The Susan Orlean Closet Tour
Plus MacArthur “genius” baskets and non-junky third-trimester clothes.
Talked to Susan Orlean this week about how much easier it is to discover interesting little brands online versus IRL, but that’s getting harder with tariffs. Brick-and-mortar rents are too expensive and shipping fees are too high; maybe it’s time to buy up a dead mall. —Simone Kitchens, Winnie Yang, Lauren Ro, Erin Schwartz, and Michael Zhao
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* Michael has been looking for a city-friendly totepack that he can also bring on short hikes to local swimming holes. The North Face Borealis (which he mentioned in last month’s haul) is pretty good, but the shoulder straps are a bit short for backpack use. This one from Häglofs — sort of a Swedish Arc’teryx — looks better in seaweed green but would incur import tariffs. Fortunately, he just got this Oregon-made Everything Bagpack from Alpine Sea, and it may be his favorite yet. He was worried that it might lack a suitcase handle pass-through (Alpine Sea’s photos don’t show one), but it arrived with one sewn into the back panel.
* Searching for a nice-looking pair of wet-weather shoes, New York features writer Madeline Leung Coleman realized she should “not be looking for rain boots but for ‘gardening shoes’ — and that changed everything.” She ended up getting these Hisea clogs (we especially like them in brown), which are sturdy and non-floppy. She’s also considering these from Sylphid. Some great colorways: Realtree camo, The Row flip-flops as a garden moc.
* Not as weatherproof but could also be worn for gardening if you don’t mind shaking out the dirt after: Michael found his ideal all-terrain clogs.
* Strategist senior editor Hilary Reid just got Lichen’s earthcense and says it “actually does smell wet-rock-esque in a very nice way.”
* Jeremy Frey’s basketmaking is truly genius. We found some more Wabanaki baskets by other makers.
* Wellyhaus, a shop in Winnetka, Illinois, carries these beautiful lampshades (here’s another good one), notebooks, pillows, and decorative paper from the French brand À Paris chez Antoinette Poisson, as well as other French and English home goods, Niwaki gardening tools, and the shop’s own vases, thrown by a potter in Mokena, Illinois. More lampshades and notebooks can be found in the just-updated Secret Strategist map.
* French enameled iron trivets.
* Michael visited the newly expanded Front General Store in Dumbo this weekend, where he came across a rack of new old-stock Goouch pieces from the ’80s and ’90s that their buyer found abandoned in a warehouse during a sourcing trip in France. The defunct label specialized in Chinese silks with drapey cuts that look like they came off of a Lemaire mood board and colorful pleated Indian linens and rayons that feel like 18 East or Corridor. Most of the collection is available online for around $70.
* Julia Anderson wrote us with a shopping problem: “I am entering my third trimester of pregnancy and am at a loss finding pregnancy clothing. I know the typical suggestions — Hatch, Storq, Beyond Yoga maternity leggings, H&M, etc. — but I feel like there must be smaller brands I don’t know about? Maybe from Europe or Australia? Looking for a price point closer to Storq than Hatch and high-quality clothing that could last for multiple pregnancies (or to pass on to friends). I don’t want to buy cheap pregnancy landfill clothing from H&M, etc. I’d also love suggestions for non-maternity clothing that could work for pregnant bodies. I’m just so sick of everything I’m wearing.”
Winnie mostly wore basics from Australian brand Bae and Swedish brand Boob (both well made) when she was pregnant three years ago, along with elastic-waist Cordera and Pleats Please pants. We also reached out to stylist Alex Violante, who’s currently pregnant with her second kid: “I have never bought maternity clothes; I only buy things I will wear afterward, and if they become too big, take in the waist. This pregnancy, I have worn a ton of Donni: the pop pant, the baby rib scallop pant, and the silk pant. So comfortable and you can actually buy your normal size and wear them under your belly. I’m much bigger this pregnancy than my last, so jeans, even unbuttoned, have not been on rotation at all. Elastic waist only, but I find with these Donni pants you can do a lot — dress up, down, and whatever in between. For tops, I’ve been wearing oversize button-downs, buttoned only at the bust. I can’t stand anything tight on my belly. Been finding great Ralph ones on Depop, the Real Real, and, of course, my dad’s closet. (Here’s one you can buy new.) Weekends around the house in lots of Dôen and this cute Australian brand called Laneway the Label that’s flowy. I got the greatest button-down from J.Crew that made me feel sexy and great for dinners, because you’re pregnant — not dead! Looks like nothing but it’s everything.”
Susan Orlean (whose new memoir, Joyride, is out this week) is a consummate shopper. You can read all about her favorite things here and on her Substack, Wordy Bird, where she often writes about recent purchases and the occasional shopping fiasco. A couple of weeks ago, she shared with Lauren some recent discoveries and how she approaches decorating her Rudolph Schindler house. (Here’s an update on what she’s wearing to her book-release party.)
* “I spend a lot of time shopping. I love clothes. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I get a lot of pleasure out of it, and I feel like that’s what matters. And I’m pretty agnostic when it comes to price. If I find stuff that’s really cheap, that’s cool. I’m thrilled. The brands I love the most are not inexpensive — all the Japanese brands that I really love, like Comme des Garçons, Noir Kei Ninomiya, they’re not cheap and I acknowledge that.”
* “It’s easy to shop expensively. It’s a lot more challenging to look for something really well priced. Like I just found this Korean brand. I actually originally found them on Ssense. They’re really cute, really interesting. It’s called Open YY.”
* “Every now and again, I’ll find something crazy. I just found this crazy brand. It’s actually menswear, a tiny, very bespoke company in L.A. called Earthling VIP. I was in a store, and this woman was wearing a pair of shorts that I was obsessed with. They were the coolest shorts I’d ever seen, ever in my life. Lo and behold, they turned out to be this company that mostly does stage clothes for rock stars and stuff. Overall, this stuff is very stage friendly. It’s fairly extreme, but they get these vintage jeans and then cover them with vintage embroidery, and they’re the coolest. Absolutely the coolest. If my house were burning, I’d probably grab these shorts because they’re so cool.”
* With Ssense, it’s really a bummer, because it’s one of the better places to shop. I would even include that on my list of what I can’t live without, really, because I buy a lot from Ssense. It’s a little like Spotify for fashion. You can explore things that you probably wouldn’t come across otherwise. Look, I live in L.A. You would think L.A. would have a million stores where I would find a lot of interesting new brands or indie brands, but there aren’t. Brick-and-mortar shopping has shrunk hugely, and so the only place that you can discover new, interesting stuff is online. Ssense carries a million brands that are very small, independent, unusual. And it’s not the same as Farfetch or Mytheresa or Net-a-Porter, which are much more mainstream and not nearly as interesting or edgy for finding stuff.
* “The other day I was in New York and I was just strolling from my hotel, which was in Soho, and you think of Soho as mostly having a lot of big brands at this point. And then I came across this little store that this independent designer just opened. It’s called Y-Y, and a lot of it is upcycled menswear that she cuts apart and reconstructs, and it’s so cool. I bought a shirt that’s men’s shirt sleeves that she’s made into a shirt, and it’s just beautiful. She’s obviously a very gifted seamstress.”
* “I just got it, but I’m obsessed with it, and that is this Baggu Molly Goddard. It’s the cutest. It’s so cute. I really love the black, and I’m already obsessed with it and I think it’s a great bag.”
* “I live in a 1946 Rudolph Schindler house. And it’s interesting when the house itself, the architecture itself, has such a pronounced point of view, so you’re not going to come in and furnish it with Victorian furniture. You could, obviously, but it would completely conflict with the architecture. So you get a lot of cues from the architecture itself. There are several very good midcentury modern dealers in L.A. where we’ve gotten a lot of furniture. But not everything is vintage, and we’re not trying to make it look like a house museum. It’s a house we live in. And I’m not stuck in thinking, Oh, well, everything has to be from either 1946 through 1948. I don’t believe in that at all. I think it’s about the aesthetic, and it’s not about the specificity of the date. I think that’s silly. For instance, we’ve got a lot of Block Shop Textiles bedspreads and rugs.”
* “This dealer we found in Chatsworth, California, has the best stuff. They’re called Kinetic Modern. And they’re really fantastic. But we also get a lot of stuff at Amsterdam Modern in Silver Lake. But then in my office, this is an Ikea desk. A LEGO typewriter. This is actually made of LEGOs. The carriage moves. It’s so cool.”
This headline is why I love you so much...😇
Would a deep diver on maternity clothes/brands for colder months.