Introducing “Acquired Taste” a Why Jayne Series

The things I know because I’ve stood in the showroom, not because I googled it this morning. It’s not a lecture. It’s more like I’ve been tracing a thread for years and I’m finally showing you where it leads.

First thread: Chintz.

Do you love a bold floral fabric but didn’t know it was actually called chintz? Let me walk you through the age-old practice of draping an entire room (walls, curtains, bed, chair), floor to ceiling, on purpose.

Where the word comes from

Chintz is a brightly printed, glazed cotton, and the word itself has more mileage than most fabrics. It traces back to the Hindi chīnt, meaning spotted or variegated, which comes from the Sanskrit chitra. The fabric originated in India and when it landed in Europe in the 1600s and 1700s, it wasn’t a granny signifier at all. It was a luxury good which many people lost their minds over. England and France both banned imported chintz at points in the early 1700s. Not because it was tacky, but because it was too popular. Domestic wool and silk weavers were losing business to it and got their governments to step in.

That’s the part people skip. Chintz wasn’t always the “too much” fabric. It was once the fabric everyone else’s industry was afraid of. She was, and is, still, that girl!

The “chintzy” pivot came later, once cheap mass-produced imitations flooded the market and the word started meaning “gaudy” and “cheap” instead of “rare and coveted.” Same fabric, opposite reputation, entirely because of who got to mass-produce it.

The version I grew up on

As an 80s kid, and like any other reputable xennial, my chintz education came from Designing Women. Julia Sugarbaker and company decking every hall in it like it was load-bearing. I didn’t know the word yet. I just knew that’s what a “done” room looked like. I mean who can resist a Julia Sugarbaker monologue?!

Turns out I wasn’t wrong to clock it as a moment. According to Vogue, chintz’s popularity has genuinely ebbed and flowed for a century. A real peak in the 1940s, a quieter stretch after, then an explosion in the flounce-heavy 1980s. Jackie Kennedy brought chintz into her 1963 White House redecoration; around the same time, Dorothy Draper was layering it into The Greenbrier alongside her signature riot of color. By the 80s it had made it onto the runway. Bill Blass used a Rose Cumming cabbage rose print in his Spring 1983 collection and one man was doing more than anyone to spread the gospel….

In comes “The Prince of Chintz”

Mario Buatta earned that nickname almost by accident when a television reporter, stuck for something to say about all the floral fabric in Buatta’s room, started rhyming: wince, inch... Prince of Chintz. It stuck for fifty years. Buatta trained under Sister Parish and the English decorator John Fowler. He then took their restraint and did the opposite by layering chintz onto curtains, upholstery and bed canopies. Sometimes three ways in the same room, for clients like Mariah Carey and Barbara Walters. He was also, somewhat less flatteringly, dubbed the “King of Clutter”. Proof the joke was never really about the fabric being bad, just about how much of it one man could justify in a single sitting room. He died in 2018 and the design press is still writing new books about him in 2026; which is either a sign the industry can’t let go or a sign I’m right about all of this.

Even he admitted the 80s got away from him a little: too many ruffles, too many bustles. But, in his words, he loved ruffles. In the right place, they work.

“Chintz is back” is not a headline, it’s a weather report

Every few years, on schedule, a design publication runs some version of “chintz is back!” like it went anywhere.

Elle Decor did it in 2015, under the headline “Like It or Not, Chintz Is Making a Comeback.” Vogue did it in 2018. House Beautiful did it again in 2024. House & Garden ran a whole feature on it this past February and even they seemed to know the bit was wearing thin, filing it under the tagline “as if it ever went away.”

Four publications, four separate years, one recurring headline. That’s before we even get to what happened just this last week.

I’d know because I cut my teeth as an editorial assistant at two design publications, Martha Stewart Living and domino, back when “chintz is back” was already a headline someone could pitch with a straight face. I’ve sat in the meetings where a trend piece gets greenlit for the second or third time, not because anything changed, but because it performed well before. I’ve done the time in the home and design industry. I was there for the decisions. The cycle isn’t new. I just used to help make it.

And then, last week, right on cue: Martha’s own site ran one. Published Sunday, August 23rd: “8 Tacky Décor Trends That Are Making a Comeback, According to Designers,” by Angelika Pokovba. Bold wallpaper, glass blocks…and chintz, filed straight under tacky. Designer Lisa Quinn’s advice for it was genuinely solid: mix chintz with a gingham or a stripe rather than matching every surface, let it live on one sofa or one set of pillows instead of the whole room. Good advice. Also, structurally, the exact kind of piece I used to help call in props for, right down to the beautifully styled sofa in the image. I’ve been sitting on this chintz idea for weeks while thinking about launching a type of series that could be my “well” story (magazine-speak for the big 5–7 page feature the cover’s built around) each month. My former employer ran theirs under a tackiness banner the same week I was finishing mine. I couldn’t have timed that if I’d tried and I can’t decide if it’s validating or slightly insulting…but I sure do love chintz!

Here’s what’s been true the whole time: florals never left. Groundbreaking, I know. They ebb and flow in scale and color depending on the decade but the underlying appetite for a printed floral in a room has been constant since before any of us were born. Miles Redd put it well when Vogue asked him about the “comeback”. He pushed back on the word itself, arguing chintz never really left, people just periodically rediscover it. Some people call it grandmother style, he said: “Fine — that’s one chic grandmother.”

That one lands differently for me than it does as a general joke, because I actually have my grandmother’s chair. My mom’s bedroom at my grandparents’ house was exactly the look people mean when they say “grandmother style”. A chair, a bedspread, and curtains, all cut from the same floral print, zero attempt at restraint. I don’t have a photo of that original room, at least one I could find fast enough to include in this piece. What I do have is the chair. It followed my grandmother into her room at her assisted living center, and after she passed, it came home with me, along with her cat. It’s sitting in my guest room right now, as is the cat. Different house, different decade, same floral. That’s not a comeback. That’s a chair that got loved long enough to outlast three separate news cycles calling it dated.

That’s the real point of owning your taste, in a closet or in a house. It isn’t a trend cycle you catch and lose. It’s a thing you decide is yours and then keep deciding, season after season, regardless of what a headline says this month.

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For those who may not be aware of what is happening in Big Bend right now: construction of a border wall is underway inside one of Texas’s most sacred national parks, and our government waived dozens of federal environmental laws. To make this happen, the waived laws include the Endangered Species Act, the National Park Service Organic Act and the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. For the first time in United States history, that many environmental protections were cast aside in a single action. All to build in a region that accounted for just 1.3% of border apprehensions nationwide in 2025, a number that had already dropped 74% from 2023.

I am a native Texan who has actually never been to Big Bend. I have flown over it multiple times but never set foot in it. That doesn’t mean I’ve never wanted to, or that I have a lack of respect for the land, the people, the animals and the conservation that happens out there. It is about a 10 to 12 hour drive from Dallas, basically four states away if you’re in the northeast. What I do know about Big Bend is that it is insane terrain and absolutely beautiful. Big Bend is a wall within itself. All five sheriffs along the Big Bend border region have said so on the record. So have all 14 Texas border county judges, seven former Big Bend National Park superintendents and even the Texas land commissioner, who sent a cease-and-desist order to federal contractors for illegally clearing state land. This opposition is not partisan. It is Texan.

I have also been a lover of the desert most of my life, though my desert experience has been out west; Arizona, Nevada, California, with Joshua Tree being one of my favorite places to visit. Going to Marfa has been on my list for as long as I can remember, basically since I read about Pecos Bill as a little kid. My grandparents used to read those stories to me when I would stay with them and I would dream about roping twisters. Even though I’m technically a city slicker these days — yes, I can say that out loud — that part of Texas hits home. Why? Because it’s Texas and we love our sacred land no matter what part of the state it’s in.

Also, friendly reminder: the border crossed many who inhabited this land long before you and I were here. That deserves to be respected too.

Earlier this week my social media feeds were flooded with footage from Big Bend. A video from photographer Natalie Newman showed a pack of javelinas — not wild boars, which is a common mix-up, but collared peccaries, a species native to the Chihuahuan Desert and not even in the same family as a pig — crossing directly in front of a moving bulldozer before running back to their pack. I went down a rabbit hole.

For those of us of a certain age, Fern Gully wasn’t a cartoon. It was a documentary. Turns out we were right.

Natalie and many others are boots on the ground, posting and documenting multiple times a day without interfering. I have since signed the petition for No Big Bend Wall, link below. I have called Governor Abbott. Some of you may know him only as Hot Wheels. While bulldozers demolish hundred-year-old trees, vegetation, and irreplaceable desert terrain, he was at a new Buc-ee’s opening trying to chop some brisket.

Sir, you would be a lot more Texan if you actually wore some boots instead of licking them.

This issue should not matter which side of politics you sit on. Respect for our land, our agriculture, and the animals living on it is not political. It is basic. A trait that many have lost, if they ever had it. You can have spirited debates about border policy. But completely destroying something sacred because you technically can, well, that is cowardice, not governance.

The more I watch and read, the more I am in awe of the activists, conservationists, and local community members who are there documenting without interference. They have the hardest job. I continue to watch, read, and share. If this can happen in Big Bend, it can happen in any of our national parks. That is not hyperbole. That is the precedent being set right now.

In an effort to stay informed, here are a few of the accounts I recently started following:

• No Big Bend Wall — @nobigbendwall

• Natalie Newman — @ntlnwmn

• Laiken Jordahl — @laiken_jordahl

• Planet Marfa — @planetmarfa

• Bethany Salvon + Randy Kalp — @beersandbeans

• Michelle H. Davis — @lonstarleft (also on Substack)

Sign the petition: No Big Bend Wall — Sign Here!

If what is happening in Big Bend doesn’t stir something in you, we are not the same. And if this post makes you uncomfortable because I’m going outside of what I’ve traditionally written about….BUCKLE UP. There will be splashes of this as I continue my journey here on Why Jayne. Because good taste and no filter means all of it. The pretty things and the hard things too.

Peace and love.

The Why

Big Bend has survived longer than any of us have been here and longer than any wall will stand. What it needs now is for us to pay attention. To understand that when we allow this to happen to a place as remote and sacred as Big Bend, we have already decided what kind of people we are. The border didn’t cross the land. The land was always there first.

Y’all means ALL.

Good taste, no filter.

— Jayne

The group chat started planning this in January. February, we said, easy — get in, see the boys, get out. Except each weekend in February was booked for one of us. February came and went. Then BSB announced more summer dates, which felt less like a plan and more like the universe giving us a second chance to get our act together. By March, I had bought the tickets. Officially. No more “let’s see,” no more group chat spiraling — just four confirmed seats and a shared calendar hold, sixteen years after the four of us landed on the fourth floor of 2 Park Avenue, at a company where nobody had an office, no matter your title.

We weren’t even on the same team. I was buying for Gilt Home. One of us ran deals for Gilt City. Another was over on Baby & Kids. Lastly, the one who initiated the trip, ran all of Gilt’s events. (Fashion Night Out…need I say more) Four completely different corners of the same open floor, four completely different jobs, and somehow we found each other anyway — over the printer, at the one good coffee machine, wherever twenty-somethings who don’t yet know they’re about to be friends for life end up finding each other.

Here’s the part that took us sixteen years to actually say out loud to each other: all four of us had been laid off before we landed at Gilt Groupe. Not eventually, not “the economy was rough back then” in some general sense — actually, individually, personally laid off, in the middle of a recession, in our twenties, in New York City, which is its own specific flavor of terrifying. We didn’t know that about each other yet. We just knew there was an opening at this flash-sale startup nobody outside the industry had heard of, and that everyone else who worked there seemed to be in the exact same position — smart, a little rattled, figuring out that the thing they’d planned on doing wasn’t the thing anymore.

Three of us started within a few weeks of each other in the fall of 2009. The fourth came a few months later, early 2010, and slotted in like she’d always been there. Gilt sold designer clothes at a discount for a few hours a day and somehow became the center of gravity for every underemployed twenty-something’s lunch break. We had no idea we were building careers. We were just glad to have desks.

What we really built, it turns out, was this. Sixteen years, four cities, more job changes than any of us could count on two hands, and a group chat that has never once gone quiet for long. Gilt Groupe as we knew it closed years ago. We didn’t.

The last time all four of us were in the same room was 2019; a babymoon for the one of us who was about to have her first baby. Since then: a pandemic, that same baby turning into an actual kid, more babies, more moves, more job changes, the general chaos of your thirties turning into your forties without asking permission. We texted constantly. We called on the big things and the small ones. But six years is six years, and there’s a version of long-distance friendship where you have to relearn each other a little every time, and a version where you don’t. We got lucky enough to be the second kind.

So when the Vegas plan finally locked in; tickets bought, flights booked, one shared hotel room instead of four separate ones because obviously. It wasn’t really about Backstreet Boys, but it also was. It was an excuse. A very specific, very glittery, all-white-outfit excuse to be back in the same room after six years and find out nothing had ever changed.

Nothing prepares you for walking into the Sphere. You’ve seen the videos, the drone footage, the “wait, is that thing real” posts — and it still doesn’t prepare you. The whole building is a screen. It curves up and over you like you’re standing inside a snow globe someone built for a boy band’s third act.

We did an early dinner in the hotel, then walked over around 7:45 — plenty of time, we thought, for a building that’s basically next door. Wrong. Drinks, a bathroom stop, the general chaos of four women in matching outfits trying to find one bathroom line that wasn’t insane — we made it to our seats in Section 100 at 8:25, five minutes to spare, hearts pounding for reasons that had nothing to do with the walk. We spent those last five minutes doing the thing you do now instead of just sitting there, which is trying to film how big the place really is before giving up and admitting no phone camera was built for this.

Doors had opened at six for general admission floor. We’d been there since 7:45, and by the time the lights went down, we’d had almost forty-five minutes to just sit in a room full of forty-something women in coordinated white outfits — and that room was its own kind of show. Glitter everywhere. Friend groups who clearly hadn’t seen each other in years, judging by the way they screamed hello. Many had seen the show before, I understand why now.

And then it started, and every single thing about being forty-four years old and mildly embarrassed about how much you wanted this fell away in about four seconds. I don’t know how else to explain it except that it worked. The nervous system thing, the “this is somehow better than therapy” thing, all of it completely true. You spend your teens wanting something with your whole chest and your forties learning to want things quietly, reasonably, with an exit strategy. And then a boy band you loved when you were 16 tells you it’s okay to want something loudly again, just for two hours, and you take them up on it.

We screamed every word. We did not know all the choreography and did it anyway. At some point during “I Want It That Way,” I looked around and thought: this is exactly who I’d want next to me for this.

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If you caught the Reel version of this list…Welcome! Here’s the long version, with all the mess I didn’t have time to fit into 30 seconds.

The Fence

Not glamorous. Nobody posts fence content. But privacy is the thing you don’t know you’re paying for until you have it. Suddenly the backyard is usable, the cat can explore and get fresh air and you actually want to sit outside.

When I bought my house, the fence was a mess. Mismatched, not secure and some pieces held together by bungee cords. The whole back of the fence facing the alley is lined by trees for privacy but the height was only about 4.5 feet tall with a gate that would only shut with a bungee cord. The sides were wood and only 6 feet tall. I’m 5’9” mind you, so absolutely zero privacy. The fence line in the front on the east side of the house was behind the two bedroom windows, again minimal security. Also chain link and didn’t connect to anything. If I had a dog, it would have been a disaster every day. Moved the fence line up and now both bedrooms are securely behind my fortress. Lastly, the west side had a gate that was at a good location but also held together by bungee cords. I lived with this for a few months before I could start getting estimates in March. Had 2 or 3 people come out and eventually went with the first bid. I knew I wanted cedar board on board and 8’feet tall. By May the new fence was up. I did tell my neighbors, obviously, but no splitsies. It was all me. Within the first month I was out there with my blow up pool, sunbathing with a good cocktail.

The Windows

The house came with the original single-pane windows, and I didn’t understand what I was living with until they were gone. Temperature regulation, noise, the actual light quality in every room. Windows are infrastructure, not decor. The fence was the first round of upgraded security, windows second. With the single pane windows, I heard EVERYTHING and felt every weather change. Neighbors talking 4 house down, heard it. A car backfire 6 streets up, heard it. The worst winter storm Texas had ever seen, felt it. Thankfully no pipe bursts here and no power outages. Spring and Fall rolled around, couldn’t open any windows to burp the house. I did end up buying those temporary window screens you can find at the hardware store. Those came in handy for a bit until my cat figured it out. Same as the fence, got 3 different bids and ended up going with the first company who came out. Before getting my bids, I had driven around the neighborhood looking at other brick homes like mine to get inspiration. I also did multiple deep dives on Pinterest, my favorite place for inspiration. After all that, I decided on black windows on the outside and white on the inside. Placed the order in March, the year after the fence, and they were installed by September. Best decision I’ve ever made. Reminder, most windows are custom made so there is a longer lead time, especially since this was during the tail-end of Covid.

One design choice I made was for my big window in the front. This was originally 2 sets of the original windows and I wanted to change out to be one large picture window, this was also a deciding factor with who ultimately won my business. The front of the house gets morning light and I am absolutely in love with how it now comes in with 1 large window. Not to mention it helps elevate the look of the house.

With both the fence and the windows updated, I realized I could finally breathe again and the tension I didn’t realize I had built up left my body. I started sleeping better, Lady Bird (my cat) had a whole new personality and the vibe of the house just felt completely different. It’s amazing how 2 non-trendy updates to a home can completely change how you operate through everyday life.

The Kitchen Faucet

The one splurge on this list that’s actually visible, and still worth it. A good faucet is something you touch multiple times a day, every day, for years. Cost-per-use math makes it one of the easiest upgrades to justify.

I had always hated the kitchen faucet that was here. Everything in the house had already been renovated but there are a few design choices I would have done differently, mostly around the faucets and fixtures in the kitchen and bathrooms. I had already planned on updating the faucet within the first year and already had a few options saved on my home’s Pinterest board. Well one day as I’m doing the dishes, the whole handle just decides to fall off…while the water was running mind you. So staying the calm, cool and collected cucumber I am, I immediately started googling and got out the needle nose pliers to turn the water off. Thank goodness I had those! Figured out how to Macguyver the lever back on to get me through placing an order for the one I had been eyeing and getting a plumber out to install. I had also thought about installing myself but honestly, I wanted to leave that one to the professionals since it involved proper sealing to prevent mold. I had been debating pulling the trigger on this specific faucet for a bit so no time like the present for the universe to pushing you to “treat yo’self” home edition.

I still love this Delta Trask faucet to this day! Check it out!

Paid subscribers get the other two — including the flower bed that took 5.5 years to stop fighting me and the laundry room reno that’s currently testing my patience all over again.

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For this trip, we executed the typical “girl’s trip” checklist flawlessly…

• Sick house with a pool

• Plenty of rooms and bathrooms

• All the snacks and booze anyone could ever want

• Group chat name and shared photo album created

• First night over party

• A gazillion shared links that led to a mountain of packages at the front door

I tend to be the “Type B” friend for these trips. I’m happy to plan an activity and/or a meal but everything else, my planner friends take the lead. One less decision for me take on in my day. One of the main things I had on my list for this trip was antiquing. With Hot Springs being a little quirky with a lot of history, ahem bath houses and apparently a gangster museum, I knew there would be some good thrifting and antiquing. I had a list of 5 places I wanted to check out, made it to 3 on the list with a bonus that wasn’t on the list but a great find.

After visiting one of the bath houses, we walked up and down the main street, Central Avenue. One of the places on my list was across from the bath house so while my friends were shopping in another store, I popped in. Super cute on the outside. Looked like it had a lot of tabletop and glassware from the window. I went in and was out faster than you can say “antiquing is a sport.” Everything was behind a glass case and a bit overpriced, if you want the real tea. I told myself for the next day, I’m getting up and going to the others when they open. We didn’t have set plans for the day, so the rest of the group went to the botanical garden and I went antiquing.

That next morning got up, had my slow Sunday morning with coffee and a snack then got myself out the door. Now, I’m not a morning person, so this was a lot to pull off for me, however the main place I wanted to go to opened at 11AM so not too bad.

Black Tie Antique Mall: The Biggest Antique Store in Hot Springs You Almost Miss

My first stop was at what looked to be a cute little shop in a strip mall called Black Tie Antique Mall. Mall is right! This place was HUUUUGGGEEEE!!! It kept going and going and going, room after room, with booths filled floor to ceiling with all kinds of good things! Of the 3 places I went to that day, I spent the most time here. At this stop, I picked up a rose bowl, hobnail glass vase, and a vintage larger platter from Czechoslovakia. For the platter, I sure did move the shelf around and got on the floor, flipping the plate over to check the marking and started Googling the Epiag “Juliet” backstamp. With this location there were definitely a few things I left behind that I am still thinking about. This is what happens when you apply self-constraint, mainly due to the amount of room available in the car. When I was checking out, the woman gave me a pamphlet of all the local antique stores, thrift stores and flea markets, which is put together by the “Hot Springs Antiques & Collectibles Dealers Association.” This pamphlet had way more than my little list of 5 places.

Iron Crow Antiques: A Hot Springs Antique Shop Hiding in an Old House

On to the next one, which was Iron Crow Antiques. This location was in an old house they had turned into a shop. I was shocked by how much they stuffed into that little white house. The house also looks much smaller on the outside than it was. When I first walked in, I was met immediately with a staircase going to the 2nd floor, a hallway to go straight past the staircase, a room to the left and a room to the right. I went right and decided to work my way through right to left. This was definitely the way to go. I worked my way through and found myself in what would have been the kitchen where I found an entire wall of cast iron skillets. Then the cabinets filled with vintage Pyrex. In this space I found a green Pyrex bowl and glass flower frog. My mom had let me know before the trip she was looking for a glass flower frog, so I found it, I got it. The Pyrex bowl has already been used multiple times since bringing home.

I continued to move through and found myself in a hallway between what was the bathroom and stairs leading down to the basement. Immediate thought: “they have basements in Arkansas?” Then as I was frozen trying to decide between the basement and the antique-filled bathroom, a cat shows up! This little brown tabby was the absolute sweetest. Not me immediately getting down on the floor to pet said cat and give him scritches. He knew what he was doing and got what he wanted. Off he went.

Back to antiques. I went into the bathroom filled antiques. In this space, I definitely had “shiny ball syndrome” and didn’t know where to look and focus. I took the below photo and clearly realized I missed out on a few things. I’m still thinking about those Christmas candlestick blow molds! How could you not be?! Downstairs I went into the basement. Made my way through and back upstairs. Still in shock at how much was in this house. Not to mention thinking this house is amazing and I want to restore it! I wandered my way through the rest of the house and made it to the checkout with my treasures. My new friend, Gary the shop cat, was now sitting on the wrapping paper on the glass countertop. Shared some niceties with the shopkeeper and others in line and then headed out to my next stop.

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The Story

That first summer, Shark Week rolled around and I begged whoever ran social media to post the necklace. Tie it to the moment. They passed. The shark did fine on its own — nothing dramatic.

The next year, somebody finally posted it for Shark Week. It did very well. Reach, engagement, traffic. Did people buy the shark? Some. Did it also pull in people who’d never have clicked into a fine jewelry site otherwise who may have bought the diamond studs they’d been eyeing for months instead? Also yes. That’s the part nobody gives the shark credit for.

It is still on that website. Ten years later. Every now and then I see it posted each summer.

Find the shark here. Yes, that’s the shark.

You remember the posts. In June, a couple got engaged on the Empire State Building observation deck, got arrested for it and within about 48 hours half the internet's brand accounts had turned it into a template. Swap the flag, change the logo, ship it.

I thought about that shark again after reading marketing strategist Austin Suter’s take on it. He asked three questions none of those teams bothered asking first: does this have anything to do with our product, is it relevant to our customer, does it actually serve anyone. Most of the brands that jumped on it failed all three.

Here’s where I’d push back a little, though. Not every brand moment has to earn its relevance the way his framework demands. Sometimes a slightly absurd, low-stakes, “why does this brand have a shark” moment is exactly the thing that gets someone in the door who never would have looked otherwise. The shark wasn’t relevant to fine jewelry. That was the point.

The difference is off-the-rack versus one-of-a-kind. A meme template is off-the-rack; churned out because everyone else is doing it, with zero cost to being wrong. A one-of-a-kind moment is small, specific, a little odd, and it’s yours. Nobody else could have made that exact post. The shark worked because it was oddly, specifically ours. The flag-swap posts didn’t, because they were nobody’s.

The Why

Virality isn’t the enemy of good taste, laziness is. You can chase a moment and still make something only you could’ve made. The brands that get it right aren’t the ones who resist the trend or the ones who blindly chase it. They’re the ones who find the weird, specific overlap between the moment and who they are. Sometimes that’s a proposal on an observation deck. Sometimes it’s a shark wearing diamonds.

Good taste, no filter.

— Jayne

Sixteen years old. April 26, 1777. A messenger shows up at her father’s farmhouse half-dead on his feet, with news that the British have landed and are burning Danbury. Her father’s militia is scattered across the county for spring planting, and somebody has to ride out and get them. The colonel can’t go as he has to stay and muster the men as they arrive. So he turns to his oldest daughter.

Sybil gets on her horse and rides through a thunderstorm, alone, for roughly 40 miles. Accounts vary between calling it twice or nearly three times the distance Paul Revere covered two years earlier. She pounds on farmhouse doors with a stick because her hands are full of reins. A highwayman comes after her and she fends him off. By dawn, 400 men are standing in her father’s yard, ready to march.

My first thought, in the specific way you think things at 11:30pm: that tracks.

Here’s the part I want to sit with, though, because “no filter” means I tell you the whole thing. Historians genuinely dispute whether this ride happened. Sybil’s own letters never mention it. The first written account is a petition her nephew wrote in 1854, 77 years later, and the fuller version everyone tells didn’t get published until 1880, more than a century after the fact. Some historians have looked at that gap and called the whole thing folklore.

But that gap is the story too. Sybil’s ride lived exactly where women’s history usually lives, in family kitchens passed grandmother to granddaughter. Paul Revere’s ride got a poem from Longfellow eighty-five years after his death and was accepted as fact on far less documentation than Sybil’s descendants ever offered. One story got waved through. The other got asked to produce a birth certificate. Later in life she applied for a widow’s pension and was denied because she couldn’t produce her marriage certificate. The same records-and-proof problem, one more time, at the end of her life.

She got that statue in 1961, a postage stamp in 1975 and a road race named after her. Revere got a national holiday’s worth of cultural memory and “the British are coming.”

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There is a very specific kind of person who shows up to a summer potluck with a warm dip that needs an outlet, a chafing dish and someone to babysit it. I am not that person. I am the person standing near the drinks cooler with a bowl that has been sitting in my fridge since seven last night, minding its own business, getting better by the hour.

That’s Texas caviar. It is not caviar. It is beans and peppers and the best thing you will bring to a cookout all summer.

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So that’s what this is.

I come from a long line of women who built things. My great grandmother was one of six sisters. My grandmother and mother ran a kitchen shop when I was little — JYMS, named after my grandmother’s initials, a detail I didn’t fully appreciate until I was old enough to understand what it costs to put your name on something. I grew up surrounded by the idea that a well-equipped kitchen and a beautiful home weren’t luxuries, they were just how you lived.

My grandfather and his cousin ran a pharmacy together for over fifty years — Rockwall Drug, Inc in Rockwall, Texas. My uncle eventually took over for them, though neither of them ever quite managed to officially retire. My first job was behind that counter in junior high. Nobody in my family waited for someone else to build something for them.

That’s probably why I ended up the way I did.

I spent my early career as an editorial assistant during the Devil Wears Prada era of New York — yes, that era, yes it was exactly like that. I know this because I still have the friends to prove it. My friend Andrew, who was an assistant alongside me back then, texted me recently after watching the sequel:

“I just watched Devil Wears Prada sequel and am wondering which of us is the Andy and which of us is the Emily and JUST put together that the fucking characters are named Andy and Emily”

We had genuinely never made that connection. That’s how deep in it we were.

I spent eight years in New York, 2005 to 2013 — got laid off twice, had more fun than was probably advisable, and learned more about taste, grit, and how to spot a “good thing” than anywhere else could have taught me. From editorial I found my way into the world of ecommerce, digital, and buying — working at high-growth startups and established retail brands where I learned how products actually win, how brands get built, scaled, and sometimes dismantled, and what the difference is between something worth buying and something just worth marketing. I’m still in it — currently working in digital and ecommerce, where my world revolves around the power of thoughtful organization and the products that truly make a home work better. I’ve built a career behind the scenes of other people’s visions. I bought a 1960s house in Texas and have been slowly, stubbornly, making it mine — one space at a time.

Why Jayne is the first thing I’ve made entirely for myself.

It’s about living well in the spaces and budget you actually have. It’s about knowing when a brand is selling you something real versus just selling you a feeling. It’s about cooking, thrifting, designing, fixing and the unglamorous parts of a home that nobody photographs but everybody lives in. It’s about the long game — in homes, in friendships, in life. Living deliberately, buying thoughtfully and the life you build entirely on your own terms.

Good taste, no filter.

That’s the promise. Come pull up a chair.

— Jayne

The Why

Nobody tells you that building something of your own is the scariest version of putting your name on something. My grandmother did it. My grandfather did it. For fifty years. The Y in Jayne has always done double duty — it’s the spelling and the question. Why this product, why this choice, why does any of it matter. That’s what we’re here to figure out.

The kitchen shop sign has lived in my family for decades, currently lives in my kitchen. Where do you keep the things that remind you where you came from?

And like the last couple of years, I have made the deliberate choice to mostly sit this one out. Not because I don’t need anything. Not because I’m on some woke high horse of boycotting everything — trust me, I’m a female woke ginger, I know what that looks like and this isn’t it. It’s something quieter than that. I’m just trying to be more intentional with my dollar.

Do I want to hand another billion dollars to a billionaire? Not particularly. But that’s not really the point either. The point is that Prime Day has become a masterclass in buying things you didn’t know you needed until someone told you they were 40% off. Mass-produced, made overseas, breaks after two uses, doesn’t fit like you thought it would. You know the stuff. We’ve all bought it.

Here’s the girl math that actually math-es: You spend $25 on a cute matching short set. Rayon, obviously. You wash it once, maybe twice. It either shrinks two sizes or is already threading at the seams. Compare that to investing $75–$100 in a similar set made with quality fabric that survives a full year of actual life. Your cost per wear just dropped to basically nothing. That’s the deal. Not the $25 impulse buy that’s in landfill by October.

The same logic applies to your home. The decorative thing that looks great in a product photo, arrives in questionable packaging and is made of synthetic materials that are somehow both bad for the environment and possibly for you. I’m not trying to be dramatic. I’m just saying: I’ve been down that road.

Which brings me to the hunt.

A couple of weeks ago I was in a thrift store and found the cutest garden statue of three singing cats. I assumed $5, maybe $10 tops. It was $25. I put it back. I could tell — the way you can tell once you’ve trained your eye — that it was something I could probably find on Amazon. So I looked. Found it. Originally $50, currently out of stock. I still think about that little statue. I might go back this week to see if it’s still there.

That’s the thing about thrifting that Prime Day will never replicate. There is no joy in walking a friend through your home saying Amazon. Amazon. Amazon. But there is enormous joy in saying: this table, $20, Chelsea Housing Works, 2011 — yes I got it in a cab, don’t ask. These alabaster grapes, $30, Lula B’s, 2016. This antique Westinghouse fan, $60, Canton Trade Days, 2014. This Wedgwood blue jasperware box, $10, Sylvia’s garage sale, last week. Every object has a story. Amazon ships fast. It does not ship stories.

Sure, there’s a high in clicking “order” and having something appear at your door by dinner. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But where’s the long-term excitement? The thing you’ll still be talking about in ten years?

I’m not perfect at this. I’m trying to be better. More intentional.

I am also typing this at work wearing a shirt, a belt and earrings all from Amazon, while my favorite lash serum — Babe Lash, normally $50, currently 35% off — sits in my cart waiting for me to stop being principled about it.

In my defense: that one I’ve earned. I know it works. I’m almost out. And that is the only legitimate reason to shop Prime Day — something you already use, already trust, and can get cheaper today. Not the random scroll. Not the manufactured urgency. The intentional replenishment of something real.

That’s my rule and I’m keeping it. After I check out.

THE WHY

Being intentional with your dollar isn’t about being cheap or self-righteous. It’s about slowing down long enough to ask whether you actually want the thing or just the feeling of getting a deal. The hunt takes longer. The quality lasts longer. The story is better. Prime Day will be back in six months with a different name and the same rayon short set. The Wedgwood box at Silvia’s garage sale was a one-time situation and I will never stop being smug about it.

Have a Prime Day purchase you'll defend to the death or a thrift find that still makes you smug? Tell me below.

As the late great Leslie Jordan said “Well shit, I’m just piddlin!” Growing up in the south, piddlin is just a way of living. Getting ready for a night out, I’m piddling around while I’m getting ready by making a “dressing drink”, organizing my eyeshadows, putting my purse together. The best kind of piddling is when you have all the time in the world to saunter through your home moving things around, shuffling room to room, redesigning little vignettes on your bookcase.

The Sunday Piddle

Give me an open Sunday afternoon and watch what happens. I drift from room to room. I move something from the kitchen counter back to where it actually lives. I fold one load of laundry, then wander out to sit in the garden for a few, then wander back in and find some other small thing that’s been sitting slightly out of place since Tuesday. Nothing on this list was urgent. None of it was a project. It’s just the slow work of putting a house back into alignment with itself, all day, with no end point in mind.

The Packing Piddle

Travel piddling is a different animal — less peaceful, more forensic. Because none of my things are ever where they’re supposed to be when I actually need them all at once. So the night before a trip becomes an audit: every jewelry case, every makeup bag, every little toiletry pouch, all laid open, all gone through piece by piece, until the put-together version of me is fully accounted for and coming with me.

The Shopping Piddle

This is where it gets diagnostic. Put me in a department store and I’m a woman on a mission — I know exactly what I came for, I get it, I leave. Same with a mall. In and out, no detours. But put me in an antique mall, and we are settling in for three hours, minimum. Every aisle. Some of them twice. I’m not really shopping so much as I’m looking — for the one weird little thing tucked behind something else that nobody’s noticed yet.

The Tell

My friends always know exactly what’s happening when I text the group chat: just putting my purse together. That’s it. That’s the whole message. They know it means the outfit’s done, the bag has to match now, and I will be exactly as long as that takes plus the time it takes to call a car. We actually have a group chat named Piddle Me This — earned after a trip to Palm Springs where the entire itinerary, such as it was, amounted to piddling our way from one place to the next. We also just call it piddle f*cking around, because honestly, that’s exactly what it is — walking around, being goofy, no time limit, no rushing.

And don’t rush me. Getting hurried out the door sets the tone for the whole day and I refuse to start a Saturday already behind. Work can be rushed. Weekends cannot.

We’re planning a trip with that same group soon and someone in the chat already laid down the law: get up and go, no dillydallying on the last day. So I sent a picture of every antique and vintage store within driving distance of wherever we’re going with one clarification — Saturday is mine. I will be dillying and dallying through every one of them. The day we leave? Fine. Get up and go. By then all I want to do is get home anyway.

The women in my family will tell you I’ve always been like this. They tease me for it. But every one of us piddles. We just never called it a flaw until someone else did.

The Why

Piddling looks like indecision from the outside, but it isn’t. It’s a refusal to move through a day, a house, or an antique mall faster than it deserves. The women who raised me never did one thing at a time if they could help it — they circled back, noticed what everyone else walked past, took the long way on purpose. I’m late sometimes. I’ve never once regretted it.

What are your favorites ways to piddle?

(Insert Mariah Carey’s “Obsessed”)

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