This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through the links below, I may receive compensation. Above: my boy, two summers ago, in Minnow rash guard and boardies.
A few favorite recent swimwear finds pour les enfants:
01. I can’t believe these are only $20! Great patterns and have a Minnow-esque vibe. Also like this flutter-sleeve style in the strawberry pattern from the same brand.
02. And a great $20 pair of boy’s trunks, too! Love the classic stripe patterns.
04. Have been eyeing a Hunza G for my girl — they are splurgey but then again they last from around size 7-11, so that’s many seasons of swim. Found for 20% off here. Or get the look for less with this H&M!
07. Cutest blockprint trunks for boys from Zara. Learned this the hard way: always check to make sure their styles have mesh liners. Some don’t! More cute blockprint swim from Zara for girls here and here.
10. When my daughter was younger, I always bought a few statement Sal E Pimenta suits — how beyond are this and this?! She’s now outgrown their sizing!! I also like the boys options — Hill might be in his final summer of sizing with them.
Closing in on forty years has seeded vining thoughts. Mainly, I wonder: where am I in my story? Most of the strivings of my younger life have born their fruit. Two children, a long-term home, a creative profession that anchors and yields, a life partner who hung the moon some time ago. No pioneering plans to plot.
Am I planted now in the petrichor of my younger year thunderings?
And yet – a successful entrepreneur that Mr. Magpie holds in the highest esteem once told him:
“My life began at 40.”
She found and married her husband, adopted her two children, and started a company that has enjoyed skyscraping success.
Her story whispers to me when I least expect it. And I find, surprisingly, a decent pour of gas in the tank.
Still, age demands circumspection on this front:
I no longer want to ask, “What’s next?”, having forfeited years of my full-plated life to that thieving question.
This is enough, I repeat instead: this stretch of grass in the late-May sun, the children’s bare feet shellacked with backyard trim, the caterpillar cradled in my son’s palm, Mr. Magpie’s sprawling form on the wicker sofa on a Sunday afternoon, his hand reaching absently for mine, the half-filled crossword puzzle open on the table, the unhurried condensation on my water glass,
the way all of it lands in my lap in language.
And then Mary Oliver, my steadfast communicant, reminds:
“Do you think there is anywhere, in any / language, / a word billowing enough / for the pleasure / that fills you, / as the sun / reaches out, as it warms you / as you stand there / empty handed?”
And I sink further into my summering sequestration, palms open,
+Crochet is big for this summer! Love this bag and this top.
+I bought these hair ties for my daughter and have now stolen about half of them. Really good grip if you have a lot of hair like my daughter and I do.
+Cutest canvas everyday flats. I have several pairs and they are adorable and so comfortable!
+I spotted Allegra wearing this button-down over a swimsuit on Instagram during the holiday weekend and need to create the look. All my favorite summer swim options here.
+I love a cake plate – this one has the cutest scalloped detail.
+On the hunt for new hair claws for summer and found these, these, these, these.
+Obsessed with these Casey Marks dresses — and they’re currently on sale! If you’re looking for something a bit less voluminous, I also love this Banjanan.
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01. This Farm Rio top and skirt set. So cheerful, but with a sexy open back! I’m packing this for my 40th birthday in a few weeks. (Wearing, as always, this Altuzarra bag, which is now on sale! The best investment! I basically have worn daily since I received. Somehow goes with everything.)
02. Goop’s bronzing gel. Ladies, I need to call in the professionals. I am so pale and not interested in bronzing via the sun, so I’m beginning to look into spray tans. I’ve had such bad luck with them and detest their atrocious smell but I’m desperate! In the meantime, I’ve been using this on my face with good effect. I wish they had a version for the body. Here’s what I like about it: it’s makeup, not self-tanner, so it doesn’t have the smell and can be washed off. However, it’s deeply pigmented enough that they recommended washing hands after applying! I blend a little bit into my daily moisturizer and love the effect.
03. This Rixo dress. She is so romantic! I am going to a summer cocktail party in a few weeks where all the guests were asked to wear white, and I think I’ll be wearing her.
04. These trail runners. One of my regular running routes has various dirt path off-shoots and I’ve always wanted to run them. I just started this past week after receiving my trail running shoes — it’s such a fun twist for me, because it adds a new challenge: footing awareness. You really need to focus on where your next step will be. Anyhow, the colors of the runners are fabulous and the shoes themselves very supportive — slightly heavier and more “built up” than my usual road running shoes, but with intention. These really stabilize your ankle when you’re running over divots, twigs, etc. I also love the bungee cord detail on the heel. Makes it very easy to pull the shoe on and off!
05. I just received two fab summer dresses from Mille — this asymmetrical stripe (almost all sold out, sob!) and this red blockprint. I have so little red in my wardrobe, but I adore it.
06. Re: above, I also recently ordered these fun red sandals from A. Emery. I’m wearing them with the Farm Rio outfit above. They run wide, FYI, but are fab. I’ve been looking for a statement color sandal like this for awhile. This brand is amazing, by the way. The styles feel elevated and minimalist — some Khaite / the Row inspo happening.
07. Iris & Romeo Weekend Skin. I was mildly disappointed when this arrived because a) it’s a pretty small tube relative to price (I should make a point of checking the ounces relative to price more often), and b) it’s not really tinted moisturizer — doesn’t provide as much coverage as I expected — but this does make your skin look incredible on mornings where you don’t have time or inclination to apply makeup. Very similar to Glowscreen with maybe a hint more coverage? I do feel like the Iris&Romeo does a better job evening out skintone but it’s not going to, like, camouflage anything.
A Magpie reader once asked me for advice on marriage, and I felt ill-suited to the task. Perhaps all couples feel this way, but our relationship feels so…specific to us, and I can’t imagine extrapolating from it to counsel anyone else? I also feel that our marriage, our relationship, is greater than the sum of the two of us, and I can’t put my finger on why. Yes, we are gentle with each other, and we give one another space to pursue our own interests and be our own people, and we prioritize time together, and we are practiced at letting things go and assuming the best of intention, but there is some force beyond our own contributions that seems to guide us. I have no explanation for this. But it feels something like kismet. The only bit of tactical advice I can offer is to return to your origin story, and frequently. Remember what it felt like to fall in love? (A bit like standing on Mars, in my experience.) Revisit that experience. What was it like when you got one another’s numbers? What was the first flirt? (I still remember Landon’s, extended while standing in the door frame to my first-year college dorm, but am keeping the specifics for myself.) The first date, the first kiss, the first “I love you”? We talk about these moments often, and feel hazy and happy.
This morning, doing just that: revisiting the early days of our relationship via a re-published love letter to my husband (from the archives).
******
I realized the other day that I have been in a committed relationship with Mr. Magpie for the same number of years of my life that I have not. That is, I am 38, and I’ve been dating my husband since I was 19. I wrote awhile back that we are so close to one another that “I am only half living when we are apart. The other half is suspended in anticipatory conversation, waiting for the moment when I can fill [him] in.” He is a permanent filter. As I move through my day, I am not only responding as myself, but also with him in mind, pocketing the observations and bibelots I know he will enjoy to present to him later. Sometimes I go out of my way to retrieve them, deliberately driving by the construction site for the new butcher shop he cannot wait to open in order to report back on progress, or glancing at the price of halibut at the fishmonger so that I can shock him later on. There is a passage from Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (which I am currently reading and with which I am madly in love) that runs: “She didn’t know if an idea was worth pursuing until it had made its way through Sam’s brain, too. It was only when Sam said her own idea back to her — slightly modified, improved, synthesized, rearranged — that she could tell if it was good.”
I saw in this a strain — a slightly balder, less romantic one — of the lived truth of my relationship with Mr. Magpie: the web of intricate and invisible ties between us that we have been knotting and re-knotting for nearly twenty years. Often, I go to him with a half-thought — a shell idea for an essay, a strange interaction with a friend, a fleeting insight related to one of our children, a tidbit from the news — and just know we will together form it into something of shape, laminated by his intelligence and curiosity and the striking way in which he can still surprise me, even twenty years later.
The early days of our relationship are a source of constant wonder for me. We did not know it then, as we ran suntanned and barefoot through Virginia, that we were laying a foundation for the most important achievement of our lives. We did not know it then, as we laughed and went to date functions and listened to Tim McGraw and held hands crossing the railroad tracks behind The Corner and stole kisses behind his Jeep such that his friends would not see us, that we were beginning to build the elaborate web that would forever hold us. We were young and in love and had nothing but each other. When you are 19, you have no career, no wealth, no impressive set of connections, no substantive experience under your belt, no status to speak of. Or, at least, I did not. I was only a heart on stilts. Despite the many years we have now lived together, I still return to that vision of us, the one where we are more or less stick figures with enormous, balloon hearts, living the lyrics of one of my favorite songs:
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+Moda Operandi’s sale is the absolute best sale running right now, IMO. So many goodies at great prices. In cart, and in need of some pruning: these raffia mules, gorgeous and classic sun hat (love the brown ribbon), fun star earrings and a statement necklace from Julietta, this bandana print swimsuit from Boteh (for FOJ/Colorado?!), this embroidered white dress from Posse, this fab bag and dress from Johanna Ortiz, and statement linen shorts from Zimmermann. Can’t believe they’ve marked down some of Khaite’s uber-trendy mesh Marcy flats, too!
+Madewell is offering 25% off summer essentials — based on the most recent “icebreaker” installment, many, many Magpies swear by their denim (including me! I love their perfect vintage line), and these classic white jeans are included. Also love this dress as a less-expensive version of the HHH Cosima so many of us bought, and I personally love a pair of white overalls. So cute with a blouse or tee beneath! (A solid look-for-less for my Alex Mills!)
+Everyone’s favorite Jenni Kayne sweater is 20% off. I love this chunky striped cardi though. I feel like I’d get so much wear out of it throwing on over summer dresses, then fall jeans, etc.
+Extra 15% off Hanna Andersson with code 15FORYOU — and the site is already almost 50% off. I did a big shop for the children recently — so many cute everyday play / camp clothes. My full order here, and the striped tees above here!
+I found a smattering of Juliet Dunn dresses on sale here. These dresses are so dreamy to wear (incredibly light weight, with the best colors, patterns, details, ric rac trim!), but very pricey. I will admit I don’t understand the pricing — they are lovely, but they are sundresses. Best to buy on sale! I love this, this, this. Also on sale at MyTheresa: Ancient Greek Eleftherias and this fun oyster shell clutch. Such a great exclamation point for a wedding guest look. J’adore!
+Extremely tempted by Cara Cara’s 40% off sale. So many great event dresses, and I know many of you specifically like this brand for Baptisms and family portraits, as they offer items with sleeves and good coverage in truly fabulous (non-boring) prints, like this or this.
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My son came down with a raging case of pink eye over the weekend and stayed home from school for several days following, until the doctor cleared his return after a course of eye drops and the abatement of his symptoms. I accepted this surprise with something like equanimity. A girlfriend texted me my own advice: “Don’t forget, Jen, you’re where you need to be today. The rest can wait. A special friend once told me that.” I pressed my own words to my heart.
My son shadowed me through my Heather Robertson workouts, laid on the floor of my studio with search and find books and Water Wows while I “worked” (he is such a chatty little thing that I could scarcely feed a word onto the screen), sat with me on the back steps of our patio during lunch, played with action figures in a bucket of water while I “read” (again, could barely get through a sentence without his effervescent commentary), and led my husband and I around the neighborhood on a walk, during which he chirped his observations for twenty minutes straight. “Look, a robin!” “You’re first, I’m second, and Dada’s last.” “Bees are good.” “Let’s go this way, right?” I made peace with my modest writing contributions, and felt well and trulythat I was where I needed to be.
(Can you spy his little feet? BTW, I’m wearing an actually perfect black legging here, and it’s matching tank, both from Electric & Rose. I’ve been hunting for a pair of black, mainly-cotton legging forever that can transition perfectly from light fitness to everyday life, and these them. Soft and stretchy and do not read as athletic wear.)
Hill wearing his Minnow terry set – his favorite – while doing Heather Robertson videos with me. More on my summer fitness regimen here.
Unbothered by his convalescence.
At the end of his convalescence, after several full days together, he baldly ignored me as I asked him, several times, to go upstairs and get ready for bed, instead hovering around the ant farm my daughter recently received from my MIL. I understood the magnetism of this attraction, and could almost forgive his willful tune-me-out because of it — but I was tired, and had waited on him hand and foot for three days, and did not appreciate being dismissed in this way. My children are so different from one another. When my daughter is unhappy with a request, she will needle me about why it needs to be done, and can’t it be done later, and couldn’t I just stop bossing her around? When my son is unhappy with a request, he’ll blithely cold-shoulder me, to the point that I have jokingly asked Mr. Magpie, “Is this thing on?!”
I heaved a loud, unhappy sigh.
“Hill,” I said as firmly and loudly as I could muster. “Go upstairs and get ready for bed. Now.”
He looked at me with wide, innocent eyes and burst into tears. I felt like the worst person in the world. Have you seen the Dune movies? It was as though I’d barked at him with the Bene Gessurit Voice, transforming into something hideous all at once. Twenty separate emotions flooded through me, but mainly I was frustrated with myself. It seemed that all my tender ministrations and accommodations were overwritten by my eleventh-hour lack of patience. I knew I was flagging in energy, but something I read somewhere nipped at my attempts at self-grace: “Don’t let your own storm get your children wet.” At the same time, I saw that he had been willful, and that he had needed to be redirected, or that something had needed to happen. I probably did not choose the right “something.” Still, I am human. And it had been a long day of parenting. When I later talked it all through with Mr. Magpie, he said, “I love the phrase you use — it’s their day, too — but Jen, sometimes you give too much in their direction. It’s your day, too.” Was it possible that I’d given too much of myself and the efforts had ended in smoke?
In the moment, though, I reminded myself that my misstep was not the end of the chapter, or the final draft, or the closed book. I followed him upstairs, where he was sniffling in his little bed, and I thanked him for getting ready, and I apologized for barking at him. He stilled. “Thank you,” he said.
I was proud of myself for working through what might have otherwise stained a couple of golden days, and proud of him for accepting the apology as he did. We have worked hard to teach our children to say “Thank you” when extended an apology rather than “That’s OK” or something similar. A true apology asks for nothing in return, and need not be met with “forget about it!” type sentiments.
About two milliseconds later: “Mama, look what I can do.” And we were right back in the saddle.
As I head into this summer of going easy, I welcomed the elasticity of this moment. Despite the sourness of my reaction, our bounceback felt like a harbinger of good things.
Onward —
Some snaps from the week —
+Mr. Magpie made me my absolute favorite dinner this week and we ate in the glorious weather: pasta all’amatriciana and broccoli rabe dressed in lemon, parm, olive oil, chili oil, bread crumbs. I’ve written about this before, but this exact menu would be my preferred last meal on earth. His recipe here. Years ago, when we lived in Chicago, Mr. Magpie had a rooftop garden, and he planted rabe for me one year! While he reading up on how to cultivate it, he came across a random video in which a farmer described sauteed rabe as “a meal fit for a king” in this dramatic, Shakespearean actor baritone voice. Whenever we eat rabe (which is frequent – it’s my favorite vegetable), one or the other of us says: “Ah. A meal fit for a king.” (BTW, I love these simple, inexpensive hyacinth chargers for outdoor dining. They also come in a fun turtle shape. Our plates and bowls are all Haand — they show food so beautifully and are unexpectedly modern relative to our taste. I love them!)
Happy customer. We’ve finally turned a corner on the pickiness in our house. If you’re in it with a 3/4/5-year old, I feel you. It’s been a long road to getting our kids to eat (mostly) what we eat!
+Mr. Magpie and I have been working through this book of Wednesday crossword puzzles (this one is also in my cart for our trip to Colorado this summer) — not too hard, not too easy. It’s the perfect activity in lieu of picking up a phone and doom-scrolling. Sometimes we’ll sit together and work on a puzzle jointly, but other times, we’ll just pick up the pen and add a few answers independently. It’s not uncommon that I return to a puzzle and Mr. Magpie’s solved a few of the riddles I couldn’t crack. A Magpie reader wrote to say her grandparents used to do this, each in their own ink color, for decades on end. I was so touched by that thought.
Also below: Mr. Magpie made me a gin daisy, which is sort of like a gin-based marg. Delicious! And! I still can’t believe I resisted Birks for so long. Truly my favorite everyday sandal for around the house/yard/etc.
+A very exciting delivery from If Only If, a UK-based nightwear company. I cannot wait to wear this floaty gingham nightgown — it immediately transports me to a little cottage on a foggy heath. I’m barefoot in the misty morning. I love this moment for me. (Did anyone else read Carley Fortune’s latest romance? It was so-so for me — fun and escapist but I found the “forbidden lover” trope overwrought to the point of distractingly implausible. I did like Felix as the interest. Anyway, this nightgown is what Lucy would have worn in PEI!) They also generously sent matching pajamas for mini and micro!
+Truly the best mascara. $20 and outperforms most (all?) prestige beauty lines. I’ve been alternating between this and the Queen Musia, which is infused with a plant-based lash growth extract. The Tower28 is a superior mascara (the longest, fullest lashes I’ve ever seen on myself) but QM is really working. A makeup artist recently said “Wow, you have the fullest, longest lashes I’ve ever seen! What’s your secret?” I told her QM! QM also has a slightly more natural, separated look.
+Happy feet! These $130 sandals are such a great buy. So comfortable and add a little fun/flair to any outfit.
Hope you’re enjoying a restful weekend. We’ll be spending the holiday at the pool, at a baseball game, and at a cookout with friends. Looking forward to going easy, but also taking a moment to acknowledge the veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice for us all.
By: Jen Shoop
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What Made Me Lean Forward This Week…
+CREATIVE CROSS TRAINING: I absolutely loved this musing from Suleika Jaouad about “creative cross-training” and the prompt lower in the post by artist Anne Francey to “draw in the margins.” Many of their points dovetail with my own philosophies on creating: I’ve written elsewhere about finding places/mediums that are low stakes (I find MS Word terribly daunting, but can really get into a flow quickly using the WP editor or a Google Doc — just feel more inviting, less “written in stone”), publish frequently, get out of your own head, and generally avoid thinking about an audience. My job is to put something out into the world, not to mediate or predict or attempt to spin its reception in some way; your job is to decide what you make of it. Mainly, though, I subscribe to the Vonnegut school of thought: create to find out what’s inside.
+CURRENTLY LISTENING TO…the new Billie Eilish album! Landon and I are both obsessed with it. It feels a bit more diverse and exploratory than albums past. I adore “Birds of a Feather,” which has a kind of 90s diva sound to it. I’ve never heard her sing that way! I immediately added it, along with “The Diner” (impossible to listen to without dancing) to the “Jen’s 40th Mix” I’m compiling for my birthday trip with a few friends.
+ADDISON BAY’S NEW COLLECTION: I’m new to Addison Bay, but I’m loving their activewear shirts, both in long-sleeve and sleeveless versions. Great colors and structure, and love the length (covers most of the rear). I’ve been wearing these a lot on mornings I drop the children at school before working out — they make me feel pulled-together. You can see all of my top “active summer wear” picks here.
+OUTDOOR THROW PILLOWS: I was looking for some fresh pillows for my outdoor furniture and came across some really cute options: these bolsters and seat back cushions from Target, and these striped cushions, these framed ones, and bolsters from Amazon!
+ALSO ON MY LUST LIST…This $18 terry shorts set for my boy (like Minnow, but less); and all the pretty summery things below: a gorgeous embroidered dress (under $150!); these fun hand-made earrings; on-trend netted flats; Pam Munson’s Teddy bag, re-issued for summer; a new phone case; and bolster pillows per the note above!
What Made You Lean Forward This Week…
+SPIRITUAL EXERCISES: I received many thoughtful DMs, emails, and comments in response to my diary last Sunday on the blurring lines between discipline, wellness, self-denial, and ease. One Magpie sent me this list of “spiritual disciplines” to practice from poet David Gate. She specifically mentioned that when she focuses on these, she feels herself shift into a “receiving energy.” I loved that visual.
+EVENT DRESSING: Lots of generous comments on me in this Sir dress from this week’s wedding guest dress roundup! I’m rethinking sending it back. One of you described it as “English country manor but very sexy.” Love!
A few weeks ago, I solicited your life hacks, mnemonics, frameworks for living artfully and with more ease. Several of you talked about doing things for your future selves: filling a tall glass of water before leaving for a run, pulling down the blinds before going out for the night. Tender mercies. What will I need? What will see me through? What will feel good when I am later tired?
These thoughts reminded me that we are always raising future versions of ourselves, but when I adopted the suggestion to pre-fill a drinking glass before my morning run, I was surprised by the way it felt: more like a tiny high-five than a knowing glance. A satisfying, well-executed relay hand-off. What I’m saying, mainly to myself:
Find ways to be on your own team.
A few years ago, I was at an event with one of my very successful and talented friends, Alison Kenworthy, and I found myself introducing her to a new acquaintance. “Alison is an Emmy-award winning producer and has a wildly popular Youtube channel called Homeworthy where she invites us into fabulous homes around the world,” I said. (Or something like it.) I am sure the last thing in the world Alison wanted to do on “a night off” was talk shop (I recall we had just enjoyed a glass of champagne together, removed from the madding crowd), but when the acquaintance began asking her about Homeworthy, she rolled into the most compelling and dazzling description of her business. I’ve recounted this at least six times to Mr. Magpie in the years intervening. I was transfixed by her poise, her confidence, the way she spoke about her creative work almost as though it were someone else’s. I thought to myself, here is a woman who is on her own team. The experience charged me, and challenged me to re-think how I present myself when asked the complicated question: “And what do you do?”
+Extremely tempted by this little crossbody in the red or blue stripe. I’ve been loosely on the hunt for a smaller bag that I can wear with my athletic wear in the morning, and these are so fun.
+This looks like the dreamiest pullover. It was just restocked recently — very tempted. In case you’ve never shopped at Negative before, they make some of my absolute favorite bras. All my favorite undergarments here.
+These cute sandals from TB are on sale. I’d pick a fun color, like the kiwi!
+Dreamiest dress. When I was visiting Rome many years ago with my father, we walked by a Pucci store and I was drooling in the window. My Dad saw how excited I was by the styles, and said: “Let’s go buy you one.” We went inside, he looked at a price tag, and he said, “Maybe in another life.” Haha!
07. Convenient schlep-all-the-things tote. Great for dropping off field day snacks, toting gear to sports events and picnics, etc.
08. Glass storage is the way to go. I know many of us are insistent on this point! This Pyrex set is a good deal. While we’re talking storage / kitchen organization, this shelf raiser is fab if you’re short on kitchen space. We used lots of these in Manhattan. And a utensil caddy is very handy for outdoor dining season.
P.S. We’ll be mixing up a Magpie marg (or several) this weekend! Join us, virtually! 🙂
Earlier this week, I attended a May Crowning at my children’s parochial school. My daughter and her classmates processed, with startling solemnity, towards a statue of Mary, crowned her with flowers, and recited prayers and petitions from the garden bed at her feet. A huddle of parents — mostly mothers — stood watch under the shade of tree, nodding encouragingly as their children recited their prayers. I was tossed back to my own childhood, to singing “Hail Holy Queen” on Massachusetts Avenue as I marched with my classmates into the vestibule of Annunciation Church with my gray plaid jumper and my navy blue Mary Janes. Even as a child, I was struck by the holiness of the tradition. Something about moving from the shock of May sun into the cool of the Church’s nave, the way sound traveled differently inside, marked the offering as sacrosanct. From the unkempt wild to the quiet, cosseting pleat.
So there I stood, some thirty years later, listening to my daughter read her benedictions off a laminated piece of construction paper. When the children recited the Hail Mary, and the parents chimed in, I caught sight of a cross-generational accordion of faith, and found myself unable to finish the prayer. I was thinking about my mother, kneeling and weeping at Mount Koressos, and my own special devotion to Mary, and wondering what my daughter was storing about this moment in her secret wells of imagination, and memory, and faith.
Towards the end of the crowning, one of the teachers read a little card from which she described Mary as “a joyful witness of others.” I thought how perfectly the phrase captures not only Mary as we understand her forbearing yet exuberant spirit, but my broad aspirations as a mother. Isn’t it the goal? To stand alongside my children, but not in some prop-like, self-abnegating way — to be roundly present, and let myself be delighted by them. I looked around at all of the mothers circling that garden bed, beaming at their children and participating in their prayers, and I saw a perfect chaplet of joyous witness.
+This gorgeous white dress is en route to me. Becoming quite the fan of Rixo — their dresses make me feel like a sexier, more European version of myself. (You might recall how much I love this dress, which I wore recently!)
+Several Magpies have raved about Quince’s fitness wear — I just ordered these leggings and the matching tank to try when I placed my order for their silk pillow case. (Another Magpie rec — so many of you insisted that sleeping on a silk pillowcase is a major step-up for hair care / extending a blow out / etc. See all the rave reviews in the comments on this post.) Will report back on all!
+Eyeing one of these soft-sided coolers for summer. (Love the green color.)
+If you’re looking for a perfect summer flat: here she is.
+FUN Gucci tote capitalizing on the “jelly” trend in its own way.
+Apparently, Jones Road releases limited edition sets of their popular miracle balm sets, and they’ve just landed. I’m contemplating ordering this set of four to sample the different colors! Have heard such good things about these.
By: Jen Shoop
This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through the links below, I may receive compensation.
Our pool opens this weekend, and I spent one afternoon this week trying on my suits and shopping for some new ones. Below, my favorite suits in my closet and a few new picks, too —
01. Above, wearing Left on Friday’s Pool Days top and Hi-Tide bottoms. I love the way this brand sells their tops/bottoms separately so you can pick the style you like, customize each by size (if you’re, say, a small on bottom but large on top), and mix and match colors (they have SUCH fun ones). I find these pieces run small — I took an XS in both and they were a tight squeeze. Next time, I’d go up to a S instead. The material is amazing — really hugs you in / slightly compressive and smoothing. The top looks like a sports bra and might play double duty this summer in that capacity. (10% off with code JENSHOOP10.). I paired with my trusty Altuzarra tote and this chic Cesta collective pareo.
03. I always find a few good pieces from J. Crew swim (I typically go up a size from my usual in their swim — take a 2 instead of a 0), and this smocked number is a delight this season. Can’t decide which color — red or blue? But if you buy one swim piece from J. Crew this summer, I can’t rec this ruched plunge style more. It is so flattering and comfortable — good amount of coverage in the rear, everything stays in place. Love the toile!
04. Hunza G fan girl forever. I actually laid out in my back yard before writing this and reached for my Hunza G — just so comfortable and easy to pull on. Nothing cinches or gapes — a flush, comfortable fit. Can’t rec enough. My two favorites are this one in the hot pink (full review here) and this one in a rich blue. I’ve also heard many Magpies rave about this Target dupe as a $40 look for less!
05. If you’re more of a minimalist (bond girl vibes), you might consider this gorgeous two-piece from Simkhai, an iconic Eres (the pinnacle of quiet luxury), or something from Matteau, a brand several Magpies have raved about for swimwear.
06. At the other end of the spectrum (more maximalist): each year, I ogle at the swimwear options from Agua. Love this one for this season, and this similar style from Erdem (on sale!)
07. Adore the dramatic options from Emilia Wickstead, including the new pieces from her collab with a fabulous Italian hotel, Passalacqua. Travel lust inciting!
08. Loving this bold striped Staud. Reminds me of awnings at a beach club!
09. I bought this dramatic Maygel Coronel a few years ago and have scarcely had occasion to wear it — it’s quite a statement, perfect for a bachelorette or honeymoon. I turn 40 in June and plan to wear it on my getaway! Also lusting after this dramatic Zimmermann suit, but how many over the top white suits does one gal need?
10. I also own and can’t wait to wear this white one-piece from Minnow — a bit more understated than the other two picks. Love the pattern and neckline on this one, too. How cute to match with your mini?!
11. I always have had good luck with Solid & Striped swim. I own three or four of their suits — the fit is always perfect and they come out with great colors and patterns. Currently eyeing this two-piece. I take my true size in their swim.
