Erstwhile Dear

At the ritzy parties on Nantucket there are always raw bars. That means a big old boat brimming with ice, with three salty salty old men (usually including one named Spanky) jabbing blunt knives into the shells and opening the oysters and clams right in front of you. Condiments like horseradish, cocktail sauce, lemons, and the deliciously named mignotte are on the side, old metal baskets sit below waiting for the shells. If I can casually break out of conversations, I station myself in front of the boat, and toss back as many as possible. They taste like the sea contained to me–salty, crisp, ineffably light. Loved this drawing on Joel Holland’s door, seen over on design*sponge.

Four years ago I was flying back from a semester in Italy and feeling gloriously confused in the limbo of euro to dollar slipnslide. I changed planes in Germany and decided to buy my sister’s “I was in Rome and all I got you was this ____” gift at the Frankfort airport. It was clear to me that it had to be a Hermès scarf, whichever one I could afford. Joanie and I would spend hours paging through Vogue, examining all the ads, and thinking about how we would never end up buy anything in that magazine. The deep pooling orange of Hermes signature branding (which Dana Thomas tells us was first chosen because Hermès couldn’t get another color in wartime France) had branded itself in my mind as the first step on the ladder into to the wonderful world of luxury goods.

I did buy a little triangle-cut beauty for her, which they wrapped up in an orange box tied with chocolate colored ribbon. A couple years later I bought one for myself. Satisfied with my new status in society, I saved the boxes and bags under my bed and tucked the scarf away for the perfect occasion. But the scarves, especially for we midwest girls, are difficult to remember to wear, much less wear creatively. So I think the new I Love My Scarf from Hermès is just awfully convincing. Scarf tying how-tos, international candid photos, remarkably edgy girls wearing remarkably conservative scarves—one quickly forgets these are $300+ pieces of silk we are talking about here. (discovered via the eloquent Cathy Horyn at the NYT.)

ps: Lonny has a new issue out online. Hooray!

ps2: Ever since I linked to that summer playlist, I’ve been working my way through all of the mixes on K.I.D. Collective. They’re so easy to listen to when online! Here’s the different mixes posted together.

Isn’t this girl just loving it? We will always love the careless dropped-tanktop-strap moment.

Photo by the Sartorialist.

& sick of hearing about me living on island, just look at that headline on the right, second from the top.

The wine tasting happened beautifully (photo above), even though it rained all evening and scared our regulars away. We sold lots of wine and the market started to feel like a cocktail party. It went so beautifully that we’re doing it again tonight! Wish everyone could come. Other new things are that I started using Tweetdeck because Kellyn told me to, and it’s really handy if you’re casually writing from several Twitter accounts at the same time (like I do sometimes with girlpolish and Madaketpenguin). I also finally learned that Man Shops Globe, the show about the corporate buyer for Anthropologie, a show which has made me pine for cable for the last six months, is available to buy on itunes! Downloaded, to say the least.

And I guess now it’s time to say: Happy August!

ps: If you’re not on Twitter, but thinking about it, follow me obviously, because I say about one interesting thing every two weeks, but most of all follow HelloBigFoot because it will brighten your day every time.