Read Dearer,
I just got back from Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
What a city. What an experience! Even when you’re jetlagged af, you can’t help but rise to meet the incredible energy of the city. I was exhausted and my back hurt from carrying heavy bags for 24 hours through myriad airports, but I was still out and about the entire time. I didn’t want to miss anything. I walked along the Mississippi with my dear friend Yasmine and sat in the sun listening to the blues. We ate crawfish ettoufee and beignets. We walked through the French Quarter, which was preternaturally quiet the day before Mardi Gras ramped up again (they take Tues/Wed breaks in between their onslaught of parades and partying). We listened to the full history of the city in Louis Armstrong Park and talked to squirrels (which are a rare sight for those of us hailing from the desert). It was all magical and perfect.
The food there….oh my god. If you wonder why Steven and I always proclaim New Orleans as our favorite city on earth, it has 80 percent to do with the food. The rich, savory, spicy gumbos, etouffees, and jambalayas, the fresh, meaty, acidic muffelatas, the crispy indulgence of fried chicken, fried oysters, and fried everything else. The buttery seafood boils. A Sazerac that cuts through all the noise. It’s a perfect city for foodies, especially during Fat Tuesday. I had incredible escargots at Commander’s Palace, mouth-watering streak frites at Justine, mind-blowing baked mac and cheese and grits at La Petite Grocery, and one of the best meals of my life – fried chicken, collard greens, and peach cobbler – at Leah’s Place (in the mthfkn airport! what!), which is a franchise started by the legendary Leah Chase of Dooky Chase’s.
In New Orleans, you walk through history, eat history, and listen to history at every chance turn down a street. It’s such a singularly spectacular place.
[When I was leaving the trip – I was with a bunch of global influencers and press for a big brand product launch – I asked one of the NY girls if she would come back to New Orleans to visit on her own. She said, “Um…no…I don’t think so. It’s just ratchet and ghetto down here…” Excuse me?! I had to stop myself from throwing hands!!!]
Now, where were we?
I’m back in the hotel, packing for what feels like the scrillionth time. Kaytranada’s Bubba (because that’s all I can listen to lately) is playing out of my tinny iPhone speakers.
I start thinking about how I packed really well for this trip, given that so many variables and unknowns made it harder than usual. There were dress codes with mood boards issued before the trip, which stressed me out a little bit because I don’t own anything “Met Gala…but even more exclusive and over the top” or “the more outrageous, the better.” So that took some strategizing. But what I ended up with, when I mixed and matched (with less planning than you might imagine) from my travel wardrobe, worked really well. You never know how these things are going to go. Some people might be doing a really low-key version of the theme, and others high key.
It made me think about a new way of approaching dressing. Not trend-based. Not mob wife, or clean girl, or cottagecore, or normcore, or gorpcore. An approach that’s really wholesome. Maybe something we’ve gotten away from lately.
What if we dressed in things that give us JOY?
What if we wear something that we feel amazing in, no matter if it’s dress-code-worthy or not?
Something that makes us feel like Frida Khalo and Anaïs Nin at the same time?
Something that swished while we walked and made every step more musical?
Something that we’ll look at forever after the fact and think, “I wore that the night I…”
Here are some items I recommend for injecting more free-flowing joy and less self-deprecating mock humble IKYK-ness into your world.
A floaty AF silk dress
This thing needs to be shaped like a tent that can sleep at least two toddlers. It needs to be made of real silk. You will pay more for this, but you will also know immediately that a real silk dress is worth the price tag. You will wear it on its own as you gliiiide down the streets of Dubrovnik. You will layer it over tight tees covered in crystals that remind you of the shirts from Limited 2 that you used to covet as a teenager. You will don it as the middle layer of a \\The Row wide-leg trousers and custom-made Edwardian tailcoat with feathered cuffs sandwich//. You will feel totally fabulous all night.
A sculptural AF piece
I have recently been obsessed with a sweater that has big sculptural ridges along its sleeves. “It’s giving Schiaparelli.” It’s wonderful. Everyone comments on it. Old ladies. Little kids. Cab drivers. It’s a real conversation starter. One guy said, “Oh, you’re bringing back shoulder pads,” and I had to stop myself from responding with a withering glance. Oh, and in this kind of piece, you will feel the need to shoot withering glances at people like you’re Joan Crawford in Feud. You will feel totally fabulous all night.
Crystal-trimmed AF
Maybe it’s the influence of Renaissance \\and let’s just get this out of the way, Beyoncé has probably influenced me more in my lifetime than any other artist except Bowie and Prince// but I can’t get enough of crystal-trimmed pieces. I want crystal swinging from my hips, from my earlobes, dangling around my neck, swaying from the fringe of a handbag, and snagging the hem of my sheer skirts. Crystals are basically joy incarnate. In them, you will feel totally fabulous all night.
Cozy AF clothes
Coordinated sets that are really truly cozy are an unmatched joy-bringer! You can elevate them with accessories, too, making them a nice blank slate for elevating or decelerating a look. For one event, I wore matching pink sweats and accessorized them with actual hotel slippers, those amazing CosRX snail mucin undereye patches, and a bucket hat etched with a tiny smiley face. The \\undereye patches as accessories// route is really underexplored. Doesn’t it bring joy to feel and look a little silly sometimes? It might not make you feel totally fabulous the way crystals and sculptural accents might, but you’ll still feel mighty fine. I was on the 18th hour of a 24-hour journey, and a guy at the airport who reminded me so much of JRoc from Trailer Park Boys stopped me and said, “Your drip is amazing, bro!” (The drip in question was a Fear of God hoodie, shredded black denim, and Alexander McQueen sneakers. {(You don’t always have to be dripped out to be dripped)
A quirky AF accessory
I think this one takes a specific personality. Someone with fortitude and a sense of humor, or at least an outlook on life that allows them not to take it all too seriously. After all, there’s a supermassive black hole spinning around somewhere in our immediate galaxy. It all could be gone in a blink of an eye! In the words of Diana Vreeland (not exact words, obviously):
Why don’t you…
Buy a little brooch shaped like a bejeweled cricket?
Wear a pair of dazzling vintage frog clip-ons from the 1950s?
Don a vintage pair of Etro sunglasses with orange-tinted lenses and then wear them as your daily go-about-town glasses - real casual. Real “these old things?!”
Have your sweet sister buy you Liz Roseberry’s clever little matchstick earrings and set fire to boring conversations?
Float in feathered gloves that you bought in Paris many years ago (and get to say this when people ask you about them) that you have thought were lost several times but were always magically found just when the moment called for it. Basically, magical feathered gloves. Lmk if you need a source.
Any one of these will make you feel totally fabulous all night.
Tights AF
Tights with holes in them. Trust me. I love tights but new tights and pristine tights have NOTHING on tights that have been naturally shredded over a night of merriment. Just because tights have a hole in them doesn’t mean I discard them! Oh no, when they have some sexy natural snares they are more precious than gold. Each snag tells a story!!
Do I even need to say it? YOU WILL FEEL TOTALLY FABULOUS ALL NIGHT!!
Now, where were we?
Things I can’t stop …
Listening to: Kaytranada’s Bubba and Joni Mitchell’s Blue - diametrically opposed and yet still both genius. Also, the Niecy Nash episode of Conan O’Brien’s podcast. Give this woman her own show!!! She’s brilliant!!
Thinking about how my bestie Huda is really THAT BITCH!!!
Watching: Mr. and Mrs. Smith starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, with a lot of the same crew as Atlanta (one of my all-time favorite shows that’s always on in the background while I work). Mr. and Mrs. Smith is so smart, so hilarious, and so thrilling that you’ll actually put down your phone to watch it.
Considering writing a Netflix show. Stay tuned.
Ordering: For us lactose-intolerant girlies in Dubai, the ice cream choices at Brooklyn Vegan are elite. No, this is not a paid ad. It’s the result of me spending 20 years of my life without dairy until I discovered that vegan ice cream exists, and is truly amazing and delicious. Try it and tell me if you can tell one iota of difference between this and the real thing!
Also….watching the Oklahoma City Thunder dominate the Western Conference. I can’t say I’ll ever get tired of seeing that! See you in the FINALS! JDUB I LOVE YOU! LOU DORRRRT! CHET (AKA UPCOMING ROTY)! SGA (AKA MVP)! KENNY HUSTLE! BBY CASON! I LOVE YOU ALL!
Reading: The Biography of X. Mid-way through, so I’ll reserve judgment for now, but so far, it’s SO GOOD.
TTYL 💋
As someone who just poorly packed for a 2 week press trip, I'm bookmarking this! Also, "I’m back in the hotel, packing for what feels like the scrillionth time," has never resonated more. Welcome back!