On a layover in Barcelona last week, I bought a pair of 38 euro flat slingback sandals —

I walked into the store because I saw a delicate pair of wedged, thong slingbacks in the window and thought those could scratch the itch of my reluctant (but still effusive!) desire to participate in a trend Peter Muelier’s Alaia piloted off the ground in 2024, but which in much freakier form, Phoebe Philo is landing.

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The Alaia portion of this trend looks like any number of the delicate thong heels you have seen perpetrating the shoppable internet with the aforementioned here, Gianvito there, Amina Muaddi, Le Monde Beryl, Paris T—I can go on.

Plus: Chanel recently showed Resort 27 and Blazy’s rendering of the woman included his own pass on the sling flop, so you can rest assured this one is going to stick around for a little while longer.

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The Philo portion of this trend includes any number of the wider renderings that look a bit like a Birkenstock (birkenflop? Flipenstock?), which you may have seen, including what I call the best alt option, which is these from Jude.

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The magic of the Philos is the subtle wedge that proposes the simplest yet most impactful lift to your leg, making them an ideal option for outfits that expose a lot of your leg.

They’re also heavy — like aesthetically, they add weight. So any outfit that reads more delicate (as in feminine) or naked (as in booby halter top) benefits from their presence in the broader tableau.

The very thing I did not know I needed to make mini shorts, skirts and one-and-done dainty dresses feel current again.

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The other version of this shoe is starting to feel a little stickier (more emotional, because they are so nostalgic) as I see more and more freckling the streets. It features a more apparent wedge and looks a little like a Rocket Dog —

Never forget!

I love these for a “work” setting because it’s unexpected. Is also great with feminine dress, or as demonstrated below, something a little more beach forward:

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Other good luxury options include:

• these from Dries

• these from Staud

• these from Chloe

• these (and these) from Balenciaga

• these from Coperni

• and obviously, the pictured Ancient Greeks

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That’s it on the shoes, but one style note worth acknowledging, which would have been too distracting within the flow of the story is related to the straps in the outfit of the first photo —

Something about the exposed halter straps crossing behind regular straps feels great right now. It’s a tiny, unexpected city cue with big impact, and needs a contrasting dose of elegance for context/so you don’t actually look like you’re barreling off the beach. More on this in an upcoming send but for now: the key to getting it right is leaning into color and contrasting texture.

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The only other thing I can tell you is that I made an excellent okra summer stew the other night, with cooked down shallots that I swirled around in tomato paste and seamed with coriander and paprika, salt n pepa. Once it was cookin’ I added preserved lemon, dried apricots and a little bit of white wine then 25 min later, vwala. The next day, it was so good on a seed cracker with feta cheese.

Okay, I’m done. Thanks for playing! See you next week,

Leandra

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I love getting dressed for in-between time: when the busy days of the school year are still in progress, before the lazy and slow dead of summer (which calls for not much more than a reappropriated night gown) are actually here.

Basically, there is still reason to get dressed.

It doesn’t feel silly or beside the point. Or redundant. More like the outfits actually count — so I do. Count them, I mean.

28 here for your scrolling pleasure:

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Have a great week!!!!!!!!!!!

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New is different, different is scary

I think we are pretty resistant to newness. We may like new stuff but genuine newness: new concepts, new technologies, new ways of being are trickier to embrace because “new” implies “different.”

The brain latches on to what is familiar from such an early age because what is familiar often feels safe.

I remember in the very early months after Jojo was born for example, I could detect a knowing smirk on her face when she woke up to see me, or either of her sisters, or her dad standing over her crib. It was not the same when a still-unfamiliar face like that of one of my brothers, or my mom, or my friends would greet her. The behavior had no charge, there was no judgment. It just was.

New faces are different, different is unfamiliar. Unfamiliar is not safe, and fundamentally, I suspect everything we work for, build our personalities around, try to become — even euphemize with love, is, somehow, in service of possessing safety.

This human quality probably dates back millennia and once served (still can serve) an important evolutionary purpose, shooting the nervous system into defense in the presence of genuine threat, but I’ve been thinking a lot about newness in a specifically creative context — the extent to which we need new ideas, opinions, visuals in order to challenge stasis/experience progress, and how often the almost knee-jerk response is rejection.

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Safety and risk

The irony, of course, is that in order to create this work, the person making it has to feel safe. Maybe in order to receive the new work, one has to feel safe too, but it’s a different kind of safety. Like you have to be open enough to receive it, and confident enough to know that embracing this new thing doesn’t mean anything about who you are. So in either instance, it’s a risk.

Making art is inherently risky because it’s vulnerable. It cracks the lid on something deep and raw, it exposes it to the tempo of a touch that is not your own. You can’t control what happens once you give it to the world. It could get shot down, it could cause a fight.

It could be dismissed, overlooked, or ignored altogether. All of this ladders up to a kind of failure.

I have said that releasing certain work is like having a pap smear in public. This still feels true but before you can even get to the point of choosing the pap smear — before the product gets made, the brain has to feel like it can melt into its natural, original rhythm. Abandon the rules of logic, make new sentence structures, break rules. It has to feel safe to touch into flow.

It’s not impossible to do this, or to feel the ascension of your own risk threshold when you’re on high alert, but it’s definitely hard. It is impossible, however, to get here when you’re constantly distracted. When you don’t let yourself get bored.

Boredom

With writing, it’s not the actual writing that is time consuming. It’s the sitting down to write. You can stare at a blank page for hours before something you want to bring to life comes through. You can spend days filling pages only to scrap them.

So much of making creative work is not actually being in flow, but it’s getting yourself there.

It’s the clearing that comes before it. And none of this work is for naught. It’s part of the process — layers of slop that need to dissolve before the core of whats good starts to take form.

But you can’t just go to the core without first waffling through this process. You have to give yourself time and permission to “waste.” To not be distracted, to let boredom take hold.

I worry that boredom is going extinct. That it is becoming as luxurious a commodity as time. I see it sometimes when I’m with my daughters and I’m answering this or that message from my phone while they’re looking around and one is humming to herself and the other flings a question out of both her mouth and nowhere, about something so abstract it could only come from a mind blank as a canvas.

When I am not suffocating under the invisible weight of the device, divorcing me from the present moment and what great creativity emerges within it, I feel intense relief that my kids still stretch effortlessly into the abyss of spectacular nothing.

It encourages me to dive in too and in this abyss is always — always — where my best ideas come to the fore.

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An uncomfortable seat

But it’s uncomfortable to get here. There’s a layer of, to put it plainly, pain, one must tolerate on the way to flow.

Because in the quiet of the boredom is when the thoughts and questions and feelings we push away and avoid and distract ourselves from coming in too-close contact with have a chance to be heard, to be seen.

So often we erect entire personalities around avoiding what hides in the recesses of our thoughts but really our hearts. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to uphold these personas, but we tell ourselves it’s easier to avoid what is hidden than to let it pass through. I think many of us worry about what will happen if we acknowledge the pain. Worry we will fall apart.

Often the pain doesn’t want much more than to be seen in its trueness for a mere, miniature moment.

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A cultural temp check

Across so many categories of art, we are living in an era of reboots, re-ups, re-issues. We’re so nostalgic.

Are we?

Or is it just a refusal to feel boredom? To touch into the “pain” on the road to newness?

I rewatched The Devil Wears Prada last night. The original became canon. It lifted the first lid on what the fashion industry is like, sensationalizing much of it like good entertainment does, but painting a portrait accurate enough to let it pass for fact.

It also enunciated a truth so often dismissed in American culture on the role fashion plays in virtually all of our lives.

I think this often overlooked quality of the movie is part of what made fashion fans embrace it in the first place. Instead of cynically reducing what many of us do, what (presumably if you’re here) all of us love, to a pile of dumb, turquoise belts, it erected a quality of respect for the trade.

The reissue was fun — nostalgic, but will not earn a place in the canon. This is what gets missed with so many reinventions: the tacit characteristics that make originals so good are just that — tacit. Most people don’t know why a piece of work touches them, stays with them, but they know that it does, and that’s enough. It’s the luxury of being a consumer of work as opposed to the maker of it.

But if you want to create the kind of work that does this? I suspect a need to cultivate enough discipline to deny the knock of distraction, to let ourselves feel the boredom, the discomfort, the pain. All of it. This is what underpins the work. What carries it through a transmutation that becomes beauty.

Maybe this is where the stereotype of the tortured artist really derives from: their willingness to not just feel the full range, but to jump into it. In a healthy approximation of the stereotype, I think you get someone like Matthieu Blazy (Chanel’s new creative director), who has cultivated enough faith (perhaps by experience) to trust that beyond the discomfort is a special kind of liberating levity that allows you to move more flexibly, with more clarity, through your own system. That on the other side of torture, there is freedom.

On the other end, in the most severe instances, is any number of the creative geniuses we lose to the precise ailment of distraction, avoidance. Of pushing the torturous nag away so far as to lose themselves.

I will agree that it feels good to leave reality sometimes. Necessary, even urgent. It’s what we do when we consume art — and as makers, these short trips away can be exactly what ignite the next body of work to come through.

But more and more as the passage of time begets me, as I busy-mom-bounce from one task to the next, and avoid the bats lingering in my own mental caves, I recognize the value in stopping. In depriving my senses of the device. In letting it feel like my head will explode, like my heart’s going to drop into the base of my pelvis.

Let it.

I’m at the tail end of a 4-hour layover seated at the center of a terminal. Until just now, when I reached for my phone, I’ve bored as hell, in a twisted bliss.

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This year more than in years past, a subtle echo of genuine appreciation laces the street corners. Winter is always long, always ask that we go in to battle what psychic demons remain in power within us but this last one in particular was severe. Yet here we are, in tact. If that’s not confidence provoking, you tell me what is!

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This is the start of an ascension, I am sure. Some kind of actually-seismic shift. You can’t necessarily see it in the clothes, but you can feel it in the disrobing, the thaw.

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The trouble for me with this turnover is that in the thrill of the thaw, I can feel like I’m losing myself.

Or no, it’s not that I’m getting lost — it’s more like I’m backing away —walking further from myself. Like in the rush of reasons to: speed up! Get dressed! Get outside! Have a run, check down the to-do list, I forget where I am. If I am even here.

So I close my eyes for a second. This initiates a slow down incompatible with the buzz but essential to actually reaping its benefit.

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It takes a good 2 minutes to start to come down and my eyes have to stay closed. I have to get through the dizzying cave-in that often feels like my skull is collapsing into my forehead until a quiet kicks in and the chest flutters stop.

Here is where I start to hear myself again. Where the aperture starts to widen. But this is not the time to do anything. To jot down a thought, to look at a picture, to read an email; no inputs just yet.

I have to stay with where I am. Give it more time — like at least fifteen minutes — until my body knows I can trust the calm.

This is when my mind gets the signal that it’s not caving in, and when I get here, it’s a huge relief.

I’m so grateful for every impulsive response I did not express. Grateful to feel the slope between the impulse and what is festering underneath it. Grateful to know what energy actually requires for exertion. Grateful to have let dissolve what did not demand discharge…

I drain myself responding so quickly to the push notifications that kick on in my mind even though I know that there’s a natural focus setting I could switch on by closing my eyes.

Closing my eyes and listening to the slope of my breath going in and out.

When I slow down, I open up and find effortless understanding for the expressions of creativity that arrest me —

For the reason I’m compelled to pick up my phone and snap this pic or that, why my chest calms when I see the lush green, what subtle creative impulses will land and spread into the expanse that lay ahead.

Slow is not lazy. Slow is measured, slow is smart.

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There’s a quality of mapping that I cherish and nurture about bringing awareness to what moves me — breaking it down to understand becomes a set of coordinates that help me find my way back to motion when I’m stuck. Beauty when I’ve been away for too long. Gratitude when I’m lost in the slop.

26 unsolicited outfit ideas

By now it’s been raining for the last several days. The heat was a mere taste of what lay ahead, but I loved touching into what it forecasted. I can’t wait to tie a cotton bandana into my hair. I think we’re going to want to wear full! summer! black!.

and spring jackets, baby

A season of bikini tops styled as bras is coming…

A season of bodysuits, halters, tubes and baby doll tops.

A second coming of the year of public pajamming.

But mostly, I’m just glad I closed my eyes.

Somewhere between the dizzying thrill of the season and destabilizing distance of trying to catch all its whims, I found softness, quiet, the slow down, an opening.

Now what to do, what to do with it.

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There are loads of rodeo buckles out there too (no doubt thanks to Khaite and Celine’s spring belts — and an overarching stylistic return to the old west, which has been well in motion since last summer). But low rise pants (bottoms, really, bc skirts and shorts, esp those that read cargo are not excluded) have had a longer, more subtle lead time on their quest towards the apex they’re approaching now.

They reflect a mood more than a specific trend — away from sexless clothes, towards something messier, a little more…nasty.

Which maybe is not so literal — like the “nasty” outfit may not be overt (could be mistaken for elegant or utilitarian or whatever —),

because the concept of clothes that are full of sex as opposed to deprived of it is more about bringing to light what often remains in the dark intimacy of our secret lives. And the material contained here is going to look different person to person, style tendency to tendency.

But now that we’ve been teased with the first salty sweat beads to drip down the city’s spine into its exposed butt crack, the question is how to wear these pants?

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If we’re assuming the shape and material of pant is slouchy and low rise respectively, the best answer for how to wear is with a top that flutes out, like something baby doll, a little bit femme.

Or maybe there are two answers — some kind of tight-to-the-body tube or suit or even a baby tee are great too. The bodysuits in particular are good because they keep you held in. Then you can add a shirt unbuttoned over like a jacket if you want more security —

In either instance, I’ll often add a belt to bring some weight to the overall look.

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If low rise pants aren’t for you but you still want in

If you don’t have (or want to have) low rise pants but want to attempt no-stakes participation in this hip-hugging trend, you can:

a) roll over a pair of elastic waist pants, as seen in a few instances above —

b) belt a shirt in a low-rise spot

If low rise is not for you but you like the vibe

Try a pair of straight leg, slouchy mid rise pants — like these from Golovanoff or these from All Three.

All the same dressing rules apply.

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In sum that’s: lightweight pants, often slouchy and straight, sometimes whimsically elasticated at the ankle, or scrunched in nylon like jobs…or denim, as paired with: halter tops of any stripe, bodysuits, a spandex tube (or tank), ye trusty baby tee or the simplest of a lightweight cotton thing.

The end! Any q’s, let me know. I’m here,

Leandra

There’s a feeling of excitement and newness when the markings of a seasonal change are in progress. There is also much stimulation, which can put you at risk of combustion. Keeping it simple with wardrobe bread and butter (jeans and t-shirts or button downs, in my case), while taking small risks with new expressions via accessory allow me to localize the feeling of excitement without losing the plot completely. For spring (and prob summer) 2026, I’m thinking about:

Wire frame sunglasses

Mostly because they are a more delicate way to complement an outfit, so they give you permission to get more bold with your clothes: colors, shapes, layers. I love them styled with wild hair too.

A long strand of beads

Ileana Makri’s ‘Globetrotter’ collection is it, but anything can go here.

I personally love what a long strand of pearls does to a baby tee or a tube top, or how it breaks up dark colors, orrrrrrr, if it’s something like the collage-d blue strand of evil eyes, they can serve as breakthrough point —

Generally speaking, I think this accessory impulse reflects what I’m discovering as a summer-long inclination towards a shrunken (baby) tee or tube top. An example of the work in progress, ppl!!

Speaking of that tube…

A tank (or tube) — exposed shoulders and boots

Many ways to slice this one (as evidenced above) but I felt the expression of going bare on top and really anchoring down below come in hot towards the end of last summer, when I was all hopped up on the old west coming back in fashion. Nothing new necessary here! Just a trusty sleeveless something (love the durability of a Flore Flore tank, but All Three’s ‘Claire’ is my all-time pick) and your favorite (cowboy?) boots.

A non-whimsical statement belt

What is having a better decade than belts? This expression is a transition hit for two reasons. The first:

Nothing breaks up simple jeans and a tee better. And if you’re wearing a double serving of white, leather also anchors the lightness. Which relates to reason no. 2–

All of our fabrics are about to get soooo lightweight. A solid leather belt will do good job grounding them. (And giving them better context when they are kind of out there, like in the instance of 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻these orange pants.)

Shoes to sexify your sexless clothes

Because what’s coming for us is the summer of nasty — sweaty and messy and naked in glory, but it would be cookoo bananas to abandon the wardrobes we’ve cultivated over the last decade and change. A wild pair of shoes could throw off kilter even the most unbecoming capri pants, so give them a shot.

Last thing I’ll include which wasn’t technically planned, but which I’ve found myself wearing a lot:

Silk shirts styled as jackets over shrunken t-shirts or tanks with lightweight pants, or when it’s 80 degrees like it got to be last week, tiny shorts and/or mini skirts.

The shirts specifically have to be silk so they flow and it’s better when the tee/tank hugs your form. Kind of like dressing for the beach, but not.

This is all I have for you today — have a great week!,

Leandra

This simple white t-shirt has occupied almost all the terrain on my browser of late. There’s nothing like a good one — and when I say good, I mean good, —enough to wear as the main event, anywhere: to work, on a date, to run errands, on the weekend, to complete a workout (see: knee cap leggings, patent mocs). Even, if styled diligently, to a formal wedding:

I think I’ve developed this fixation on identifying the best simple tops because there’s soooo much going on in style these days with prints and pants shapes (that low rise is here to stay!) and skirts (coming in hot), and jackets (as the new tops, you know) really shifting what we want to wear.

But nailing the t-shirt’s been easier than finding the exact right tank. I think because I know exactly what I’m looking for:

• Crew neck,

• cap sleeve

• and a little short

• but not so short that I can’t tuck it into high waist jeans.

I’ve tried this from Los Angeles apparel, which is honestly great (I just wonder about how long it will be great for), and this from Leset, but I think Flore Flore’s ‘car’ style (specifically in ‘baby’) is the one.

The why

It’s great with many bottoms shapes, high and low rise: silk pants, jeans, cargos, wool; with something long or short (mini skirt, tiny shorts, a portmanteau of the two),

This is because the neck is high and crew, so for the bottoms, the ratio of exposed skin to nudity is no problem with short things, but it’s also shrunken, so it hugs the form and also makes it the right counter shape for big or heavy bottoms.

And it sits comfortably within any jacket (or shacket) collar: from classic to standing to opera/boat, to no collar at all —

And the material is rigid and pretty bonded, so it’s an easy wear with no bra, but a seamless one (meaing you won’t see the bra) with it. From experience with prior Flore Flore tees, can also tell you the material sustains its shape over time. The one possible upset is that the collar might discolor. I personally don’t care because sometimes I like to look a little sloppy, but laying that out there so you have all the info.

All said and done though, the truth is, the white baby tee is the ultimate tee because it’s as compatible with mid-rise jeans as a Taurus with 800-count Egyptian cotton.

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Happy birthday Morgan, Ariela and Abie!!!! See you next time,

Leandra

• a Friday night dinner (the equivalent of a rehearsal dinner, so the dress code is fancy but not black tie),

• Saturd…

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I get pretty overwhelmed by it. Send me outside for a walk around the corner and in the time it takes for me to get me there, my senses burn out, nerve endings feel raw. Everything may as well be THE SLOP, but lately, I’m finding that keeping it simple with my clothes — like simpler than simple with not just a uniform template but the actually-same top and bottom over again — makes letting the creativity that feels emo and alive come through me in a much gentler, calmer process. It’s more precise, less chaotic. I get the whole uniform thing. So:

The pieces

I used Flore Flore’s ‘Esme’ muscle tee, and Aflalo’s Bradum pants. These two pieces are like wardrobe bread: good with so many proteins, endless condiments. The shape and material on the tee make it good enough to wear solo, but the neckline is an ideal crew to style under things too.

And the pants have a side zipper which gives them more polish than a pair of elastic waist pants, but the fit is relaxed (mine are a size 2, for reference) so they have a ‘Gala’ quality about them. The cleanness of the waistline makes them a solid breeding ground for belts or shirts tied around the waist, styled as belts but tbh, overall, it’s pretty remarkable the difference an accessory can make.

The looks

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And something about that vibrated through me, and I told her that they (the clothes) were in fact my closest friends until soon after college, which wasn’t because (now I’m talking to you), I chose them (the clothes) over people, but I did find a clarity in their seams that I couldn’t find elsewhere. A specific kind of order, an explanation that soothed me when everything else felt chaotic.

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They became a language that helped me to learn myself in relation to myself and the world around me. To erect an opinion, articulate it, edit it, and drop it into the world like a golden beam that sprawls out as it touches down, mystic and impossible to believe yet somehow still very real.

Clothes helped me access freedom when I couldn’t find it in myself even though I knew in my bones, my bones knew better than me, that I used to live so close — in the cleavage, really — of chest unbuckled, wild hair in the wind, eat-the-world-with-your-whole-self freedom.

In this way, they helped me break through and transmute great pain in the chasm between that nascent freedom and the various ways we let ourselves become slaves to the third party.

Revisit last week's letter here

Whenever I see someone walking now still, I can tell when they’re doing big work with their clothes. Barreling through what emotional upset arrests them, relentlessly out with the sword, until the vibration of what’s been unlocked trickles out.

It’s always the same and that’s what I can feel: the pleasure, the hurt. Celebration. A shiva. The actual sensation varies by person but in every instance it’s inspiring — relieving! — because there is an unflinching clarity underneath it all. And that reminds me of what makes clothes great.

It is to say so little of them, and so very much of the life-affirming faith they can deliver when you decide you want to get to know as you would get to know yourself — tied up in knots, subsequently undone, pulled apart and then put back together. Upside down, right side up, tossed left, then twirled, over and over and over again, until something, anything starts to make sense.

It’s like you’re pulling a thread, but the thread’s moving you — closer and closer to what is true. It’s hard not to find freedom here. To honor the conversations they have helped you have with the deepest parts of your own psyche.

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So yeah, they’re my friends. Hell yeah they’re my friends! 26 conversations are here, for your listening pleasure.

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A sick second-hand skirt suit edit

Could I, for example, reach for them instead of jeans and make them work just as I would any other pair of safety pants: to chill, to mom, to work, to be serious, to be sultry, to party, to be the party —

I think the trick boils down to:

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• length of skirt (right below or above knee)

• waist line (low rise as opposed to high — this takes the garment from sexless to hot)

  • and shape (straight, not exactly pencil, but closer to it than a-line or flare; more new Chanel than old Prada)

    • but the one exception to this mandate is this shape from Tory, which hits because of the rise and the subtle v-waist:

      

    

In the spirit of determining whether a skirt could be as versatile as a pair of jeans, here are a week’s worth of outfit ideas for different daily life scenarios incorporating some good ones at market right now —

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Monday’s ambitious errand runner

You wake up, your mind starts racing, the sun is out, you want to feel great, you want to continue holding all these thoughts in your head — or no, actually, you want to drop the thoughts without dropping the ball. You have some work to do, you have some errands to run. You don’t plan to see anyone you know but you want to feel yourself, want to be comfortable. You’re leaving home this morning and won’t be back until after you pick up your kids from school. Physical settings on the docket: walking, sitting, reaching.

Tuesday lunch with not non-business associates

Ladies who lunch! You swept the racing thoughts off your mind and now you’re ready to slow down the littlest bit. Key problem being that the adrenaline you released on Monday is borderline begging for a similar release. So: you take yourself out for a run. Come home, play a song, dance to it. Look at your calendar and marvel in the 1.5 hour, unscheduled block ahead of a work lunch that’s casual enough for you to wear what you would to see friends, so:

Wednesday at work (or, idk, your kids school book fair)

The vibe is: formal enough that I project responsibility, maturity, wholesome values, etc., without robbing myself of the desire to express personality. Nothing like an elastic waist band on a royally red silk skirt to help drive this one home —

Thursday, to cull from the field

Of creativity. Because the week is almost over and you have a stretch of boundless time to do whatever you do when you need to reconnect. I opt for loooooooong city walks to procure mental clarity and like to get myself in the right head by dressing up. Shoes have to be walkable but the rest of the outfit can be as untethered to reality as I want —

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Casual Friday at the office

A return to reality, and a practical opportunity to get freaky without actually getting freaky!!! The great thing about a low rise skirt, especially one with a bit of elastic in its structure (like the Esber thing below), is that it counterbalances an oversize, casual button down shirt without making you look like you’re swimming in your clothes. The roominess of your top half is made up for with the clinginess of your lower —

Saturday night live, baby

Where you going? What you doing? Can I come? What should I bring? I don’t have plans, but if I did, I’d go for a look I am turned to many times over the course of the last year. It’s a canvas more than anything else, that has a shot at changing every time you wear it with the add or removal of a belt, a necklace switch, a shoe choice.

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Unless, that is, I was going to dinner and wanted to take it down exactly one notch:

Sunday brunch

Be the tulips you wish to see in the world.

Or don’t.

And on the 8th day, God created Italian fashion —

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What’s the best white spaghetti strap tank top? Pictured is not a white tank but it is a perfectly, graphically striped halter (the print reminds me of the optical illusion-y plaid on this button down from Matteau), which I’ve been wearing a lot in the same way I would a white tank. But what is missed in the simplicity of the tank (better for jeans, main-event necklaces) is made up for in the halter’s busy-ness: a good jolt under so many different, festive jacket types with simple pants (or the star of next week’s letter: mid-length skirts).

But first: chill, non-legging pants

Re tank, the best one I’ve known is this from Frances de Lourdes, but it’s a little sheer to wear without a bra (with a bra the straps are too visible), so it’s more of an under-jacket hero.

This one is ideal because of the scoop neck, but it’s not spaghetti strap so does something different when I try to style it with a choker-type necklace, or want to feel a touch dressier (such as styled with pants like these — in the pink or the blue).

Also have to show you these clogs while we’re here.

But back to the tanks: Flore Flore’s got a good square neck, but I prefer the scoop. Ditto that Eterne, but the material being a more rigid cotton, or some kind of blend that’s more like the Frances tank feels crucial. This one from Sprwmn is almost good (and for this matter, so is Kye’s ‘Recline’ tank), but the v-necks throw me off a bit. Also, the material preference on the tank I’m after is with limited stretch and not ribbed.

Spring jackets, baby

The three most viable based on how well they’ll:

• wash,

• display a good neckpiece,

• pair with an everyday belt

• and correlate to a pair of straight leg jeans (or surprise stretch work pants)

are:

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Are you feeling dried up and crusty, or has your great thaw started? A new pattern I’m detecting surrounds a familiar sense of aggression coated in the subtlest bit of desperation that kicks in this time of year and produces an oddly exquisite dance with its most polarizing opponent: the urge to soak in renewed faith or hope and creative urgency.

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Yes, we cycle in and out of trends: novelty lady jackets are rushing back in thanks to Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel and nylon windbreakers are still hot right now (ty Saint Laurent),

but the pillars of a good spring coat closet are pretty timeless:

your trench coat or jean jacket or leather or suede jacket are going to remain the tried and trues that carry you through the season every year so long as you are confident that they can.

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With a classic, you want to go timeless on shape (examples: straight collarless cut, or single breast car) so that it feels easy and obvious to return to it every year.

I’ll say the same for color: tan, ivory, black, true blue denim…This is often a time of extroversion, when many of us crave color and complicated materials bc we’re eager to peacock ourselves out of winter’s dejected knits, so when your outerwear can serve as a tranquilizing top coat, you get more use of it over time. Example:

Old trench, new year. Can get my sillies out with the yellow accent t-shirt (my intuitive blast of the moment is: we’re going to be seeing a lot of this color), belt and wild print pants, then rely on the jacket to ground the look.

If you want still to rely on black clothes: a jean jacket does a good job lightening it up, or alternatively making jeans feel more intentional. My pass for the present moment looks like this —

Can one-two punch by styling it under another spring staple, like the leather jacket. My favorite shape (for leather) is collarless and to the knee —

With the exception of the subtle a-line patent leather number Liberowe has released for the spring —

I’m into it because a dark color that’s not black is a softer approach to bright colors, which I’m betting on for the season ahead.

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What makes a leather or suede coat great this time of year is the contrast it creates when you pair it with airy clothes, but the caveat is that their shelf life is shorter than that of a jean jacket or cotton twill trench.

Last up is the novelty coat —

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Another reason I think the season may have seemed more alive than usual: the combination of having all the new designers’ clothes trickle into the stores on the backdrop of their second season collection-unveilings created this gorgeous triangle that made fashion feel like it was vibrating at the center of the universe.

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Chanel was the obvious wow of the week — over-accessorizing with militant precision, bringing back skirt suits and making them sexy, with Blazy etching his place into the system as a pre-eminent definer designer of the moment. (You can think of a definer designer of any era like a tide that rises all the other boats at sea up with them.)

I’m pretty sure that because of him, many more designers’ work will get better over the seasons to come.

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Some of my favorite moments of the season, though were tiny and easily (ish?) replicable. These moments included:

the pigtails at Polo —

the head dresses at Sarah Burton’s Givenchy (these are more for styling fun than they are real life but then again, fashion week closed with a bravura of wild hats c/o Louis Vuitton and a little nod from Miu Miu too —

But the Givenchy renderings reminded me tenderly of how my daughters wear their shirts temporarily when they’re taking them off to change or shower).

Then there were Dior’s petticoat bar jackets (a little more complicated but still do able, just requires something voluminous and a short fitted jacket over) —

— to style with jeans obviously. One other big theme of the broader fashion week (and, tbh, the happenings before, after and during it) placed massive emphasis on jackets as the main event.

As we’ve established, all the best winter tops are jackets, so this one was more like a reinforcement than anything else: if you’ve been contemplating that wild number but on the fence about how much you’ll actually wear it, consider that maybe its not a jacket so much as it is a top/sweater/your whole dressing strategy.

And finally — the main event! — the skirt suit.

By next year at this time we will all be wearing them and they will not feel farty, feel dated. They will be sexy, they will flirt, they will bequeath you feminine superpowers. And for now, maybe you can make one with a personality jacket and some skirt (this is my preferred shape) that you already own —

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Feels great to be excited again.

Signing off yours,

Leandra

Call it a product of the moment in fashion, whereby beautiful clothes that reflect creative pleasure, assert a raison d’etre and communicate a clear vision for themselves are returning to the runways, or the simple satisfaction of sticking with a passion, but there’s a relief about recognizing and bringing to the surface that some interests never die.

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That even if they don’t become your work, or grow to take up significant space in your life, they’re important. They can become a lifeline in fact — a bright spot when it’s feeling bleak, or the very thing that cracks you open when you’ve been closed off too long.

Just a tiny thought that occurred to there, before now’s main event, which is…bridge pants!!! Chill pants that aren’t leggings, but which you can wear to work out if you so please. They’re called bridge pants because they’re like a seasonal bridge between winter and spring, when you are indisputably D-O-N-E-done with winter clothes, but also not quite ready to put on your peacock costume (get dressed for spring).

My strategy until the string of warm days become more consistent is to get half-dressed in such a way that I feel dressed-dressed, so I can take risks without leaving my comfort zone.

Lately, elastic waist band pants (often open hem) have been the best way to accomplish this task. Partially because there’s a significant enough offering at market that you have your pick of the litter, but also pragmatically because as mentioned, you could conceivably wear them to chill or e even work out (run, walk, pilates, yoga, strength train) even though they could not be mistaken for a pair of leggings if they tried.

A few notes

In making this story I encountered bits that should make your styling expedition smoother —

• Cotton (jersey, velour, french terry, etc) is the most versatile material to get this going, but I’ve tried cashmere knit and lurex too. Basically, the easier they are to wash, the more likely they are to pass for “chill”

• Jackets add weight that formalize the pants. The ones I styled with include a collarless mens tweed, a nylon trench, a fitted shacket.

• A chain belt (see also!) brings in the element of hardware that is absent without a zip and fly.

• Jewelry helps too

• If you don’t want to wear sneakers (I don’t), loafers are the best alt option. Emme Parsons’ ‘Danielle’ are my all time favorite and add a bit of structure. Tod’s Gomminos are a good option for something a little softer, or you can go more supple with a rendering from The Row like this.

  • Honestly, though, a pair of clogs (???) could be the thing too. Unrelated to the post but an essential sharing on clogs: I am circling these like a hungry hawk.

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The looks

Without further ado. Starting with a winter hit we’ve discussed at length in the form of Co Essentials’ black cashmere ‘track pants’ (already photographed above) — a real half-halfsie with the inclusion of Jude’s ‘haze’ sandals:

Next up we have a pair of supima cotton, light blue flare pants from Enza Costa, styled with more cotton but offset by tough and whimsical accessories respectively to bring some edge to the look:

Honorable alternative mention: Donni’s simple jersey pant. A bit shorter in length so will be cropped if you’re taller than 5”7, but available in a range of cottons from super light to lowkey heavy duty. Also good: these from Skims, these from Aritzia.

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Here now are the collab pants I did with Relax Lacrosse last month. Styled into a look inspired by this from Polo Ralph Lauren’s Paris presentation —

You can do this with a pair of Chelsea boots or riding boots or cowboy boots or SANDALS but I figured that this one was the most likely contender for “can wear to work,” so went with a pump to feel business casual. Made it gold to bring levity to the bottom of the outfit.

What made the collab pants styled above special was that they are lower rise than the other Relax pants, and flare more dramatically at the ankle. If you want more pronunciation in your low rise and flare, you can look no further than these, styled for the weekend, when I want to look put together but feel as comfortable as I do in pajamas —

Honorable mention: these from The Park. A slinky lyocell, so they read a little fancier but maybe that’s a good thing. While we’re talking slinky, know these aren’t elastic but Emily Dawn Long’s ruffle pants are so it.

Suzie Kondi’s velour sweats: good option too —

Meanwhile, as far as real sweatpants go (cinched ankles), the simplest way about it is with a blazer and lady bag:

These are basically the sister pants to Lauren Moshi’s open hem butteries.

Next one: a more ambitious pass at chill pants with a cropped pair akin to those cotton capris from The Row that are sold out everywhere (meaning on Net/Moda/MyT) —

Styled with boots because I felt like my dad in dress shoes and boxer shorts when I put on loafers. When I added socks, it got even worse. The only other way I can imagine slicing this will be with slides or sandals (clogs?) when the weather warms up a bit more.

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Last up: a wild card. I love these pants but can’t make them make sense without anything save for the matching bra, which looks great with a white cotton button down styled over for a resort town, or, I guess, a brushed camel flannel shirt for the city? The upshot is that you can button it up when you feel like it’s time, and then disrobe systematically as your guard comes down (and night falls) —

Honorary mentions: Etro, Pucci, Maccapani. All the Italianos.

This story took a turn, didn’t it?

Got to go feed my dog.

Have a great week,

Leandra

What to wear to work

I’m wearing this to some sort of event — an event that one of my brands is putting on. Either a presentation, or a walk-through, or a cocktail thing. All the pieces I’m wearing here lean more masculine: a house coat, oversized shirt and loose fitting pants, but in luxurious fabrics (silk, velvet and organza) that tend to be used for classic feminine pieces. I love that contrast.

And of course my go to “heel” (my sexiest shoe is a pair of beat up converse from high school) is this zebra knee high that is playful but so comfortable that I can wear it all day.

Find Rachel on IG here

[In my outfits], there is almost always going to be an oversize shirt. I leave most buttons unbuttoned and for me, it’s the sexiest thing. It’s dressy and playful but I’m still comfortable. There always has to be a component of fun in the outfits. Any time I look too serious, I’m gonna be sad. So the aim is always to bring in the fun. In this outfit, it’s boots, it’s sunglasses, it’s how the whole look comes together.

I grew up in D.C. but came to New York to go to school [at NYU], where I planned to study to become a teacher. When I was in school, my sister was working at the front desk at Condé Nast. I had her get me all the contacts and ended up interning at Vogue [after reaching out almost every day for weeks]. I did all the things you’re not supposed to do, like I showed up and said, “Hi, I’m here to be Andrea’s intern,” and they were like, “You mean Andre Leon Talley?” And I think I was reported for waving at senior executives. I didn’t know anything about anything, I have just always loved clothes. I have always been aware of clothes.

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My mom worked when I was growing up, and wore a skirt suit everyday and had her nails and hair done and I remember that I wanted to wear a skirt suit all the time too but, you know, they didn’t offer those as a kid. The first time I wore one was to my sister’s bat mitzvah. And then I have this separate memory of getting a boys blazer at Gap with my dad. It was, looking back, like a starter kit to my style.

[I wanted to become a teacher because] I always loved working with kids. I taught some after school programs in high school so it felt like the natural next step. (I also always loved Miss Frizzle from the Magic School Bus. She had the best outfits.) But the minute I found out I could make a living working in fashion, I was set on doing anything I could to get through the door. After one semester, I changed my major to communications and started applying for any and all fashion internships.

After college, I worked for a stylist but quit after a year. I think styling is the hardest and most cut throat part of the industry. It’s tricky because there’s no real data to back the work so it feels especially catty. Like there is a real fight to be “seen,” and have your work acknowledged. I don’t do well in those environments. So after the styling stint, I took a job at Jerome Dreyfus as a shop girl.

I was a shop girl on and off during and after the styling job for about two years, and would say that I was not necessarily the shop girl you wanted because I would often tell the customers they were picking the wrong thing, but I started to see how much I enjoyed interacting with customers and helping them refine what they wanted.

After [Dreyfus], I worked for a showroom uptown called Suite 1521 as a liaison between the customer and the designers. We did a lot of custom pieces and preorder buys before Moda Operandi came into the picture.

I loved getting to work directly with the designers and customers. From there, my friend Brandon Maxwell took a chance on me and brought me in to help him launch his namesake. My title was head of sales but I was a spring chicken to the game and was learning as we were going. I had no real experience in wholesale but I’d honed my skill of selling ice to Eskimos/never taking no for an answer.

From there, I was introduced to Fiana Keleta, who was assembling a team for a then-small brand called Khaite. While I had learned a lot before her, Fiana is the reason I am in wholesale now. She taught me every thing I know, down to simple math.

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Growing up, I was a pretty terrible student and math was my Achilles heel. It overwhelmed me and I just couldn’t wrap my head around how I was going to use algebra in real life. I didn’t understand the practical use, so I couldn’t make sense of it.

Fiana was patient and supportive and really gave me the tools to find my confidence in all of it. To this day, she is my 911-call when I need advice or want to workshop an idea.

I was at Khaite for two and a half years, and after that, I took a break because I was fried.

I ended up moving to Los Angeles during Covid, and stayed there for a few years, I was freelancing for The Row and started consulting for a few small brands like Savette as they navigated the new landscape post Covid.

Little by little, I started taking on more brands. Five years in, and I have a team of four (three in NYC and one in London) and a wonderful roster of over twelve brands.

I am sensitive about calling it a showroom as there is a bit of a stigma with the format these days. A lot of buyers feel overwhelmed and avoid walking showrooms as they are forced to see brands they don’t necessarily want to. While we are persistent with our buyers, we never force stores to buy things we don’t think they can sell. We are also a bit more hands on than your standard showroom. I work closely with each of my designers on seasonal development and merchandising to ensure when it comes time to going to market we have a strong offering.

We also don’t just stop once the orders come in, we work closely with our buyers to ensure once the goods land in store they have everything they need to tell the brand story and have a successful season. Every order we receive, I personally review and edit each one to ensure each store is set up for success, in turn for the long term success of each of our brands.

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We aren’t here to launch brands that don’t hit their ten, twenty, thirty year bench mark, we want to be supporting, small self funded brands that are here for the long run. There are too many brands that don’t make it because they say yes to bad payment terms or investors that want them to grow to quickly, my focus is to support brands build healthy businesses that don’t have to answer to some big guy or make things they don’t truly believe in.

What to wear to work (part 2)

This is what I would wear to market week, which is when our agency introduces all of our brands (we work with about ten including Kallmeyer, Colleen Allen, Savette and Ruadh) to buyers. The vibe with a look like this is, similarly, I’m professional, but fun. Fun is the foundation. If we’re not having fun, I’m not doing it.

RIC is unique because we are based in New York, but we only have permanent spaces in Paris (two apartments in the Marais). When we aren’t in market, my team works from home, or sometimes together at my apartment. During New York market, we bop around between our brands’ offices and partner with some other amazing showrooms like The News in Soho.

The practical element of being able to go back and forth is important when I’m getting dressed. These shoes are from a new brand we’re working with this season called Ceecee and they fit the bill.

They are just the right amount of weird, and fit so nicely and are pretty comfortable to get around in.

The goal with market week is to secure orders. Then we’ll take the collections to Paris and show in these two spaces in Le Marais and it’s the same thing for me — running back and forth.

The goal for the agency is to be between the two cities. And by now so many of the designers I work with have become friends, so often these long days at market [in New York or Paris] turn into dinner.

I really love what I do. It can be stressful just like any other work gets but it’s rewarding.

What to wear when you’re working from home

I think I’ve mentioned this already, but I love an oversized button down. It looks put together enough on a zoom call and nice with a sweater thrown over it. It really all, always comes down to comfort. The two rules are: it’s gotta be comfy and it’s gotta be fun. I definitely wore this out to meet a friend for dinner after you left that day. Threw on the Donna shearling from Kallmeyer and some sneakers and called it a day.

What to wear out/on the weekend

This is a perfect example of what I’d wear to dinner, or to relax on the weekend, or just when I’m not working. It’s sexy to me. I feel comfortable in it, and I never want to look too dressed up. I’m in all my favorite pieces here. And then the coat (and the hat) makes me look less serious. Comfort is always key. [The outfit] has to feel like me to actually get me out the door, and when it’s too put together, it’s uncomfortable. Something has to be off. Like undone.

When I go out, I’m getting together with friends. I have a few who are amazing cooks, so I’ll often go to their houses. And I play chess so one of my friends and I play a lot, like once or twice a week. And so does my Godson, who got me into it.

What advice do I have for someone trying to break into the fashion industry?

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Follow up.

As much as you can, as many times as you have to. Even if you feel like it’s too much. If you have not received an answer, assume the message was never received. There is not a single example of career progression in my own life that isn’t about follow-up. I got the internship at Vogue because I e-mailed every single day for a month. I can’t even tell you how many buyers have come to see my collections, throughout my career, because of follow up. So until you get a response, keep trying. As told to Leandra Medine Cohen in Crown Heights on January 15, 2026.

To close the loop on those lightweight UO cargo pants from last week (78 of you bought them): how are they treating you? Wore mine last Wednesday when we reached a balmy 49F, then again on a flight to Miami last weekend (and again yestermorning, with a bathing suit-as-bodysuit —)

and realized part of w…

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Revisit The Great Thaw

It’s sideways raining right now, a frosty 40 degrees that feels like 23 but I’m just grateful the mounds of black snow are finally melting away. If last year I celebrated a great thaw, this year I’m just looking for baseline — and I can both smell the barbecues firing up and feel an otherwise tension banging at the surface, with the last bits of cabin fever threatening insanity before it becomes the fever of spring.

I myself can feel my chest thumping as if the game board pieces in Jumanji, knocking on closed doors, pursuing release.

And what I’ve learned over time in these pent up moments that are soooo easy to either mistake for anger or that which might incline one turn in on themselves is that the best thing to do at the brink of combustion is to take the energy and transmute. Channel the thump into something creative which could mean absolutely anything: a dish, a poem, a shoe-lacing strategy. Let whatever is weird and artful come through you. Release.

In a way it feels like a matter of life or death to the extent that zeroing in on anything that brings beauty out in (and of) you is also what opens your heart, makes the last bit of muck feel more bearable. Ensures that you won’t bring the house down when we’re so close to the finish line, so: one last pipe dream in the shape of these outfits, brought to you on a Friday just in time for the weekend for the occasion of going out to: dinner, dance, walk, whatever. But don’t forget! You have to make something too.

Plus one for the morning after —

No one says go weird or go home. It’s a real…walk of shame. 👈 Dropping the mic on that dad joke.

See you next week,

Leandra

And there is definitely something to the fact that even though we love so much of the same stuff, the way we get there is so often different. I can’t speak on her behalf, but it’s inspiring for me to see the difference in how we approach the same pieces.

For a while now, Leandra and I have been going back and forth about how we gravitate toward similar ideas and pieces but the navigation to said destination takes extremely different routes: mine an obsession with usefulness and her’s a spiritual practice. But the point is, we both get there. And it’s no surprise that we landed on the same top when skimming new arrivals recently.

We’ve been talking for months about doing a post together, taking a piece we both have/love that is striking, so not super expected — and styling it our own ways. When flash-in-the-pan Versace started to drop on the shoppable internet, it was pretty obvious that this borderline preppy but still oozing with sex open side polo striped tank top was the piece to take to the closets.

I’ve said to B that I think my impulse is to Americanize European style where hers is to Europize American style. You be the judge on whether that rings true with these three looks concepted for a day of work, a casual day hang, and a night out.

Becky: In theory, I love everything about this top. The color combination. The collar. the not-too-flimsy-but-not-unbearably-stiff cotton. The way the arm holes dip and then jut out. But wearing it proves a bit more complex.

My knee-jerk reaction is to lean into the tension of this very designer-y tank top and pair it with a dressy trouser. The whole casual/corporate tug-of-war. It’s a straightforward base for accessorizing. A brown woven belt and slide sandals this spring maybe? Or a pump and pouch for evening? But I’m especially liking it with a citified cowboy boot and big belt buckle for the moment, since there is still snow on the ground. Both of these statementy accessories help take the pressure off THE TOP, making it just one element of a twisted outfit.

Because I have boobs that I prefer to keep covered in public (you do you!!!) I won’t be going braless. But the exaggerated arm holes demand that your underthings be incredibly intentional. Unless you’re throwing it over a sports bra for your pilates commute which….that’s a fun idea!!!!

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Leandra: Becky won’t be going braless but I can’t say the same for me! The one caveat is that when I style it for an environment that reads somewhat professional — dare I say corporate — I bring a jacket along with me.

But without the exaggerated sleeve out on display, I also look like I’m in a striped polo and suit, which is why the chunky derbies, chain metal belt and —

Range of bold bracelets and necklace to bounce off the rest of the look. Would definitely take jacket off and tie around my waist, under the bet when the meeting was over.

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B: Have I ever mentioned that it drives me absolutely bonkers when people call me preppy? Can’t they see the NUANCE!? The hint of sprezzatura!? I kid, of course. Call me whatever you want, we are all friends here. This top IS PREPPY in theory (and so am I, I guess! I am sorry for yelling. The spade is a spade.) But it’s preppy in a very nostalgic, European interpretation of a 1980s Malibu surfer’s version of prep. :) Which just means…its going to be amazing for summer vacations everywhere!!

L: In thinking about how I’d do this baby up for a chill weekend hang that would probably include some time in the park with my kids, maybe hitting up an Upper East Side Greek diner and if I’m lucky, running into Becky, I started with high rise, no stretch jeans similar(ish) in shape to Dario Versace jeans —

The thing about a brand with such a clear point of view and an even more distinct way of conveying that view is that it’s hard to unsee it, which is also probably why the belt. It actually was warm enough at points this week to wear Birkenstocks with socks so while I was thinking about a date later in the season for this look, I could conceivably slap a coat on and call it a day. Wore a bra this time because like I said, park w my kids. No one needs a surprise nipple indiscretion in that context.

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B: But I really don’t want to spend $$$ on a top that I can’t wear to a party! So to make it evening-friendly I “YSL-ified” it. (Sorry Versace but it was the best way to describe it!) A rich brown pencil. Sheer tights. A pointed pump. It works because it is all from the same era of power dressing - revisited for now. And the whole sport/sex thing has never felt more omnipresent in fashion. If Versace (and Gucci and Saint Laurent, etc.) have taught us nothing else its that sometimes the body is the clothes.

L: Or you know what, actually, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe 10am in the park on a Saturday is exactly when a nipple indiscretion is desired but I kept the juice juicy for a night on the town —

With a structured skirt and still another nod to Dario Versace with these tiger print tights from my collab with Swedish Stockings (a restock is coming on 3/10!!!), the 80s style slingback and an exposed stitch belt.

Arm band for drama. I’d do it with super high waist black skinny pants and riding boots too but alas, we said 3 outfits each. So 3 it was.

Have a great week!,

Leandra and Becky