I’m not a fan of the logos, but Kirsten Dunst’s diminutive Goyard suitcase is quite charming

Is there anything better than the perfectly good excuse of an impending holiday to show you guys some excellent overnight bags? I think probably not.

This extra-roomy Filson tote has a fun, unexpected shape, and is made of Japanese selvedge denim, which won’t get all dingy the way that regular canvas can.

I’m a sucker for a well-executed red, white, and blue combination.

Here is an ethnic print bag just like I like them best: in a nice, clean, uncomplicated shape.

I couldn’t not with this print, which is panthers and roses(!) and also with the price, which is $64.

• On the eve of Arrested Development‘s big comeback, a fond look back at Soap, the 1970s primetime satire of daytime dramas that paved its way. (Flavorwire)
• Who had any idea that during World War II, there was an American unit known as the Ghost Army? And that it was composed of creative types like artists and  set designers, whose job it was to stage the presence of troops—which they accomplished with inflatable Sherman tanks and the sound of soldiers projected out of 500-pound speakers—to throw the Nazis off course? Bill Blass was in the unit, and Ellsworth Kelly too. Nuts! (Smithsonian)
• This footage of a lady who survived the Oklahoma tornado discovering her dog underneath the wreckage of her home right in the middle of a TV interview is serious crybaby material. (Time)
• The French (and Japanese, Chinese, etc) have a word for a lot of really excellent situations and things. (Mental Floss)
• Behold! Racked New York’s new list of the top 38 indie boutiques in New York. (Racked New York)

And then, just because clean lines are nice, a smart little pencil skirt. I like this one because it’s a cotton/spandex mix, which allows for such essential activities as breathing.

This stylish lady had on a lightweight cropped leather jacket, which is a look I love, and the more lightweight the better: wear it unbuttoned  and just like you would a cardigan, with dresses or jeans or whatever, indoors or out, and it’s the chicest thing ever ever ever.

And then: THESE sandals, which I wish you could all have been there to see in person, because I fear that only their craziness comes through here, and not their stone cold crazy perfection.

First of all, can we take a moment to appreciate the work of feminine wonder that is the shirtwaist dress? An A-line is maybe the world’s only uniformly flattering skirt cut, and the waist cinches at exactly the spot where most of us are smallest. It’s styled a little prim here, but this is actually exactly the kind of easy dress a woman with a woman’s body can feel pretty all day in.

And the print! Mermaids!

Grey looks awful on me, but this super-lightweight, gauzy piece is so damn well put- together that I’m tempted to break my unilateral embargo on the hue and give it a go.

I spend a great deal of my outdoor time from June until September with a dog on his leash in one hand, and an iced cappuccino in the other. And when I look at the big expanse of white on this excellent silk jacket, all I see is a big fat dry cleaning bill waiting to happen. But that’s just me, and this is such a very chic little item. Certainly others of you could pull it off?

You’re just going to have to indulge me on this one.

I love Zara when they out-French the hipster French labels and do it for under $100.

AP

• It was a very productive weekend over in France, what with the government legalizing same sex marriage and all. (NY Times)
• Take a gander at this human-scale, 10,000 square foot Barbie Dream House, and wonder at  the many splendored pinkness of it all. (Daily Mail via The Frisky)
• How fantastically Portland is this cop, who interrupted his pursuit of a speeding car to help the family of ducks who’d interrupted his chase cross the road? (Time)
• “I have a suspicion—and hear me out, because this is a rough one—I have a suspicion that the definition of “crazy” in show business is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to fuck her anymore.”—Tina Fey, natch. Check out even more of her most memorable quotes here.
• The unlikely evolution of the creeper. (Threaded)

The whole idea of face oil as a cure-all has always seemed too counterintuitive to be true at best, and at worst, a hideous idea for anyone with sensitive, oily skin (like me, for instance). But lately I’ve grown increasingly tempted by argan oil, as it’s a main ingredient in my beloved and oft-raved about bronzer, and I’ve felt increasingly as though it’s had some nice, glowifying, effects on my skin that have nothing to do with its cosmetic properties. And so not long ago, after discovering I’d run out of my regular moisturizer, I took a wild chance* and patted on some  Josie Maran Argan Oil from a vial I’d received in a gift set. And you guys, it is the best: first off, it just in general seems to calm things down, like redness, and also those brown spots that nobody tells you to look forward to. In addition to which: I don’t feel like any product ever really delivered on the promise of dewiness until I tried this one. It’s also super-lightweight and absorbs fast. So consider me sold. Although the idea of a cleansing oil for one’s face still terrifies me impossibly.

*Because rule #1 of good skincare is that if you’ve got a perfectly good regimen going, don’t push it. Skin rewards consistency.

I like the idea of a signet ring, and I like the idea of wearing it on my pinky. Just like Prince Charles—with whom I share so very much else in common—does. The blankness this one, as well as its oblong shape, turn the whole enterprise kind of sculptural.

I am drawn to this tricked-out zodiac version, for reasons that are hard to fully articulate.

Remember how pretty French currency was, pre-Euro?

Yes, this would likely dwarf even the heftiest of pinkies. And it also exceeds the Girls of a Certain Age price limit. But I love a good cross bones, and this one is unstoppable.

A crafty, ethnic version.

Go full-on old school and get an engraved one from Tiffany. (Or check out Bauble Bar for a number of quite nice and very affordable engrave-able options, although you must scroll through all of the rings to find them, as a search on signet rings—oddly—surfaces nothing.)

• It’s always a good time to look at pretty vintage airline posters. (Voices of East Anglia)
• Definitely click on full screen to watch this footage shot from the top of Manhattan’s new tallest building, and prepare for some full-on vertigo. (Daily What)
• Don’t want to get raped, ladies? Hong Kong’s mayor has the simplest solution. (The Cut)
• The Brits sure have a lively way with an insult—here are the origins of a few favorites. (Mental Floss)
• What, you’ve never seen a gigantic billboard/fly strip before? (Adfreak)

If this isn’t the perfect summer tote, then I don’t know that such a thing exists: with its light-on-light canvas and exactly right leather details, it’s like the handbag equivalent of white jeans and a nice crisp shirt.

Andrea and me at a book party in 2008. In Los Angeles, a city that we have shopped the hell out of

My longtime friend (and sometime co-conspirator) Andrea Linett is an ideal shopping companion. She has endless stamina, is famously amusing, and has a great eye not only for what’s worth buying, but—perhaps more importantly—what’s worth leaving behind. We don’t get to see each other nearly as often as back when we were running a magazine together, but we still talk and text all the time. And have shopping excursions when we can,  occasionally running into former co-workers, who always look mildly shocked to see we’re still at it. On Sunday, Andrea and I made a date to visit Gargyle, a boutique way deep down on the Lower East Side that I’d never visited—and that shockingly, given that this is so much her turf that some neighborhood shopkeepers once nicknamed her The Mayor of Ludlow Street, neither had Andrea.

Gargyle is is a wee little store, but it is packed with wonder: flowy Mes Demoiselles dresses; sexy lace blouses from Lover that I would totally wear even though I am not a sexy lace blouse person;  their own rather beautiful line of bags; and more. I wasn’t sure how Andrea would feel about these snake print embossed leather platforms, but she thought they were as awesome as I did, so of course I not only bought them but wore them out of the store.  I am about a million per cent sure that at least one of you is going to insist they are awful and the very soul of clunk, but I am here to tell you that when you put them on, they are magic.

I do love a leopard print, but rarely on a bag: as with shoes, it almost invariably ends up looking cheap. This Wood Wood tote is a glorious exception, thanks to the excellent washed-out grey and black print.

Right down the street from Gargyle is Project No. 8, a spare, clean design store that displays its wares pristinely and thoughtfully, giving the art gallery treatment to, well, the same stuff that pretty much all of these places carry. Waxed canvas totes? Check. Artisanal soap from Brooklyn? Check. Hand-tooled wallets? Check. Apartamento magazine?  Present and accounted for.

Of course I am generalizing horribly. There’s plenty of beautiful stuff at Project No. 8, and it’s all quite carefully chosen, and this crystal bee tumbler is maybe one of the best things ever.

Then we moved along to Maryam Nassir Zadeh, a store I absolutely love even though I have never bought a thing there. The clothes are all expensive and esoteric, with shapes that are frequently complicated and far easier to pull off the closer you are to six feet tall.

For instance, I would not attempt this, but it is a wonder to behold.

My favorite thing at Maryam Nassir Zadeh are the shoes. I can’t even bear to look at these Robert Clergerie platforms.

And check out the heel on these gold Rochas slingbacks!

• Real people at the Freize Art Fair this past weekend looking suitably arty cool. (The Cut)
• Everything about this is awesome. (NY Times)
• This lineup of unnecessarily gendered products is just as amusing as it is crazypants. (Death and Taxes)
• Well, I can’t not link to the Arrested Development trailer. (HuffPo)
• Ben & Kate, we hardly knew ye: read all about the season’s bounty of cancelled TV shows here. (EW)

Big, fun Karen Walker sunglasses; worn by the incomparable Linda Rodin and shot by Ari Seth Cohen

Oops! A very early draft version of this was accidentally published over the weekend. Sorry about that, and please do try to pretend it never happened.

One particularly mean side effect of the migraines that have dogged me on and off for years now (and which are, knock wood, currently off) has been nuclear-level light sensitivity—the kind where the sun becomes a mortal enemy, and something to be avoided at all costs. Which is just exactly as awful as it sounds, multiplied by ten. At its worst, I lived like a vampire, working in an office that was retrofitted with blackout shades, and during my free time, obsessively checking the weather forecast for clouds. To shield my eyes on days when there was even the tiniest hint of light, I wore the most oversized sunglasses I could find, with lenses custom-tinted as inky-black as my optometrist would make them.

It was all quite hideously ironic—the longing for precipitation, the compulsive fear of getting “caught” in the sun—and like all hideously ironic situations, it led to more than few unintentionally quite comical moments. Like when I had a small health emergency —quite disorienting in the moment, but which turned out to be no big deal—and, as the paramedics readied me for departure to the hospital, I had the presence of mind to instruct a friend who’d come over to grab a few things I might need. Like the wallet with my insurance card, “And my Dior sunglasses! The Diors!” The paramedics, in what was surely a break from protocol, laughed out loud at me. And even I had to admit it was a pretty funny moment, if you didn’t know how totally funny it wasn’t.

My problems with light lingered for a few years after the headaches tapered off; it wasn’t until this winter that the dregs finally disappeared. And it has occurred to me lately that my recent (and aforementioned) affection for cheery, big sunglasses is probably somewhat related to this. For years, my sunglasses were as important a preventative step as any medication—aesthetics took a back seat (I even had to suspend my strict no-logo rule; if only these had existed then). But now I can have some fun, and fun I shall have. If I owned more than one pair of Karen Walker sunglasses, I’d say I was addicted, but at this stage in the game, I’ll just  say I’m addicted to the notion of buying more, and leave it at that. These are satisfyingly clunky—but just short of zanily so—and indestructible, and delightfully logo-free. (Similar, but with a bit little less drama and a far lower price tag: this pair from Madewell.)

Old habits die hard, and I must say I am still drawn to that which is big and black and clunky. But doesn’t the purple lens set these apart and make them look all 50s and spy-like?

White sunglasses are a bridge too far for me, but I’d totally go for this pinky, creamy—I don’t know, do we call that clamshell?—pair.

These are YSL, and to me they somewhat resemble the big-framed pair that the actual Yves Saint Laurent used to wear every day—in a nerd chic move before nerd chic was even a thing.

On the less splurge-tastic side of things, this Cheap Monday version of the classic Ray-Ban Clubmaster.

A cat eye all in black feels way too costumey retro, but somehow this  clear iteration feels like it could be quite chic.

It’s funny. There are some trends that strike me as so horribly wrong I can’t even get inside the head of the person they might appeal to. Mullet dresses are a little that way. And then there are others that seem equally awful, but then at some point the worm turns, and suddenly and inexplicably the repulsion is replaced by attraction. This is where I find myself vis a vis drop crotch pants—an article of clothing I would have said never to long ago if I hadn’t learned that one should never say never. Thoughts?

There are florals, and then there are florals. And then there are those so stunningly wrought that they’re like wearing a little fairy tale.