Refinement. Style. Cinema. Travel. Cheese. Haircuts. Architecture. The art of living.

France sits at or near the top of the cultural pyramid in all these areas and more.

And yet there are certain things drastically wrong with my adoptive country. Ignoring them feels increasingly dishonest.

Particularly right now. Because France is in the throes of a child-protection crisis so disturbing that it deserves attention not only from French citizens, but from anyone who cares about how societies protect their most vulnerable members.

(Content note: this essay discusses child sexual abuse.)

Before I explain what is happening, a story.

When I first enrolled my daughter at our local Paris kindergarten, another parent offered an unexpected piece of advice. If we could possibly afford it, she said, avoid périscolaire—the after-school and lunchtime programmes run by the city. Instead, hire someone to take the children to the park.

Why?

“Because that’s where the pedos are.”

I remember being shocked. I assumed she was exaggerating. Repeating one of those urban myths that circulate among anxious parents.

As it turns out, though I kept our nanny on for after school, our own périscolaire programme appears to be absolutely fine. The people caring for our children at lunch hour are largely kind, attentive and professional. I have no reason to believe otherwise.

Which somehow makes that conversation from a few years ago even stranger.

The warning wasn’t about a particular school. It was about a pattern. And it was delivered with the sort of shrug usually reserved for discussing the weather. Not as a conspiracy theory…as common knowledge.

That conversation came back to me this week.

For more than a year, allegations have accumulated against animateurs—municipal employees responsible for supervising children, including children as young as three, at school breaks and extracurricular activities. Prosecutors are investigating allegations ranging from physical violence to sexual assault and rape. More than one hundred educational establishments have been touched by investigations while 78 of staff members have been suspended in Paris alone.

Parents’ groups argue that the real scandal is not only what allegedly happened to children, but the repeated failure of authorities to respond when concerns were raised.

The cases differ, but a pattern emerges repeatedly: complaints not treated with urgency, warning signs missed, adults remaining in contact with children after concerns had already surfaced. What initially appeared to be a series of isolated incidents increasingly looked like something else.

Then came Lyhanna. On May 29, an 11-year-old girl from Fleurance in southwestern France disappeared after leaving school. Days later, her body was found in an abandoned barn. A 41-year-old local man, Jérôme Barella, was arrested and placed under investigation.

The horror of the crime alone would have made national headlines. What transformed it into a political and judicial crisis was what emerged afterwards.

Barella was not unknown to authorities. According to prosecutors and subsequent reporting, he had been the subject of multiple previous allegations involving sexual violence against minors. Several girls had reported him over the years. A more recent complaint involving a child had still not resulted in him being questioned by police before Lyhanna disappeared.

The details are almost unbearable.

Barella was reportedly the father of one of Lyhanna’s friends. The families had crossed paths for years through school activities. Lyhanna’s mother later said she had become uncomfortable with his behaviour after her daughter described him tickling her during a sleepover at his house. She told Lyhanna not to see him again. Yet the family later learned he was frequently near the school and would give her snacks.

As journalists reconstructed the suspect’s history, the question quickly ceased to be whether warning signs existed. The question became why they were not enough.

And that question has landed in a France already reeling from the périscolaire affair.

This is where this story becomes larger than either case. Because France has spent the past decade repeatedly discovering the same thing: people knew.

The recurring scandal is not simply abuse, it is the normalization of knowledge about abuse.

People knew about Gabriel Matzneff, the celebrated writer who openly described sexual relationships with minors for decades while much of the literary establishment looked away. People knew before Vanessa Springora published Le Consentement.

There were rumours before Camille Kouchner’s La Familia Grande exposed incest within one of France’s most prominent intellectual families.

Again and again, France has been forced to revisit scandals emerging not from the margins of society but from its cultural centre: elite schools, publishing houses, influential families, intellectual circles.

The geography matters. From Saint-Germain-des-Prés over to Rue du Bac, these stories challenge a national self-image in which intellectual sophistication was assumed to travel alongside moral enlightenment.

Instead they reveal something more troubling: environments where status, influence and social capital can discourage scrutiny.

This is also why the current moment inevitably raises questions about the legacy of certain strands of post-1968 culture. Not the emancipatory ideals themselves but the blind spots that sometimes accompanied them: a romanticisation of transgression, a suspicion of limits, a tendency in some circles to assume that liberation was inherently virtuous.

The Matzneff affair forced France to confront how profoundly unequal relationships could be dressed up in the language of freedom.

Of course, the children at the centre of today’s scandals have nothing to do with the literary salons of the Left Bank but the question haunting France feels strikingly similar.

What happens when adults convince themselves that their worldview matters more than a child’s distress? What happens when institutions worry more about reputations than warnings? What happens when entire social circles know, but choose not to see?

The périscolaire affair, the Betharram revelations, La Familia Grande and the Lyhanna case are not the same story but they belong to the same reckoning.

France remains the most visited country in the world. Paris remains one of its most admired cities. None of that is incompatible with confronting what is happening now. In fact, the opposite may be true.

A country that proudly calls itself le pays des droits de l’homme (the homeland of human rights) cannot afford to look away when children are telling adults they are in danger.

The question facing France today is not whether it remains a great cultural power. It is whether it is willing to apply the same moral seriousness to protecting children that it applies to protecting its ideals.

Share

Which is why I thought I’d take you on a little jaunt around my corner of Paris—a quick and easy rundown of my go-to spots, from dry cleaners to takeaway joints, mostly in my neighbourhood but with a few favourites further afield.

I also took a wander around the neighbourhood and snapped some (slightly haphazard) photos of a few all-time favourites in their summer glory.

Papeterie-Presse Cherche-Midi. I love these old-fashioned paper shops in France beyond reason. They stock everything paper-related you could possibly imagine: stationery, international newspapers and magazines, postcards, and every kind of notebook, pen, and highlighter under the sun. Pure soul food. For me, anyway. Please, commerce gods, don’t let them disappear—especially not this one. 50–52 rue du Cherche-Midi, 75006.

Just up the street, Ten Bells is, as far as I’m concerned, the best takeaway coffee in the city. (Challenge me!!) There’s also one in the 10th. Scones and sandwiches here are excellent. 53 rue du Cherche-Midi, 75006.

Cody’s bagels are the only truly satisfying bagel situation this North American has found on this side of the river. (And yes, there are of course excellent bagels in the old Jewish quarter on rue des Rosiers.) But the whole cream-cheese-and-lox bagel-sandwich culture of my youth has been largely absent from the Paris food scene. Then Cody’s appeared. I’m therefore deeply grateful and it seems to be doing a roaring trade. 51 rue de Grenelle 75007.

Boutique Gerard Durand AKA “The Tights Man” as my friends and I call him. This guy’s been selling stockings and tights to the stylish ladies of the Rue du Bac since the dawn of time and he’s got the expertise (and stockists) to show it. 77 rue du Bac, 75007.

La Sirene specialty dry cleaner (or “spa for clothing” as it cutely calls itself) is the ultimate in savoir-fair for all manner of high-end clothing dramas. Unremovable stains, zipper disasters, the 3-D roses falling off my mad old Prada coat —they’re on it —your pieces will be back better than new. Unfortunately closed today or I’d have showed you the gorgeous interior but even the building above is lovely and symmetrical so take a look at that. 45 rue Madame 75006.

Paris Queen Nails. My Queens! How are you supposed to survive without a fabulous Chinesenail salon in your neighbourhood, I ask you? The ladies in here are an absolute laugh a minute, incredibly fun (as is the playlist.) Walk-ins welcome. 89 rue de Rennes 75006.

Simon Le Coiffeur puts a smile on your kid’s face while trimming their hair to perfection. I have friends my age who came here as kids. A Left Bank essential and you’re in-and-out in a jiffy, with no crying, no fugly chops, and a lollipop. They also just saved Arthur’s mushroom cut from a sister-scissor debacle. 16 rue Vavin 75006.

Pressing rue d’Assas This place is barely even listed online —I don’t honestly know if it has a name other than ‘Pressing’ which means dry cleaner not “urgent” in French, although it’s the ideal spot for stain (or smell) urgencies of all kinds. Quick, easy and the price is right. Evidence I’ve been dropping my clothes here for 10 years below —I cannot begin to remember, nor believe I purchased, this pair of pink croc boots. Huh. 46 rue d’Assas 75006.

Ok, here’s one I’ll cross the river for:

I’m not generally someone obsessed with the latest skincare technologies but FACESTELLAR Paris may have concerted me. Their treatments are very high-tech with the sort of futuristic machines that make you feel like you’ve wandered into a beauty laboratory rather than a spa (in a reassuring way—I swear!!)

On my last visit, someone pointed what can only be described as a cryotherapy gun at my face, blasting it with air at roughly -40 degrees. Reader, my skin looked like glass afterwards.

If your beauty philosophy leans more results-driven than scented-candle-and-whale-music this is probably your place. It’s also surprisingly easy just to pop in: they often accommodate same-day bookings and last minute appointments. 46 rue de Richelieu 75001.

Oh, and by the way:
My favourite massage therapist Teresa Savoie has recently added facials to her repetoire. Rather than focusing on products or machines her approach is entirely hands-on, with her magic hands combining lifting, stretching, drainage and massage techniques that work across fare, neck, décolleté, shoulders, scalp and even fascia.

The aim is less miracle cure, more glow (and total relaxation): reducing puffiness, encouraging circulation, releasing tension and leaving the face looking and feeling refreshed. If it’s anything like the treatment she gives my perpetually knotted shoulders, I’d happily put my face in her hands too. Bookings at 06 58 61 77 68 or via Instagram DM.

See you around!

(Of course, I’ve also been out in the big bad field, gathering Paris info, weird facts, hot tips and unlikely gossip ;)

Speaking of hot—it’s a zillion degrees in Paris this week and feels like summer is really and truly upon us, which means many a Eurotrip (ha, remember that movie?) will officially be in the works. And no, there isn’t any air con, with very few exceptions.

SO paid subscribers, hit me with your Paris Qs, fashion conundrums, anything (ok, within reason.) Either in the comments section below, OR in the ‘Mon Review’ group chat on the Substack app, which is now reserved for Paid Subscribers.

Everyone else —new newsletter out soon. Thanks for subscribing, Monicuddlers!

It seems the rise of the “Beta Mom” is upon us, and, as I realised while reading, I may very well be one of them. Ok maybe not quite Beta but much closer to B than A.

For decades, high achieving (or “Alpha”) moms have felt pressure to “optimise” their kids for success. Now, many of us Millennial moms aren’t having any of it.

When I think back, part of the reason I was nervous about having kids in the first place, even though I knew I definitely wanted them, was that I wasn’t sure motherhood really aligned with my personality at all. The idea of fundamentally changing who you are felt dangerous to me, like cramming yourself into a perky yet suffocating box that would eventually explode, leaving emotional debris for everyone around you —offspring included— to clean up.

Then I moved to Paris and started observing the French mothers around me, women who didn’t even pretend to care whether their child played softball or was a miniature conservatory musician. They just cared that their kids were smart and kind and “autonomous” without flunking. That’s when I realised: oh, maybe I could do this.

On a slightly-different-but-related note: I remember sitting at a table full of Parisian mothers while pregnant with my first child and asking whether any of them had considered…breastfeeding? “Même pas en rêve,” they all answered instantly. “Not even in my dreams. And embark on a fourth trimester are you crazy?!”

Some people would find this extreme, but it reflects something very specific about a typically Parisian approach to parenting. To be clear, the women around me are excellent mothers. They’re loving, engaged, attentive. They simply take a more hands-off, figure-it-out-yourself approach. They have their own hobbies and take care of themselves. They preserve their independence, refusing to transform themselves into sacrificial lambs at the altar of motherhood. WSJ seems to be suggesting this approach exists in LA too (see the Wall St Journal) but with more of a hippy lilt.

The other day, I admitted to a Parisian friend that I was anxious about finding time to help Mia improve her spelling so she could be sure to be at the top of her kindergarten class. My friend just stared at me.

“Monica. Never waste your time teaching them something they’ll definitely learn at school. Save your energy. Enjoy your time with her. Take her out for lunch!”

She may have a point.

Because does anyone really manage to be both an alpha in their career and an Alpha Mom simultaneously? Without existing on a pharmaceutical cocktail of amphetamines? I’m sceptical.

But I also don’t think I’m a Beta Mom purely out of selfishness (or career ambition). The more I think about it, the less convinced I am that overscheduling, overcoaching and relentlessly steering children toward achievement necessarily leads to fulfilment — or even to the prestigious white-collar jobs that seemed to be the end goal of 90s-style alpha mothering. Will those jobs even exist by the time our children grow up? AI suggests many won’t.

As WSJ’s Rachel Wolfe puts it:

“WOMEN HAVE always shouldered the bulk of household and child -rearing responsibilities.But it’s only recently that mothers were also expected to be project managers for their kids’ futures. That began around the 1990s, economists say, as widening inequality and a shift toward a knowledge-based economy made parents fear their children would fall behind without a competitive edge.”

This doesn’t mean I’m anti-education. Far from it. I care deeply about what my children learn, about the schools they attend. I loved school myself. But it increasingly occurs to me that the most successful people of the future will be resilient, adaptable, curious, capable of thinking independently and knowing what to do when left to their own devices.

Boredom, too, feels like an essential part of childhood.

My parents put a lot of effort into raising us, and my mother, as the 90s in our neighbourhood largely dictated, gave up working as a lawyer in order to devote herself entirely to us: driving us to endless activities, supervising homework, making personally damn sure everything got done properly. I appreciate her infinitely for it.

But the world has changed. And continues to change. Also, I simply do not possess her level of patience. (Nor her apparent secret vocation as a kindergarten teacher. Respect.)

Some of the best moments I have with my five-year-old daughter aren’t when I shrink myself into her world, but when she expands herself into mine. It becomes a special occasion when she gets to come to an art exhibition with mummy — even if she doesn’t fully understand it — or sit at a grown-up restaurant. She’s old enough now to recognise that. She rises to the occasion.

As a Beta Mom, I read her children’s books I find interesting, or funny. Always in English, which helps her zero at her French-only school. But it will help her in the, um, world. Sometime the books are slightly above her age level, but they stretch her imagination, and I know I read aloud better when I’m genuinely entertained by the material myself.

She says she hates being dropped off at after-school activities, so for now, I’ve decided to let her stay home with her little brother and his babysitter or go to the park with them instead. Worst case scenario? She gets bored. And then she has to invent her own world to play in. Surely that’s a useful muscle to build.

And maybe the most important thing is this: I am so much more emotionally present when I lean fully into Beta Mom life than I ever would be trying to perform Alpha motherhood.

100 Years of David Attenborough

Even Lego have changed their recommended age limit to accommodate him, as they should.

How do you stay relevant for 100 years?

Consistency, it seems, is underrated. For more than seven decades, Sir David Attenborough has refused to treat nature as background scenery. He has made the living world feel dramatic, intimate, and urgent; whether whispering over footage of a now leopard or explaining the fragility of coral reefs. Crucially, his curiosity has always felt genuine rather than performative, and audiences across generations trust him because he speaks with clarity, humility and wonder instead of spectacle.

But also!! As filming technology evolved, Attenborough evolved with it, embracing everything from underwater cinematography to drone footage while keeping the storytelling deeply human. What’s more, while confronting bleak realities about climate change, he rarely sounds cynical, balancing urgency with awe, giving people a reason to care rather than simply guilt-tripping them into doing so. That combo: authority without arrogance, consciousness without hopelessness, is a big part of why he remains not only respected by genuinely beloved.

It was beyond heart warming to see Attenborough on such good form as the entire Royal Albert Hall sang to him last weekend. This video was pretty cute too. My British Granny would have been Attenborough’s exact age and I think between his achievements and the King’s masterful speech to Congress she’d have been proud lately (Starmergate notwithstanding.) Ratbags be damned.

Should Fashion Rules Even Exist?

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen my latest Monsplaining video, detailing the sartorial feud between my husband and my brother on the topic of shorts. Yes you read that right. Harry and Marc agree on a lot of things but whether a man can wear shorts in the city is not one of them.

Apparently, they aren’t the only ones with extreme, unflinching points of view on the subject. The comment section is divided almost fifty-fifty, with a solid half of people (male and female) insisting that a hairy male leg on the metro is an absolute no-no, and another half makes the case for a flashing a bit of the ol’ knee. Things have become so heated I’ve decided to let this deeply unserious debate play out on its own.

But this division does raise the question as to whether any actual rules of dress —male or female— should apply in our modern world. And if so, how exactly do you enforce them other than pure, unbridled judgement?

I listened to a podcast the other day about how, for centuries across much of Europe, married women covered their hair (singling elective modesty —not like a man choosing long trousers in 35-degree weather).

Bonnets also signalled marital status: a way of saying “I’m taken!” Or perhaps simply ensuring you looked like a man repeller. The custom blended older Roman and local traditions with Christian teachings, and in many societies visible female hair became associated with youth, sexuality, and unmarried status, while covered hair marked adulthood and social dignity.

The practice faded gradually between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries as Europe urbanised and secularised and women gained greater social independence. Changing fashion, factory and office work, shorter hairstyles, mass media and declining religious authority all weakened the idea that respectable married women had to concealer locks, until the custom survived mainly in conservative religious or rural communities.

The adult male hat has all but disappeared too. From roughly the 19th century through the mid-20th, men across Europe and North America were expected to wear a hat outdoors: flat caps, bowlers, homburgs, fedoras, top hats, depending on class and setting. Going bareheaded in public could be seen as sloppy, lower-class, or immature, much in the way uncovered hair once carried a similar meaning for married women.

And perhaps, today, shorts on an adult male leg carry a similar charged symbolism. At least according to my husband and his equally selective compatriots.

Perhaps this too shall pass. Is progress, after all, a hairy calf on the metro? Or, maybe some traditions are worth preserving. Time will tell.

Reverting Back to Early Spring

After two months of warm sunshine Spring has taken a brief vacation, as everyone in France liable to do in May. So here’s my current uniform. The white jeans and basket maintain an “estival” feel, I guess, and I’m glad for an excuse to wear this excellent knit by Frances de Lourdes.

David Attenborough would say we need the rain for nature to flourish and besides which, summer, with its sweaty nights is coming! Enjoying the breeze while it lasts.

Solo holidays, yes —I love those, as you know. I find a few days alone, away from one’s orbit, with an intention in mind (write, “reset”, “detox”, or just effing chill, ) is an excellent idea, especially for us moms of young kids.

But I don’t normally subscribe to ultrabionic self-optimisation parentheses. I know I know I know, the science is there. Work out daily, eat mostly veg most-of-the-time, meditate (or at least, breathe properly), cut out coffee (yikes), alcohol, nicotine, partake in cognitive exercises… and you’ll improve your chances of being the best version of you for as long as possible by a long shot. I don’t dispute any of this. It just seems to me that what really counts is figuring out how do a more lowkey version of it all within the parameters of one’s everyday life. And that’s a lot harder.

Do I need, for example, to work my muscles within in a virtual reality via Icaros VR machine? To be rocked like a baby in the womb during a Watsu water massage ritual? To have vitamins injected into my veins via intravenous? I tend to think not. And yet…

Perhaps I’ve been mistaken. Because after a mere three days following the “Rebalance and Energise” at SHA Wellness Spain I’ve got to be honest: I feel more energetic than I have in years. At least since having kids.

Yes, I did everything they recommended. My schedule — from anti-inflammatory nutritional consults, to abhaynga massages, to acupuncture, to ginger therapeutic compresses, to photobiolmodulation red light therapy— started at 8am and went until 7pm, moving between tailored workouts, health optimisation rendezvous and niche relaxation rituals. The only rule I broke was one coffee in the morning (exceptions may be made for press at SHA mwahah). But other than that, I was all in. No dairy or meat, no copping out of the schedule for a nap. Didn’t even sneak in a pack of Doritos, (though I did consider buying such contraband when I landed at Alicante airport and started panicking.) Nope. Nada.

Now, there is a certain absurd vanity to the idea of locking oneself in a self-sufficient, expensive health center. But there’s also a genius to it: with no temptation available on premises, the only way of feeling good is to exercise (or intermittent hypoxia therapy via oxygen mask). No reaching for quick fixes. And I imagine if one had paid (to be clear, I did not, this was a PR invite, merci beaucoup to all involved,) one would have all the more reason not to sneak in a few Marlboro lights (you’re only cheating yourself!) Besides, one’s day is so jam-packed with self-improvement, one simply doesn’t have time to yearn for a Diet Coke. Or almost doesn’t.

Frank Sinatra once said “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink: when they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going feel all day”. He obviously hadn’t tried an apple cider vinegar shot and veggie conjak wok dinner.

Now back to reality, and off to find a several-shot coffee at the airport. Hold the dairy. Namaste!

Share

In the past five days in Paris, I’ve been to: the ballet, a major art exhibition, and a 17th-century-style salon where we discussed the concept of “taste”.

The ballet was Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet at the Opera Bastille after a dangerously pleasant apero, with invitations courtesy of Vince (who very wisely brought in Alexandra Van Houtte to shape the guest list). The exhibition as the opening of Calder. Rêver en équilibre at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. And the salon was organised by Massimo Dutti at their new Paris pop-up location, and moderated by HURS founder Bonnie Langedijk (also an excellent call on the brand’s part).

Guess what, I loved all of it. The salon especially. Ideas were exchanged. It worked.

So why am I telling you this?

Not because I am trying to position myself as unbearably sophisticated (heaven knows I am not) but because these brands pulled off something quite effective. They gave me a reason to show up to cultural experiences I would otherwise have noted, thought “I should do that” then… probably not done.

Because it was “work” (lol). But it was : for people in my line, those brand relationships matter and invitations carry a very specific weight. So I went. And I learned something. And I enjoyed it. And I came out, however marginally, more informed than I went in.

Which is where it gets interesting…

I left not only with a slightly expanded cultural vocabulary but also with a quietly improved perception of the brands that got me there. I wonder if the people who watched it all unfold on my Instagram account did too?

It’s a simple formula for brands that some will call cynical; poseur-ish even. But I think it’s just effective because even if, say, the brands are in it for the wrong reasons, everybody still wins.

In a digital ecosystem where everything is flattened into content, attaching your brand to real, physical cultural experiences feels… smart? Almost necessary. If these institutions need audiences —and they do— then this kind of cross pollination isn’t the worst thing. (Feel free to disagree Timotheee Chalamayyy).

Of course, it also taps into our collective urge to broadcast our lives: the same impulse behind influencers casually displaying their bookshelves (guilty). This isn’t a new observation within fashion-adjacent discourse.

But as a communication strategy, it works. It makes brands feel like participants in culture; patrons of it even. (LVMH may well have started this trend, and it’s true that the Fondation Louis Vuitton is undeniably breathtaking, so… yeah.)

But crucially, this strategy gets people in the door; because “influence” doesn’t have to be reduced to shopping ideas.

So personally, I’m curious to see what comes next. Ideally: musical theatre.

Share

But not for the reasons one normally falls for a new creative director’s take. It’s not about entirely new shapes or silhouettes I could never have dreamt up. Strangely, it’s the way Rider has, through pristine forms and bold primaries, reacquainted me with my own wardrobe. And, at the same time somehow, the house of Celine.

Of course, it was clear he had the chops: Rider’s CV is highly impressive. He was on the front line of Phoebe Philo’s Celine at a formative age and seems to have imbibed her magic —without imitating. I also loved what he did with Polo Ralph Lauren.

Rider’s first seasons at Celine have been so effortlessly cool yet wearable —the sweet-spot between Clean Girl and Bad B*tch; between that side of the Atlantic and this; in short: something very close to my soul style— that I suddenly saw my pair of slim black jeans completely differently. My navy or red knits, too (what if I threw them all on at once?) etc.

A bright red trench I wasn’t wearing much became a kind of Mondrian all-purpose gem; my somewhat-random winter hat and giant ’70s aviators suddenly made sense together.

My sparkly silver skirt, normally reserved for fancy-dress parties, felt totally wearable with a trench or boots. Wait! And I had a leopard jacket. The skinny leather belt my mom forgot when she stayed with me. Even pink pants! I have pink pants somewhere don’t I? Pieces that once felt “extra” somehow feel grounded and Paris-street worthy simply by styling them like it’s no biggie.

Rider is an American in Paris of the highest order: he fits in, yet he’s using the life he’s carved out for himself to have a little fun. At least where clothes are concerned (I don't actually know him personally to be clear, but he seems fun!)

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t invest in his Celine Autumn/Winter 2026 collection when it hits stores. Or SS26 right away. I’m certainly saving up for a piece myself. But when a designer makes you turn back to your own wardrobe with a sharper, more inspired point of view, he’s performing just as much magic as any boundary-breaker, in my opinion. Besides, with his latest collection, I suspect Rider might just do both.

Well, mostly. Almost everyone in France has a bank card, but most of those are debit, not credit. Debit cards (called “carte bancaire” or “CB”) are the standard payment method here, unlike in Anglo countries wherein true credit cards, with their revolving line of credit, are much less common. Which is strangely revelatory from a fashion perspective.

I can’t take credit for this revelation: the line comes from Delphine Del Val (via Laurel Pantin), and it’s amazingly diagnostic.

For what it gestures toward is a different relationship to consumption. The French largely have a more cautious attitude toward debt, (which I must say resonates with me personally, given even the simplest back loan makes me itch with anxiety. “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” my grandpa used to say. This is probably why I will never make millions. Anyway.)

Aaanyway I’m clearly generalising but all this expands the age-old style question somewhat. For it isn’t simply what people buy in Paris, but how they buy: within limits, without wild excess, and with the expectation that a garment will be lived in rather than cycled through.

The result is not minimalism as an aesthetic, but as a byproduct of constraint. A wardrobe edited by circumstance rather than aspiration.

Seen from, say, North America, where abundance and optionality tend to drive decision-making this can read as discipline, even mystique. We call the Paris look je ne sais quoi but in reality, it may be something closer to coherence.

After years of observing up close (casually, then less so), this seems like the most plausible explanation.

Btw, to my mind, (whisper it) Carolyn Bessette operated stylistically within a similar logic.

Anyway here’s a snapshot of what actually circulates (and endures) in daily life here… and my current picks from each.

Read more

Street style, in its truest form, is a different beast. Personally, I like seeing how people stitch pieces from the collections into their own wardrobes. I’m also always here for the occasional blunt, bs-free runway hot take.

But the dinners. Sigh, the dinners. I’ll attempt to explain. Basically industry codes dictate that it’s considered extremely bad form to attend a dinner and not post something. It’s basically the modern equivalent of a thank-you note. Which means you — a dignified professional human at home — may well be looking at your phone thinking “what gives?”

Broadly speaking, one doesn’t accept a fashion or beauty brand’s dinner unless you either A) already work with them, or B) would like to. Occasionally there’s a C) all your friends are going and you feel like leaving the house. (Rare.)

Still, most people with any dignity aren’t angling toward brands they don’t love/believe in. Contrary to popular belief, we’re not all paid every time we leave the house; much of the hustle is simply relationship-building. Which can be long. And, I fully appreciate, incredibly tedious for one’s audience.

All of which is to say: over the past few days I’ve seen plenty of Fashion Week roundups of the look who I’m friends with / watch the velvet ropes part for me variety. I understand the temptation, I too love my friends and feel lucky, but something often gets lost along the way: imagining one’s audience.

My taste may not be exactly yours, but my access is! And while I don’t have the keys to every kingdom, I’ve been around this rodeo long enough to know that not everything worth seeing gets the attention it deserves on social media.

So this is a small Paris Fashion Week scrapbook, of sorts. No particular order, not many bells or whistles. Just pieces I loved, styling ideas, and a few treasures, including the most unexpected trove of mid-century modern furniture discovered in a Paris parking-lot-turned-showroom.

I took far too many photos for one email, so click through below to keep unearthing.

*The Wear-Forevers*

Arma

This leather brand from the Netherlands caused somewhat of a stir in Paris this season. I can’t quite say “all the cool girls were wearing it” because if you’ve been here long enough you know I’m a massive NERD, but ‘twas the general vibe.

I have never felt so compelled to wear a jacket every. single. day. It goes with everything, is ideal for the season, and makes every outfit so much more… intense?Check out their whole collection here.

CO

The Co show was my first of the week and was met with great all-round satisfaction, particularly in that we were all fresh off a Love Story binge. This LA insiders brand’s sudden appearance in Paris felt like gift from the minimalist-but-not-uninteresting styling gods. Some seriously snappy jackets here too. Also unexpectedly, Jerry Seinfeld was in attendance.

TWP (Trish Westcoat Pound)

Another highly-wearable fave of stylish New Yorkers. Went to see what all the fuss was about and found the fuss was completely merited. So glad these brands are showing in Paris, with try-ons optional/encouraged. You want to understand the fabrics and how they move.

Managed to walk out with this current season trench, complete with reversible chestnut cashmere insides and its own detachable scarf situation. Took it for a stroll up Montmartre with the kiddos on Sunday and felt tres chic.

Collector Square

Behold the bowels of the vintage Birkin (and not just) source in Paris. I like to climb up to the top balcony, rather dangerously, and gaze upon their well-ordered treasures.

Rare Fendi finds like the below also abound. Check it out here, or make an appointment (which I recommend if you’re in town),

TOVE

There is simply no better occasionwear, to my mind. Hard to put across in photos but the materials, draping, and understanding of the female body apparent through Tove’s construction and design make each piece truly exquisite.

Savette

Luxury, logo-free bags for all the CBKs out there! Get innnn.

LouLou de Saison

Chloe Harrouche’s brand is a pretty unusual masterclass in the content-creator-turned designer category. Her eye is simply unwavering. She was meant to do this! Some favourites from her presentation below:

The Accessible Excellence

Sezane

Paris queues-round-the-block fave Sezane are on the up-and-up again, with a more precise, elevated design plan for the coming seasons (I’m told). This is evidenced through new season pieces like this perfect dress and the suede jacket below (yes, I know I have enough jackets… Or do I?)

The below, meanwhile, reminds me of that Calvin Klein number Alexa Chung wore to their show this season, except a practical versatile two-piece. (Also: a more affordable take on my Zimmerman set above).

Doen

We’re all inclined to hit up Doen for a bit of romance and/or the seductive modern-day take on a Jane Austen frock (adore) but I am very into their outerwear and winter knits lately. Here’s a little preview of the pieces I’ll be ordering from the AW collection.

Polo Ralph Lauren

I already talked about this on insta but the styling at the Polo Ralph Lauren presentation was perfectly evocative of the kind of low-key collegiate eccentricity we indulged in at Edinburgh uni circa 2007 (complete with unbrushed hair for weeks on end). Loved.

The Pursuit of BEAUTY

I had a rare and much-appreciated glam-team situation assigned to me before the Louis Vuitton show which allowed for a much-anticipated foray into my “wet” hair look fantasy. It turns out that first thing in the morning, this can look like you just jumped out of the shower. Still, I enjoyed it.

Thanks Ben Talbott for the hair dreams and Tobi Henney for the cute face. Would that they were with me every morning!

I also had an excellent hair morning with Nathan Di Natale, who was making a guest-star appearance at David Mallet. I’m sure you’ve heard about this Paris salon but I have to say the hype is merited here too (plus I would go just to see the ostrich!)

Moutain-Top Fairydust Inspo

The big shows of the season that reframed my personal aesthetic viewpoint the most, whether I was physically present at them or not, were as follows:

Tom Ford

What in the name of outrageously sexy precision is this? I, perhaps naively, was not expecting something quite so exceptional from Haider Ackerman at TF. Shame on me, eating my hat etc.

Also, this skirt. THIS SKIRT. Be still my rain-weathered heart.

Dries Van Noten

Always a passion but particularly this season. Julian Klausner just gets better and better at filling Dries’s giant boots. Had a similar youthful, well-travelled, higgledy-piggledy coming-of-age vibes to Polo RL. (The elevated kind you can still channel at any age.)

Prada (all of it)

A thrilling study in layering from two of the greatest living experts on the subject. Mrs Prada should give lectures on onion dressing. I’d pay good money.

As for the Pressure-Cooker Twins: Let’s preface this with I think both Matthieu Blazy at Chanel and Jonathan Anderson at Dior are doing incredibly well at putting their modern marks on both fabled houses. Big revivals officially activated on both sides (and with legs: just look at the reported Chanel boutique sales once the Americans hit town —wowzers.) However, my two cents:

Chanel I loved almost everything —and Blazy’s custom Oscars gown for Jessie Buckley inspired by Grace Kelly was off-the-charts — but there was one part of the Chanel runway I couldn’t get my head around. And it was the way-too-dropped waist skirts that reminded me of my daughter when she’s just used the potty and is so excited to keep playing a game she doesn’t pull her skirt back up properly. You know which ones I mean.

Dior I think Anderson puts his best foot forward with his simplest looks for Dior. Plus, lily pads are the perfect humour-laden palette cleanser.

*Top Secret Furniture Bonus*

My design guru Dan Thawley (of Matter and Shape fame) set me up to see collector Philippe Menager’s showroom in the basement of a parking lot in my neighbourhood. When I say I couldn’t believe this was here. Rare mid-c-modern fans rejoice/ contact @PhillipeMenager for a private visit (almost everything’s for sale!)

And there you have it, the woman I’m shaping up as for fall/winter ‘26. Not so far from the one I am now, just a tiny bit older and (therefore?) zhuzhier.

But on Thursday I was in Milan for 24-hours of fashion (and sadly not enough pasta), and kept having to ask The Robot where to get an egg or a coffee around the random edges of town in which I found myself. This made me wish I had a Milanese friend. (I do have a Roman friend, so life could be worse.) Didn’t stay long enough to organise a dinner with fellow visitors, but would’ve needed tips for that too.

Now it strikes me I may be helpful in this regard for the flustered fashion crowd descending on Paris this week — bienvenue.

So here’s a shortlist of places, both chilled and fancy, to book last minute that aren’t Hotel Costes. (Excuse the rare industry-focused newsletter but all this obviously applies to people coming here for reasons other than Fashion Week, quelle idée!)

Honestly, I am always astounded by fashion brands’ capacity to host dinners you leave feeling absolutely starving. Contrary to popular belief, we want actual food. Here are some ideas of where to book now…

(Paid Subscribers can also write to me in the chat section for last-minute ideas!)

Read more

[TOP SHELF, FROM LEFT:]

There’s something rotten in the state of Utah

As a kid in Canada, milk was just this thing a milkman dropped off in a bag. No one questioned it. We slurped it at the bottom of cereal bowls; in cups. My mom was way ahead of the curve when she started buying cartons of skimmed for her coffee.

Now, thanks largely to an outlier Kennedy with bad fashion sense and an alleged worm in his brain (yes, I’m looking at RFK Jr.,) raw milk has become such a hot topic that it may finally be the scandal that brings down Ballerina Farm’s empire. Well, that and possibly Claire Caro Burke’s upcoming novel Yesteryear. But more on that later.

What now, Monica? Well… here’s the gist.

Ballerina Farm, the homestead brand run by Hannah Neeleman and her family, has built a cult following selling a back-to-the-land fantasy: sourdough starters, prairie dresses, choreographed children, and increasingly, old-fashioned dairy. Raw milk (the unpasteurized, straight-from-the-cow kind) has become a kind of purity badge in certain wellness and trad-life circles. It signals distrust of “industrial” food systems and a longing for a simpler, pre-regulation America.

Enter RFK Jr., who has been publicly enthusiastic about raw milk for years, framing pasteurization and federal dairy regulation as examples of government overreach. His broader brand: skepticism of public-health institutions, romanticizing “natural” immunity, questioning modern food systems, dovetails with the raw milk revival. The problem, of course, is that pasteurization exists for a reason: unpasteurized milk can carry pathogens like E. coli, salmonella, and listeria, which is why its sale is restricted or tightly regulated in many states.

So when Ballerina Farm leaned into raw milk aesthetics (and reportedly expanded its dairy operations in ways that drew scrutiny) critics began connecting dots. Was this wholesome agrarian content… or a lifestyle funnel normalizing fringe health politics? In a moment when Kennedy’s views are under a brighter spotlight, even a mason jar of milk starts to look ideological.

In other words: what was once a niche crunchy choice has curdled into culture war. Udder madness!

There’s something seductive about Tavares 1922

(TOP CENTER AND BOTTOM LEFT)

I am a complete sucker for a brand with history, which will explain my newfound obsession with the Tavares 1922 homeware section since my insanely elegant friend Pirrie introduced me to this Portuguese family business.

Picture me, just for example, ladling a soup I have probably not made myself with the Tavares utensil at the top centre of my cabinet above. Or serving eggs in the contraption centre-row left. I can’t explain my attraction to these pieces and to be clear will probably never buy a luxury egg holder but do I want them? Yes.

Martin Parr’s current exhibition at Jeu de Pomme

The late British photogrpaher’s current major show at Jeu de Paume Paris until May is a sweeping retrospective of his images over five decades, presenting his saturated, iconic ironic snapshots, from crowded beaches and supermarkets to tourist hordes and techno-saturated scenes as a vivid critical portrait of modern life and its excesses. “Are we enjoying modern life” they seem to ask, “or just performing it?” They’re also just really cool to stare at.

[MIDDLE SHELF]

Violette Fr’s ‘Feather Matt Lip Whip’ appears to have solved my lipstick problems forever.

I am committed to a red lip, especially in the evening and especially in the winter: the perfect antidote to drab, slightly greening skin that has forgotten what vitamin D feels like. And yet. How are you meant to keep a bold red lip from going topsy turvy while eating dinner? Violette has the solution and I am a total convert.

American Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette

This weekend’s weather was conveniently horrible, which gave me the perfect excuse to binge the first three episodes of Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, now streaming on FX and Hulu.

I’m not as mad at the fashion as I thought I’d be. After early social-media backlash to the initial stills (fans called the aesthetic “cheap,” including Carolyn Bessette’s actual colorist) Ryan Murphy’s team apparently went back to the drawing board. Aesthetically, Sarah Pidgeon, who plays CBK, is now believable, and she doesn’t play her half-badly. Then again, did we the public ever really know CBK? As in, her actual personality? Who are we to say this wasn’t it?

The pacing feels slow at times, and the romance scenes hover at Bridgerton-level cheese but what do you expect from a series titled Love Story?

The real bee in my bonnet after Episode 3 is Naomi Watts’ portrayal of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Especially as Watts is the most established actor in the series. Jackie is depicted in her later years as a half-drunk, chain-smoking widow obsessed with her son’s love life. I have trouble buying this. Jackie was by most accounts far sharper and more serious than this wet portrayal allows. The real Jackie navigated the most intense public pressures imaginable, not just with style, but with strategic intelligence.

The show’s Jackie is frankly kind of insulting, especially knowing that this branch of the Kennedy clan is reportedly not thrilled about the production capitalizing on their family tragedies. (Jack Schlossberg publicly asked that Ryan Murphy at least send some proceeds to the Kennedy Foundation.) But as always, the public thinks it owns this family in every way imaginable.

With all due respect to CBK, whose memory has informed countless outfit choices for yours truly over the decades, the real hero of this generation of Kennedy tragedy is, to me, John Jr.’s sister, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg. Played gracefully in the series by Meryl Streep’s daughter Grace Gummer.

Maybe it’s because my own adored sister-in-law is named Caroline, or because I’m more at Caroline’s stage in life in the show and therefore more able to relate to her character, but it got me thinking about these two Caros’ relationship — or lack thereof. There are very few photos of them together, not for lack of public attention, but apparently because the two were never particularly close, moving in different worlds even within the same family. (Camille Perrier’s book L’autre Madame Kennedy gives some interesting insight for French readers).

So yes. To me Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg is the real all-round icon. Her intelligence, quiet steadiness, and strength have carried her through enormous challenges, including the assassination of her father; death of her mother from cancer with paparazzi swarming; death of her brother in the dreaded plane crash that also killed Carolyn; and now the heartbreaking death of her 35-year-old daughter Tatiana in December. Beyond personal resilience, she has built an impressive career as a lawyer, author, diplomat and public servant, championing education, philanthropy, and diplomacy. And she doesn’t just quietly endure, she speaks up when it matters, as she did during the RFK Jr. confirmation hearings. She has lived the Kennedy legacy with enduring integrity and grace truly worthy of admiration.

I’m thinking of her as she takes over raising her daughter’s small children, and I can’t help but hope the show isn’t causing her new anguish.

Should we go back to Tamagotchis?

Speaking of the 90s I’ve found myself considering Tamagotchis for the first time since ‘95. Unlike tablets and streaming platforms designed to hold attention for as long as humanly possible, a Tamagotchi is gloriously limited. It does not autoplay. It does not recommend. It does not glow with the promise of “just one more.” It beeps, it waits, it demands a small act of care —then it stops.

Obviously books first, but if screens are ultimately unavoidable, are these strange little critters the ideal compromise? For kids, the containment is the point. The interaction is brief and purposeful: feed it, clean it, check on it before school. It introduces the rhythm of responsibility without the vortex of content. Neglect it and it wilts; tend to it and it thrives. No ads either. Maybe it’ll inspire them to tidy their rooms.

BOTTOM SHELF:

Claire Caro Burke’s Yesteryear

I haven’t been able to get this wild novel out of my head since I tore through an advance reader copy a few weeks ago. It’s out in April, and early whispers are probably right: I think it’s going to be huge. But not necessarily because it’s flawless.

Here’s the setup: a social-media trad wife living on a perfect farm with her hapless-rich kid husband and their swarm of children (plus all the invisible nannies, producer and Insta-fairy dust that makes “simplicity” possible) wakes up one morning trapped in 1805. No sourdough starters. No ring lights. No escape hatch.

Early on, she calls herself “perfect at being alive” and this self-certainty collides spectacularly with the brutal realities of pre-modern life. The premise is high-concept, yes, and it demands a generous suspension of disbelief (even with a final plot twist). You may roll your eyes on occasion. But those moments let Burke’s dark humour shine through.

Plus, beneath the time-slip conceit, the novel asks a sharper question: how many of the cages women inhabit are inherited, and how many are enthusiastically self-constructed?

It’s impossible not to think of aspirational homestead empires like the aforementioned Ballerina Farm while reading —though Burke’s novel is very much its own satirical creation. Fiction, after all, is allowed to wander where “angry women” commentary can’t quite. (That’s what the narrator calls her critics: The Angry Women.)

Wickedly readable.

Share

Wuthering wondering

OK so I wrote this part before everyone else on the planet had already weighed in on Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights. But here it is anyway:

The first physical description of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights the novel (1847) is not subtle.

Mr Lockwood observes:

“A dark-skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman…”

That’s page one.

By Chapter 4, Nelly Dean is recalling the child Mr Earnshaw brought home from Liverpool — filthy, black-haired, speaking “gibberish that nobody could understand.” Earnshaw shrugs and speculates he might be:

“a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway.”

Brontë does not clarify, She doubles down. Liverpool — one of the great ports of Britain’s slave-trading economy. And yet: no answer.

Scholars have been arguing about Heathcliff’s racial coding for decades. Is he colonial return? Romani? Irish? Symbolically Gothic rather than literally racial? What most agree on is this: the ambiguity is deliberate.

Heathcliff’s “otherness” is not an aesthetic flourish. It is the engine of the novel. It explains his degradation. It justifies the household’s cruelty. It curdles into revenge. It poisons the next generation.

He is never allowed to belong — and that is the point.

So it is… a choice… to cast Jacob Elordi.

Let me be clear: Elordi is magnetic. The camera loves him. I am not protesting two hours of sexually charged scenes between him and Robbie. But Heathcliff is not meant to be comfortably desirable!

He is meant to unsettle; to destabilise lineage. To feel like a threat to bloodlines and property. Like a subtler, less-murderous version of Barry Keegan’s character in Emerald Fennell’s last hit, Saltburn, actually. He is the figure onto whom 19th-century England could project its anxieties about empire, race, class, and contamination.

Actually, lots of British toffs are still pretty scared of arrivistes today. Not because they’re all a bunch of basic racists: because of this inherited old-fashion queasiness drummed into them about intruders trying to steal their country piles, titles and what have you. Hence why I thought Saltburn kind of actually kinda worked before spinning into OTTness.

Anyway, back to Heathcliff: when you cast one of the most recognisable, commercially bankable young actors of his generation (who happens to be white), you don’t reinterpret that tension. You erase it. Mystery becomes marketing, ambiguity becomes aesthetic, and something dangerous in the novel goes soft.

No, not everything is about race. Or empire. Or inheritance. But Wuthering Heights the novel absolutely is. In 1847, in a Britain still in the aftershocks of slavery, a 27-year-old Emily Brontë wrote a novel about ownership: of land, bodies, children and names. She created a character whose very origin destabilises the idea of English purity. Two centuries later, we’ve given him a jawline and a press tour.

The film is highly entertaining and aesthetically thrilling though.

And the Lintons’ house decor reads like a metaphor unto itself: the abject vulgarity of marrying strictly for money. Plus the sex scenes are committed. The audience (myself included) showed up: it was a full house on opening night in Paris.

But if we love Wuthering Heights, I dunno, maybe we should feel at least a flicker of discomfort watching Heathcliff made safe. Brontë wrote him to be “a problem” for the other characters and in so doing created a compelling critique of her own time.

Still, again: worth seeing for the clothes and bonking.

JW Anderson clogs

Last but not least, having sworn off clogs since I left summer camp (no shade to Birkenstock) I suddenly felt a physical urge to put these on at the JW showroom the other day. Spring summer version here. Only Jonathan Anderson could make me go garden gnome.

Share

So you want to write something interesting on the internet. With your own brain. How quaint.

Before you embark on your “journey,” here are some common mistakes to swerve at all costs.

I see you love fashion. Sweet! Enjoy. But please, don’t write about fashion unless you want to wind up poor and potentially uninvited to any fashion shows you may have been on the wait list for. Fashion is for looking at, not reading about. Words wrinkle silk. Have you heard of Instagram? Or Substack Notes?

If you must write about fashion, make sure it is full of praise.

Don’t write about something too long and complicated. No one has that attention span anymore and anyway, Substack will gently inform you that you’ve exceeded “ideal email length.” This is its way of saying: honey, no one cares about your too-thoroughly developed idea.

But don’t write something too short. The customer must get their money’s worth.

Don’t write about sex, you silly perv. There are sensitive nuns about the place.

Dear writer, do not under any circumstances attempt poetry. There are already enough unpublished geniuses pacing their kitchens at midnight.

Try to avoid writing too much about “culture.” You are sure to sound pretentious.

Avoid also writing your best material. Lest some unwitting publisher decide to let you write a book one day, only for you to sit down to write it and find there is no ink left in your nib; only air left in your cranium. You poured your finest sentences into the algorithmic sea and now the well is dry. You wasted your best material on the vortex and will be condemned to content creator status for eternity.

Don’t write about politics or controversies with any sort of nuance whatsoever. Listen carefully now: if you consider both sides of the argument, it will only make the people on either side hate you for even bothering to consider the argument of the other side. Traitor.

Actually, best avoid writing about politics at all*. No one wants to receive an angry direct message reading, “Unsubscribing! You just had to write about politics didn’t you.”

*Unless you are a card-carrying, self-proclaimed “political journalist,” in which case pick a side and stick to it forever or risk public tar and feathering.

Same goes for international conflicts. Tell me, writer, why are you so depressing?

Do not under any circumstances use diereses. This is not The New Yorker. You are not a Brontë. Get ahold of yourself.

but don’t try 2 write too gen z either we know how old u r lmao.

And for godsake do not ever use an em dash. Overuse, or for that matter, misuse, commas, proving your humanity at all costs.

Now that all that’s out of the way, one more word of advice: don’t even consider including a photo where clothing, objects, books, or any other potentially acquirable item is not credited in the caption with a direct, live shopping link. What do you think you’re here for anyway? Your lofty ambitions are in direct opposition to your capitalistic potential.

Now add the links.

You are not above commerce. You are inside it.

At least you’ll make a cut. You can pay the babysitter again next week.

And churn out another.

Share

“Why would you want to look rich when you could look interesting? I don’t want to look like a kept wife, I want to look like a member of the literati.”

[I promise this was said tongue-in-cheek, and yet it somehow landed. For context: she was giving quiet luxury its final send-off.]

“I want a closet that looks like it was built through years of travel. I want pieces that, when people ask where they’re from, you just say ‘it’s vintage, sorry!’”

This has been looping in my brain every time I open my closet. Why? Because I feel exactly the same way — with one small add-on. I don’t just want my wardrobe to look like it was built through years of travel. I want it to actually be.

Rather than going for pure, unbridled luxury (boring, show-off, snooze), or blindly following trends, or sticking to any restrictive style code or tribe, this ethos leans more toward the subtle clothes as armour persuasion. But without the cringe.

It’s using one’s past lives — or past iterations of oneself — as adornment. Who was I in 2016 when I acquired a black velvet jacket that still makes me feel, dare I say, mysterious? Who was I in 2019, travelling through Brazil on honeymoon, when I bought that Haight swimsuit? I don’t know exactly, but I must have learned something while being her. And she clearly had okay taste, because it still looks decent on a body seven years older and two kids later. (Bikinis are deeply important in Rio in that they regularly sub as tops while walking down the street.)

My past lives are with me. Or better yet — where vintage is concerned — the past lives of others. May their spirit give me strength during school drop-off.

Whenever I visit anywhere — a nutty bohemian shop in Portugal, a vintage store in Milan, a cashmere mill in Scotland, a flea market in Muskoka — I find myself wanting to bring one thing back. Something that feels aesthetically representative of the place, or the lifestyle of its residents, or just the life I briefly led there. Then comes the real challenge: integrating it into my general Paris wardrobe without it looking forced.

This, I think, is the essential defining factor of an eclectic wardrobe. The same goes for interiors, when you think about it. I’m pro elevated clutter — the kind that drives true minimalists mad and remains eternally seductive to me (see my desk above lol.)

There are, however, pitfalls to swerve while dressing this way. It’s very easy to miss eclectic and land squarely in poser territory (I say this from experience). There’s also a fine line between well-travelled (read: interested in others, and interesting) and straight-up cultural appropriation. One must obviously tread lightly with other cultures’ traditional dress — and for the love of God, no total looks.

It’s also alarmingly easy to veer into kindergartener-playing-dress-up, or worse, try-hard Victorian goth wannabe. (There can only be one Tish Weinstock.)

In Portugal the other day I became suddenly desperate to buy a velvet housecoat — the kind you could theoretically wear to a louche party. I allowed myself to be talked out of it and regretted it almost instantly, but we were on our way to the airport and there was no turning back.

I once read a David Sedaris essay about taking weeks-long trips to Tokyo with his equally bonkers sister Amy for the sole purpose of shopping. Odd, but I kind of get it — and hope to do the same with my own sister one day (okay, fine, plus some tourism).

The funny thing is that at home I’m not even close to a shopaholic (RIP Sophie Kinsella). I’m very set on French wardrobe building-block essentials. But when I either A) enter a great vintage store or B) travel, I suddenly become… grabby. Right now, for example, I’m in Canada and am struck by an obsession with buying Roots camp socks and Province of Canada lumberjack shirts.

To be clear, what I’m describing is not haphazard, over-accessorised “boho” (there can only be one Sienna Miller). It’s more like: a Victorian detail. Something slightly dark or goth. Something ironically Little House on the Prairie. Something Western. Something equestrian, in its purest form. Something purposefully… out of place. Ever-so-slightly off. The kind of thing that makes someone bitchy and basic wonder (and maybe even ask) why on earth you wore that — and maybe even sends them spiralling into a brief internal identity crisis.

I haven’t entirely mastered this aesthetic (it’s a lifelong project), but I’m proud to say my current star wardrobe item is a vintage Kenzo Mao-collar top in red corduroy that I found at Skat Vintage. It fits freakishly well. I often wonder about its first owner, quietly thanking her.

The essence of my ideal wardrobe? I’d liken it to a face you can’t stop looking at because its minor flaws are entirely to its advantage. My favourite outfits on others always have something just a teeny-tiny bit weird about them. I think because, ultimately, they signal that the wearer has a rich interior life — and doesn’t give a fuck what you think.

Here’s a stream-of-consciousness list of women I reckon possess this elusive style quality, which I jotted down after a glass of wine on my flight to Toronto the other day (buckle up)….

Donna Tartt (look at those cufflinks!)

Look at these Prada cufflinks Amuse Bouche just shared actually. Prada menswear ss26 but I’m stealing this whole getup.

My friend Chaimaa

My friend the author Emma Knight

My Gran casually whipping out the vintage Dior kit until the day she died. The woman bought like one piece of clothing every five years, if that. Dunno what her dry cleaning secret was and it’s too late to find out, but the whole thing was impressive.

Zoe Kravitz.

People with gap teeth they don’t fix.

People who have the same haircut forever, as they age.

Rama Duwaji I feel like goes in this general category of dresser, even though a friend and I recently had a heated argument about it. Discuss.

I already went on about Tina Chow a few weeks ago but Tina Chow.

90s Winona Ryder

Weirdly Gwyneth kind of had this vibe in the 90s too?

My friend Sandrine, where is she getting these cardigans?

Pirrie does the whole thing brilliantly but the extra-fancy way (respect!)

Jackie Kennedy from the 70s onward.

Alexa Chung and this is exactly why she stands out from the other fashion ITs.

Zadie Smith.

Hard to define, as you can see. Let’s just say, the woman in question has fashion sense that evokes all the other stuff she’s been seeing and doing, without looking pretentious.

Ambitious! But isn’t ambition what January’s all about?

Share

Oh and for Your Woman in Paris subscribers, here’s where I’ve been hankering after such items lately…

Read more

This week, while the world has been pondering whether the rules-based order of the postwar West even exists anymore, we’ve also landed in a prime calendar moment for doubling down on our own, much more domestic, checks and balances.

January has that effect. The urge to reset is strong; the stamina, less so. Trying to reinvent one’s entire life is a fool’s errand, but a few minor tweaks can feel genuinely restorative — especially after Christmas holidays with kids.

Here’s where I am attempting to establish some semblance or order…

Let’s start with outfits:

Because if you feel snappy without exhausting yourself, it’s easier to go forth and conquer.

I’m putting the one-tone trick to good use.

(As a teen, I made relentless fun of my mom for this. “Mom, you cannot wear an entire Bordeaux outfit — gloves and earmuffs included.” She was like: why? It’s cute.)

Reader, she was right.

I write to you now in an entirely navy ensemble, en route to London for a very quick day trip. It was the easiest packing job ever. Everything goes with everything, and any mix-and-match is chic enough for a meeting or dinner.

Some of my best-dressed male friends swear by this too — navy or black layers, instantly dignified, minimal effort. It works just as well with greys, and even reds (my mother would insist I mention this).

Black on black on black is the easiest for lazy fancy, take it from every Parisian ever. (See the outdoor version of black on black on black in the first photo above).

Here we actually have an all -green tones vibe which I think works at cosy push.

In one’s “routine”:

For me, this means having a locked-in work routine to fall back on.

There may be something else going on — something urgent you need to get to — totally fine. But if not, you always do X.

For me, it’s writing every single morning. Even if I don’t use what I write, it makes me feel like my life is in semi-order.

I truly have no idea what I’m doing, but my only advice to writers is this: get it all down while the creative energy is there. Edit later. The energy required for self-editing is different — less creative, more elusive.

Also: I’m genuinely trying to read an actual physical book at bedtime. This involves surgically detaching my hand from my phone (sometimes by leaving it plugged in in the kitchen).

Oh, and this:

Currently enjoying the new book from Tom Holland & Dominic Sandbrook of ‘The Rest is History’. I also did a Monsplain zoom-in on one of my favourite morally unhinged novels on Instagram yesterday, if you’re interested.

Navel Gazing: The Bod

Before Christmas, I was crying to a chiropractor about neck and upper-back pain. She was like: Monica, you are already doing the thing that will fix this — you’re just not doing it enough.

One reformer Pilates combo class a week, when you “have time,” is not going to fix horrific posture.

Three will. Guaranteed.

Okay, I’ve only done two so far this week. But I already feel less schlumpy. Could be placebo.

Also (don’t laugh): Dear Husband and I have instituted a rule of not drinking at home. We weren’t getting wasted after bedtime, but a glass of red does take the edge off negotiations, and it’s a nice part of dinner for two.

As Frank Sinatra said: “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink — when they wake up in the morning, that’s the best they’ll feel all day.”

He had a point. But it’s a slippery slope, so long live only-mildly-damp Jan and here’s to feeling best in the AM. At least for now.

In slumbers

Way hay and up she rises — early in the morning — having had approximately one to two hours of real sleep, with Spotify’s “Pink Noise Sleepy Waves” blasting next to her left ear.

Yes, I’m getting personal. A very clever writer friend once warned me against turning Substack into a diary. Good advice. I try to remember it.

I’ve also avoided this topic because I don’t want to embarrass my husband, with whom — unlike a reported 50% of the population — I have an excellent relationship during waking hours.

But it occurs to me, as I lay awake at 4am, that maybe I’m not the only one in my current, highly-specific sleep-deprived predicament. And anyway, when there’s an issue at hand, one must write to know what one’s thinking. Or as another great female writer once said, EVERYTHING IS COPY (?)

I don’t know if it is, but get this. When my husband sleeps, the handsome, dignified man I know and love transforms into a living fog horn. Or, if he has even a faint cold: a dying wombat. I don’t know what a dying wombat sounds like this is how I imagine the tenor of the beast’s last breaths as they reverberate. And it’s enough to drive a sane woman utterly batshit.

We spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping, ideally. Adults are generally recommended 7-9 hours sleep per night, and 8, by my calculation, is one third of 24. Over decades, that adds up to roughly 25-30 years of sleep in a long life.

The CDC describes sleep as essential for health, emotional well-being and daily performance, with clear links to heart health, metabolism, memory, attention and mood. National Institutes of Health researchers note that that good sleep helps the brain clear out toxins and supports immune function in the same way a kidney filters waste. A process that can only happen during sleep.

NIH sources also explain that sleep deficiency significantly increases risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, poor immune function and mood disorders like depression and impaired decision making. There’s also growing scientific evidence linking poor sleep to Alzheimer’s risk and dementia. A recent NIH study found that losing just one night of sleep led to measurable increases in beta-amyloid, a protein that clumps into plaques in brain’s affected by Alzheimer’s in regions vulnerable to the disease.

Given there is some Alzheimer’s in my family —and given that I generally don’t want to walk around being a huge bitch to everyone I meet on account of cumulated fatigue —I recently decided to insist that Dear Husband do something about this problem of ours.

Why do I say “ours” when he is the physical source of it? Well, because it’s not technically his fault. That’s the horrible thing about a snoring partner —you hate them for it and then hate yourself for hating them.

The dude wakes up from a night of auditory bulldozing, stretches and gives me a hug and a smile. Lo, I love him again.

I wake up when my three-year-old boy has a night terror (apparently this is common in male children around this age? Never happened with Mia),or, when his snoring becomes so loud it rips me from my slumbers. To be fair, my husband wakes up with the kids too, and deals with midnight issues regularly, but I hear everything. Once I’m awake, with the horn next to me, there’s no going back —unless I’m seriously high on sleeping pills (also an Alzheimer’s risk, so we’re done with those.)

There are nights of musical beds, where after being woken by Arthur’s night terror, of Marc’s snoring I wander round the house like a zombie looking for a place to sleep (Mia’s sleepover pull-out mattress?, the “nanny trundle” in Arthur’s room? The sofa?) undoubtedly disturbing everyone in the process.

There are the old French male doctors who assure Marc that the isn’t the worst snorer they’ve ever seen, he doesn’t have Sleep Apnea and that cutting down on cigarettes and working out more will do trick. It almost certainly won’t, and these guys are my real enemies in this whole ordeal.

I do not want us to sleep apart (why does the concept traditionally carry such shame, when back in the day, the very chicest people did this?)

But I now realise I have no choice. Besides, you can always visit!

So 2026 is the year I am taking sleep into my own hands.

I’m off to buy a bunk bed so the kids can sleep in the same room, and I’m taking Arthur’s room (and yes, I do realise the luxury I have of this being an option.)

Any bunk bed recs welcome. (Or snoring solutions —we’ve tried everything but hope springs eternal.) Sometimes rather than simply complain, you gotta negotiate with reality.

Great Outdoors

Before I go, we should briefly discuss what to wear in the snow, because I am apparently the resident Canadian in Paris.

I love snow and the cold evidently never bothered me anyway.

Paris in the snow is both beautiful and hilarious — people skiing down Montmartre, hitchhiking to work because every mode of transport has collapsed. Rare camaraderie..

In fact, I wrote a whole newsletter about what to wear in peak winter in the city two years ago. It’s here.

People seem very concerned about footwear so here’s what I procured for the Paris girlies WhatsApp group. They were like ooh lala quelle efficacité. Yeah.

When it first started snowing this week I broke out these guys: waterproof, grippy, comfortable and room for some double-sockage.

But then it melted a tad, froze and snowed again! Never-before-seen scenes in Paris. It was time to break out my trusty JCrews, normally reserved for Canada visits / apres ski adventures. Fluffy lining, comfortable, and functional-chic in my opinion.

Inspired, my friend Alexandra went for these, to which I gave my wholehearted approval.

Share

Anyway, before that, I wanted to leave you with a little snippet of “light up the room” inspo for New Year’s sartorial choices. Possibly as a reward for getting through my newsletter last week. If you’re one of then ten people who read whole thing, I both commend and thank you.

The Apple doesn’t fall far..

I was impressed by Apple Martin’s choice to pull out her mom Gwyneth Paltrow’s iconic black archival Calvin Klein dress the other day…

Nearly 30 years ago, Gwyneth wore it to the 1996 NYC premiere of Emma with an exceptionally well-executed smoky-eye and wavy bun.

The whole exercise proving that where cool-mother-daughter duos are concerned thou shalt both a borrower and a lender be.

This got me thinking about whose old party looks I’d like to steal (other than my own mother’s/ grandmother’s) and I then realised I had a collection of relevant screenshots saved in my phone. So thought I’d share them before quitting town. Many of these are astoundingly easy to imitate in time for New Year’s Eve — nepo kid or not. Actually, they’d make for some pretty epic entrances at Christmas dinner too. All you need is a good vintage shop, or a glam Gran’s closet, and a healthy dose of imagination…

Candice Bergen in an embellished jacket and jewellery is an image I keep thinking about this time of year. Break out some costume jewellery, grab your faux fur, slick your hair back and you’re laughing.

Forgive the photo-quality of this next one, but someone showed me a double-page spread in my in-laws’ family album the other day, wherein there was a photo of my first dinner with them. Underneath the photo of me was scrawled “first sighting of Monica!” which warmed the heart to no end. But I was distracted by this nearby photo of Aunt Valerie in her going-out top (complete with old school champagne coupe) circa 2009. Obsessed.

Moving swiftly along. As I said, the right accessory definitely a fancy party-look maketh. And no one, and I mean no one, knew how to accessorise like Bianca Jagger.

Throw a slightly mad hat/ headband on a simple black jacket look and you’re festive as anything.

I feel like I could make a headband like the below. Could be a good holiday activity with Mia actually.

I’m not suggesting this last one for NYE per se, I just can’t resist adding it.

Maybe for a wedding? Or fashion funeral? Idk.

OK. So I know I’ve shared this literal image of Kate at Cannes with Johnny before in this newsletter but I just love how unique her 90s red carpet style was. Also, Cannes is obviously in May but I see this vintage house coat as a pretty perfect New Years’ look, depending where you’re celebrating. Again, hair pulled back in a bun, add some red lipstick and you’re the chicest, least-fussiest glamazon in the room.

Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan in Jack Clayton’s Great Gatsby (1974) definitely deserves a spot in here too. Trying to work out if I’d wear a hat like this.

I definitely would’ve as a flapper girl in the 20s. But I reckon I would today too, if the right occasion arose.

Lee Radz has her place here too, no doubt. When in doubt, go head-to-toe sparkles for NYE (at any age I should add!)

Tina Chow (right) via Sofia Coppola agrees:

Also, I love Lee’s take on the Mandarin jacket. Excellent array currently at Rohe, as I’ve mentioned.

Speaking of the immortal Bouvier sisters, you can never go wrong with a white shirt and black jacket with fabulous layered jewels, as on Jackie here in the 1970s. I’ll be adding vintage cufflinks to mine this Christmas (have my size XS men’s shirt ready and waiting).

Or, why don’t you…

…Steal your look from Diana Vreeland via Matthieu Blazy’s tribute at Chanel’s Metiers d’Art show in the NYC subway a few weeks ago? So easily imitated. SO effective.

Or, if you’re in Palm Beach or Marrakech something, here's the summery version I accidentally preempted six months ago, which, as you may remember, was met with mixed reviews by my family members. No matter.

Cheers, m’dears!

See you in 2026.

Share

Is Ghosting Ever Appropriate in Business?

Important distinction right off the bat: ghosting is not simply not responding to an enquiry. God knows many of us have no choice but to pretend we didn’t see certain emails (particularly now that many are robots posing as interested parties), and even where those typed by real human beings are concerned, sometimes it’s necessary to show you aren’t interested / simply don’t have time by not engaging at all.

What I’m talking about here is once you’ve engaged in the first place. Going hot, then cold. Or freezing. I notice this practice more and more, and find myself horrified if I realise I’ve accidentally partaken in it myself.

Not to be a goodie two shoes (let he without sin cast the first stone) but I will say this. Whether I’ve done it by accident or not, when I realise I’ve ghosted, I do force myself to write back to the person sooner or later, be it on email or WhatsApp or Insta, and say something along the lines of “I am so sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I know I had originally expressed interest but it’s not going to be possible this time for X or X reason (likely a combination of X, Y and Z random factors.)”

I try to be as honest as possible without revealing anything too too intimate (or bodily function-related.)

Call me old fashioned (or Canadian), but I think once you’ve engaged with someone’s idea — whatever the context — it is only fair to be clear about why you’re backing out of it.

But maybe I am way off the mark. I asked a few savvy friends doing well in a variety of different lines of work for their takes on this. For obvious reasons, keeping the home crew anonymous this time.

Friend A:

“Maybe the instantaneousness of communication has made us all fucked about boundaries. Because there was a built in boundary with the lag time of [snail] mail. I find the etiquette around timing replies tricky. If you answer too soon you risk seeming keener than you actually might be…but if I delay I risk forgetting forever.”

Friend B:

“I think personal ghosting is appalling but professional ghosting is permissible under certain circumstances, principally, when someone whom you’e never met and with whom you have no previous relationship isn’t taking the polite hint that you don’t have time to read their latest creative whatever it is/ meet them for coffee. If you’ve said (or implied) “no” once, and your correspondent continues to insist, all bets are off.”

Friend C:

“I mean, I am the queen of ghosting people in a business context. If I see the person IRL I say a quick hi then leave or go straight elsewhere without having to properly speak to them […] I even ghost people I’ve been exchanging with. I just do it super politely.”

Your take in the comment section if you please, and thank you!

The Call is Coming from Inside The (White) House

The Vanity Fair confessions of one of President Trump’s (former?) closet political allies, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, have got me down a trick-mirror rabbit hole.

Her literal job is to manage White House staff and communications during the term Trump is currently serving. A chief of staff is usually known to speak particularly cautiously, so her blunt assessments — Trump “has an alcoholic’s personality”; JD Vance has “been a conspiracy theorist for decades”; Elon Musk is “an odd, odd bird”; and particularly Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein — acknowledging Trump is indeed in the Epstein files, but as part of his larger social scene, not doing “anything awful […] they were young, single playboys together” — is just wild.

Oh wait there’s also Venezuela “keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle”.

I mean…. ?

The White House’s response has been all damage control (which I guess would normally be lead by Wiles herself). But it begs the questions —did Wiles do this on purpose or did VF journalist Chris Whipple just feed her shots of truth serum before the interview. And, if all this was calculated on Wiles’s part, what exactly was her goal?

Controlling the narrative? Internal power dynamics are exposed?The usual media script is completely disrupted? Even the most combustible topic out there (Epstein) is touched on and not in a way that is remotely flattering to the President.

This wasn’t a leaked memo. She sat for 11 interviews over months with Whipple.
Rather than denying specific remarks, Wiles and the White House attacked the framing and selective quotation —a tacit acknowledgement that the quotes are real.

What gives? She has got to be some sort of defector…right? Right??

Wonder if she’s being ghosted by her whole staff currently.

What makes a hero?

I was moved to full-on tears by this report in the Guardian on Australian hero Ahmed al Ahmed’s hometown near Idlib, Syria. Here’s an extract:

“Ahmed’s own home still stands abandoned and broken. The roof is filled with holes and the walls, the ones that are still standing, have holes punched out of them by projectile fire. The house is surrounded by broken building supplies and waste.

It is perhaps the town’s experience with indiscriminate violence which has made Ahmed’s bravery so inspiring. His experience in the army, where he was a conscripted police officer according to his uncle, might have given him the experience needed to disarm the attacker.

‘When he attacked the assailant and took the weapon from him as the attacker was firing at a group – he did not distinguish between them, whether they were Syrians or Arabs or Jews or Christians,’ his uncle says. ‘This was a heroic act driven by humanity.’”

You know who else is a legend? J Law.

Whole interview here.

Speaking of Hollywood: What’s Nick Reiner’s attorney in it for?

I am the child of two lawyers (who I have no plans to murder whatsoever). I state this only insofar as it is relevant to my fascination with criminal lawyers’ decisions to defend the high-profile, highly indefensible.

Not from a career perspective — I totally get why Alan Jackson, who is largely regarded as one of (if not the) top US criminal defence attorneys (got Kevin Spacey’s charges dropped; Karen Read acquitted for murder; played a prominent role in Harvey Weinstein’s defence team in his LA trial), would want to gain further reputational status via this huge and horrifying case. But the how is a moral one.

It’s highly unlikely that Nick Reiner’s family is paying for his defence. High-profile criminal defence attorneys like Jackson usually have clients or backers who can afford their substantial fees. Given the Reiner family’s wealth, it’s plausible that Nick has access to funds separate from the family estate — though given reporting on the extent to which his parents were keeping a close eye on him, it doesn’t sound like they’d have been granting him willy-nilly access to a trust fund, surely?

In very high-profile cases like this one, wealthy defendants sometimes set up legal defence funds or have private backers who contribute to legal costs. These backers could be friends, associates, or professional networks who want to ensure the defendant gets a strong legal team — but again, who in LA is setting this up for the screwball rich kid — sad as his drug struggle and mental disorder may be — who just stabbed his own parents to death in their own home?

Again: what gives?

Your thoughts please.

And to end on a lighter note, happy Jane Austen’s 250th birthday to all those who celebrate:

Highly recommend rewatching Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility (1995) (available on Amazon Prime), featuring the most stacked cast of Brit-cinema legends ever: Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant (my forever crush — aging like fine, grumpy wine), Alan Rickman (RIP!) and Imelda Staunton. Heaven.

Thompson is the perfect Elena Dashwood, and the dialogue is remarkable, unsurprisingly, given it is a glorious combination of Austen’s wit, and that of Emma Thompson herself, who also wrote the film’s screen play (in thirties), for which she went on to win the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay.

Thompson reflected on the novel in honour of the Austen anniversary the other day:

“By a Lady.” Austen’s identity as the writer of her novels was only revealed posthumously by her brother Henry, after Jane died at 41 (of what historians and physicians now believe was Addison’s disease).

Henry’s reveal was quiet, strategic, and hugely consequential — more a careful unveiling of his sister’s identity than a dramatic announcement. After her death, Austen’s family decided to publish her final novel, Northanger Abbey (a gem!), together with Persuasion. For the first time, the books didn’t appear as “By a Lady.” Instead, in December 1817, the title page read: “By the author of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park and Emma.”

In 1818, Henry — not only Jane’s brother but her literary advocate — added a short “Biographical Notice of the Author.” In it, he named Jane for the first time, gave readers a brief account of her life and character, and emphasised her modesty, domesticity, and moral respectability (important for a woman writer’s reputation at the time). In doing so, he shaped the myth of Austen as quiet, retiring, and unambitious, downplaying her professional drive, sharp wit, and literary ambition.

That image helped protect her reputation — but while protective and understandable for its moment, it wasn’t fully fair. The traits he described were real, but so was Jane’s professional ambition: she revised obsessively, tracked sales, negotiated (through Henry), and cared about reception. Her intellectual sharpness and love of satire were ever-present (as any reader can glean from her novels), as was her authorial confidence. Jane Austen knew what she was doing.

In her own life, Jane rejected at least one financially advantageous marriage and held strong opinions about class, morality, and gender.

Which brings me to the thing I can never get over (just to add to Thompson’s lovely BBC speech above, and the other snippets you can find on Radio 4): what I can never get over is how long generations of humans read Jane Austen — where her main points about gender relations and the effective enslavement of otherwise educated women as pawns, wives, and baby-makers are unmissable if you pay any attention to the dialogue — without implementing any of the changes she was nimbly suggesting.

Much is made of Margaret Atwood’s prophet-like status. I do not dispute this. But let us remember that Austen, too, or perhaps even more so, was lightyears ahead of her time.

Anywho. Merry Everything!

Love, a lady x

It’s hard to explain my love of hotels. I guess it’s that in the right hotel I always feel like I’m in some sort of novel, or movie. Actually, in a bad hotel too, just a seedier and/or horror movie.

Horrors indeed! For I’ve realised there’s a gaping hole in my promise to keep you abreast of all the “must-knows” before alighting at Roissy. So here’s a little shortlist of the best little (and GIANT) hotels around Paris. With the obvious caveat that like in New York, most hotel rooms in this city are smaller than you think, and cost more.

Still, these, in my view, are worth their weight in euros.

Read more

They’ve installed themselves in their little chairs after attempting to breach the fortress. “We’re still sleeping, go play!” my husband hollered from bed as they tiptoed in giggling. Foiled! So they went and got out their materials. This is new and still rare for us, and feels like a whole new universe unfolding.

Now I’m up and watching their squiggles and circles: delicate, though the larger project feels ferocious. Their forearms glide with such purpose; a sort of frantic intention, their eyes glued to their white sheets, their left hands planted on them for stability. I’m still at the door but they haven’t noticed me yet, so I watch my three- and four-and-a-half-year-olds’ repetitive motions. A head pops up for a quick scan of the basket of pencil crayons, right hands grab for a new colour, then back to their sheets.

Finally they look up at one another, smile, and hold up their drawings across the table.

Now I’m not saying my kid is some kind of genius, but Mia’s mermaids are remarkably detailed. The aqua-life theme began after she watched The Little Mermaid for the first time. The forms were there — the tails, the pointy bikini tops, the long hair. But over the past few weeks, she’s added scales to their tails and movement too: their long hair trails behind them in the sea as if… well, as long hair would in the sea. I could cry a sea of tears, but I just approach her for a hug and say WOW and point out my favourite details.

Arthur’s drawings are peculiar, circular overlapping scribbles. “Gribouillages,” as the French — with their flair for onomatopoeia — call it. He doesn’t notice, or if he does, it doesn’t bother him in the slightest. He somehow knows when his picture is finished, and points out details too: “This is an orange hippopotamus, see Mum-mum?” I approach for a hug and say WOW and point out my favourite details.

I am proud of Mia’s apparent abilities but equally impressed by Arthur’s approach. He loves drawing with total passion and disregard for the fact that he has no idea how to draw yet. The very concept of image reproduction hasn’t entered his mental remit. Still, it’s all in the process for him: the careful selection of colours, the application of them, the reproduction, as it were, of what he sees in his mind. Maybe this is how he sees a hippopotamus after all. He is carefree but focused, and draws as often as Mia.

What a gift to so enjoy a small artistic action untethered to any set of standards. I remember a conversation I had with my sister the other day about her knitting.

Emma Ainley Stern hardly comes off as a knitter at first glance. A former investment banker, she launched Felix Health in 2019 with her co-founder Kyle, to offer immediate, discreet online health services for common yet stigmatised conditions. Since then, my sister’s startup has expanded its offerings to include mental health support, menopause symptom treatment, weight-loss management, and more. She’s singularly set on making sure every woman in every remote corner of Canada has access to birth control should she desire it. This autumn, she and Kyle secured a (casual!) 53 million from the Canadian Business Growth Fund and other investors. Oh, and she recently got a personal shout-out from Prime Minister Mark Carney. Yet under the table on any given strategy Zoom, Emma busies her hands with needles and yarn.

I ask her why, exactly. “Well, because… it is something you can completely control and can give you a huge sense of accomplishment,” she tells me. “You create something very tangible and physical. Which is a good feeling when you have a job like mine.”

Since creating Felix, Emma has also crafted a lifetime’s worth of personalised baby bonnets, scarves, and even grown-up cardis. “If you aren’t super creative — like an artist or a painter or a poet or something — then it’s a nice middle ground, because you can create something lovely but you are following a pattern.”

It seems my agent, too, is a hobbyist. By day, Delphine negotiates for a worldwide network of Instagram it-girls (and a couple intense nerds, like me), frequently jetting from London to Los Angeles to Ari Gold the daylights out of fashion’s dilly dalliers. But by night, she is up crafting handmade notebooks by candlelight. “I think, in a way, it’s that I like to make things that are both pretty and useful,” she tells me. “I like to make the things I will gift.” Her crafting process is both delicate and repetitive, and apparently brings something equally profound to their maker as to their lucky recipients.

Once I start digging, it turns out there are unlikely hobbyists all around me: Tagwalk founder Alexandra Van Houtte is, it seems, deep into embroidery and needlepoint. “Needling and embroidering force me to concentrate so precisely on something that I cannot possibly be thinking of anything else,” she explains over dinner. “It means that I can let go, and also achieve something that gives me gratification without having to be on my phone, on my email, discussing, talking… it’s very therapeutic.”

Sometimes there’s an unfair stigma around hobbyists: eccentric middle-class retirees biding their time. Yet the hobbyists I’ve uncovered are hardly ladies of leisure. On the contrary, they’re the busiest, most impressively type-A people I know.

Come to think of it, my mother-in-law is also a devoted hobbyist. After working as a primary school teacher and raising four children of her own (none of whom are in jail), Anne currently devotes much of her time to children’s charity, whilst taking a remarkably hands-on approach to her seven grandchildren (she takes all of them to the country during school holidays sans nanny — apparently the twelve- and eight-year-olds help babysit the younger ones?) We can hardly believe our good fortune.

Still, when she does finally get an hour to herself, it’s my MiL’s calligraphy table that calls, somewhat urgently, given she is now asked by everyone she knows to create their wedding invitations, place settings, etc. She doesn’t charge though. She’s in it for the love of the game. Plus, even if they didn’t ask, it strikes me she’d be sat at her little antique desk routing her lovely inky letters anyway.

“I would receive beautiful calligraphy invitations and admire them for years, then one day I thought to myself, ‘Why don’t I give it a try?’” she recalls. “I signed up for some classes. I’d spend three hours trying to do the perfect, satisfying ‘a’ that anchors you in the present moment — that trendy concept of ‘mindfulness’. All that remains is the beauty of the gesture and of the materials (paper, stamps, etc.).”

I ask what exactly the draw is for her. “It’s about calm, concentration, and high standards (it’s rare to be truly happy with the result). I would have loved to be a monk in the Middle Ages and spend all day doing calligraphy.”

I start wondering if I have a hobby — or should. Writing, I love, and were I fortunate enough to be a monk in the Middle Ages, I’d surely pass my title scribbling prose. Still, today, I am financially remunerated for my writing, however little, which in 2025 is such a fortunate feat I count as one of my proudest and/or luckiest achievements (tysm for subscribing). This does, however, negate the possibility of calling writing my hobby.

Because your hobby can’t be your job. It can be related to your job perhaps — an extension of it — but once you’re directly earning bread and paying babysitters to assure a room of one’s own with it, can it really be a hobby? The chains of financial dependence are wholly incongruous with the “calm, concentrated freedom” and in turn simple satisfaction of the hobbyist.

Research and health publications have long highlighted the positive effects lifelong hobbies have on the ageing brain. A 2023 international study by University College London followed 93,263 adults aged 65 or older from 16 countries and found that those who engaged in hobbies long-term reported fewer depressive symptoms, higher levels of happiness, better self-rated health, and greater life satisfaction over a 4- to 8-year follow-up period. After controlling for factors like income, marital status, and employment, the associations remained consistent across countries, suggesting hobby participation contributes positively to mental wellbeing even across different cultures and social contexts.

I’ve lately come across a plethora of Gen Z Substackers lamenting the status of their Internet-fed generation’s mental health and stagnant ambition. These writers — some of them brilliant — bemoan the aggressivity of the digital world and forced comparisons with other human beings from the moment they wake up. They lament the very embarras de choix that made social media the great democratiser in the first place: in an online world, anything is possible, therefore nothing is.

I can understand their depression. They’re in their late teens and early twenties but statistically don’t drink, or screw — they don’t even meet people IRL. There’s no designated meeting place: the pub we all knew we’d be at without making plans at Edinburgh uni, the cinema complex we’d all gather in even if we didn’t have movie tickets when I was a high schooler in Toronto. They don’t have a designated meeting place because that place is meant to be the internet. The artifice feels heavy at best, soul-sucking when I really imagine it.

While I feel their pain viscerally, I thank God for having brought me into a world without internet. When you can remember life without it, it still feels like another world, not the world. Still, most of us millennials could use offline hobbies too. If only just for a few minutes a day to recenter; to break the spell. Who among us wouldn’t benefit from some Arthur-style, process-not-product achievements? I certainly could.

I look up knitting materials but quickly realise I have no interest in making bonnets whatsoever. I don’t like board games. I do crosswords occasionally but mainly just to try to preemptively ward off Alzheimer’s (also linked in studies, btw).

Then I remember my church choir in Toronto. I grew up a card-carrying chorister under a booming woman called Melva who formed young voices with an iron conducting rod. We were to sing in British accents exclusively, though we didn’t have them. “STOP,” she’d burst, red-faced, in the middle of a hymn. “SILENCE!” She’d whip her hand shut, clasping her raised thumbs to her forefingers. “It’s ‘sahhh-lve reh-ginah ’ not ‘sayylvay reginuh.’ AGAIN. VOWEL MOUTHS WIDE THIS TIME.”

We learned to sight-read music. To enunciate, to project, to match pitch. The joy was in the repetition and the eventual conquering of tiny missteps. To this day I can sing (and harmonise) every classic Anglican tune in The Hymnal by heart.

It turns out I can sing other things too. Once you can match pitch, you don’t suddenly forget how. I have a verbal memory, so lyrics come flooding back. To Oasis songs I heard on the radio in the nineties. Stevie Nicks’ smoky rhythms, Danielle Haim’s blend-heavy harmonies, Notorious B.I.G.’s cheeky rhymes — I’ve found the dusty old music box in the attic of my mind and gingerly opened it to find nothing has changed inside. In fact, someone has been filling it with music sheets without me noticing for decades.

So I sing again. Just by myself, once the kids are at school and I’ve slipped into my little home office, before writing to you here or opening my emails. Luckily the neighbour downstairs is half-deaf (he kindly reminds me often, when I apologise for the kids’ noise).

I will listen to a song carefully, read the lyrics once or twice, and try to reproduce it. I make lots of mistakes, but when I get it right the achievement somehow feels more exhilarating than any work-related triumph.

I’ll never sing professionally. In fact I’ll probably never share my hobby with anyone other than my kids, who I sing to at bedtime at their behest, and my husband, who for all his apparent Parisian grumpiness, says he likes when I sing in the car. I’m glad. But there’s no chance they’re enjoying it as much as I am, and I guess that’s the whole point.

Gather round the hearth of flailing consumerism and let me recount my new system for deciding what my close friends and relatives want, nay., need for Christmukkah: identify their current or long-term neuroses and work from there.

I shan’t be disclosing which members of my family and/or in-laws each of these gift ideas applies to. Though I’m sure they’ll all appreciate these character-specific gifts. Well, if not visibly appreciate in the moment, use faithfully for years to come while only resetting me a tiny bit.

Thoughtfulness runs deep people! If you recognise yourself here, know that I love you more than this newsletter could ever do justice to.

Also I’d be thrilled to receive any of these to be clear!

THE FORGETFUL WORRIER

Where are my keys? Where are my glasses!? Did I lock the front door?

French leather accessories brand Del’Ep, designed by the deeply elegant Sigrid de L’Epine (of Fashion Proust Questionnaire fame) has your favourite key-and-card-forgetter covered. The chicest leather keychains, card carriers and glasses cases I’ve ever seen, plus they all look great around the neck (just don’t get caught on a door handle!)

Make an elegant stocking-stuffing statement and give them all three!

THE TABLE-SETTING OBSESSIVE

For the person in your life who puts decorum over function every time, especially when it comes to table-setting. Not even a mustard jar allowed on the table and they’d rather not eat at all than see a water bottle —yes, even San Pellegrino! This individual is going to need a fancy Venetian water jug and The Oblist is on it (as always).

And perhaps a second set of cutlery for less formal settings? Love this tortoise shell set from Sabre Paris. Who says casual meals can’t be chic (just hide the ketchup!!)

THE NEVER-STOPS DECORATING DECORATOR

There are some people who spend their lives building out their idea of the perfect wardrobe (cough) and others who are more focused on constantly updating their living space. I have nothing but respect for those who can talk themselves into investing in furniture the whole family can enjoy for generations, rather than their own damn clothes (OK, Mia will be able to enjoy my coat collection in a few years, or at least that’s what I tell myself.)

Anyway, The Oblist, as I mentioned above, is an excellent place to start for home-improvement additions small and large, always with an artistic edge.

I’d recommend a piece from Astrid Houssin’s debut collection for any interiors lover.

For a smaller gift, interiors/jewellery lovers will be very impressed by this bijoux tray by the same designer.

THE INTIMIDATINGLY-PRECISE AESTHETE

Everyone’s been on about the The Row clips since these photos took the worldwide aesthetic web by storm…

So I am certainly not the first person to have located them, but here’s a reminder that there they remain, looking for good homes in good (long) hair. (It seems Preclothed sourced and curated them for The Row themselves). I don’t have long hair anymore so putting this out there strictly for the sake of public interest!

Or —and this one is more self-interested I admit —why not the prefect pair of vintage cufflinks? (Yes for a woman! What could be chicer. You just need a size XS men’s shirt with link holes and you’re laughing heartily while softly brushing your hair away from your face with an icy gin and tonic hand and oops did your cufflink just catch the glimmer of light off the Christmas tree? You smile, knowing you’re as powerful on the inside as you are chic on the outside, Happy Christmukkah, The End.)

THE WORKOUT NUT

I stopped doing flailing imprecise at-home situps after the pandemic on account of being a hazard to myself and others but apparently some still practice this.

They deserve both a medal and a yoga mat from The Ritz Paris cause how iconic. Or maybe this totem I mentioned last week.

Or, if you’d like to encourage them to leave the house for sweat sessions, just offer them a subscription to Reformation pilates in Paris, if you’re around these parts. The St Sulpice brand is heaven (well, as close to heaven as torture can get, you get me.)

THE ALWAYS-COLD LADY

She’s f-f-freezing and needs this knit ! Trust me. It’s crafted from pure wool by an esteemed Italian mill. And it’s oversized so she can put a thinner knit underneath while still looking cozy-chic.

THE ALWAYS COLD DUDE

He swims in a scuba suit. He heats his apartment like a sauna. And he needs a cute lil’ something something around his lil neck stat.

THE YEAR-ROUND ELF

Some people are just festive AF. They deserve these jeans.

Handy way to staying warm in the North Pole. Yes that is a Christmassy flannel lining, your eyes do not deceive you.

THE CAR NUT

Hermes “driving gloves”. Chic does not begin to describe it. Sexy even. Your car could be a broke down piece of crap —if you’ve got great driving gloves on, I’m yours.

By the way if you’re not looking to drop a grand on gloves (k fine) these Hackett sheepskin beauties are sure to get you at least a high five.

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO WON’T WEAR TROUSERS

Mia is in a dresses-and-skirts-only phase which was highly impractical until…

A skort. Genius. A winter skort she can wear with tights. Why didn’t I think of this earlier. Compromise! The art of the deal, etc.

THE LITTLE BOY WHO ONLY WANTS TO WEAR CLOTHES WITH ANIMALS

Arthur is berserkly obsessed with horsies. Polo RL to the rescue. Problem solved whilst swerving the dreaded graphic tee (ok some are cute but not everyday please.)

Easy morning routine = a gift to myself tbh.

THE “BON-VIVANT(E)”

Life may be like a box of chocolates but French chocolatiers Palomas are reassuringly, predictably delicious. Now waiting for you in their aesthetically pleasing boxes at The Bon Marche.

THE EVERYTHING-BUT-BUT-THE-KITCHEN-SINK MOM

I mean, what mom doesn’t need to carry a million things with her? Still, the pack-rat lifestyle needn't encroach upon her coolness.

In Paris, Call It By Your Name have dominated the weekend mom-bag space for a few years now (it is actually wild how many I see at our tennis club, there isn’t one mom who doesn’t have her paisley carry-all). Parisians going all-in on patterns and colour—a rare feat.

Now there’s an updated version … *with pockets*. Zillions of them. Compartmentalisation being the answer to work-mom-balance, this is a sure bet.

COMPULSIVE SELF-CARER

I’ve recently been slathering myself in Suzanne Kaufman’s Arnica Body Oil, perfect for dry winter skin (my body turns into cardboard as soon as our building’s ancient heating system gets turned on), and find it very comforting and hygge-ish after a hot bath on a cold evening. Arnica plant is a brilliant natural support for the skin’s metabolism, providing immediate comfort.

SK’s Nourishing Eye Cream not half bad either for dryness and fine lines. I put it on nightly before bed too and do a little eye-contour massage.

I am also still committed to my home LED mask and am pretty sure it’s making a differnce on my generally pale November demeanour. Plus the kids love running into the room while I’m using it, screaming at the top of their lungs, and running back out again. Hours of entertainment.

Or, if you’re in Paris look no further than a Teresa Savoie back massage. Bookings this way.

You can’t go wrong with a spectacularly relaxing and snatching kobido facial by Barbara Sand either.

Weekly Recs:

DINE

I am not always big on concept restaurants —if you’re dining with the right person, you shouldn’t need a bit but Atica proved me wrong this weekend. An imersive fine dining spot in the 5th, Atica blends food with art, technology and culture: every season or “act” celebrates a different region via audiovisual projections, scent and a tasting menu inspired by the region in question.

Luckily for me, just when a hint of snow that quickly vanished in Paris was making me feel a tad homesick, the current theme is the Great Canadian North: specifically, the tastes smells and generally crisp mood surrounding Quebec’s lifeblood, the Saint Laurence River. A great way to experience the great Canadian outdoors without freezing your butt off.

READ

I was deeply moved by Tatiana Schlossberg’s piece in The New Yorker revealing her terminal Leukaemia diagnosis. (Yes, she is Jack’s sister.) And yes, tragically, she is thirty-five.

The pain that her mother Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg (JFK and Jackie’s daughter) has experienced in her life is unfathomable. When will this family’s curse be lifted?

And no, it’s not that we should care more about a Kennedy than the millions of others affected by cancer, it’s that she has the platform to draw attention to it and encourage research funds, just as she has with the climate crisis. I wish The New Yorker would remove the paywall on this one, but it’s worth subscribing.

Then you you can also read more Lauren Collins!

LISTEN

You can hear Tatiana talking about her climate research and the tiny changes we can all make on the Goop podcast a few years back here.

I would also recommend Tina Brown on The interview if you missed it last weekend. I think she may just be my idol.

I am sure you’re already aware of Brown’s Substack ‘Fresh Hell’ but if not, it’s here.

Speak soon. x

This made me pause for a prissy little pout and couldn’t help but wonder moment. But but what? The brown-eyed among us will be aware of its perpetual advantages.

I looked this “no brown in town” thing up. It seems the rule came from traditional British menswear etiquette —specifically the more conservative dress codes of London’s financial circles in the late 19th and early 20th century. It mainly applied to gentlemen in the City of London and was essentially that brown shoes (and sometimes suits) were considered too casual and rustic; suitable for he countryside and not formal city business. Cue Obama’s beige suit furore. Alas, I thought he looked cute.

Of course today brown shoes (especially darker shades like chocolate or oxblood) are common even in formal business settings. I mean, synthetic drawstring pants and acrylic vampire nails are too, so it’s all relative. Still, in very traditional (mainly British) contexts (including some banks, law firms, or members’ clubs) it seems you might encounter older members who uphold this. Less in Paris, because “no brown in town” is laden with the sort of social awareness and class distinction only the Brits really go in for.

Still, snobbery aside, I will say I like the idea of maintaining a certain level of formality in clothes we wear for business interactions. The pandemic being long over.

But I also happen to believe brown is one of the warmest, most wearable colours, particularly from September to December in the Northern Hemisphere, where one blends into one’s outdoor surroundings delightfully. It reminds me of firewood. And chocolate. Hot chocolate! Whisky. Crunchy autumn leaves. Everything except the thing you’re thinking of, potty head. Roasted chestnuts. Chipmunks. A cedar cabin surrounded by snow. I’m your mommy inside the cabin in a night cap reading you Little Brown Bear. Gather round now.

Anyway yeah. Brown is ambiance-dressing for both low-key and smart occasions. Plus all browns go with all browns (and blacks, whites and beiges.) A speedy morning hack.

Here’s another take, compete with soviet spy-hat and some lush Viltier earrings because sometimes you feel like looking mysterious and fancy.

All this being said, I would never really have considered acquiring a brown evening gown until Loulou de Saison’s collection was right in front of me and it occurred to me that this silk dress could be a year-round go to for events, weddings etc, if only in the right hue. It’s also available in white and black but the brown spoke to me (and was admittedly more appropriate for theoretical weddings.) I am going to wear it to Xmas parties but also I reckon to some Tuscan nuptials this summer too.

By the way, my friend Adeline and I were hanging around drinking coffee in my living room the other day and decided to take these. Very lucky to have such an extra-talented pal.

Maybe a full-on brown sequin for a Christmas party?

Well lookie-here! Spotted in my coffee shop as I write . Oh to have a chocolate dog and delicious overcoat to match. Really want to ID the coat but the lady is very deep in convo. Now I’m getting distracted by someone else’s Prada bag in the foreground. Not sure I’d make a great spy after all.

Weekly Recs!
NEED:

…to say I told you so, re Jack Schlossberg running for congress.

(By the way if you are reading this and are editorially concerned I am dying to profile him.)

Also, my view is that regardless of one’s politics, or feelings on nepos, or… bears, or Jack’s nutty TikTok persona, it is a breath of fresh air to see thirty-somethings getting involved in politics full stop.

ALSO NEED:

At-home yoginis, design-heads and living room pilates aficionados will need this MiaFit totem as a Xmas gift.

Here’s my gorgeous friend @SandJo giving those detachable weights a go.

READ:

This highly depressing (though at parts hilarious) take on plastic surgery culture. At first I was like ok she’s getting way too worked up about this/ live and let live. By the end I was rattled to the core.

father_karine

The Anti-Cosmetic Surgery Essay Every Woman Should Read

Welp, another major female celebrity just copped herself a completely new face. That’s right, thirty-six year old Hollywood crone Emma Stone recently got her face snatched so tight that she’s now twinning with OG Iron Chef chairman Takeshi Kaga. Welcome to Kitchen Stadium: the special mystery ingredient on tonight’s episode is (the divine) feminine ins…

Read more

7 months ago · 2282 likes · 255 comments · father_karine

FOLLOW:

My new favourite vintage source @Shop_the_Story . Many more delectable browns where this cheeky number came from.

SHARE: my Substack pieces if you want and I’ll love you forever. Ta x

Share