Letter of Rec #090: Stupid things I love

Hair braids, tassel accessories, and two exceptionally good young brands to chisel into your memory now

My friend Camilla put this list together yesterday, my other friend Max sent me this one later; they both detail all sorts of ways you can help re the LA fires. Consider it the only urgent recommendation in this week’s edition. If you know of any others and feel compelled to share, drop them into the comments below. Friends in L.A.: I’m thinking of you and sending so much love.

Do you remember that silver-stem nautilus sugar bowl I told you about before the break? I stationed it in my kitchen and have been using it to hold my vitamins. Insofar as I have not forgotten to take them not once since I put them in the shell, I’d say it is the most productive thing I’ve done in 2025, so consider this recommendation #1:

Tavares 22 sugar bowl, next to a D.S. & Durga candle (“Before Common Encens” is the one for rn)

Orient your first morning errand towards the aesthetically exciting.

Meanwhile, how often do you get birthday gifts that confuse you?

Not the Cos sweater heard ‘round the world, but pretty close

I got these shield sunglasses as a gift for my birthday last month and they did that thing where at first, I was repulsed, but then crazy intrigued by them. Kind of like the first time I had sushi, when I didn’t really understand what was going on in my mouth and didn’t want to continue trying to figure it out until, actually, I did. Then I never stopped!

With one among the new colors of Chiara shirts from LMND

Either I’m losing it or in a teeny tiny corner of the internet, a ski goggle era is burgeoning and Oakley’s about to have the year of its life.

You know who else might have the year their life? The cameo character Alanis Morisette played in a season 5 episode of Sex and the City.

My friend Paz showed up at a dinner like a month ago with two tiny braids at the front of her head to conceal the bangs she’d cut for herself the night before (either a good reason to solo drink at home or not depending on where you fall on the spectrum) but they brought me right back to that episode of SATC. It was moving, really. And felt like such an easy (and free) way to take a new kind of style risk and establish contrast. So here I am, with hippie hair (call it a byproduct of the Chloe effect) and an all-black look:

Styled with a Tory Burch sweater that is now on sale, a Sessei plaid shirt, Frances de Lourdes pants and Toteme chelsea boots (here’s the current season version, a bit more refined and lovely in suede)

Def still drinking the black clothes Kool Aid, which you’ll hear (see) more about next Tues but for now, recent subjects of interest (and minor acquisitions) that fit into the cup I’m sipping from, with an honorable mention for tassels and fringe (on the other side of this, there is this), the only trend my eyes are willing to see shooting out of the shoppable internet: