My Latest Score: Nicola Bathie Earrings.
As you probably gathered, I have been on Le Hunt for all things floral lately. I had really wanted a pair of these Rebecca de Ravenel flower earrings, but felt like spending over $500 on a pair of earrings for myself was a bit much. I was ecstatic to find these elegant, more moderately sized Nicola Bathie floral earrings for $130. Done! Cannot wait to wear them with everything.
Also, the Leontine Linens monograms above are 100 100 100 100 100. (Imagine those 100s are the 100 emoji.)
You’re Sooooo Popular: Le Chic Hair Accessory.
The most popular items on Le Blog this week:
+The chic-est hair accessory ever. (What an epic Etsy find!)
+My absolute must-have skin cleanser. (PSA: It will change your skin.)
+Still one of the very best organization hacks I’ve come across in my adult life.
+Our book club book! IT IS SO WEIRD AND SO GOOD. Pls join! The in-person event on June 6th in New York City now has a long waitlist, but I’ll be sharing discussion questions soon in case you’d like to host a satellite book club!
+Beautiful and sultry dress for a garden wedding.
+Precious, well-priced floral dress for a mini.
#Turbothot: This Is America by Childish Gambino.
What I really want to talk about is Childish Gambino’s harrowing, jarring, important new video, “This Is America,” but I don’t quite know what to say or how to say it. Mr. Magpie urgently put it on the TV after mini had gone to bed the other night — “You have to see this,” he said. (Spoiler alert: stop reading if you intend to watch and be surprised.) I don’t think we took a bite of our food until we’d finished watching it, and then we sat in confused, disturbed silence for a minute or three or seven. The incongruity of the messages, the precipitous and shocking violence, the parade of familiar but extracted images from black American culture. It is haunting, pressing — but I’m not sure whether to read it as a warning, or a lament, or an indictment, or a satire. The tone is difficult to parse, and the pace frustratingly implacable: we are forced to swing from a scene of gore to one of dance without a second to gather ourselves.
Have you seen it? Thoughts? Reactions?
#Shopaholic: A Tie-Waist Skirt.
+This tie-waist linen striped skirt is darling!
+Speaking of fruity goodness, I love this lemon-print top! So cute with a navy skirt or shorts.
+I think I might live in this coverup all summer long. It looks so flattering, so easy, so comfortable…true story: I own a simple gray cotton maxidress that I wear almost every other night in the summer. It’s like my version of a muumuu/housecoat.
+This would be the most fun birthday bag ever!!!
+I’m still dying over all things India Hicks, and this basket pendant fits the bill. Imagine it over a breakfast nook styled with cabana striped upholstery!
+Another option for the fourth of july. I think I have to own it!
P.S. Are you a fish out of water?
P.P.S. ICYMI: the latest installment in my love story.
P.P.P.S. I loved the reactions to this post on breaking up with friends.
I will second what the other Claire said about Atlanta! My boyfriend and I picked it randomly one night because he’s been a fan of Donald Glover’s music for a long time and had been wanting to watch it. It’s funny and enjoyable, but it also definitely confronts a lot of hard truths about the black experience in America and especially the South. My professor even brought it up in my Southern Studies class this semester in comparison to Jesmyn Ward’s book Men We Reaped (which is also hard to read but incredibly thought-provoking).
Being a Southerner, a lot of the comparisons that are being made between Glover’s video and images of blacks used in the Jim Crow South are fascinating to me. I think he is a really interesting artist and while he’s definitely out there, he’s using pop culture to bring to light topics that are hard for people to talk about otherwise.
Hi Claire — You’re so right. I hadn’t thought about this until your note, but Roxane Gay strikes me as playing a similar role though in a very different medium and tone — she uses pop culture to shine a light on social/cultural truths we are unthinking about or uncritical of but that perhaps we should think more seriously about. I’ve not seen Atlanta yet, but now I’m intrigued…! Thanks for taking the time to write this! xo
Love those Nicola Bathie earrings — her designs are gorgeous!
I really want to watch the Childish Gambino video … I’d seen stills floating around Twitter/Instagram and haven’t had the chance to watch! I find him (Glover) fascinating, and I love Claire’s point about Kanyegate as well. I’ll let you know what I think.
In other news, I picked up a signed copy of You Think It, I’ll Say It (the short story collection by Curtis Sittenfeld about which you posted the other day)… excited to read it, possibly after I start the Magpie book club book! My to-read list is a mile long right now!
So cool! The REAL DEAL, signed and everything! My list is also unwieldy…but that’s a good thing.
Keep me posted on your thoughts on all of this!
xx
I am listening to my iTunes library on shuffle and “Redbone” just came up … such a good song! I loved its use in Get Out … have you seen it?
I still need to watch This Is America and will report back!
xx
Loooove Leontine Linens. We were up in Carmel-by-the-Sea recently and stumbled upon Jan de Luz linens – so beautiful!! I was paralyzed with indecision over what to get, so had to leave it for another day.
And I love that lemon shirt! May have to get it too – perfect for the summer!
OK, JEN! I immediately looked up Jan de Luz (new to me) and was dying over everything — even non-linens, like their scented drawer liners (?!?!) and their precious toddler bow dresses:
https://jandeluzlinens.com/shop/children/clothing/girls/dress-bow/
AHHH. So chic!
xx
Do you watch Atlanta? It’s similarly unsettling and slippery to label, rooted in truths about life in modern black America that are uncomfortable and painful for me to face. And yet, it’s also a deeply, gonzo-ly comedic show, one that pushes all sorts of creative and narrative and even visual boundaries. Donald Glover is a polymath, and even if some of what he does is just to prove he can do it better than anyone else (as he attested in the recent New Yorker profile), this video feels deliberate, a gauntlet and a commentary and a call to arms (or disarms, rather). Also interesting that it was released on the heels of Kanyegate…
Yes, what interesting timing! “A gauntlet, a commentary, a call to arms,” and also, possibly (?) a reclamation or rejection of some kind? The prismatic tone of the video seems appropriate, on further reflection, for the mixed and competing messages around being black in America.
I need to check out Atlanta now!