Letter of Rec #049: 5 good tips

Or how to make the limited amount of clothing you're wearing feel more interesting

I recently partnered with a travel recommendations app called AmiGo and built a guide to New York City that has turned out to be more like a collection of niche supermarkets and grocery stores you should visit when here. If you’d like to see it/keep following along, you can join the app using this link. Your code to “get in” is LMCGO. Welcome to Cafe Leandra…

When it is this hot, you basically have two options as far as getting dressed: a shirt and a bottom or a one-and-done dress, which is tough, creatively, if you are the kind of person who thrives on discovering unconventional ways to fulfill a practical function like getting dressed for [insert occasion/inclement weather condition here].

The easiest/most impulsive way to get creative is to add new variables to an equation but when it’s this warm, you’re playing the game of subtraction, so there are fewer devices to work with. But then how do you convey your style when you’re basically not wearing clothes? This is the question I’ve been asking myself as I reconcile how much I love summer but simultaneously hate having nothing substantive to think about how to get dressed.

Lately, my answer has been contrast — like if I’m wearing a lot of white, I go for dark accessories. I tend to like to contrast very lightweight items (like these cotton pants) with heavier bits (like a pair of loafers), but if its too hot for that, adding weight by way of dense color is enough:

St. Agni knit tank top, Donni cotton pants (here’s a similar pair from Skin, they’re less see-through), here are your black flip flops and the bag is a wine holder! From By Malene Birger. The necklace is Marisa Klass, but the thing to pay attention to is how the dark chord ties in with the shoes/bag. You’d be surprised at how far a black/blue/brown chord that you can rope a charm into will take you. I think I’m going to try to make my own comb necklace, starting with or no, with…

Sunglasses make a difference too. When my look is more feminine, I add a pair of surprising frames like these to throw off the look:

Delarge sunglasses (I also really like these ones from Explicit Poets, which you’ll see below), Merlette dress, Renate Jacob white wedge sandals — brand new brand selling only through IG DMs!

They are dually functional to the extent that the lenses are sheer enough that I kind of don’t have to take them off when I’m indoors or when it starts to get dark so the look doesn’t lose its edge, though I might lose some respect. Wtvr!