Leandra Medine's Blog, page 72

I Tested the Bejeezus Out of These Sleep-Inducing Vitamins

In partnership with SugarBear Sleep.

I am, simply put, a bad sleeper. It’s not for lack of interest—I love sleep. If humans took up hibernation, I’d be thrilled. If I could Rip Van Winkle my way to the year 2075, catching up on the sleep I’ve missed in my life thus far, I would do it. And to be clear, the bad sleeping is not for lack of trying either—I’ve experimented with every trick in the book, from regular exercise to enforcing caffeine cut-off times to limiting the amount of blue light I absorb before bed. (That said, sometimes my life undoes my best efforts.)

So when there was an opportunity to try out SugarBear Sleep Vitamins, my above-average hand shot right up. Composed of a mix of melatonin and other natural sleep aids, SugarBear Sleep gummies are designed to help you relax and float off into a peaceful sleep. (All while tasting like a fruit snack you’d voluntarily pop into your mouth even if you’re the type who snoozes soundly on the subway. Their proprietary “Rest Well Blend” includes lemon balm leaf, passion flower, valerian root, and 5-HTP. So: yum). I decided to not just try them but to spend the better part of a week really pitting them against some of my most counter-productive sleep practices to see how they held up. Which is totally fair game, because while the packaging is pretty and playful, the U.S.-made vegan gummies really are designed for people who have legitimate issues with sleep. Keep reading to learn more about my rigorous testing process, which, yes, involved watching my favorite murder-related programs.

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Friday

What I did wrong: I mean, basically everything. (TGIF?) But, most notably, I drank an entire pot of coffee, blowing past my “no caffeine past 3 pm rule” straight through to happy hour.

Since I woke up at 6 am to benevolently welcome my brother after a red-eye from L.A., I thought I had a pretty strong natural reserve of exhaustion to call upon, but it ended up failing me in the end. The day felt like a constant battle between feeling exhausted and over-caffeinated. I woke up at 6:00 am, drank a lot of coffee, ran some errands, started to work, took a nap that wasn’t a nap, and kept drinking coffee till 5 pm. My body was not pleased and neither was my mind. I felt like I was underwater for most of the day, but when it came time to go to bed, I felt strangely wired (maybe it was…all that coffee?) so took a few gummies to see if they’d help. After remarking on their tastiness and forcing them upon my guest, I was out like a light. After waking, I made note of a dream that I simply had to recount here, which reads, in full: “bed shoes.”

Saturday

What I did wrong: Overslept like crazy, went out and had three very sugary yet delicious drinks, ate some spicy hummus right before brushing my teeth. Passed out on my couch.

It felt a little unfair asking the gummies to help put me to bed after a night out. I’d just been having a LOT of fun, and my body was filled with Pina-Coladas. Around the time I ate the gummies (you’re supposed to take them 30 minutes before bedtime), I also ate some spicy hummus, because I really like to test my gastrointestinal tract after midnight. It builds character. I had a different set of folks staying with me on Saturday and I very graciously let them use my bed as I slept on the couch. This would normally be a sleep-killer, but I went to bed pretty easily. Not the immediate lights-out of the night before, but I slept through the night, which is not normally the case, especially on my narrow but very lovely couch.

A continued success!

Sunday

What I did wrong: Nothing, baby! I took a bath, doused myself in lavender and then… Oh, wait. I watched three straight hours of a show about serial killers.

I was almost so good! I took a bath in candlelight with lavender bubbles. I put some lavender essential oils on and inhaled deeply. I thought about getting directly into bed and then thought, you know what, let’s watch some murder. Needless to say, by the middle of the second episode, I decided gummies were in order. After double-checking my locks and looking under the bed, I finally went to sleep and stayed asleep for the second night in the row.

Will the success ever stop???

Monday

What I did wrong: Went to a brand-new exercise class late in the evening and walked home from that class! My legs were Jell-O, my body was tired but my mind was *buzzing.*

Sigh. This was also almost a good sleep behavior day. I was getting into my rhythm again—I had a normal human amount of coffee and all told I was feeling pretty relaxed! I decided to sign up for a class I’d never taken before and it was so hard. I had to get off the machine and just stand there for a second. So not only was my ego bruised, but I was also very tired and sweaty but also wired. Grateful for the gummies and familiar with the routine, I popped a few right before getting into the shower, so I felt fairly calm by the time I was ready to go to bed. I was going to read but ended up just falling asleep next to my book.

Bad news for my ever-growing reading list. Good news for me and my new friend SugarBear Sleep.

Tuesday

What I did wrong: Nothing in particular, but the anxiety of being alive in 2019 kept me up for a good extra hour.

I felt great, albeit a little sore on Tuesday, so I decided to do some gentle stretching at restorative yoga after work and it was just the slow down I needed. I was feeling easy and breezy on my walk home… then I looked at the internet. My biggest problem with falling asleep is generally anxiety-related and tonight was a perfect example of nothing in particular being wrong, but everything feeling a little off. I took a few gummies, journaled, and fell asleep pretty easily. I’m not saying these gummies are powerful enough to shut out the world, but they calm you down enough to make sleep feel possible.

By Wednesday, I could confidently—with a clear mind and fully open eyelids—describe my experience with the gummies as a positive one! Despite the few bad-sleep curve balls I threw at them, on the nights I took SugarBear Sleep, I was able to fall asleep more easily, and more importantly, stay asleep, too. The fact that they were also delicious, making them an activity not unlike eating candy before bed, was a dream come true. The kind of dream I’m glad I was able to recount to you in exquisite detail.

Graphics by Coco Lashar.

The post I Tested the Bejeezus Out of These Sleep-Inducing Vitamins appeared first on Man Repeller.

The MR Review of Books: What’s With All The Paintings on Book Covers?

Over the past few months, I haven’t been able to look at a painting without considering how it would look on a book cover. Call it what you want (a Baader-Meinhof phenomenon for art history buffs?), but the recent uptick in covers that draw from paintings is unmissable. (Ottessa Moshfegh’s tragicomic My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends, Nell Zink’s Doxology, Andrew Martin’s Early Work, Cynthia Zarin’s An Enlarged Heart, Anna Backman Rogers’ Sofia Coppola, Michel Houellebecq’s Serotonin, and Kristen Arnett’s Mostly Dead Things are just a handful of notable examples.) These book jackets feature works that would fetch upwards of seven figures at auction; for a crisp Andrew Jackson, they could be an outward-facing fixture in your personal library. While mini masterpieces haven’t yet outnumbered the bouquet books, the paintings in the hands of subway-goers stoked my curiosity, so I decided to let it dictate my literary pursuits for the month.

The first thing I discovered is that debut novels seem to be painting magnets. In Andrew Martin’s Early Work, the narrator Peter makes mention of the controversial painter Balthus in the first ten pages, and this accounts for the placement of Balthus’s Living Room (1941-1943) on the book jacket. It features two girls, one lazing on a settee while another reads on the floor, alluding to the story’s characters who tend to pair off when the opportunities arise. (If you like the idea of Conversations with Friends peppered with a dash of Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot, you’ll love this book.) Published in June, Kristen Arnett’s debut Mostly Dead Things centers around a family-run taxidermy business. Its cover makes good use of a cut-out, placing American Flamingo by John James Audubon, the nineteenth century printmaker known to hunt and taxidermy the birds he documented for posterity, on a new chartreuse backdrop.

Designers Unpack the Appeal

A painting on a book jacket isn’t just the cherry on top of a highbrow sundae, but a clever and conceptually sound artistic choice, made by authors and designers alike. I’ve long admired the work of Kelly Winton, the designer behind the now iconic tight-lipped type on the reissues of Eve Babitz’s Black Swans and Sex and Rage, and asked for her thoughts on publishing’s painting frenzy. Winton’s not sure the incorporation of paintings is a fully realized trend, but she considers it a way to distinguish a cover from the large uppercase type trend that has saturated the market. Linda Huang, associate art director at Vintage & Anchor Books, contends that it’s been a consistent idea, citing past examples like her art director’s steady practice of licensing Duncan Hannah’s paintings for book covers.

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Next, I got in touch with Allison Saltzman, senior art director at Ecco/HarperCollins who designed Nell Zink’s novel Doxology, to hear about how the sausage gets made. This wasn’t her first artist-author rodeo: She’s paired novelist E.L. Doctorow with painter Andrew Wyeth, short story writer Deborah Eisenberg with painter Paul Klee, and author Kathleen Collins with multimedia artist Lorna Simpson. Her idea for Doxology originated with the lettering: “I pictured it while still reading the manuscript—individual letters on crumpled and torn paper that would evoke punk band flyers, to place the book in the context of the New York music scene of the 80s and 90s.” Saltzman had a sense that the cut-out lettering should sit on top of other imagery: “I was surprised as anyone that Nell Zink had written so tenderly about motherhood, and I thought it deserved depiction on the cover. It still needed to be weird though.”

Rifling through kitschy depictions of motherhood, she experimented with vintage advertising, Madonna and child iconography, and 1970s family portraits, all rejected for skewing too retro, religious, or sincere. The team ultimately approved a 19th-century “nostalgia card” rendering of an 18th-century neoclassical painting, figuring its incongruity—with the punk lettering and with Zink’s reputation—was off-kilter enough. Saltzman reports that the book’s editor did like that it resembled My Year of Rest and Relaxation: that book’s success had primed the reading public to understand ironic use of classical art.

Both My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Doxology reference the same slice of art history: The paintings on their jackets hail from contemporaries in French neoclassicism. In a counterintuitive twist, these older paintings feel novel, like fertile territory for our own projections, because they look so foreign compared to the familiar image glut of Instagram and Pinterest, or the visual language of modern advertising campaigns. Our historical distance from the ideals of these paintings tinge our perception of them with irony or absurdity, rendering them almost tongue-in-cheek in their new context.

At a certain point, I began to wonder: How do artists feel about these books imposing meaning or associations onto their paintings? “There’s always an aspect of using a painting or artwork that requires negotiation and compromise,” Winton tells me. “It often makes for interesting discussions about design, appropriation, and artistic license.” Alex Katz is a favorite among book designers, and the artist seems comfortable enough straddling the worlds of art and commerce (take, for example, this recent series he painted of Calvin Klein underwear). His paintings are ideal for the book jacket format, with great swaths of negative space, punchy color, and characters who take on a chameleonic expressiveness, their identities just specific enough without being prescriptive.

Some designers have paintings they dream of using for a cover. Huang referenced Gordon Cheung’s Breaking Tulips “despite it being another bouquet book!” and also mentioned a “deep, dark love of Jenny Saville’s brutal paintings—though, unless tightly cropped, would have a hard time getting approved.” Winton would jump at the opportunity to feature a Helen Frankenthaler if there was a good fit, drawn by “her soothing colors and the depth of power in her paintings.” And if the story calls for a portrait, Winton would make a bee-line for Alice Neel, Fairfield Porter, or Lynette Yiadom Boakye. Not every painting needs to be licensed from an artist, though: The portrait Winton herself recently painted for Scarlett Thomas’s forthcoming Oligarchy entices me to buy the book.

Investigating My Own Desire to Pick a Book for Its Cover

I selected An Enlarged Heart by Cynthia Zarin for superficial reasons and, like a fable gone wrong, my vanity was rewarded. The paperback, designed by Huang in 2012, features my favorite Alex Katz, a screenprint from the 1990 Brisk Day triptych that shows a woman (likely Katz’s wife, Ada) shielding herself against a chilled wind with her red coat. When I asked Huang about the cover’s backstory, she tells me it was the author’s idea. “[Zarin] sent the editor a bunch of Alex Katz paintings for me to work with, and the final one was clearly the best—compositionally, graphically, emotionally.”

Zarin plants her essays in New York, though they wander off on occasion to a few choice New England towns. My experience reading this book from San Francisco resurfaced a question I often grapple with, especially when packing for a trip: Is it better to read a book thematic to your location or from a wistful distance? Zarin couldn’t have pushed my nostalgia buttons more if she tried: One of her essays even mentions the store where I used to get measured for a new pair of shoes, compliant with my grammar school uniform, at the start of fall.

Poised as a “personal history,” these essays bounce around from the fickle nature of New York real estate to a frightful family health emergency, but it’s ultimately a book about the last vestiges of the old New York before everyone walked around superglued to their phones. For something that’ll make you ache, read “September.” For a personal map of the shifting city landscape, read “Restaurants.” And for an inside baseball recounting of the way William Shawn’s New Yorker operated, read “Mary McCarthy’s Chest.” In “Coats,” Zarin recalls a period when she pined for one black leather double-breasted, knee-skimming coat, dwelling on it so much she’d draw it on napkins: “I was in the midst of the years in which I didn’t know that desire is infinitely replaceable.”

(I haven’t had the nerve to shop online since.)

What Are the Designers of Painterly Covers Reading?

Saltzman tells me she’s in the middle of Natalia Ginzburg’s Family Lexicon, but has set it aside for a moment to gobble up Ann Patchett’s latest, The Dutch House. Huang’s reading Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror right now, and recommends Atticus Lish’s Preparation for the Next Life. Kelly Winton has also been reading Tolentino’s Trick Mirror “like everyone else!” and recently cracked open Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House.

Winton credits James Salter’s novel Light Years as especially impactful on her, and makes reference to an 1980s edition of the book she’s been trying to track down. In an interview with The Paris Review, Salter says he sometimes writes thinking of a certain painter, and he had written the book with Pierre Bonnard in mind. “He is a painter of intimacy and solitude, he was not part of any school, and his life was spent, generally speaking, away from the brilliance of the lights and out of the mainstream. Not only his pictures but his persona appealed to me.” A Bonnard painting, The Breakfast Room, sits squarely on the book’s cover.

A few tangential parting notes:

I’ve heard only stellar things about On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, the newly minted MacArthur fellow.
Has anyone read How to Be a Family ?
I’m currently reading How to Do Nothing (a title which, if you’re sensitive to looking like a sitting oxymoron, is borderline embarrassing to read in public) by Jenny Odell. More on that in November.
If you live in Houston or Phoenix, have you tried putting your feet up at the local mall?
Enjoy this very Vulture story on the podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books.
Quartzy has made a case for destination-based reading.
Awaiting the new Jenny Offill (Weather) with bated breath. Very excited to pick up A Year Without A Name by Cyrus Grace Dunham. You probably have already heard the trumpet sound for new Zadie Smith.
Consider me the harbinger of your Luke Edward Hall Google alert: His book Greco Disco has hit the dance floor a.k.a. the bookstore!

Photos and graphic via the author.

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See Inside the Converted Schoolhouse of Man Repeller’s Secret Renovation Expert

For most of her waking hours, Dasha Faires is the director of product development at Man Repeller. But she and her husband Dan Faires share a lifelong obsession that consumes the rest of her creative energy: completely transforming neglected spaces and giving them a new life. Their latest project is a converted schoolhouse in Kenoza Lake, New York and it wouldn’t be hyperbolic to call it a labor of love—in fact, despite the requisite challenges all renovations entail, these projects have become a cornerstone of their relationship. Here, Dasha tells the story and shares some of the DIY and shopping tips she’s picked up along the way.

Dan grew up in an old house in Arkansas—that’s how he became so handy. He and his dad and brothers fixed up their house one room at a time. Aside from renting apartments that just needed things done, and doing a lot of work on them, our first big project was a wedding venue.

We bought a late-1800s blacksmith shop in our hometown that had been turned into a hardware store. We were high school sweethearts and met there so it was very dear to our hearts.

Fairlane Station, Springdale, Arkansas

The downtown area had just become a ghost town. We were like, “We have to pump some energy back into this place!” So we scraped our pennies together and bought the building. Dan did all the work, but because we were home, he also had help from his brothers and my dad and uncle. It was a total transformation. We don’t have it anymore—we sold it last year. But it was very much like the schoolhouse—a place where you’d be like, “Nobody wants that.” And then we made it have its little moment.

Fairlane Station, Springdale, Arkansas.

I think at this point, we probably feed off of each other’s energy when it comes to renovation projects. We met a couple last week and they were like, “Well, they say that it makes you or breaks you.” I was like, “I think it’s breaking us” [laughs]. With kids it can become really difficult. I think it would be very challenging if, for example, you had a partner who had different taste. Dan and I just know that a new place isn’t our style. I have a feeling even if we could live in a fancy high rise, we probably wouldn’t. We’d just choose our old tenement building that we fixed up because it’s more our style. A place that has a history and a soul is really important to us. We’ve lived through so many of these renovation projects, at this point, we always know that eventually it will be completed and hopefully become a place we can enjoy with friends and family.

When we first pulled up to the schoolhouse, the realtor was like, “Okay, before we go in the house, you have to sign a paper because it’s moldy and there could be spores. You have to wear a mask.” So, we signed the papers, put on our masks. When we walked in it was as if we were walking through a swamp. We could feel it squish under our feet. It was just the worst thing you’ve ever seen. It had drop ceilings. There was dated wallpaper in a lot of the rooms. One of the rooms had maroon zebra carpet. Bad light fixtures everywhere.

Before of the Schoolhouse in Kenoza Lake, New York.

We walked through it, and I was just like, “This is really bad.” But there was something I noticed when I was inside—even though the space was all divided up, when you looked out the windows you saw green on all sides. There was something kind of charming about this tiny little 1.13 acres of land. It took me 15 minutes and then I was like, “Okay, I see some potential.” I was out of the house in 15 minutes, talked to the realtor for an hour and learned each other’s whole life stories while Dan basically did a full inspection. That’s very typical: I’m like, “We can paint that,” or “we can sweep that out.” He looks at the electrical, pokes his head into the attic, rips up the carpet to make sure the original floors are under there. The floors were interesting because when the carpet was put in they used a tar. We had to peel back something like six layers of carpet and tar and padding to get back down to the original hardwood floors.

Before/after of the schoolhouse in Kenoza Lake, New York.

For me personally, I think I need this kind of renovation work—really anything tactile—to feel creatively complete. It’s the reason why I love the ceramics we have in the house, too. As much as I love everything digital, and working at a digital media company, at the same time I have to be around nature. It doesn’t have to be fancy or extravagant, it just has to be comfortable and have some kind of ambiance.

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The thing that keeps us from getting overwhelmed by these projects is, honestly, just being crazy and loving them. I think it’s become addicting for us to take things that were really undesirable to normal people and turn them into a lovely environment. Now, we walk into the schoolhouse and start a fire, read a book, and drink some tea.

That said, the house is definitely still a work in progress. Dan started renovating on one end of the house and has worked his way to the other. In some of the photos, you can see that the walls in part of the house aren’t plastered yet. He’s doing all the work himself, but it’s not done yet.

I feel I’m definitely different from my husband in that my husband wants to do this house with only his two bare hands. He wants to get no help. That would be easier if, let’s say, we didn’t have children. When he’s working on the house by himself, going literally at a snail’s pace, it puts me in the city with my two kids by myself, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’m definitely like, “Who can we get to help you?” I’ve already met two local handymen that I’ve given him their numbers, and he won’t call. Every time I bring it up, he gets super-annoyed. I know that if he keeps doing it with his own two hands it won’t be finished until probably the end of 2021. We’re coming up on three years of renovating this house.

The original gut was a lot of work for Dan and his brother. They slept outside in hammocks in the middle of winter, which was very true to their southern roots. Once that was done, I think you could start to see this place has incredible bones. I remember the first time I walked into the one room when it was finally open, and I was like, “Oh, my gosh. This is why we bought this house.” We could see it.

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Photos via Dan Faires.

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Halloween Costumes IRL: I Let My Instagram Followers Dress Me for a Week

My husband is a man of discipline, conviction, and compassion. It’s a winning combination of character traits that routinely reminds me, during especially heated bouts of his simultaneous propensity for napping and mine for running physical circles around myself, that it is worth the give and take. The only time, in fact, that I see his cocktail of stellar attributes fall short is when we are talking about Halloween. The discipline and the conviction — they’re still there, but the compassion? Fallen so hard by the wayside, it might never see the light of dayside. Ba dum ba, chhh!

He hates Halloween. Hates it so much that sometimes I think there’s a weird psychological thing at play we haven’t uncovered from the sandbox of his feelings and on the one hand, it breaks my heart because we met on Halloween, but on the other, I get it. We’re Jewish. Halloween is pagan. We’re not really about resurrecting ghosts, etc., etc., but then again again, we live in the modern world and in this world, it’s all in jest! Dress up because it’s fun! Live your damn life! That’s my philosophy. And as far as costume goes? I will literally grab any excuse to dress up by the Satanic horns and run. (Circles around myself.)

I like to think I am reasonable, though, a meet-halfway partner who won’t sacrifice my proclivities but won’t disrespect those of my napper’s, either. In this spirit, I took to Instagram for round two of this fun series wherein I ask you, the flamingo, to dress me for a week. The kick/prompt? Halloween outfit ideas, but for real life. Ready? Great.

Prompt: “Beethoven ft. Timothée Chalamet’s outfit at the premiere of The King“

The logic: Assuming you (the prompter) meant Beethoven the composer and not the dog, the white ruffle collar is a nod to his style of dress, as paired with slick black pants to exude a Timothée-Chalamet-on-the-red-carpet vibe, as informed by how naturally he espouses the aesthetic virtues of a Haider Ackermann spokesperson. The velvet jacket enmeshes both identities, harkening back to the robe-style lapels of the German pianist’s overgarments and the seeming contract Chalamet has in place with the Association of Velvet to wear it on the red carpet.

 

 

Prompt: “Seller of Turkish rugs”

The logic: Salespeople tend to wear suits, but they want to seem chill, like your friend, you know, because even though they’re selling you something, you can trust them. So here’s a pinstripe vest paired with ripped jeans, the most literal manifestation of corp-core, or whatever. The jacket is vintage Saint Laurent from a consignment shop in Denmark and resembles a pattern from a couch in my de facto Turkish grandmother’s apartment. I understand a couch is not a rug, but you see the semblance don’t you? Per the shoes: I knew they’d come in handy someday. They’re from the third collection of now-defunct MR by Man Repeller and frankly, they’re inspired by a rug, so there you have it. Turkish rug salesman. I probably wouldn’t wear this to work, but 10/10 would wear it to dinner at that restaurant inside Restoration Hardware in the Meatpacking District.

Prompt: “Sherlock Holmes meets Bridget Jones”

The logic: Sherlock Holmes meets Bridget Jones could technically be Alexa Chung if you think about it—both (e.g. the former human portmanteau and Chung) are English. Both wear trench coats. Both would probably tie a velvet ribbon around their necks, both definitely like peter pan collars and you could rest assured a sequined something would make it into the outfit equation of the marriage of personae at some point. To tease apart just the former, imagine Sherlock Holmes in pursuit of justice at a New Years Party with the helpless Jones, newly sober, still trying to find herself.

 

 

Prompt: “Meg Ryan at a Renaissance Fair”

The logic: It’s hard to imagine the force of Meg Ryan wearing anything but unremarkably casual clothing. She’s a baggy jeans and t-shirt kind of woman, often spotted in clunky shoes with unbrushed hair. So you couple the spirit of that lackadaisical (though make no mistake, I do not mean lazy) approach with that of a Renaissance Fair goer and what do you get? A silk blouse with an ambitious collar that is relaxed enough to look like a pajama blouse (especially as paired with baggier jeans) on the one hand, and some bedazzled, satin mules, and an ornate handbag on the other. While you probably could not wear this to work, I see no reason you couldn’t wear this to a) the farmer’s market b) Medieval Times in NJ.

Prompt: “Toothpaste”

The logic: In full disclosure, I picked this one because the prompt awakened me to this new truth: I often dress like a tube of Crest. I added an addendum though because this exercise is all about hybrids, about—to bring this way back around to the intro, give and take—so imagine a tube of toothpaste if it was also Sporty Spice. Et voilà: a cashmere polo replete with blue and white stripes plus track pants that are wide-leg enough to hide all kinds of dental tools (don’t forget to floss). Not pictured: my gesticulating GURL POWAH!, but you can envisage.

Photos by Franey Miller.

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Tokyo Street Style Woke Me From a Nap I Didn’t Know I Was Taking

There’s the way we understand things, and the way they actually are. Sometimes these are discordant, breeding delusion, and sometimes they’re aligned, breeding pragmatism. And while I appreciate the predictability of those outcomes, it’s not always obvious which is occurring, or even which is favorable, which is why perception can feel like a kind of anarchy. A science experiment with too many variables. So it’s refreshing when, on rare occasions, our ignorance or our righteousness are presented to us in full, resplendent color, and in no uncertain terms. This is when, for better or worse, our perspectives shift into sharper focus. And this is what happened on my whirlwind trip to Tokyo last month.

Various suspicions were confirmed, assumptions were rerouted, gut feelings were solidified into beliefs or else disbanded altogether. It was clarifying in a way I hadn’t expected, especially considering the jet lag, and I’ve been pondering why that is. Time may change my mind, but so far my most tangible explanation concerns the style I observed there. Not the clothes in and of themselves (although those too), but the clothes as a conduit for understanding people and culture, and how those forces collide and refract deeper truths. Or delusions. Not sure. (Ask me later.)

Lots of people were using outer layers as an interesting means to reveal inner layers: Short sleeves over long sleeves, vests over jackets, t-shirts over button-downs. It reconfigured my conception of why we wear layers in the first place. It showed me that dressing for warmth doesn’t have to mean covering everything up, and in fact it could mean the opposite.

Given this is a long way of presenting you with a collection of Tokyo street style photos, allow me to get literal: Among other things, Tokyo disrupted my understanding of getting dressed. There’s the way I understood layering, and there’s the way Japanese kids do it. There’s the way I understood minimalism, and there’s Tokyo’s maximalist approach to it. There’s the way I understood the core components of an outfit, and my prompt retraction of that understanding once I touched down in Narita.

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Wearing a pair of short shorts over a pair of long shorts over a pair of pants may not be your thing (or mine), but it is undeniably genius. And it’s the kind of rule-dismantling that can open up the possibilities of what it means to get dressed. Summer clothes can be winter clothes, innerwear can be outerwear, and seasonal proportions can be reimagined with a little gumption.

Before I went to Tokyo I was often told I’d love it. And obviously I did (a lot), which made me feel both actualized and utterly banal, because the only review I heard about the place was that it’s better than anywhere in the world (and I heard this in full hyperbole at least 10 times before leaving). But the harmony I felt there wasn’t just wonder, although I did feel that; it was a certain alignment with my aesthetic sensibilities: simple lines and quiet precision, soft things and tactile comforts, well-cut utilitarian clothes that sit heavy like a hug. Things I’ve been drawn to since I was a kid without necessarily having the language for them. Tokyo is famous for its chaotic cross-walks and streets packed with tiny bars and towers of blinking neon signs stacked on top of each other, but underneath all the beloved flash and kitsch is a divine sense of order like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

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I saw a lot of tonal layering in Tokyo: beige on cream on white, or black on gray on navy. Despite the maximalist Harajuku style often associated with Tokyo, many people seemed to be going for a kind of neutral harmony. Some did this with basic, clean-cut pieces, and others with more creative flair, as seen here.

I sensed this acutely in the street style, which made so much sense to me for something I didn’t actually understand. (I’m looking into changing that and welcome your recommendations.) The layering was creative, the proportions were surprising, and yet the resulting outfits often looked minimal and classic the way jeans and a T-shirt look in my mind but never do in reality. There were t-shirts stacked on top of each other (sometimes three), collared shirts under dresses, blouses under sweaters under vests. Lots of structure and crispness and tailoring, and not just from the most intentionally dressed people but from nearly everyone. It was a different aesthetic language. A different foundation to build upon.

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New York style never fails to surprise me, but it wasn’t until I went to Tokyo that I realized the extent to which it’s working within a predetermined framework. One you can become blind to if you don’t leave enough. Tokyo offered something completely different, and consequently, more aligned with my taste. It’s nice to be shaken awake sometimes, especially if you weren’t aware you were sleeping in the first place.

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Photos by Matthew Sperzel. 

The post Tokyo Street Style Woke Me From a Nap I Didn’t Know I Was Taking appeared first on Man Repeller.

Open Thread: What’s Your Relationship With Sustainable Fashion Like?

As the fashion director for a brand that covers and cares deeply about fashion, I’m never not grappling with the ever-increasing importance of sustainability in the industry. I’ve been sitting at my desk for 20 minutes trying to think of a metaphor that accurately describes what I mean when I say “grapple,” because that word makes it sound like I think it’s a burden and I don’t. I just think it’s complicated.

I know its complexities are on the minds of Man Repeller readers, too. Based on traffic and clicks, there is clearly an appetite for shopping recommendations and trend reports, but based on a steady stream of thoughtful comments, there is also a great deal of  concern for how these things impact our planet. I think on the internet, it can often appear that these interests are held by two opposing camps–those who are passionate about sustainability, shun fast fashion, and refuse to use plastic straws vs. those who willingly turn a blind eye, shop at budget-friendly brands, and have no qualms with single-use plastic. The starkness of that dichotomy is misleading, though–and exacerbated by the digital world’s propensity to flatten people and pit them against one another. In truth, not only is it possible to maintain an interest in fashion and a desire to do better when it comes to the environment, it actually seems to be the prevailing perspective based on in-person discussions I’ve had within the industry and outside of it.

Like I said–it’s complicated. But that’s precisely why I’m interested in cracking open the topic here. I want to know what’s on your mind as it pertains about sustainable fashion. What are you interested in? What are you still trying to figure out? Are there writers you read or Instagram accounts you follow that have helped shape how you think about the issue? Are there particular aspects of sustainability you encounter in conversations with your friends? Whatever thoughts you have to contribute, I’m hoping they can serve as fodder for making stories that feel particularly relevant to this community. So meet me in the comments–I’ll be waiting with bells on.

P.S. If you want to catch up on some of Man Repeller’s prior coverage of sustainable fashion, click here, here, here, or here. 

Graphic by Dasha Faires.

The post Open Thread: What’s Your Relationship With Sustainable Fashion Like? appeared first on Man Repeller.

An Eclectic Seattle Home With a Porch That Went Viral

Welcome to Make Yourself at Home, a collection of home tours as told through the items within them. Up this week, in the final of four installments we’re running in honor of Renovation Month, Cassie welcomes us into her Seattle home and proves she might love her plants more than anyone else ever has.

Cassie and her husband Sol didn’t think they could afford to buy a place, but when property prices went down in 2008, they were surprised to find themselves looking. And even more surprised to find themselves looking in Ballard, a charming waterfront neighborhood in Seattle.

“We could afford the shittiest piece of shit on the block,” Cassie says. “People thought we were going to tear it down. They were like: What else would you do with this house?” But Cassie’s husband had other plans, and in December 2009, they moved in.

“It needed everything done to it,” she says, “from plumbing to electrical. It needed a roof. It still needs a new sewer line.” With a degree in architecture and construction management, her husband decided to tackle it himself. Sustainability was important to him, she says, and they were on a budget. “He used old siding that he had sourced from a 1920s bungalow. He used wood from my parents’ barn,” she says. He built a fence, he built garden beds, he built a patio, he put in an in-ground fireplace. “We went from people who had a toilet on the front porch to having the cutest house on the block.”

Six years later, the remodels were mostly done, and a year after that, Cassie’s husband sadly died. It’s been three years, and Cassie now lives there with their three kids, Bodhi, Reagan, and Sawyer, surrounded by his memory, living out the vision he had for the space. “He thought it sucked that most people work for the weekend and work to go on vacation. He was like, ‘What if every day, you came home to that vacation? What if every day your house was your favorite place and it felt that good?’” They wanted their place to feel like the beach, but without the kitschy sea shells and Curlz MT-carved driftwood of typical beach houses. So they took a different approach, which you can see documented in detail on @magicbabyvintage. Below, in Cassie’s own words, five things that make their house a home.

#1. The Porch My Husband Built

Every board, every nail, every aspect of it was built, cut, touched, and constructed by somebody who’s not here anymore, and it’s my favorite place in the house, without a doubt. Out there, I smoke and hang out with my friends, watch my kids dance, meditate, do yoga, do nothing, sit. I listen to a lot of music out there, too: George Strait, Twin Shadow, Nahko and Medicine for the People. I get into different things depending on my mood.

It used to be an open-air front stoop, but now it’s enclosed and the ceilings are vaulted. I love the ceilings. I love the hatch door because it’s made from old barn wood from my parents’ house. I love that you can sit on the south side of the porch and look at this tree out the window that changes leaves through the fall, but you can also look through the window into the house and see all the way to the back of the house, through the kitchen, out the window. When the sun is setting you can see that, too.

#2. The Japanese Maple Branch in My Living Room

This branch came off of this beautiful Japanese maple tree that was really horribly placed in our tiny yard. We felt terrible that we were going to have to take it down since it took a long time to grow and no one wants to cut down a tree. So my husband decided to save the coolest branch off and let it cure, and that huge branch is now on my living room wall. Then he took the root ball, this old Japanese maple root ball, and pressure-washed it and let it cure out in the open for two years so that it could dry out. Then he built a stand for it, which now holds the root ball in the living room. So even though the tree doesn’t live outside anymore, it lives inside.

I don’t have a mantle and I don’t have a fireplace, so we use the branch to hang our Christmas stockings. It’s a fixture in our house, and it’s not going to go anywhere. I’ll never have to worry about, “Oh, god. Remember when I thought that branch was cool?” That branch is always going to be fucking cool. It’s iconic.

#3. The Yard and What It Represents

The yard is special because, like the porch, my husband sourced everything with what he could find and made it cool. I like that there’s an in-ground fire pit and that I’ve got a garden on the north side. The fence he repurposed from an old Trader Joe’s that got torn down. He was like, “Oh, I’ll just take that.” He hated to see wood and things get destroyed. He was the first person in my life that actually cared about the climate.

The yard is really an extension of our house. The south side is all entertaining space. I host a moon circle now, and people come over and we burn what no longer serves us. And all summer I hosted farm-to-table dinners. I’d go pick everything that was ready to be picked in the garden (I grow kale, green beans, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, potatoes, sage, lavender, rosemary, garlic, basil, mint, squash, fennel—a lot of stuff considering it’s not very big) and invite whoever wants to come over from my community and my friend group, and we eat really well, communal style.

#4. The Shop Out Back

The shop out back is where my husband built this whole house and made it the way it looks today. It’s also where he died. So it’s a weird place because it was his favorite place. If mine is the porch, his was the shop, because he loved building and creating. I like to think that, even though he died there, he probably chose it because he felt safe. So I’m grateful to that little building out back, and I haven’t changed a ton in it. I’ve had to use some tools and stuff, but it’s all him in there.

#5. My Plants

What I’ve realized about plants is, they have this energy. They knew my husband—when he died, they felt it. And I know that sounds woo-woo, but they felt me, and they’ve supported me. I have tripped out on mushrooms on my porch and realized, Damn, we did this together. You guys were here before my kids. You guys were here before anything, and you’re still here. They know I’m carrying out his legacy and his dream of having this home where people want to be, and they want to be part of it.

People ask me, “How do you take care of so many plants?” But it’s never felt like taking care of them. They take care of me. They breathed life into a space in the wake of death. They were here to breathe for me when I couldn’t breathe. I read this book, Braiding Sweetgrass, by an indigenous biologist named Robin Wall Kimmerer, and she says that when you fully understand plants, you understand reciprocity—the give and take of life. Plants take on what we put out and we take on what plants put out.

People always tell me, “I can’t keep a plant alive.” And my answer to that is, “Go get 10 plants, because we are not meant to be alone, and neither are plants.” I’m able to keep all of these plants alive. They’re vibrating harmoniously together. They’re friends. Plants are magic.

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Photos by Cassie Daughtrey.

The post An Eclectic Seattle Home With a Porch That Went Viral appeared first on Man Repeller.

8 Very Good Picks From the New Uniqlo x JW Anderson Collab

Guess what landed last week!? Neither a bird nor a plane nor a superhero but, in fact, something arguably better–at least where your fall/winter wardrobe is concerned: JW Anderson’s fourth collaboration with Uniqlo. As you might suspect, there is no shortage of tartan, knits, or wool–the entire collection evokes a crisp-aired countryside in England complete with the scrunched socks and a double-wrapped scarf. Workwear staples including trousers and sweaters and warmth-inducing necessities like puffers and leggings and shirts with thumbholes also abound— and everything clocks in under $150.

Scroll down for a roundup of the 8 most noteworthy pieces from the collection, which my crystal ball is informing me will sell out shortly.

The Perfect Reversible (!) Down Jacket

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This reversible down jacket actually solves my main winter style qualm: getting sick of my puffer! It’s basically the 2-in-1 conditioner of warm outerwear, providing multiple options for a single expenditure of 150 bucks. Consider me enamored and also strangely excited to moonlight as a multicolored marshmallow.

A Two-Tone Cardigan That Will Cure Your Decision Fatigue

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Tied for first as my favorite item of this collection because it solves for the same style rut-related issue, this cardigan would look incredible buttoned halfway with comfy jeans and ankle boots. You could also belt it and wear it as a dress OR! layer it under a chunky sweater and wear it as a skirt.

A Flannel Button-Down You’ll Wear Weekly

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I prefer my flannels oversized, and even though this one is technically a “tunic” (fancy!), I’m inclined to order it two sizes up and *French tuck* it into a pair of trousers. I really, really like the idea of pairing the light blue color with a pair of light blue jeans for a slightly amped-up version of monochrome.

The Piped Leggings You Didn’t Know You Wanted Until Now

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These feel so French Alps to me even though I’ve never been to the French Alps and have never skied. But such is the power of a compelling–or shall I say, transporting–garment. Worn with an oversized fishermen’s cardigan during the day and a sharp tuxedo blazer at night (just some ideas), they’re the kind of thing you’ll wear incessantly all winter.

A Fringe Skirt a.k.a. Kilt That Will Become This Season’s Surprise Staple

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I’ve found there’s typically one thing in my closet every season that unexpectedly shakes up how I want to get dressed, and I’m thinking this fringed skirt that is heavily reminiscent of a school uniform kilt could be exactly that. It makes me want to dress a little grown-up–maybe fasten the edge with an old brooch and style it with a turtleneck and knee-high boots.

The Plaid Trousers You’ve Fantasized About Since Birth (Probably)

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Behold the most perfect pair of Thanksgiving trousers I’ve ever seen (and for $50, might I add). They look plenty sophisticated and put-together but the waist is elastic which means they contain multitudes. They come in both black and plaid (I want both), and would look so cool with a blazer at the office or a hoodie over the weekend.

The Fleece You’ve Always Wanted to Steal From Your Brother–But Better

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Another item I don’t own myself but enjoy stealing from the men in my life: a fleece! I love the wine/green color combo on this one. To be honest, I would mostly wear it with pajamas in my freezing apartment but I can also envision pairing it with jeans or slit-ankle leggings when out and about. And maybe ear muffs!? TBD.

The Turtleneck Sweater to End All Turtleneck Sweaters

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Holiday card idea (if you run with it, please send me a photo): Everyone in the family gets this sweater (it comes in multiple colors) to wear simultaneously whilst engaging in a human pyramid. Genius, I know.

Isn’t this collection so cozy? So wintry? So festive? What are you buying? Should I keep asking questions? Tell me in the comments.

Feature photos via Uniqlo x JW Anderson.

The post 8 Very Good Picks From the New Uniqlo x JW Anderson Collab appeared first on Man Repeller.

Trading Art for Trousers: Alex Prager’s Outfit Anatomy

Welcome to Outfit Anatomy, a series on Man Repeller that aims to break down what we wear by answering questions like: How much did that cost? Where did you find that? Why did you buy it in the first place? Today, artist Alex Prager breaks down an outfit that perfectly encapsulates her style.

The shirt I recently got from a stall at the vintage pop-up A Current Affair. I’ve always wanted to go because I love vintage, but I’d never been in town when it was happening. This time, I was coming back from having opened my show Play the Wind, and met my friend Josie there. We only had a couple hours left and there was so much to see! I would normally have anxiety in that situation, not wanting to miss anything, but we went through methodically and both of us came out with some gems. This shirt is a silk nighty from the 1920s. I think it cost around $100. I’ve worn it a lot already and I’ve only had it for about three weeks. A lot of vintage clothes were made with better quality materials than a lot of things now, so that’s one of the reasons I’m drawn to vintage.

The trousers are Hermès, my favorite designer. The story on how I got them is kind of unusual: One of my artist friends Mercedes Helnwein only wears dresses and skirts, but she had these Hermès trousers that I loved. I was doing a clothing swap with her and some friends at my house and this was one of the items she brought to swap. She didn’t want to part with them because I didn’t have anything in my pile she thought was worth trading for, so I offered to barter with art. I ended up trading her a small film still from the short I made with the Paris Opera Ballet in 2016 called La Grande Sortie. Every once in a while, I barter art for something I love. The pants are so comfortable and classic, made with a mix of silk and cashmere. Everything Hermès makes is timeless and looks and feels incredible to wear. Quality is the thing I look for the most in clothes I buy. I like to see what it’s made from. I’m not a fan of polyester and blends with anything synthetic, so I mostly try to look out for cotton, wool, and cashmere.

The shoes I got on The RealReal around three years ago. They’re Giorgio Armani and go with everything. I spent around $80 and I wish I could find them again because I wear them so often I want back-ups!

The watch I’m wearing is a Cartier Tank. My sister Vanessa Prager and her husband Steve Hallock got it for me three years ago at Christmas. Steve has his own company Tick Tocking, where he buys and sells really unique high-end watches and he knew I’ve been wanting a Tank for years. I have always felt a watch is a thing you just can’t buy for yourself, so when I opened the box and saw the Cartier Tank, I lost it. It was such a thoughtful, generous present and I wear it every day. I feel lost without it! I also appreciate not having to look at my phone to tell the time. It’s a trap because you get sucked into all the other shit on your phone, so I like going back to the simple action of just looking at my wrist.

The ring with the three bands is Cartier Trinity. My sister got that for me four years ago for my birthday. I hardly ever wear jewelry, so when I do, I like timeless pieces like this ring. It goes with everything and it’s a piece I can pass down to my kids. The other one is my wedding ring. It was my mother’s wedding band. My parents are divorced now, but they had a good 28 years together and this ring is burned into my mind as a representation of what love looks like. When my husband Simon and I were looking for our wedding bands, I asked my mother if she wouldn’t mind me taking hers. She and my dad were over the moon that it would have another life. My husband gave me this enSoie bracelet a couple years ago. I like it because it reminds me of a bracelet Ingrid Bergman was wearing in a photo I saw a long time ago.

I dress a bit androgynously. In general, I like not showing too much skin, unless I’m going on a date or to a party, and then it feels special when I put on a dress and heels because I mostly wear trousers. I think high-waisted trousers with a wide leg and a tucked-in blouse suits my physical make-up. It’s a bit of a uniform, which I like because I’m very busy. It’s a functional and versatile look as well: I have a two-year-old who I love hanging out with and I don’t want to waste time changing outfits. I like how Wes Anderson and Christopher Nolan wear suits on set when they’re working. It makes a lot of sense to me because they can throw it on every day and not think too much about it, but they know they look sharp. I don’t like to stand out when I’m on set or at a meeting, but I like to look put together. That said, I put a TON of time and energy into thinking about what the characters in my films and photographs are wearing, feeling, and thinking. I think of style as clues to all the little stories that set us apart from everyone else.

Big West, 2019. Archival pigment print. Courtesy Alex Prager Studio and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong and Seoul.

In my show Play the Wind, currently on view in New York at Lehmann Maupin, you’ll find hundreds of extras dressed in their own unique way. I, along with the costume designer Rebecca Blazak and her team, put so many hours into figuring out what each character is wearing and why. For example, there’s a photograph in Play the Wind with twins who are wearing matching leopard print costumes and sharing a magazine with me on the cover as a fictional character called Helen North. They’re standing among hundreds of other characters all in very meticulous, unique-to-their-character dress. It’s important to me to represent all kinds of people. Humanity is all in the details!

As told to Mallory Rice.

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What Should I Watch Now That Succession Is Over?

I love Succession. I love the tweets. I love the theories. I love analyzing the unconventional crushes we’ve all seemed to develop on a group of objectively deplorable people. And, up until very recently, Succession caused me to cherish my Sunday nights—because I knew I’d be delivered a new episode at 9 p.m., quashing even the slightest whisper of the Sunday scaries. But this Sunday was different.

The Succession-less Sunday Sads first struck at around 6 p.m., when I decided to make an impromptu sweet potato and chickpea curry. Normally, I’d find immense delight in discovering that I already have all the ingredients to cook dinner. Last night however, I felt nothing. Even when the curry turned out perfectly, I was physically full but emotionally hollow. My early-dinner routine was so much less appetizing when it wasn’t setting me up for a blissful distraction-free evening in front of the TV. As 7 p.m. and 8 p.m rolled around, it was as though nothing could cheer me up: not fresh pajamas, not TikTok teens, not anything. By 9 p.m. it was clear: I was going to have to work hard to fill this Succession-shaped (read: Greg the MF egg-shaped) hole in my week.

During the past 10 weeks, I’ve come to realize that the best way to fall in love with a show is to ration it. Not being able to binge the second season of Succession gave me time to properly digest each episode, watch recaps, and wonder what the next week may bring. The issue with my new one-ep-per-week life hack, is that not all TV shows are of a high enough quality to be savored. As I hunt for a show to fill the Succession void, I’m looking for something that:

Has complex characters I’m willing to work to understand
Has a number of different relationships (romantic and non-romantic) I feel invested in
Has multiple interesting plot points and cliff-hanger episodes
Has at least one big and flashy slightly superficial quality that will keep my attention (like Succession’s helicopters or Euphoria’s eye makeup)

So, tell me: What did you watch last night instead of Succession? What TV show would you recommend based on the above musings? Basically, what the hell should I watch until season 3 comes out?

Feature photos via HBO.

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