Amy Azzarito's Blog, page 3

Mommy and Me Matching Outfits: Where to Shop

My amazing coach, Allison Task, started me on the Mommy & Me matching outfit path, and to say I’ve embraced it, may be an understatement. I’ve put together a list of a few of my favorite places to shop. Finding clothes for Mommy & Baby can be a little challenging so I’ll add to this list as I come across new finds.

Rylee & Cru
This is the source of our awesome mechanic-looking jumpsuits above. Rylee & Cru is on the pricier yet cooler end of the Mommy & Me spectrum. It’s a little Mommy & Me, hipster style. The clothes are quite well made. The jumpsuits above are made of thick material and quite comfortable.

PatPat
PatPat is the Mommy & Me gateway drug because the clothes are pretty affordable. (You can dress for under $25). They even have matching shirts for Dad! You do have to dig a little to find the more stylish options — or maybe you’re like me, and just don’t care how fashion forward you are, if you’re matching your baby. My husband joined us in our matching Thanksgiving garb, but when I thought I may have misplaced the shirt on Thanksgiving morning, he wasn’t sad about it (unfortunately, for him, I found it.). Note: You definitely do get what you pay for, these are not the highest quality garments, but they are perfect for dipping your toe into the Mommy & Me world.

Ele Story
Ele Story is local here to San Francisco and this is not throw away fashion. I found matching dresses for Stella’s baptism here. They are beautifully well-made and of the fancy (tulle-wearing) mom variety. They are definitely pricier than PatPat but often have sales. (When I bought the baptism dress, I took advantage of a 50 percent off sale to buy first birthday dresses.)

Best of luck on your Mommy & Me journey. I’m going to ride this train until I’m shoved off. Until then…

Photos by Cristin More Photography

Setting Your Intention with an Inspiration Board

The first vision board that Mark and I made together.

When I was at Design*Sponge, we made a lot of vision boards. We even convinced a group of friends to spend our girls weekend away, making boards.

When Mark and I started dating, we made a vision board together. When I look at it now, I’m amazing at how much of it came true. The table in the middle looks like the tables at our outdoor wedding, and we’ve been to many of the places pictured on the board: Uganda, Italy, Japan. There’s something kind of special about making these boards. Something that helps you get clarity about what you want to do.

Here are the rules.
1. Go through all the magazines you can get your hands on and cut out any words or images that speak to you. Don’t analyze it too much, just go with you your gut. If you like it, cut it.
2. Be intentional in how you lay it out. Arrange the images and words in a way that makes sense to you.

(Grace also went through her process on Design*Sponge) When we did this on our girls’ weekend many years ago, we were all amazed at how different all of the board looked even though we were using the same magazines.

I had to drag the board out from my office into the living room to get good photo (it does not live in front of my books)

A couple of years ago, my stepdaughter mentioned that she really wanted a giant bulletin board to tack up photos of her friends. So for her birthday that year, I went to the lumberyard and bought the biggest piece of MDF that would fit into my car and spent an afternoon covering it with white fabric from Michael’s. After initially pinning a couple dozen of photos, the board languished. (Although, infuriatingly, she did tack up a bunch of things on the wall right next to the nearly empty board) When her living situation changed dictating that she spend less time here but the board remained. I decided to reclaim it and give it some love.

I spent a couple of weeks flipping through magazines to create this board. (I even tore pages out of my beloved World of Interiors.) There is a decidedly Italian bent to the images that I chose. We’re planning on taking Stella next fall and building her connection with the country so I’m sure that was in my mind as I cut. I’d like to take her to Africa one day so safari animals are a nod to that dream. But I also pulled Irish castles, Machu Picchu and a gray sea filled with seals. There are mirrors and urns and flatware. Random aristocratic portraits. Horses. I’m not sure how it will all manifest. I’ll have to wait.

Family and Jewelry in Venice

One of the best gifts my parents gave me was to travel with me and my sisters early. By the time I was ten, I had been to Israel twice, Egypt, England and Italy twice. It gave me such confidence in those middle school years where experience is the currency.  

My dad had forged a connection with an Italian cousin, Michella, a few years before on a solo visit. So on our family visit, we stayed at this cousin’s Rome apartment.  I still remember him pointing at the nameplates on the door. “See, here in Italy, they keep their maiden name. It says Azzarito, like us.”  Most of my memories of the trip are of playing with Michella’s daughter Silvia.

Me and my cousin Silvia in Rome in the 1980s

A much-more dignified version in 2017.

In 2017, when I was traveling to Italy to speak at a conference in Padua. I realized that I would be in close proximity to my cousin Silvia, who had moved to Venice for college and never left. After months of emailing, I got in touch and we made plans to meet. Instead of just hanging out for coffee as we had planned, we ended up spending nearly my whole visit together. I even checked out of my hotel early and spent the night at her apartment in the city.  

L’Angolo d’Oro in Venice

And I got, what is surely one of my favorite things, an insider tour. We walked around the city, talking little cafe breaks. (“It’s Procesco time, now!” I mean, seriously? Anything more charming?) And when I told Silvia of my burgeoning interest in Roman artifacts incorporated into jewelry, she marched me right to L’Angolo d’Oro. 

The shop is located at the foot of the Rialto Bridge, on a street where goldsmiths have been working for centuries. Goldsmith Enrico Simionato is a direct heir to this lineage — learning in the workshops of two Venetian goldsmiths who themselves had studied under Venetian masters. My favorites were those pieces that incorporated Roman artifacts

The coin was mounted in a way that it spun around so that to reveal both sides.

Enrico who explained what a challenging moment is was for luxury retailers. Once, Venice had been a shopping destination, but now much of the city’s tourism was of the cruise ship kind. Dock for a half a day and maybe purchase a cheap China-made trinket.

As I write this, Venice is going through another challenge. The city is under water, suffering some of the worst flooding in 50 years. The first plans to shore up the city were hatched at the same time as my first visit — 1984 — and they’ve been shrouded in controversy almost ever since. I’m hopeful that this 1200-year-old city will find a solution. It may sound trite: but a world without a Venice in it, isn’t one that I’d like to contemplate.

Roman Jewelry in Rome

A couple of summers ago, I spoke at a conference in Northern Italy, and then met Mark in Rome. We had a magical trip. We sipped coffee for hours on the rooftop of our hotel overlooking the Pantheon, wandered the streets until it was too hot and returned to our hotel for a siesta before a long, late dinner. (When we return next year with an infant, I’m sure it will follow that rhythm.)

On one of those late morning meandering, we visited the jeweler Massimo Maria Melis, whose small atelier is just around the corner from Piazza Navona. The 72-year-old Massimo had found his way to goldsmithing decades earlier via costume design studies. During that period, he spent time in museums and was drawn to ancient goldwork — the heft of the pieces, the tone of the gold. It was all quite different from modern goldwork. Massimo learned those antique techniques and eventually commissions from friends and family led to him opening up a shop for the public.

On this trip, I wanted to see this antique style goldwork first hand. The rosier color of Massimo’s gold —which glows rather than glitters — is the result of his own secret formula. It is an effort to get closer to the gold of Roman jewelry. Ancient jewelers usually worked with 24 carat (99.9% pure gold). That level of purity makes the gold too soft for modern life. So Massimo works with 21 carats — the closest he can get to the purity of ancient gold while maintaining the solidity that modern life demands.

My favorites of his pieces incorporate actual fragments of ancient Rome — coins or stones. There seems something a little magical about possessing a piece of ancient life. I didn’t purchase anything on this trip but I threw my obligatory coin in the Trevi Fountain so there’s always a next time.

But on our wedding day, I gifted Mark an ancient coin. This was a Byzantine coin — so part of the Roman empire. I found this coin on Etsy. The ‘M’ was an indicator of the domination (40 — also my age when we got married). Mark is more of a silver person than gold, so it was perfect for him. But I’m still leaving a place in my jewelry box for my own piece of antiquity.

Creating Holiday Magic with silver-plated knife rests

From the moment that having a baby was even a thought, I started looking forward to creating moments of magic in her childhood. And while I certainly hope to create those magic moments year-round, the holidays are particularly ripe for making special moments.

After Mark and I got married, I started looking around at flatware — thinking it would be nice to have a fresh set to commemorate our new union together. I spent hours down the internet flatware rabbit hole. Most of what I liked was so expensive that I found it hard to pull the trigger and make a commitment. So, I decided to go vintage. I already had some silver-plated flatware pieces and I found an entire set of twelve on eBay for less than what a single new set would have been.

And while I was looking at flatware, I stumbled upon silver-plated knife rests. (Cue the angel chorus.)

I had never really heard of or paid attention to knife rests. Apparently they were used in well-run households in 18th and 19th centuries. Plates were swapped out between courses, but diners were supposed to retain their knives. Good manners dictated that once you’ve used a utensil and it’s dirty, it shouldn’t be placed back on the table. (After all, most tables were covered with a white table cloth) The knife rests were neater than the practice of balancing knives on slices of bread. Modern knife rests came about in the late 17th or early 18th century, but they originally can be tied to the times of Henry VIII.

I have a wood table and almost never use a tablecloth so while the intended purpose of the knife rest isn’t applicable, I was utterly charmed by the animals. I loved the idea of Stella setting the table for family dinners and choosing who gets which animal. The ones that I ended up purchasing came from France (land of white tablecloths) I’ve found Etsy to be a fantastic resource for purchasing vintage finds from Europe. I purchased from two different sellers (here and here) and received my packages from France to California in less than a week.

And another historical side note: If you look closely, at the vintage knives you’ll notice that they have a very rounded ends. This is a distinguishing feature of the table knife. The origin of this dates back to the 1600s; it was supposedly to cure dinner guests of the unsavory habit of picking their teeth with their knife-points.  In 1669, King Louis XIV of France banned pointed knives in the street and at his table, insisting on blunt tips, in order to reduce violence.  If you can recall this when setting the table, it will help you remember to always place the blade of the knife towards your plate – and not towards your neighbor as a way to help to ‘keep the peace’.

Points to Know

You can put silver-plated flatware in the dishwasher. The general advice is to make sure the detergent doesn’t contain lemon or citric acid as that could damage the metal, but I’m pretty relaxed about this.

Polish or don’t: I polished my set just because it felt cleaner to me, but I don’t mind tarnished silver either. It’s up to you!

Coming March 2020!

The Elements of Home is available for preorder!

It took me six years, countless library visits and obscure Amazon purchases to complete. I find it amazing that the things in that fill our everyday were once the purview of kings. That historical knowledge gave me a renewed sense of appreciation for all the comforts of home.

I wrote this book for those, like me, who found themselves curious about why the sticks that don’t do any chopping are called ‘chopsticks’ or why we ‘hit the hay.’

It's Who You Know: Bonnemazou-Cambus

A French design-duo who have put a new spin on opening and closing the door. 

There's rarely been anything that I've been quite as obsessed with as the doorplates and handles by Bonnemazou-Cambus. I love that they took something that we touch everyday and made it special. To me, that is the essence of good design. Check out my full story over on Design Milk.