking down at the table.
Pine floor. Pine Walls. Pine Ceiling. 
A casket by any other definition.
Burial of a romance.
And, then.
A month later, I met the granddaughter of the elderly Lawrence, and we spent a courtship that revolved around the Lawrence beach house.  
The walls surged with warmth, the floors irradiated sunshine, and the ceilings were a pathway to heaven.
A place of birth, not a casket.

Fourth Fit Inspo at the 11th Hour:

I hope from this you gleaned some familial savoir faire, just enough pomp and circumstance and stories that speak through found objects that wash up on the shore.

Til, next time…heigh ho…

After 22 hours stuck in the Atlanta airport during which I witnessed both a rainbow and a promise-keeping sunrise which special effects that could only be rendered by the tufts of angel wings, I boarded a flight to the Virginia countryside.

This region of the country often calls to me in my dreams, as I spent five years of my educational career enveloped in its genteel history and storied hills.

My taste started in the state for lovers.

This time though, I embarked on a new experience with my mother from which I would take away a litany of inspiration I hope to adopt into my very own lifestyle.

The source? None other than Bunny Mellon, visits to seventh generation homesteads and glimpses into subtly gilded existences that shine light on lives well lived.

Because a well lived life is nothing without the signs of it.

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Perfectly Imperfect

If you take away a fortune founded on the fear of bad breath, as Mrs. Mellon’s grandfather was a chemist that discovered Listerine, her home in the Virginia countryside is a surprisingly accessible lesson on taste.

Charlotte Moss, the beloved Virginia-born author and interior designer, sat in front of an audience of design, and Bunny Mellon, enthusiasts to talk about her latest publication, The Enchanting Interiors of Bunny Mellon, written in tandem with the team that stewards the late tastemaker’s Oak Spring Garden Foundation.

First and foremost, she set the tone of the talk with the whimsical notion that Mrs. Mellon’s taste could be found between the Balenciaga, casseroles, Givenchy and an endless archive of Porthault linens.

For when you arrive on the grounds and observe the mediterranean style cattle barn erected in the rolling hills, the Mellon’s stately library acts as a thoroughfare for the socialite’s extensive collection of rare books and reference material. The point of view needed to understand her impulses and penetrate the awe of the Tiffany finial atop her greenhouse is alive in the throughline of mixing the high with the low.

Each layered pattern, architectural decision, blue flax sprout and considered proportion can be traced to an illustration in an old tome from which she embodied an innate sophisticated eye and taste that already ran through her veins.

An eye self-trained since the age of 9 which she shares with the world.

Beneath the main floor of the home just a short jaunt from the library, we ventured into what was described to me as a rabbit warren. The further you burrow, the labyrinthine sensibilities come to life, which Editor in Chief of Veranda Magazine Steele Marcoux masterfully simplified in an article from March.

The only artistic agency I will offer from my time at Oak Spring in Upperville, Virginia, after absorbing words from people I have admired for the better part of a decade, is how you and I might bring an iota of Bunny’s elegance and simple ornamentation into our own lives.

Let the weeds grow between the fieldstones, make sure you have a view of nature’s creation from the kitchen window, and forever follow the whims of what brings you joy.

Here, I have included small ways to have an authentically aesthetic summer that speaks to your soul by tapping into the singular lens of Bunny Mellon and the landscape that ensures the endurance of her legacy.

Green Things

From rows of topiaries to a room set to the agreeable conditions for flourishing orchids, Mrs. Mellon’s garden represents our connection to nature beyond simply viewing it from windows. The work begins with topping off a watering can.

When we moved into our house in November, I was gifted a house warming succulent and a prayer plant, and today, so long as I keep a watering schedule, the plants have nearly tripled in size. Starting small has led to gradual success and a meditation on caring for something bigger than myself.

The More The Merrier

In order to properly hone my soil solidarity, my ideas must come from a source. This is something I have learned while working in an antique shop. If you are interested in a topic or knowledgeable figure in design or automotives or psychology, what have you, then you should have a book on hand covering the nuances of that subject. This is common sense, but after viewing Bunny Mellon’s library and understanding the provenance that underscores the tastes of today, minimalism in all forms of discourse is thrown out of the window.

For example, I ventured over to the viral Barnes & Noble that is having a clearance until the end of the summer. With the knowledge that the store had only crumbs left in the wake of the sale’s virality, I wanted to see what I could find. Here are tomes I am taking on.

Smartly Smocked

While gardening, weeding and reading, a comfortable uniform is key. When Mrs. Mellon wasn’t adorned with Givenchy, Balenciaga or Jean Michel Schlumberger, the francophile donned relaxed elegance from a bucket hat to navy smocked dresses. Her fashions were strict, but let’s play with the base. Here are items I believe can get you from getting your hands dirty to entertaining in the parlor, like Bunny, if one was so lucky to get past the foyer of the Mellons’ hunt country castle.

Pattern Punch

Personality lives in the details and pattern throughout this thoughtfully considered abode. Gothic arched windows prove charmingly serene, books feel used and well-read, and patterns from the linen closet to the sofa cushions chosen to complement an unframed Van Gogh tell stories of nurtured relationships with Kentucky Derby winning steeds, friends found in sprained ankles and personal effects depicted in trompe l’oeil. The thread throughout? A love for pattern evident in every square inch.

Make It Personal

A final take away from not only the whole of my time at Oak Spring but also straight from Ms. Moss and her authorial counterparts, and also in their reverence for the memory of Mrs. Mellon, was something I think we are all feeling. In the age of AI, nothing measures up to a creation rendered by hand. From Mrs. Mellon’s iced tea concocted from her own herb beds, food freshly born from the very land on which we slept, illustrations from books transferred onto delft tile in her Sunday kitchen and the hand drawings scattered about the archive from Snowy Campbell to Mrs. Mellon herself, the urge to create is the most meaningful and indelible form of adornment.

Bunny artfully presents her world to us with the same silver spoon and tray upon which she was reared, so that we might immerse ourselves into her precious hearth and instill pieces of it into our own.

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Off the top of my head, I think the 250th anniversary has rendered a little bit of prep in everyone’s step. Reds, whites and blues sprinkle the streets and Vogue’s latest cover story with Gracie Abrams. While the world is here, some have checked out for extended euro summers. Idyllic evenings abound. The season is simple yet embellished. Sharp harkens to the fluidity of a bell époque archway.

Finer details reign, smoothing out visuals and illuminating fractals of living that cannot be manufactured. Silhouettes abound with international influences from parachute bottoms to frog-clasped outer shells. Tarnished antiques provide soft landings for intimate vignettes.

The natural world also takes front and center as everything leans a little bit golden with lattice work shadows extending into dusk and the rising stock for loquaciously hot topics.

I don’t think there is a better way to show off these observations than through the very writers that transcribed them from a journal to our analog platform.

So, before we get to the sunset cruises of high summer, this taste report latches onto the beginning of the season.

Poolside

I was surprised that this was the first time the famed photographer’s eye popped up on my feed, but of course Hol was the one to navigate us to Slim Aaron’s association to summer. Beautiful people doing beautiful things in beautiful places. If that isn’t summer, I don’t know what is.

Sybaritic

The Slim Aarons guide to summer

If I’d been born, say, sixty years earlier, I could have been one of Slim Aarons’ muses…

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3 months ago · 60 likes · 26 comments · Hol Harland

Classic with a Twist

sKate on thru

The Sunday Skate N°7

Happy Sunday to 800 of you!!! Wholeheartedly, it’s hard to wrap my brain around that number. It feels different than instagram where the majority of followers are people I truly know. However you arrived at sKate on thru, thank you…

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3 months ago · 14 likes · 8 comments · Kate Driscoll

Kate’s eye knows no bounds. Her posts are riddled with texture, pattern, eye candy throughlines and inspiration straight from the vine. This post celebrates pieces that will classically ground and pack a detailed punch this summer.

Casual Prep

Everybody loves a post from AFN. When you don’t want to deal with the fuss of a blouse or another white tee, the white sweatshirt offers a grounded note on comfort being key as we scour for a layer to throw on for a boat ride or a chilly New England al fresco evening.

Another Fashion Newsletter

The Audacity of a White Sweatshirt

Summer calls us to many things; the beach, undone hair, travel to exotic locales, and a fresher, looser way of dressing. Summer also calls us to specific motifs, tropes and themes; stripes seem to explode this time of year, as does linen, seersucker, and color. But the one element that’s inseparable from the spirit of summer is the color white. And whil…

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3 months ago · 66 likes · 27 comments · Sogole Kane

Design Minded

Caitlin Cavagnolo

thoughts on interior design

My infatuation with old things extends beyond my wardrobe. Growing up, while other kids were spending their weekends doing organized sports (is this why I have no hand eye coordination?), my parents took my siblings and I to towns dotted along the Hudson River to go antiquing (and also to ethnic supermarkets but that’s a post for a different day). At th…

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3 months ago · 30 likes · 14 comments · Caitlin Cavagnolo

Caitlin masterfully dips us into her design mind. As we know, from writing to drawing to design and fashion, the inspiration all stems from the same eye. To see a fuller picture behind the seedlings that nourish an entire world behind the clothes and accessories. Plus, who doesn’t love some indirect characterization.

Coquillage

Alarms went off in my head when to when I saw shell molded claw clips in TJ Maxx. How can seashells be reduced to… a trend. However, when I stumbled upon Colin King’s analysis of the phenomenon, I started to breath a little easier. Like stripes, the nautilus endured. Like petals, scallops open us up to the natural world. From master painters to vignette design, you’ll love this read.

The Last Layer by Colin King

Why Do We Keep Bringing Shells Home?

Earlier this week, I was at the Sotheby’s Design sale, looking at pieces for clients and doing the mental gymnastics that always accompany these things…

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3 months ago · 45 likes · 9 comments · Colin King

An Anticipated Glass of Sancerre

CBE is my tastemaker. No but seriously, she taught me everything I know. Her eye is razor sharp yet melodiously feminine, no detail goes unturned when putting together a mood board, and her way with words make a post all the more richer. Before she even puts words on a page, the research has been signed, sealed and delivered. From resplendent rattan pieces to pattern envy, this piece is a whole june mood. This stack is the definition of thoughtfully sourced.

Caro Curated

The June Edit

The June Moodboard: Summer Whites…

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3 months ago · 3 likes · Caroline Bentley Edwards

I Can Hear the Bells

The weddings aren’t getting any smaller, maybe more intimate, but the key is in the choices a couple makes to make the special event feel most reflective of their love. Zara from BRDL, a bridal stylist nestled in the english countryside, gives us her take on the wedding budget and what she would put energy towards instead of grasping onto every signature or of the moment trend that might make the meaning of the day get lost in the noise.

BRDL

What I’d Spend My Wedding Budget On Instead

Working as a bridal consultant, I have the privilege of seeing weddings across a wide range of budgets, styles and celebrations. What I’ve noticed recently is not necessarily a change in how much couples are spending, but how they are choosing to spend it…

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3 months ago · 7 likes · Zara

Nostalgia on Steroids

Christine Morrison gives us the best sartorial snapshot of the anklet through no other medium that the woven bracelets knotted dockside at summer camp. Salty from sailing class or frayed from a game of dodgeball, the origin of the anklet springs from an ornamented arts and crafts impulse.

writing in black and white

Sartorial Snapshot: Issue 15.

This Week: The Anklet…

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3 months ago · 14 likes · 4 comments · Christine Morrison

Loving: Rose Adele’s skirted DIY is everything!! She details the whole process on Youtube!

Drawing: Seashells no less!

If you made it this far, here is some of what I’ve worn in June!

Cheers to more summer inspo!

https://shopmy.us/littleeditsatelier/little-edits

Little Edits!!!

I love the rush of air that skates across my forehead as I slide my closet doors open in the morning. Lovingly, I move each hanger to and fro, from blouses to belts and dresses I wore to bid on the chapter of my life in which I existed at a place in time. A jumper worn to occupy a carousel in the library during college. A blue and white color story to complement my complexion.

In some ways, the pieces represent an archive of performances ending with some good reviews..some bad. But they tell you not to dwell on the bad ones.

So I slip a strap over my shoulder and sit at my vanity. I’ve come to understand the ritual of skincare in the morning as the products absorb into my pores instead of negative self talk that tells me I’m too porous for this world. Under eye patches latch to my skin.

I look over to a teak tambour roll top jewelry box lined with deep red velvet ring roles and necklace landings and am met with its bareness. So mid century modern of me.

A headline flashes across my mind as if I am committing purple collar crime in the name of personal style. Subtitle: Fashion enthusiast’s fits fall flat.

How can one ethically post outfits every day without a mixed metal stack or signature charm? Or charms plural??

would argue that I am, and you are, the charm.

While it is true that I have opted for a striking pair of pants over an ornament to clasp on to my wrists or dangle over my decolletage, pearls polished for a debutante have never felt quite right weighing down my lobes.

So I let those puncture wounds close.

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For most of my life, I succumbed to the limiting belief that I “would probably lose it anyways,” which is supported by a lifetime of evidence of mourning the loss of beautiful objects.

Meaningful objects.

I have been thinking about this idea of building an expressive archive, one that utters creative tangents to me while I sleep. A bountiful foundry from which I can trace the cultural source of taste.

Even if it’s just a dream sequence.

I believe it when they say taste buds change every seven years because now I can’t stop thinking about getting my ears repierced. To curate a trinket box full of keepsakes in hopes that one day they become heirlooms.

But form follows function right? I have to be functional enough to put a ring back in the same place each night before I retire for bed so that I might curate a lasting legacy of words and small wonders.

A display merchandised as a reminder that I knew myself all along.

Speaking of legacy, the Barnes Foundation came “across the desk” on Sunday, a day of the week where at the antique shop you never know who or what is going to walk through the door.

What I learned is that the educational collection is organized rather nonsensically as it balances decorative metal work, greek antiquities and African masks (and more) with post-impressionist masterworks from Cézanne to Modigliani’s sculptures and ladies of bohemia. The relational thread is the medium of juxtaposition and chronology.

At which point in time did Dr. Albert Barnes acquire a new piece?

A story of a collector building his own, albeit high end, archive to which droves flock today just to glimpse its original form can be found in each small beginning in one’s vibrant creative world.

Each step matters.

And that’s what the consumer wants. The sketches. The early days. The helter skelter inspiration.

It's the same with wardrobe edits, the vanity products that occupy a spot on a thrifted silver tray, and the hindsight of narrative arc before one indents the cursor.

The Barnes Foundation showed me that a corpus can exist without rhyme or reason, proving that an engaging story is unapologetically tangy with complex problems resolved through the simple truth of curiosity. Words and objects and visuals will organize themselves through more than punctuation marks.

What so many of us embark on is a body of work. Collecting instead of chasing taste.

From the provenance of a painting to the rituals of a sober life, I have come to understand something about the people I admire most. The ones whose lives feel curated in the truest sense of the word. They are not decorating. They are not performing. They are choosing. Deliberately, repeatedly, with the forged confidence of someone who knows exactly what deserves space in their world and what does not.

They choose their objects and what the objects went through. Their mornings. Their medicine. Their meaning.

And somewhere along the way, I realized I do too.

This is what Little Edits Atelier is. Not a mood board. Not a lifestyle brand. Not a content calendar dressed up in pretty language.

It is a trinket box to be filled. And the channels are already filling up.

Every piece inside it chosen. Every facet catching a different beam of light through the window treatments. Every gem earning its place not through trend or algorithm or the frantic energy of more but through the slow, intuitive question: does this belong here?

The answer, when it is yes, is the only content I know how to make.

So, without further ado, if I were to manage a categorization system it would go as such.

Trend forecasting for the soul is not about what is coming next season. It is about the riptide currents moving beneath the waves of culture. Things people are reaching for before they know what to call them. Serenity. Authenticity. A life that does not require numbing. I have always been able to feel what is coming before it arrives, and sobriety brought that premonition to the surface. Little Edits Atelier is where I put that feeling into words.

Spiritualizing the material is the belief that the objects we choose to live alongside are never just objects. An alchemist spiritualizes the material and materializes the spiritual. The worn paperback. The vintage fur coat that costs more than it should have and is worth every penny. Seaglass discovered on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. These things carry meaning if we let them. They are not distractions from the interior life but expressions of it.

Supercali-sprezzatura-expialidocious is the soil that feeds every sprout. Tory Burch’s Resort 2027 collection hones the philosophy that getting dressed is an act of optimism. When I put down the bottle, I picked up an attention to the details of living that I had been too blurred to notice before. Getting dressed became a practice. Beauty became intentional. Dressing up is not vanity. It is presence.

Sober aesthete is all of the above, distilled. It is the understanding that beauty and clarity are not opposites, that in fact, one makes the other possible. You cannot fully see a painting when you are trying not to feel it. Life imitates… You cannot truly wear a garment when you are hiding inside it. Sobriety gave me my eye back.

Once the editor was reawoken inside me, I remembered what it felt like to be in rooms where the standard for what deserved to exist on a page was very high.

I am not for everyone. Little Edits Atelier is not a broad church. It is a small, beautiful room with warm light and a potentially off kilter point of view streaming through stained glass windows.

But if you are reading this, if something brought you here and told you to stay, then you already know what I mean. You are already an active participant in the chain of judgement that swells with archaic findings and swoons when the moment’s north star shifts 45 degrees.

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In 2020, just after Georgia’s Hemp Farming Act aligned with the Federal 2018 Farm Bill, Barbara and Michael Sharpe took a longer look at land that had been in Michael’s family for over 80 years. The universal pause that the pandemic brought also called these two Atlanta-born Georgians back to southwest Georgia, to steward something that had been waiting for them behind the noise of a once bustling, then paralyzed, society.

Timber used to occupy the majority of those fields. But when Barbara and Michael caught wind of the rise of hemp, they saw an opportunity to realize the farm into modernity through a time-tested crop. They would become, against all odds and all expectations, among the first ten licensed hemp growers in the state of Georgia.

The saying goes: make new friends, but keep the old. Ideas cannot stand alone without paying homage to the past, which they did by naming their original products after the women who came before them. Manerva, Michael’s great-great-grandmother, born 1837, and Julia, Barbara’s grandmother. The namesakes alone carrying the weight of progress.

Rebel Gardens began with the plant. Hemp offers dozens of distinct health and wellness applications across three core therapeutic categories. Dietary nutrition, topical skincare, and cannabinoid-based therapies. It was that last category, the forgotten science of healing through the plant’s cannabinoid properties, that drew the Sharpes deepest into the industry. The community surrounding the farm, one of the poorest regions in Georgia, called to them too, as a way to give back. What began as a potentially lucrative endeavor quietly morphed into something purpose-driven: a movement to care for the land, educate the community, enlighten the industry, and merge the struggles of the past with the anxieties of the present.

“We’re not in here just for the money,” Barbara told me on a Monday Zoom call, her poppy red blouse bright against the screen, her smile brighter still. “We went into it with a whole different mindset — community, helping people. The money, we figured, will come.”

Gratitude soon flowed into their psyches from the soil. An understanding took root: that while they were not tending the land for their primary livelihood, Rebel Gardens had linked them to the past in ways our modern comforts simply cannot.

Barbara spent her career as a woman who built her professional life understanding the rules of complex industries during her tenure at Intuit as a Regulatory Compliance Manager. There is something almost poetic, then, about stepping from one highly regulated world into another. Except this time, with red Georgia clay under her nails in lieu of a keyboard beneath her finger pads.

Coming from that corporate background, Barbara’s career had lent itself to a certain kind of appearance… literally. Afternoons as a childhood bookworm had echoed into boardroom meetings ornamented with professionally manicured nails and, of course, air conditioning. The South’s sweltering summers force even the toughest farm-bred people indoors, but the Sharpes embraced the Georgia clay as it embedded itself in their Atlanta-born palms.

“I went to take a shower after our first day of fence posts,” she laughed, “and there was all this red. I was like, where did all this red dirt come from?”

But this time, a woman turns the captain’s wheel. Talk about flipping the script on a traditionally patriarchal agrarian role.

Resolved to provide genuine wellbeing to the customers she sees as far more than data points, Barbara found unexpected therapy in planting individual seeds, hammering fence posts into the earth, and watching something grow from nothing. “I found a lot of peace in working with my hands,” she said. “Even though it was still hot and sweaty, I found therapy in it.”

From admin to weekend pop-ups, as with every entrepreneurial endeavor, the hours billed become a thing of the past. Building a business is a collaborative, 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week operation that adapts with the ebbs and flows of an industry still working to shed taboo.

And the taboo is real. I know it personally. Twenty months sober, still negotiating what healing looks like. And still, if I’m honest, asking myself: am I allowed to do this? Hemp carries the weight of stigma that doesn’t always distinguish between the plant and its associations, and for those of us in recovery, the question of what is safe and what is healing and what is just another way to numb can feel impossible to untangle.

But the Sharpes run toward that dissonance. They do pop-ups on days when they make $25 in six hours, and happy for the connective links because “now people came in contact with us and our product. We were able to take away a little of that stigma, because you’re actually talking to real people who say: we know this plant, because we grew it.”

Homegrown wellness. For real.

The candle line came the way all good ideas come, from listening. Customers who didn’t want to ingest anything still needed relief. Still needed sleep. Still needed somewhere to set down the weight of the day.

“How do we get the benefits of the plant into someone’s home,” Barbara asked me, “without them having to ingest anything?”

The answer was scent. Body-calming bath bombs. Atmosphere. The environ-shifting authority of something burning in the corner of a room you’re finally, finally allowed to rest in.

The inaugural candle line was named, again, after the women who made this possible, Manerva and Julia, a limited edition introduction that paid homage to the past before stepping into the future. Then came Tropical Mahogany — deep, woody, warm. A fragrance that doesn’t announce itself so much as settle in. Peach Tea, for the South in summer, the front porch, a glass of sweet tea and the particular mercy of watching the world go by without being asked to participate in it from a rocking chair.

“Make sure it’s a scent that resonates with you,” Barbara said, “because it’s going to ignite different things. Someone next to you might not like it, but to you? It speaks to your soul.”

I have been burning the Tropical Mahogany candle for several weeks now. I light it the way Barbara described, alongside a cup of tea, before a bath, as a signal to my nervous system that the performance of the day is over. That the moment is mine.

One of the most tangible pieces of advice in recovery is also the simplest: change your space. Move a blanket. Open a window. The idea being that the body follows the environment which can coax your stubborn mind toward peace by building it, physically, around you.

A hemp candle is that, distilled. Not a cure nor a substitute, but eventually a ritual respite.

“Light the candle,” Barbara said. “Steep your tea. ‘I am now transitioning — releasing all of that. This is a moment of self-care. And I can have a good night’s sleep.’ Pain free.”

Instead of ruminating, a candle. Instead of striving, a slow burn.

Seedlings of serenity, for the rebel in us all.

The Sharpes don’t know exactly what is next for Rebel Gardens, but doors are always opening. Barbara said as much at the end of our call, with the ease of someone who has made her peace with uncertainty. “We don’t know where this is going to lead, but we’re open to all of it.”

That feels right for a brand built on a plant that has been misunderstood, underestimated, and subserviently, healing people anyway. It feels right for a family farm that survived generations it wasn’t supposed to. It feels right for anyone who is building a life they actually want to be present in.

For Rebel Gardens and Little Edits Atelier, the candle is already lit.

Rebel Gardens products are available at rebel-gardens.com. Also featured on My Wellness Shelf

Little Edits Atelier is a reader-supported publication. If this piece moved you, consider sharing it with someone who needs a slow burn of peace today.

That’s what sobriety does—it seeps to the surface. The early days feel like tending to something unborn, fragile, constantly monitored. Breathing exercises become paramount. You learn the alchemical art of earned perspective.

And then: metamorphosis.

People notice the daily work you thought was invisible. So here, in the spirit of maintenance and vanity, are my holistic heroes. The poetic and cosmetic. Lord Byron and botanical libations. The gospel according to gel toning pads. Red flags and red light therapy.

Therein lies the apostrophic spell for getting your GD vibrancy back.

Ode To Psyche

From worship, devotion, building an altar in the mind for something sacred, we are led to the Ode to Psyche. In sobriety, books become that altar, the intellectual boundary that bookends your internal conversation and carries you from start to finish.

Here? Reading material chock full of spiritual and emotional throughlines. Delving into Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie—we’re all guilty of codependent characteristics—and devotions from the POV of the heart, the still small voice, simple tenets to live by. Your brain will exhale.

Ode on Indolence

“Ode on Indolence” celebrates doing nothing, resting, refusing productivity. In sobriety, that looks like reclaiming leisure without the performance drug—learning that rest isn’t laziness, it’s survival.

We romanticized the clink of ice that danced around a highball glass, the foam that topped an espresso martini. While newly sober folks naturally gravitate toward caffeine and sugar, sometimes we want something a little more elevated.

I’ve got a case of the Sudz—an NA Italian-inspired kombucha. Bittermilk’s range of tonics paired with a carbonation of choice does wonders at any social outing or after a long day at the shop. The charred grapefruit is my favorite! For when you’re in the mood to splurge, I adore this agave-inspired libation. I replaced a dark and stormy on the porch watching the sunset for this London-based brand’s sophisticated concoctions.

Ode on A Grecian Urn

Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is obsessed with preservation—beauty frozen in time, youth that never fades, the eternal question: “What men or gods are these?” In sobriety, we become the urn. We’re trying to preserve what’s underneath, repair what was ravaged, hold onto the glow we just earned. The beginning of sobriety is a natural anti-inflammatory. Here are all the depuffing products I’ve reached for—from dark circles to dark spots.

To Autumn

Ripeness, fullness, the season of harvest and memory constitute “To Autumn.” He wrote it at the end of summer, already mourning what was slipping away. In sobriety, I live in eternal autumn—always tending to what I've gathered, always protecting what I've built.The montages that roll in with autumn always come with specific scents. With Sobriety, I am in an eternal autumn. Here are some fragrances that permeate the wood-clad walls in my abode.

Supplemental Footnotes: A few more things that didn’t fit neatly into odes but deserve mention:

1. Livaplex - you’re liver has been through a lot, it needs help with the detox

2. Red Light therapy - for everything under the sun

3. Ashtanga yoga - somatic healing and digestion

4. Ginger beer - with everything

Sentences, scents, sentience. Keats wrote his most celebrated odes in the spring and summer of 1819 suffering for his subjects, refining his obsessions. These objects came into my life the same way: intentionally, one at a time, each playing a role in my recovery.

The spiritual and the material glow together an altar of authenticity.

The Fine Print:

I’m not a doctor. I’m a sober aesthete with an antique shop job and a ShopMy account. These are things that work for me—your mileage may vary. Talk to your actual healthcare provider before trying supplements, red light therapy, or any wellness claims I make while caffeinated.

“..debate over whether colors really, physically exist or are only internal manifestations has raged since the seventeenth century.”
― Kassia St. Clair, The Secret Lives of Color

With Rothko in Florence making the visual rounds, Frieze New York in the rearview, and forecasters featuring the darlings that are on a second or third round in the trend cycles— I am talking to you butter yellow and chartreuse— the cruise affairs from JW + Blazy and Demna’s goose chase, inspired boldness on the catwalk. And I’m sure flea market hunters left Brimfield brimming with color. To give them (the colors) the benefit of the doubt no season opener is complete without some citrus to ease us in to sunnier (and sweatier) days. Flags will rub shoulders in the Peach state with the world cup descending on the city in a forest. Leonine pairings and their architecture are set to steal the show. By trend or by chance, I am also draping my limbs in as much color as possible.

Spring dusts off the greige haze, summer fast approaches, and in historically paradoxical fashion, when the world is ablaze the culture looks towards positive reinforcements. These are colors with which my eye has been consulting while monitoring the runways, stepping into nature or surveying the patrons that walk into the antique shop on a Sunday afternoon.

Primary was all the rage at the onset of the year and now the scales are leaning into ROYGBIV’s bejeweled and dusted constituents. I’m not claiming that everyone should only wear color when it’s trending or prophesize on colors are in flux every season season. I am just absorbing the current pigment abundance.

Refractive and reflective.

Not to mention, all of these colors pair well with some espresso, the plucked- from-the-earth neutral that continues to caffeinate any ensemble.

CABANA RED

This traditionally romantic combo makes for sweet treat filled days in the sun, or under a cabana. Red and pink together used to be a fashion crime. Now they're showing up everywhere—from resort wear to bridal palettes. Summer is having a romantic resurgence.

1. Heart it here first.

2. Accessorizeee

3. Frisky Flats

4. From the vine

5. I f****ing

BLUSH

1. Lilac-ing

2. For Galliano

3. Shorties!

4. Porcelain

YELLOW(S)

Plural! Soft yellow is marigold’s gentler sister—less concentrated, more diffused. Morning light instead of golden hour. It plays beautifully with gingham, vintage florals, and stripes. I’ve painted three rooms this shade. It never fights back. Marigold is concentrated golden hour in a bottle. It’s the color of late of summer stretching long like a cat. Forecasters say it’s replacing millennial yellow—less pastel, more saturated, more alive. If that’s something you are looking for.

1. Bloomerism

2. Tubular

3. Cinched

4. Toggles!

5. Details

6. Hibiscus

7. Just follow the yellow..

   

BURNT ORANGE

Burnt orange has been building momentum. Not neon, not rust, but somewhere in between. The color of terracotta, sunset, things that have been warmed by fire. It tests boundaries (who wears head-to-toe orange?) but when paired with a cornflower counterpart, it softens. Blue grounds orange. Orange warms blue. Together, they’re blue skies and Georgia clay, Sedona, and New England summering in a bottle.

1. Tank

2. Toasted

3. Vested

4. MARIE

5. Classic

CLOUD COVERAGE

Cloud coverage offers relief from the saturation. After marigold and cobalt and plum, the eye needs somewhere to rest. Soft gray-whites, the color of overcast skies and linen sheets and mornings that stretch slow. It’s the neutral that doesn’t disappear but expands our options beyond champagne beige, black and white.

1. Strappy

2. Demure

3. Imagine with the red slings + a perfectwhitetee

KHAKI

Khaki has tactile staying power. It’s been around since the British Empire needed camouflage, and it refuses to leave. Golden-tan, slightly olive, the color of dried grass and desert landscapes. It pairs with everything—burnt orange, teal, plum, cloud coverage. The workhorse neutral that never quits.

1. Shift

2. Dazed

3. Soft Workwear

4. Party in the back

COBALT BLUE

This hue demands commitment. You can't wear it halfway. For years, we relegated bright blue to accents. According to the “Secret Lives of Colors,” it symbolized barbarism and degeneracy. Now it's a conquering of the ENTIRE outfit. Bold without being loud, saturated without being aggressive. I often reach for a cobalt vase in my hourse and restructure my entire floral story around it.

1. Ruffled

2. Sculptural

3. Cape Middleton

4. Nylon Noise

PLUM

My favorite summer fruit is a plum, especially if they are wild, so it begs the question of why can’t we include it in the burgeoning purple profile that isn’t taking no for an answer. And teal? Well from turquoise accents found in the wild west to the MET steps, this color speaks to our summer dreams.

1. Messsshy

2. Poolside

3. For a shopping jaunt!

4. Balloonerism

5. Cheeky

6. Blossoming

TEAL

1. My kind of paloma

2. Issyeeeeee’s name looks like his pleats

3. Bait

4. Beachy

ORCHARD

prompted me to dive into Orchard green. From the weeds to the fungi, the notion envelops you in nature, beautifully orchestrated in small details and entire ensembles that elicit the gradients of an orchard. Not sage, not olive. Actual chlorophyll. The color of standing under trees in June while the horses stood by on a lead line. It lowers cortisol and raises joy in equal measure.

1. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary + Thyme

2. Salad wedges

3. Verde

4. It’s great!

5. Haricot Verts

6. Laced up

Dipping my toes in a couple of ideas, here is a larger glimpse into what I am seeing and simultaneously confirming as I scan written and worn articles, a material upload if you will. Perhaps in an idealized world I have the means to edit my closet with these drool-worthy splashes of color. It is also an evergreen reminder that dressing up > drinking up. Aurafarming, confirmed (more on that to come!)

Dancing cloud has unburdened us, to uncover terrain to which this new color map will inextricably link our memories.

WARMLY,

A Sober Aesthete Trend Forecasting for a Soul that Says Go Bold or Go Home.

If you want suit up spiritually check out my planetary post:

Materially

Or both…

I hope you enjoy! Comeback next week, the forecast is looking up!

The occasional cases of existentialism, cruise ship-born illnesses, the voice that likes to tell me I am not good enough, sporadic cravings— the things that will forever be out of my control.

Sobriety taught me that no matter how fast my mind is moving, I have to check in. Not with thoughts, those pesky narrators. With my body. With the objects that ground me. Unfortunately, I am one of those people who will drink water when I am dead, so I’m not gonna stand here as if my body is a temple after eroding her shores for the better part of a decade.

However, the biggest Amends I have made is to myself.

So, here is what is populating my altar as of late with the mindset that what is done to one side must be done to the other.

SOUND

A turntable.

Before the needle is lowered, a triumvirate of tactile ritual, the physicality of analog sound, and nostalgia psychology mingle together to envelop the listener in an emotional experience. From sliding the record out of the sleeve, holding the artifact in your hands fills the hollow holes of our digital listening dungeon.

The crackle between tracks. Music that makes you float instead of overwhelming you with lyrics. This is a closed connection.

Rea Earth. I know that 2025 was reserved for capital “H” healing based on the fact that my top artist of 2025 made playlists dedicated to your subconcious. From envisioning your future self to manifesting confidence into your psych, I listened to these every night for a couple of months. A kinesiologist (albeit one that has a sixth sense) recommended it to me. These playlists translate from my sleeping to waking moments, and the static clears.

BODY

I have tested the lymphatic jumping trend, rocking happy baby pose to loosen the bowels, inversions from candlesticks to headstands for blood flow. Calf. Smashing… trust. I started treating the practice of gua-sha as if applying an entire beat (I use a red jasper material that supposedly wards off addiction spirits). Movement that doesn’t feel like punishment. My body as instrument, not enemy.

Sauna and cold plunge. I’m grateful when I can do both. Neural pathways opening, something ancient resetting. The heat, the shock, the return to baseline. I think the extreme temps we ballasts for new neural tracks.

Albme lip masks. Powered by macadamia, this locally brewed small luxury gives your lips a kick and fights off the dry spell. Sometimes frequency is just remembering you have a body that deserves care.

RITUAL

Saging. I’m a firm believer in clearing energy, especially when I learned in rehab how many heavy frequencies had accumulated on my soul over time. Not in a new age spirituality way, it’s precautionary. Call me superstitious, but I don’t like to take any chances. Smoke moves through the room and something shifts. Maybe it’s real. Maybe it’s placebo. Either way, palo santo banishes the negativity back into the karmic circle.

Rebel Gardens candles. Hemp-infused. The tropical mahogany scent takes makes me think of waves lulling me to sleep. Before I write, before I spiral or get ready, I light one. The object informs the ritual. Aromatherapy. (More on this brand in an upcoming post eep I can’t wait to introduce them to you!!)

MIND

Journaling. Helps me get out the clichés, if I’m being perfectly honest. The first thoughts are usually lies. The second thoughts are closer. The third thoughts might be true.

Journals I am eyeing.

Two-pound tome. An ongoing project in acuity. Deciphering Infinite Jest’s footnotes is like reading like archaeological markings via the Rosetta Stone—slow, deliberate, digging for what’s buried. Understanding a another species intellectual mechanics to inform your own evolution. Some books are meant to be devoured. This one’s meant to be lived with.

TASTE

What can I say, I am always looking for a sweet treat… and then some.

Vegan and Gluten-free sugar bombs

Strawberry Matcha

I’m not always dialed to the right frequency. Some days I’m static. Some days I forget to check in. Some, I simply throw caution to the wind because I can. But these objects, these rituals reel me back to center. Tuning forks don’t work alone. They need something to strike against.

These are mine.

Connections have been coming at me at the speed of light. Whiplash. Quantum leaps.

Before I get into it, let me light my latest candle from Rebel Gardens to ground us. Mahogany coconut? Take me to the tropics.

Is this thing on?

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Cosmically, spiritually, things are about to reshake up in the land of pattern recognition. In astrological theory, energy is going to accelerate communication, connection and the speed at which dots connect.

To put this into the greater historical atlas, as s the last time Uranus was in Gemini, Anne Frank was writing her diary. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the ruins of Khirbet Qumran by bedouin shepherds. Hidden knowledge systematically revealed during chaos modern evidence for esoterica. Our grandparents were children watching the world split apart: world wars, decolonization, truths fragmenting. Fireside chats that came from a box.

In the cycle before that, 1858, Abraham Lincoln stood up and said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Civil war erupted. Nations split. The world transformed.

Generations ago, literature that illustrated the atmosphere of the war between the states depicted the hypocrisy to which the infighting reduced our humanity as “Hell’s newground,” from Cold Mountain.

Our predecessors lived it, but the battlefield has been recast. And guys, without getting to deep into this, we can go back to the moment Adam and Eve became aware that they were naked.

There’s a reason droves and dames alike fought for the rights to Yesteryear. Awareness is in invaluable. And also dangerous.

For the purpose of this piece, this crowning outer planetary movement implies: we can’t be precious about the next steps. We are being called to be adaptable and steadfast as the moment in which we are existing communicates not through the word but through universal signals that buzz instead of orate.

Flashing lights. Miniature retrogrades. Specific signals.

I noticed that a mourning dove balanced its talons on the bird feeder outside the sliding glass door. As my gaze shifted from the bird to my google search engine to learn the meaning of that specific bird’s presence, a rainbow refracted on the sisal rug under my feet. I had plans to see Project Hail Mary that evening, and little did I know, that same “special effect” would be the film’s signature.

I was told to bring tissues to the theatre, but from the moment I caught onto the premise of cooperation over destruction I had to compartmentalize my emotions for Rocky. Yes, of course I teared up, but in the back of my mind, all I wanted to do was get home and fire up the junky portable phonograph I’d acquired that afternoon.

A time capsule opened the minute the needle hit the first groove. Through the speakers, I imagined my father and his father marveling at the advancement, flipping the record over and over again. The melody carried a memory which ruptured the wall of SSRIs.

During the last Uranus in Gemini transit, personal testimony once again proved the practice to be an accurate and impactful historical record. This phonograph is doing the same thing—carrying memory, witnessing time slug and spaz.

So, what that says to me, and how it might apply to you:

If you are questioning whether you should keep writing, go in the opposite direction and save that idea you scribbled on a napkin. It might be heard for centuries.

Two score and eleven years ago, Ringo Starr told us we are all living in a yellow submarine, with the British humor and psychedelic illustrations to boot. A trip through the sea of time. Invasions of blue meanies who once and for all want to rid the world of music.

It’s still relevant.

And that’s not because I watched the full film on laser disk while putting records away. It’s not because I sold a 1-cent gumball machine that took me back to someone else’s memories of afternoons at the soda shop two doors down. Chocolate icing dripping onto a scalloped collar as the scoop melted in the spring sun. Jaws sore from too many sugar bombs.

When you work in retail, no two days are the same, especially when you have patrons on the hunt looking for items ranging from the oldest Japanese piece in the inventory to a Taiwanese kid on break from his studies at Calgary, fresh off a 16-hour bus ride from Houston, looking for souvenirs. Magnets. Postcards.

We have civil war era bullets and indigenous treasures from gems to flint. Sometimes there are Japanese pieces, but sometimes it’s glass from the Peking Dynasty. Each patron that comes through the front door moves through you, and sometimes you bear witness to their internal toils.

Lincoln said a house divided cannot stand during a previous Uranus in Gemini transit in 1858. The bullets are from that era. Decades later, the world split again during WWII. Now here we are.

It’s cyclical. Nothing stays forever. Objects linger, witnessing the seasons roll on through.

Trends. Friends. Enemies. Pennies that no one, not even the government, wants anymore, memorialized in a gumball machine.

In 1929, a Coca-Cola bottle shard replaced a light in the night sky facade at The Fox Theatre in Atlanta. I remember slipping into tights and petticoats to see Wicked on Georgia’s very own Great White Way. Scurrying up the stairs to a dressing room with little orphan Annie’s contrived rags hanging on a rack. Bouquets, locket boxes, bobby pins and candy cluttering the vanity.

I returned to the middle-eastern revival on Tuesday night to catch Lily Allen’s show. Her boudoir stage set under a neon sign looking up toward trompe l’oeil details and a billowing canopy meant to evoke an Arabian night.

It does not miss me that I’ve stood on that same center stage mark.

As we drove away from the flashing lights, I looked at my pup in the back seat and said, “Baby, a Star was born there!”

Joking but not.

There’s a local theatre a block from the antique shop, and the shows displayed on the marquee since moving to this vibrant town have been two of the four musicals I’ve been in. Annie and Ragtime. The distant music calling me back to 2008. Something and somehow sublime.

Ten years after the Fox opened, the Hollywood starlets of Gone With the Wind celebrated the premiere of the earth moving film across the street. My grandfather attended the world premiere in 1939 where he was invited to an after-party. Eighty-five years later I was ordering a mocktail at the bar of the same house at an engagement party.

Bookending the planetary cycle.

That night I dreamt of the Loews Grand Hotel that burned to the ground. Ornate crown molding wove through the rooms with walls that were fucking butter yellow.

As I said, whiplash.

Call it coincidence. God. The universe. But this realm will teach us lessons until we break the loop and stop touching the stove.

In jest I theorize that with each amends I make, a forehead wrinkle disappears. Internally, every cross I see or cardinal I notice, the connective tissue of my life begins to regenerate.

Growth spurts. Broad strokes and baby steps at once.

Time is terse and tension curls our sanity, but when we dial the right number, the lifestyle concierge can direct you to Schumann Resonance of 7.83 hertz. The subliminality of our utterances and alignment hinges on more than taste and daily routine, but is ultimately a geophysical phenomenon.

I have stared at enough forks in the road to understand how to tune my own. Contradiction is the point of our existence, or rather, how we interpret it. Soothe through it. The friction might burn in the moment, but if we surrender to the tension, it will eke out that final drop of sugarcane.

Stalks of perennial grass strike the collective chords of frequency wherein we develop the skill of discerning messages from shooting stars, supernovas, the dark side of the moon and tea leaves.

This cycle, or pattern, harkens back to instrumental fissures. Lincoln in 1858: “A house divided.” WWII and decolonization in the 1940s: empires fragmenting. Anne Frank documenting her truth. The Dead Sea Scrolls revealing ancient knowledge. The American revolution? Individually, it asks us to level our internal and external worlds and synthesize them

When you make the connections, taste becomes signal. Clothes beget lineage. Wanderlust calls to you from the ether. Each person we meet was sent to us on our path, so we must intentionally furnish the next room with authenticity that will support us, as we inevitably, say it with me…spiral.

So keep stud punching the motif into up-cycled denim, non-toxic skin care, quirky mannerisms and fickle manifestos.

It’s very possible that Time tomorrow could go on strike.

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First of all, I think I blackout selected the literature category based on the fact that I was an English major. And as I’ve said before, my academic days were…unfocused.

Not one article on my page contains meditations on literature.

So this is the step I am taking, even if the ranking disappeared 24 hours later. the very next day.

I know it’s a gimmick, the rankings that make you believe an aurora has enveloped your work in a marmalade ribbon of transcendence, tied so tightly that the only thing that will cut it is if you don’t capitalize on it. In theory, the number says: take off now or miss your shot.

Mooomennntummmm or flatline, leaving behind faint contrail in either direction.

Although Substack began as an experiment, it has evolved into an amorphous literary corpus organized by canonical novels detailing the events of one’s, particularly my, life.

Now I stand at the intersection of authorship without permission. A freeing yet undemarcated creative path of this point and time in civilized history.

But numbers are not what Little Edits has been about, as the only count I have going in my head is the number of days I successfully go without a drop of alcohol. This has been about finding myself and sharing the breakthroughs along the way. And one of those breakthroughs has been building back my confidence through what pants I wiggle into and the blouses I pull over my head.

There’s a vexing paradox I’ve come across a couple of times in the recovery community:

Dressing up > Drinking up

It’s ironic because sobriety necessitates an ego death, which in turn inspires minimalism. An eternal fast from the worldly things that led us down the wrong path in the first place.

Except thrifting isn’t worldly in that way. It’s archaeological.

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Every second-hand piece has a history. Someone wore this on a date. Lived in that while trying to make it big in New York or LA. Passed a crew neck on to a friend who needed it more than she did. I’m not buying new to perform a new self. I’m sifting through what’s already been loved and finding what fits the life I’m living now.

Beyond thrift that, the thirst trap isn’t consumption. It’s curation.

The "art of noticing" we talk about on this platform? That's what I'm doing here. Using words to fill pools of gratitude. To remember all my new memories. The stories, the objects, the people, the places.

Addiction convinced me I needed a new dress for every event, which bled into inebriated 2 am online purchases I thought would shield me from the truth of what was going on inside of me. The point was the purchase, not the delivery. Chasing dopamine that if I’m being honest, helped me forget about the fact that I was breaking my own heart by picking up a drink. Over and over again.

Speaking of repetition, circular fashion surpassed the bloom stage and is now perennial - Ebay partnering with Vogue, The RealReal hitting their stride - but for me, it's not about trends, it’s an institution. A school of thought.

In this world of mercurial metaphor, I am, and you are, the home. We run our hands over fabric. Check seams. Ask ourselves: Does this fit the life I’m living? Does this feel like we?

Getting dressed is an embodied practice, like Vikram yoga or learning to paint like the masters. Pranayama becomes second nature, color becomes a layer of skin. The second hand hunt involves lying in wait for the right energy to come across your path. A strike of creative genius in a sport of manifestation and whimsical wagers.

Because yes, the thrift gods do listen.

The minute a Tik Tok videos displays a grocery cart filled with treasure dripping from hangers, I feel comforted that forgotten items are still yet worthy of little edits. Like writing. Like you and me.

Thrifting cradles our nostalgic cry and celebrates what something can metamorphose into. Second-hand is the bellwether that ushered in return to analog. From clothes to antiques to paper goods— all tokens of the past.

A soft prairie Gunne Sax dress. Calvin Klein denim unintentionally au la CBK. A Titanic film poster printed on a vintage tee. All written in a quantum physics code I didn't know I could speak. I’m a moth to cashmere when a bedazzled denim jacket or a Ralph Lauren peplum collar catches my eye.

My identity was pret-a-parched. Now, I adopt new lineage to quench the thirst of creative expression by digging through layers of crochet, leather, organza, denim and lace.

Somewhere between the allure of “nostalgia” and the pedestal of “mystique,” the pieces that linger are the direction you are meant to follow. Micro-trends curdle, survival skills dull, and shiny new things rapidly descend into a hushed percussion.

This is the confluence of the material and the spiritual, which looks like more than dressing up in lieu of drinking up. The thrift trap is a doorway that leads to your sartorial solar plexus.

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I was about to do an intense music festival sans artificial dopamine hits, so that was an anxiety seedling, but my mind was at ease knowing I had addressed the fashion hurdle. opened up their visionary consultancy to help me prep, raising a paddle for yay or nay depending on what options I dmed through IG.

What materialized for my wardrobe was lacy bases, a cowboy boot satchel that fit my hair clip, Jesus and crystals, a bead-embroidered gem from my mother’s closet, and a bandanna I picked up before heading West. The dust was no joke, so I was grateful to mask up when the winds picked up.

I’d like to note that I find it quite ironic I am entrenched in my concert era the deeper I get into sobriety. However, I think it is God’s way of bringing me back to music. On the Coachella discourse, it made me all the more thankful that I was not one of the digital cameras peppering views of the stage. But there were moments I thought to myself, I need to be taller. I need to be tanner. I need to look more casual. So, I can’t imagine that 24/7. For some, It was get the shot or die, and I was just there for cultural research.

A fly on the proverbial wall, if you will.

Our heroes: liquid-IV’s, Heineken’s latest 0.0% flavor, and a plane with a banner advertising “It’s time to start your will.” There were moments, actually, as the desert sun beat down when I didn’t think I was going to make it. On both days, this was when I got in line for a signature Coachella latte and cookie from Menotti’s.

Fueled by dramatic irony and electrolytes, my mother and I strategized on how we could possible see everyone we wanted to, soon realizing it was going to take some sacrifices. FOMO is a part of the process, even if you get there when the doors open and stay until the last shuttle leaves.

During the day, festival goers enjoyed caviar bumps, clunked around in boots and sparkled in the desert sun. And honestly, the guys elevated the event’s sprezzatura through Acne Studios tees, skylark sweats and eye-catching party pants, donning the crowd in color coded droves of calculated outfits. For the girls, '“skinny was the look.” In costume, people found shade under gazebos and horse statues that complement the equine world and its horse shows held in Indio.

It was quite the…collage.

It must be some sort of rocket science to contain music from one stage to the next, as I ran around trying to catch everyone from Geese to Labrinth to Sombr and Addison Rae. We even made a stop at the Yuma tent, where club music reigned after the headliners. An atmosphere I never thought I would endure without a vodka soda, or two, in my system. Each venue was a microcosm of exposure therapy, a tactic that is slowly becoming synonymous with fun in my updated life vernacular.

The marathon, however, was not even halfway over, and whispers of Bieberchella pulled the crowds from the far reaches of the festival’s domain.

With a second wind, we explored the art installations, from the famous cylindrical rainbow spiral designed by NEWSUBSTANCE, the Colossal Cacti and finally to the mushroom sculptures that towered above the DJ-specific amphitheaters for the “trippy forest” aesthetic. I did appreciate that the art was representative of the activities going on in rave land. California is nothing but unabashedly itself, plastic, organic and toxically positive at once. Like I said, everyone is super charged on Vitamin D, so much so that it rivals Southern hospitality.

But don’t worry, Gen Z stayed true to their stereotype, manners not included.

I don’t know if it was the second hand smoke from the ubiquitous garden inhalants or the dehydration from the desert, maybe both rendered me delirious, but I spent the entire day laughing at the very prospect of the people watching. From a guy dressed up as an Oompa Loompa having serious conversations to the fact that my mom had more gusto than I did by the end of the night, it was quite the spectacle.

Topping off the high energy day, we gathered for the shadow work that was Justin Bieber’s set, singing “Brush my teeth, hallelujah” on the shuttle back to our hotel, inspired by the struggles he and his family have overcome and the inner work from which we can all take out a page. It didn’t have the bells and whistles like Sabrina’s “SABRINAWOOD,” but it was real work.

Healing out loud.

Sunday morning arrived with an otherworldly breed of sunrise to our sights unseen, and we set out for the final stretch of our trip- two nights in West Hollywood. Before dinner, we explored the gardens, taking in the historical haven and our bearings for our homestretch in sunny California.

A serendipitous accommodation at The Polo Lounge beckoned us to an al fresco dinner, where we were waited on by an institution of the spot for 31 years. Since 1995 Jeremy has been serving the LA strays and stars that meander their way through the doors of the iconic LA haunt. My hibiscus mocktail hit the spot as he told us about the most deconstructed McCarthy salad he ever served, chopped lettuce and a squeeze of lemon, to an Olsen twin, Carl Sagan’s voice bellowing at the bar, and also a tip that “the biggest movie star in the world” was seated just inside.

Any guesses as to who that could’ve been? Wink, he loves a stunt.

LA is so fun for the celebrity hullaballoo. And my mother and I adore a story about encounters that can only happen in the city of stars. We stuffed our faces with the S’mores soufflé, and promptly returned to the room where turndown service left us chocolate biscuits and water.

With a late wake up yesterday, we set our sights on poolside lounging, so without further ado here is my overheard from the chairs:

“Where there’s an Aries around there’s a Pisces”

“Do you live here?” “I live in this body”

“My life is about dressing up”

“I felt the texture of reality” on a psychedelic journey.

“Just jump out of the plane, and you’ll be a new man when you get on land.”

“That just means you’re a badass pioneer.”

I chimed in when a lifeguard and two other groups of guests discussed astrology, “You guys need to download Time Passages,” prompting them to exchange instagram handles and an offer from the lifeguard to take my pictures after learning I was a Virgo.

“You pay attention to the details,” he beamed at me, “You’re the famous one here!” He got all of the angles.

La La Land, indeed.

Speaking of which, I threw on a thrift find for our final evening to catch the sunset from one of the archways at the Griffin Observatory. During our hour long trek to the top, our Uber driver provided just the pop of personality we needed to round out the trip, as he recalled an early memory of escaping Cambodia through the jungle and relayed the entire plot of The Drama in back to back sentences.

Tourists hummed City of Stars as they looked out over the grand color gradient of blues and tangerines amassed in the sky from the sea to the city, desert to mountains. So this is my formal petition to request that just after the sun dips beyond the Hollywood hills, the song must stream from a speaker as the lights flicker down below.

It’s like looking in a small pond, and the stars frame our contours. We breathed in for four, held for seven, released for eight.

I ran across the courtyard of the landmark and burst into a clumsy gran jeté, not caring who might see me, phone camera catching the motion.

Healing out loud.

The front front desk staff swooned at my trophy, a to-go order of In ‘N’ Out, my mother ducked into the lounge for one last night cap, and now here I am gathering my thoughts to somehow bring this lovely trip to a close.

Needless to say, I am flying back to the East coast feeling aspirational for the future and inspirational after filling in smoky vignettes with a fresh palette of memories.

Cheers to the fools who dream, California, I’ll be back.