Yes it’s December so forgive me for quoting the “maybe” Mark Twain quip about the chill of San Francisco.
But my goodness the damp here is the kind of cold that seeps into your bones. I’ve never felt a colder 60 degrees than in the city by the bay.
Maybe you are thinking “doesn’t this lady live in Montana?” And you’d be right. My winter weather is typically 30 degrees of bright and sunny high altitude clear dry air. We get the occasional -40 weather but it’s a news event not the norm.
Rocky Mountain snow is so famously powdery and light thanks to those dry conditions. Snow piles up fast and high & melts even more quickly if you live in one of the valley cities like Bozeman and Boulder. We call it the solar snowblower.
I expected my trip to San Francisco to be much warmer than weather at home in Montana. I left behind quite a bit of snow. And it has been 60 and mostly sunny since I arrived in San Francisco. But somehow I’ve been absolutely freezing.
I have on two pairs of socks, leggings underneath my pants, a long sleeve shirt and a cashmere turtleneck on and I’m still chilly. I didn’t bring clothing for this kind of weather. Sure I brought a couple sweaters but I didn’t bring a winter coat. I thought a canvas trench coat would be adequate. Clearly I’ve learned my lesson.
I am usually a very dedicated Black Friday shopper. Once you’ve worked retail it’s hard to shop full price. Black Friday used to offer good value for many categories but now it’s a free for all of inconveniences and debatable deals.
I however grew up into an adult who budgeted carefully and “buy nothing” is a futile gesture when you only buy on sale. If you had any kind of specific taste it usually required some creativity to afford what you wanted even in the pre-inflationary world.
And here I am without my old budget pressures and I find there is just so little I want or need at the moment. I have the luxury of being able to buy nothing.
Classic only on sale Black Friday purchases like Uniqlo puffer coats or cosmetic sets are now no better priced today than any other day. I already purchased my specific serum’s & moisturizers and cashmere in other sales with similar savings.
Maybe I’ve finally become so prepared that moving off my typical re-ordering rhythm is just asking for trouble. I can get away with simplicity and repeat purchases.
Nothing on the market looks all that interesting. And I’m well stocked on underwear and socks. I guess I’m back to buy nothing day.
I am in Los Angeles for Thanksgiving week. I decided to get a pedicure yesterday. My logic was a larger city would provide better quality at better prices than I can get in Montana so I should make time to get it done here rather than at home.
Bozeman, despite being a college town that doubles as mountain resort town, has relatively limited options for cosmetic services at lower price points.
You can get traveling elite Yellowstone Club services quite easily. We’ve got top notch estheticians, massage therapists and even a tier one city dermatology practice.
But if you want a $30 basic pedicure you are shit out of luck. If appreciate the lower end of market price services and the value of regular cheaper grooming this isn’t Bozeman Montana isn’t ideal.
I have a little trouble with my spine so I appreciate being able to pay for help work task that involves so much bending over. I went on Google and Yelp for some shop triangulation. Being on the bougie West side of town meant locating a salon that was well rated but not fancy was a breeze.
What I did not expect to find was that nail salon had moved almost entirely to gel manicures. I don’t necessarily want that kind of long wear of a gel as it is harder on the nail bed and requires a fuss to get it off.
They only had a handful of regular colors as opposed to the giant wall of OPI or Essie. I picked the one basic pink which when applied I fear is best described as baby hooker pink.
It’s somewhere between a baby shower pink and a trashy mid-aughts white girl pastel attempting the era’s iconic milky Essie Ballet Slipper pink. I’d post a picture of my feet but that seems weird. Hopefully no one has cause to look at my feet as I’m a little embarrassed by the color.
I’m in Miami for the week to attend a gathering. October is as fine a time as any to visit what is otherwise a very humid and hot climate. I’d prefer midwinter but I’ll manage with late fall.
I went to eat lunch at a friend’s home. Even with fans and very breezy weather I could still feel the humidity doing battle with my body. Ancient trees covered in moss kept off the sun as best as they could.
Welcome to the jungle
And still even a little bit of movement is enough to trigger sweating in such a climate. Which just leads to itching and inflammation so I’m being careful to not get myself into much trouble. I’ve got my hats and sunglasses and sunscreen and I move slowly.
I understand why the whole town has a hospitality aesthetic that the done up in whites. Anything to keep the sun from overheating you and let the breezes flow.
Whites on white in our room
If you are in Miami let Alex or myself know. We have a conference that you may be attending as well so we’d love to overlap. I’ve proud some amusing outfits and all kinds of cosmetics I hope I have time to apply and enjoy.
Velvets, pinks, and prints for the adventurousness
I’ve written a few times about my interest in the right to repair. It’s not just a topic for computers or electronics. Many items can bring you lifelong joy.
Being in New York City I brought in a pair of boots for repair to the cobbler to the fashionistas Leather Spa. My Gucci knee high kitten heel black boots deserves every bit of love and care I can bestow on them. I’ve been wearing them for fifteen plus years now.
These boots are so representative of how I think of my wardrobe. A friend and I were discussing lists and the autistic love for ranking and context. I had once maintained a cost-per-wear sheet with the aim of only investing in pieces that would last a lifetime.
The Gucci boots I took in for repairs were acquired when I had an employee discount. Simple and without any logo to be seen, they retailed for $900 back then. I got them for $450.
To be seen through multiple decades by a boot is a reminder to prioritize the care and maintenance of what you already have. If you take good care of them they will take good care of you.
No offense to Stephen Sondheim’s Company, but I think ladies who lunch have been unfairly maligned culturally.
We are so quick to dismiss socializing as some superficial ritual. But social bonds are the way we maintain our civilization.
If you can make time to enjoy a long lunch with pleasant and diverting company, you possess a degree of richness that has little to do with personal wealth. It’s a richness of spirit.
Everything can acquire the social capital required to have a little lunch with friends. Being present and kind to one’s dining companions is a joy to be cherished.
Cherish those that would take time to share their company (and a meal) with you. Whether it’s a swanky restaurant, at someone’s home, or on at the office. Take a long lunch with someone who interests you.
The ladies who lunch understand the value of these social bonds to their community. Elaine Stritch would drink to that. And so should you and I.
I was doing some packaging preparation for fall travel and was pleased to discover that I’d finally appeared to have built out a basics wardrobe that actually mixed and matched well. A decent capsule wardrobe I bought I’d never achieve had come together after literally a decade of failed promises from startups.
There was an era of direct to consumer startups that promised quality and simplicity. A startup would launch with few basic but upscale stock keeping units (or SKUs) that promised they would be all you needed to own at a fair price point. This was alluring proposition for many early entrepreneurs including myself.
The premise was simple. Why would you want to add unnecessary complexity to tee-shirts, glasses, or toiletries when you could get something good without worrying if you were paying a markup for branding or retail margins?
The DTC boom has been largely looked at as failure as a movement for both consumers and businesses. With the benefit of hindsight, many of the businesses relied heavily on growth that couldn’t be achieved without either expanding your retail presence in stores or without giving up on providing simple basics.
As the zero percent interest rate era boomed, brands released constant new and novel SKUs to chase growth in every vertical from sneakers to lipstick. The goal of better prices and simpler products failed under the weight of driving growth at scale. Darlings became pariahs and founders sold to roll up private equity firms.
ZIRP ended as post pandemic era inflation demanded higher interest rates. We all complained bitterly about cost and quality of consumer goods in the aftermath.
And yet maybe we judged things too harshly. A chaotic decade of changing macroeconomic conditions were not easy to navigate. The growth required by venture and private equity were always going to conflict with a simple ethos of shopping.
But here I am with exactly what I wanted from my shopping choices at the start. I’ve got my quality basics merchandised in a simple way from brands I purchased from directly. In other news, the Everlane Barrel Pants are excellent.
The dream has many forms. Sometimes it’s a permanent move, often it’s about rushing for some type of upcoming unexpected travel like a flight change or worse an “evacuation emergency” like a fire or natural disaster.
My subconscious likes to chew on packing up crucial items and leaving. I moved a lot as a child. My father also valued traveling while my mother and siblings did not.
I assume some of these nightmares are a related to those experiences. Instability is a classic reaction formation process for a child seeking safety. And I’m now as an adult finding that safety to be in reach.
I have whole systems for managing the types of unexpected problems that crop up in modern travel like my three bag cascade. I’ve taken this activity that has had a negative valence for me and turned it into positive experiences.
My favorite item of clothing is a pair of cotton straight leg lounge pants from the Gap.
A light but body skimming 93% cotton to 7% elastane blend with a simple tie that never felt constrictive. It retailed for $29 and was sold under their “Love” which loosely merchandised with GapBody.
Gap Lounge Pant in Black
They were perfect. I bought two pairs every year and simply never worried about comfortable home wear. Which was a big deal as I had a few years of being quite sick so these pants were life savers.
And so I’ve set off on a mission to find out why these very popular pants have stopped being made. I’d happily purchase the pattern from the Gap if I could find the vendor for the fabric. I’d put my own money into acquiring it from the brand if they aren’t interested in booting it back up. I want these pants back in my life. I even went so fair as to email the VP of Merchandising at Gap Inc today. Maybe I’ll get lucky and she emails me back.
I apologize for the intrusion but I thought perhaps as the leader of merchandising at Gap you may be the executive who can answer a strange question.
What happened to the cotton Gap Lounge Pant?
They were the best lounge pants on the market. I bought them for over a decade. And they are simply gone. The product number is 539570
I very much want to buy more of them as they are my daily wear and I will pay whatever it takes to get more. And is there anything I can do to buy any remaining dead stock of it? Can I help your team make a case to to bring it back? Is it possible for me to acquire the pattern and fabric from the corporation so I can have them made myself?
The original culture and the commodification of the culture is a spectrum and the Tommy Hilfiger Event Horizon is infinite. Who makes culture, who money and who only brings money can be challenging to calculate.
The validation of something “cool” eventually reaches a point of opportunistic acceptance by those merely into a thing for the capital. Sometimes it’s social and sometimes literal currency.
These so called “sociopaths” who follow the momentum often do not realize that they are just in it to capitalize on cool. I don’t want to suggest anyone in a thing for money or cachet is a sociopath just that incentives for status are significant drivers for people.
Often we need the people in it for the money. It’s wonderful that angel investing exists and momentum investors have perfectly rational incentives. Sometimes you will even see significant self awareness about this. If you put resources into a community and don’t cause trouble you are often welcome.
Now you can refer to this type in startup investing as dumb money. The follow-on capital that is riding on the work of others who authentically believed before a thing was cool is a necessary part of the ecosystem.
I don’t at all mind when someone is a follower. You can be “a cringe follower late adopter” or whatever terminology we are now using to describe laggards in the adoption curve.
Unless you are a pain in the ass, actively predatory, or making your contribution more trouble than it’s worth, you should go ahead and lend your support if you can take the risk.
Don’t take it personally when hipsters sneer. They may have been earlier than you but it’s fine to back winners. Just don’t expect the founders to give you special dispensation for getting on board when it was safe to do so. It’s right that the alpha premium applies. I personally love it when not only am I right but I got paid more for the privilege.
