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In summer, I like to wear pieces that are easy and comfortable and not think too hard about getting dressed. When packing for a weekend away, I force myself to try on outfits before I throw them in my bag, otherwise I will undoubtedly overpack. I also keep a toiletries bag just for travel so I don’t have to clear out my medicine cabinet every time I go away. It always includes this super-moisturizing body wash, which lets you skip slathering on cream after the shower, these micellar cleansing pads that quickly remove sunscreen and makeup, and this serum which makes me very glowy après sun. When I decamp to my summer house, I have a very simple, streamlined uniform, which I leave there so I don’t have to go back and forth with a bag. I started doing this a few years ago and it’s been a total game-changer. I’m constantly chasing after my three young boys so jean shorts and durable performance tees that can withstand dirt and stains are key. Our seersucker shirt-and-shorts set, which can be broken apart and worn separately, is super useful, as are this comfy knit mini and white T-shirt, a look that’s easily made cocktail or bbq-ready with a statement necklace (my current favorite is this crystal shell pendant, which you can wear cinched up or down). My constants are everything and anything striped (it’s a neutral IMO) and this oversized chunky cotton sweater from our collaboration with Nantucket Reds. I’m also never, ever without my diamond studs, my Wayfarers, and a straw hat, always with a gust-proof chin cord. I rotate between Janessa Leoné’s short-brim style, Wyeth’s wide-brim lifeguard and our green and white Palm Boca hat…you can really never have too many.—September

My summer uniform consists of a few classic silhouettes for day and fun bohemian pieces for evening, all in a subdued color palette of white and navy with a few bright accents. Color-coding means most things in my closet can be worn together which makes dressing—and packing for a weekend—a whole lot easier! I rely on Leset’s pointelle tee, our crisp white shirt and pique polos for just about any occasion along with my ride-or-die white chino shorts, which are comfortable and make me feel put together no matter where I am. For evening, I’ll sport my raffia box bag, fav Loeffler Randall nude Karly sandals and gold hoops with a bohemian embroidered caftan, Emerson Fry’s perfect white midi dress, or our striped indigo shirt-and-pant set. And for when it gets chilly, I’ll layer in our crochet chevron knit or this goes-with-anything white cotton sweater, which both look great pulled over dresses because of their cropped length. For days on the water, I keep it simple but chic with a few great staples: a simple sun hat from Lack of Color, our cozy cotton twill Nantucket Reds button-down (great for windy fishing excursions), this retro high-waisted polka-dot bikini from the L.A.-based swimwear brand Juliet, and this indispensable tinted sunscreen that gives me such an amazing glow that I wear it every single day, rain or shine.—Maddy

Thank you for spending a moment with us. We hope this post gives you the style reset you need to close out summer with a big, beautiful bang. And with that in mind, Maddy’s fav Fireworks Liberty Cardigan will keep you cozy well after Labor Day!

It’s Jocelyn, Maddy and September here. We hope you enjoyed our very first post earlier this month! We’re so excited to be here with you on Substack. The early days of summer are always a thrill for us, mostly because it means we get to return to our favorite place: a little island off the coast of Massachusetts called Nantucket. This year is even more special because we’ve just opened a shop there called A Sailor’s Valentine by Tuckernuck. Because it’s our little love letter to Nantucket (and because the store is just under 500 square feet) we decided to create a totally immersive experience that feels like you’re walking into a giant shell-encrusted Sailor’s Valentine.

What’s a Sailor’s Valentine, you ask? Well, it’s one of our favorite crafts, and it dates back to the Victorian era when small octagonal wooden boxes inspired by compass cases were inlaid with intricate shell mosaics and sold as souvenirs. Though the art form is now emblematic of Nantucket’s history, it originated in 1800s Barbados, where local artisans (most of them women) created the keepsakes using native and imported shells. Whalers from Nantucket would purchase them while on their voyages and bring them home to loved ones, which is why the shells were often arranged in motifs like anchors and hearts or in romantic phrases. And that’s how the Sailor’s Valentine first traveled to Nantucket.

To make our supersized Sailor’s Valentine a reality, we enlisted our friend, the Washington D.C. artist Callender Baker, to line the walls and ceiling of the one-room space with over 40,000 shells. Baker and her amazing team hung from ladders and scaffolding for a week straight hand-installing each shell individually. The pièce-de-résistance is a four-foot-high hand-crafted Sailor’s Valentine they constructed on a wood board and hung in the center of the shop. The central design contains the phrase When This You Sea, Remember Me. We thought we’d share some snaps of how we made this special spot come to life along with the Sailor’s Valentine-inspired mirror frames we’ve been making on rainy summer days for decades and our favorite secret Nantucket spots. And if you come and visit us on the island this summer, here’s our guide on what to do and what to pack!

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We found inspiration for the space from Jocelyn’s European adventures including the shell-encrusted grotto room of the Neuburg Palace in Bavaria and the scallop and stone inlaid façade of the Kin House in England’s Wiltshire countryside (both must visits, btw). We were also wowed by a vintage shell-inlaid table that now lives in the store and the gold Sailor’s Valentine pendants made by our neighboring shop in Nantucket, The Jewelers’ Gallery. For the color-drenched walls, we worked tirelessly to match the background color of an antique Sailor’s Valentine Jocelyn found. We landed on Farrow & Ball’s Belvedere Blue, which is a great color for any room. Each shop has a signature print that we design in-house from a vintage textile. For Nantucket, we sourced a nautical French 19th-century chintz fabric from The Design Library in NYC (an amazing resource if you’re decorating a space) and transformed it into vibrant curtains that conceal our tiny dressing room.

Callender Baker and her team of artisans spent over 250 hours gluing shells in the intricate patterns created by our Chief Creative Officer Sophie Newbold. They used over 25 varieties including cowries, scallops, pecten, whelks, cockles, clams, and nautilus shells along with 2 gallons of tile adhesive, 5 gallons of joint compound, 1 gallon of Elmer’s Glue, and 120 tubes of Liquid Nails adhesive. Finally, 37 rolls of blue painter’s tape held the shells in place while they dried on the walls and ceiling of the shop.

We filled the shop with all the little necessities and party pieces we’d personally want to wear on-island, including some exclusive pieces we designed just for Nantucket including these amazing sweatshirts (for kids, too!) and a selection of vintage jewelry and handbags that Jocelyn hand-sourced. You’ll also find dresses, shorts, and sweaters from our Summer Heritage Collection. For the second year, we teamed up with our friends at Murray’s Toggery Shop, creators of the island’s signature red-washed canvas, to make exclusive styles that you can find online and in the Murray’s store on Nantucket’s Main Street. And of course, there’s even more to discover—including our very cute Bermuda bags and new beach pareos.

For many summers, we’ve been collecting native Nantucket shells from the shores of Pocomo to make our own Sailor’s Valentine-inspired mirror frames. We even made a how-to video that we hope will inspire you to make your own. We highly recommend the Nantucket Historical Association’s Sailor’s Valentine craft classes, too.

"A morning jog at Sanford Farm. I always go with company—friends, siblings, my husband, my dog Fletcher, anyone who’ll join me! Also, Bartlett’s Farm. You can pick your own flowers and vegetables. It’s fun to take the kids. Also, the Green Monster from the Juice Bar.” —Maddy

“Creek walks at low tide in Pocomo.” —Jocelyn

“Boating out to Great Point to see the sharks.” —September

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Thank you for spending a moment with us. We hope you’ll come and visit us on Nantucket this summer. But no matter where you wander, one of our new beach towels will surely come in handy for an early summer swim somewhere sunny!

A warm welcome to Tuckernuck Notes and our first official letter on Substack! It’s Jocelyn, Maddy, and September—the founders of Tuckernuck. We’re so happy to be here with you. We hope this will be a chance for you to get to know us a little better—and for us to get to know you, too.

We’re three old friends (Maddy and Jocelyn are also sisters, btw!) who started this business from our parents’ garage in 2012 with an online shop that carried a few brands we loved and a teeny-tiny boutique in our hometown of Washington, D.C. Fourteen years later, we’ve grown our baby into something big. Our site now sells over 200 brands; we’ve opened new shops in D.C. and N.Y.C. this year, and as of Memorial Day weekend, unveiled one very exciting shell-covered space on Nantucket—a foggy, wind-swept island in Massachusetts where we’re all lucky enough to spend our summers. It’s also a place that’s deeply tied to our company name, which we borrowed from an even smaller and more wild spit of sand off Nantucket’s western shore.

You can expect lots of behind-the-scenes sharing here, whether it’s our personal style, workout or entertaining hacks; how we managed to build a business together with 12 children under the age of 14 between us (yes, you read that correctly!); or why sometimes life’s greatest challenges can become our greatest opportunities for joy.

In that spirit, here’s a word from Jocelyn on how a year of magical thinking allowed her to do just that…

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One of our mottos at Tuckernuck is “finding the fun” in life, however small that pleasure might be. This philosophy has inspired many areas of our business, including the seasonal Find the Fun Lists we publish on our site, which offer simple ideas for getting out and enjoying the world around you. This week, I wanted to share the more personal story behind this philosophy. The year I went off to college, I was extremely homesick. I missed my happy, carefree life back in Georgetown and my three siblings. In the beginning, I tried to combat these feelings by reading all of Martha Stewart’s magazines and watching every single one of her cooking shows because, for some reason, they transported me back to a warm place that felt a lot like home. But over time, the feelings I was having turned into a debilitating fear of doing new things and getting out in the world. After two years of this, I came to a fork in the road. I said to myself: I can make the decision to wake up every single day and look at everything as scary, terrifying and awful or I can see the world and everything that’s happening in my day in a positive way. So, I started to focus on finding the fun instead of the fear, even if it was something small like going outside and smelling the rain during a storm. The effect wasn’t instant, of course. It was hard work getting out of that fearful loop, but it changed the way I look at life, and in the end, it stuck with me.

Years later, when we were launching Tuckernuck, a lot of the most successful fashion retailers out there had a serious tone that felt kind of exclusionary. I was again reminded to find the fun. That guided us to build a world that was aspirational and serviced women, but in a way that felt comfortable, attainable, and joyful, even. We focused on little touches, like having the models always be smiling in our photoshoots and making a point of including not only expensive pieces from designers we admired but affordable brands that many more of our customers could access—an idea we took a step further when we launched our own line of ready-to-wear and sportswear. We built a Kid’s Clubhouse inside our D.C. headquarters which acts as a mini office where the children of any employee can play. You’ll often see little tots popping up after school hours on our internal Zoom calls, which brings a little levity to the office along with a lot of heart.

As a working mother of five living in New York City, I try my hardest to practice random acts of fun as a parent, too, especially when I’m frustrated and my temper’s about to get the best of me (we have a big swear jar that’s full of dollars in our house!). Recently, I was in the car with my kids late for school and stuck in traffic and I thought to myself: I can choose to be in a bad mood, or I can choose to blast music in this car right now and have a dance party with the kids until I drop them off. For me, good parenting is about being present, accepting what I can’t control and embracing the chaos.

Now when I start feeling those negative thoughts—though I don’t succeed every time—I remind myself that I have the power to shift my own perspective. I try to keep a curious and open mind and see opportunities for friendship, collaboration, and appreciation where I otherwise might see competition. I push myself to do the things I know will make me happy, like getting outside and away from my computer or screen, traveling, spending time with family and friends, and remembering to celebrate the big and (very) little things. —Jocelyn

I’ve recently been really into hosting hibachi parties in my backyard. I use a company called Mobile Hibachi, which is an amazing service that’s available in over 30 states in the US. They have their own portable grills, and they set up, clean up, and leave! I hosted one for my book club in the fall, did a winter dinner with a roaring fire outside, and this spring, I’ve been doing it almost every week. It’s good for all ages and different kinds of groups and relationships. Most recently, I had some of my team members over for a bonding dinner and it was very fun (and very pretty thanks to Tuckernuck’s canvas chintz tablecloth, colorful stemware, and gold asparagus napkin rings!). We played an icebreaker game where everyone anonymously wrote down a fact about themselves, and we all had to guess which fact belonged to whom. There were lots of hidden talents revealed. Someone was an actual ventriloquist and, of course, my four-year-old son got involved. His fact was: Sometimes I forget to wear my underwear. It was hilarious seeing everyone try and guess who wrote it. —September

Lots of my friends have been turning 40 this year and it’s been such a fun period of reconnecting with them sans children. At this stage in life, with kids to raise and businesses to run, there are fewer excuses to truly let loose. These milestone birthdays have become the perfect reason to travel somewhere new, celebrate people we love, and briefly become our younger, less responsible selves again. Recently, it’s been weekends (or even just a night) filled with great dinners, professional sports games, piano man karaoke, new cities, nostalgic bars, and beach escapes. These getaways are not only a judgment-and-pressure-free zone, they’re also fun to dress for. You want to look polished but also give off an I’m cute, I’m fun, and I’ve still got it vibe (here are some of my go-to pieces!). Time away also reminds me how grateful I am for such enduring friendships—and for the grandparents and amazing babysitters who are willing to help cover four kids and 47 sports commitments so we can slip away for the weekend. —Maddy

For those of you with a teenager, you know it can sometimes be hard to connect. To bond with my 14-year-old son, I’ve been attending lots of sporting and live music events with him. I’ve survived The Weeknd, Travis Scott, and Benson Boone concerts and have gone to countless Knicks, Rangers, and Washington Commanders games, which is actually one of the reasons we decided to collaborate on a project with the NFL. We’ve designed some really cute vintage-inspired merch that we’d all actually want to wear in the stands, including a rugby shirt, cashmere sweaters, and an anorak and barn jacket that will be coming out this fall. In the meantime, I’ve been rocking this varsity jacket on repeat for all our adventures together. —Jocelyn

Thank you for spending some time with us today. You’ll be hearing from us again very soon. Until then, remember to find the fun!