What It Feels Like To Want Something

And how to dress in the summer.

I wrote a few weeks ago about struggling to get dressed in the summer, and what I talked about there was a piece of it - I like clothes with structure, I don’t identify as boho, I like navy and menswear, and those things are WARM. But the more I think about it, it’s a little more than that.

So much of summer dressing has to do with nostalgia - it’s a moment to touch the girl you used to be, in your youth, and dip a toe back into the 90’s, or early 00’s, or whatever era it was when you felt the most awestruck with your own freedom and beauty, the color of tanned thighs and the smell of new jelly sandals. At my best, in the summer, I feel a little like I’m holding hands with myself in seventh grade. Of course, the 00’s and Y2K and everything is a big T Trend right now, and I guess I could try and steer my “summer persona” in a Scandi direction or be a tomato girl or #Hamptons any other TikTok trend, but unfortunately, I don’t think I have another persona - I just have this regular one.

On one level, this newsletter is about dressing with an eye towards the trends of my youth - summer dressing via nostalgia. Rachel Comey sheath dress, $365 (was $595) ; Matteau striped shirt, $300 ; Loewe bag, $2,400 ; Havianas flip flops, $26

The freedom of summer, the heat, the skin, the smell of hose water on hot concrete, it brings me back to my childhood, back to my teens, back to my twenties, and the longing I feel inside myself to be that girl again is just as strong as the pride I have in the woman I’ve grown up to be. I say this in parenting a lot, and in my life a lot, but but things can be true; I want to reconnect with that wild youth, AND, I know the life I’ve built might fall apart if I did.