Maybe the solution to a summer dressing doldrum is an apron

Welcome to Cafe Leandra x La Double J: the capsule collection

If you’re reading this, thank you! It indicates that you opened this e-mail instead of relegating it to trash even though I already sent you one today. I’m back because of a collab that launched this morning between La Double J and me, the (aspiring) human concept store.

It all really started two years ago in the spring when I went to a lunch to celebrate the launch a partnership between Laduree and La Double J where the waiters on staff were wearing mint-green aprons that LDJ had designed for them.

I told JJ (as in, the Jx2 that is in the brand name) that she should make apron dresses for the rest of us. To this, she answered, “Why don’t we do it as a collaboration?” which prompted my responding that if we were to do that, we should make them brocade with a dramatic trim. And add matching pants. Now ~27 months later,

La Double J x Cafe Leandra brocade dress and Saturday Night pants, styled with a pair of wicker wedges from the now defunct MR by Man Repeller line. Here’s the pair I like best that’s out there. Or maybe Becky’s fav Worishofer shoes would be good here as an unexpected contrast

Here we are!

All these pictures, by the way, were shot by the disgustingly talented Brett Warren

But we didn’t stop at one set —

La Double J x Cafe Leandra apron top and pants in cotton micro floral, styled with Gabriela Hearst sandals which can be found here in gold with a slightly higher heel although these might accomplish the vibe better, and I have had my eye on these

What about those of us who prefer tops to dresses, cotton to brocade? Who want to have something extraordinary to wear when they go out to the market?

The scarf in my hair is from Soeur, the bag is by Blooming Dreamer

And because it’s a high summer (that’s been a drag to dress for) — some linen too:

La Double J x Cafe Leandra linen apron dress, styled with Delarge sunglasses (but I also love these! Or better yet [that is, on sale], these) and Jamie Haller sandals

But not the kind that creases when you so much as look at it. The kind that can hold its own through a two-hour lunch while you’re seated outside on a 90-degree day.

These are the kinds of clothes I want to wear when it’s too sticky for clothes and yet the relentless desire to look put together (but really to feel special) persists. It’s a tall order, but incidentally, also one that is achievable.

Around the same time that JJ and I started talking about the possibility of this collab, I’d recently connected with a Milan-based organization that had reached out to me on Instagram called Coopertiva Alice. The Coop’s mission is to facilitate and support the process of rehabilitation for incarcerated women in Italy and the way they work is by teaching the inmates at San Vittore prisons (who become members of Coop Alice) to sew, thus giving them an opportunity to work and earn a wage while they’re completing their sentences.

When JJ confirmed she was serious about letting me do weird things to her signature aprons, I suggested we work with Coop Alice to have their seamstresses make our garments. And as fate/divine timing would have it, she and someone from the Coop had already connected on a separate note and were trying to figure out what kind of project they could work on together.

And so once again, 27 months later, here we are.

From experience, this dress is a good foil to that! I have worn this outfit — like with the sunglasses and sandals at least 6 times in the past two weeks

This will sound redundant if you read the captions, but in case you don’t: I’ve been wearing the linen dress like hell. It makes me feel like an Italian matriarch, esp while I’m eating a dinner of brown rice and tomatoes soaked in olive oil and salt (an actual meal JJ ordered from a restaurant in Milan when I was there a couple of months ago to visit the Coop and meet the seamstresses).

Linen dress, $820

Have also been wearing the cotton top as a sort of summer staple —

The mangoes are not local. The plums are 4 for $1.

Apron top, $590, matching pants, $635

It’s great with its own pants, but also the bomb with a pair of white cotton pajama pants like these.

Apron dress, $950

The brocade set meanwhile will feature prominently in my personal holiday dressing lookbook.

Sat night pants, $750

This has to be one of the more rewarding projects I’ve worked on recently — they have all been so much damn fun but with this one in particular, I am reminded of the power of pursuing purpose and making commitments — of working towards something as part of a commitment to seizing a second chance. Doing it can be the difference between feeling full and empty, hopeful and hopeless, helped and helpless. Of feeling cared for and left behind. There’s something in there, I think, for all of us.

How cool that in this instance, clothes get to play such a central role in the process. Browse the collection here, and read more about Coopertiva Alice here.