Sustainably Chic
Many brilliant items relevant to our (and your?!) interests!
Hello, Dames Nation. The internet has delivered many items of interest to me this week and perhaps they will also be of interest to you? It’s been nearly two months since my last one of these — do you all enjoy recommendations? Let me know in the comments! Make some recommendations of your own, too — *I* like recommendations!
First of all, I have a life-changing gift recommendation. I had to move into a new apartment for the first time in seven years a few weeks ago. Moving is always absolute hell, particularly when you are a completely out of control “maximalist” like me living in a sea of trinkets, knick knacks, gee gaws, every piece of scrap paper anyone I’ve ever loved has written anything on, and also just so many goddamn books. THEN, at the end of everything, one is expected to return to one’s former home, which if you’re me is now an eerily empty tribute to your absolutely subpar housekeeping skills. The giant, rollicking dust bunnies, the filthy baseboards, the spilled coffee that’s just been secretly living its cursed life on the wall that used to be behind the couch — all is supposed be dealt with now that one is down to their VERY last modicum of coping capability and so tired and perhaps a bit sad and just DONE but no, there is a final horrid task.
UNLESS…you have someone in your life like my beloved Holly whom you all may remember from past TBD issues like Perfume Nite: “U” Versus “One” and Perfume Nite: The Revenge. Holly secretly hired a house cleaning service to swoop in and clean my former apartment FOR ME and it’s one of the nicest gifts I’ve ever received and something I never would have considered doing for myself. I have wept about it in exhausted gratitude more than once. Can’t recommend enough. Excited to pay this gift forward to a loved one who is moving one day.
Ok, to the internet! Let’s go!
First of all, as of tomorrow it’s been a year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. As always, FUCK THAT SHIT! (Remember when we all banded together as a Nation of Dames to get some money to abortion funds?! Thank you for that!) Go to Rewire News Group for the peerless Jessica Mason Pieklo’s “Why I’m Angrier Than Ever a Year After The Overturn of ‘Roe’” and simultaneously stay angrier than ever and enjoy the illustration of true clown Samuel Alito in, yes, clown makeup. Then there’s this Twitter thread from Robin Marty, Operations Director for the West Alabama Women’s Center, which is no longer legally able to provide abortion services. She writes “every place that is still open without abortion is a GODDAMN MIRACLE and the fact that we are being forced to beg to treat patients left behind is frankly unconscionable” and then notes “You say you care so much about bodily autonomy, but when given the choice between a donation for a reproductive care center in the south and an abortion clinic to ship southern people to, the vast majority pick the abortion clinic EVERY time.” Absolutely guilty as charged and an excellent reminder that there’s so many ways we can keep showing up and taking care of each other in whatever ways we can. I’m going to send a little money to the West Alabama Women’s Center right now.
The Criterion Channel’s programming has been especially great over the past several months and the all-but-one-of-these-are-new-to-me Asian American `80s collection has been particularly entertaining AND educational for me. I loved this Film Quarterly article by Renee Tajima-Peña: “The Transformers: How Chan Is Missing Led to Better Luck Tomorrow Led to Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Chan Is Missing is SO GOOD and indeed, Marc Hayashi as Steve is a total fox!!!
Dorothy, a publishing project is one of my favorite publishers and they are distributed by the New York Review of Books and therefore part of their current sale! If you’re going to get four for maximum savings I recommend Fra Keeler by Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi, The Taiga Syndrome by Cristina Rivera Garza, In The Time of the Blue Ball by Manuela Draeger, and The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington but you probably can’t go wrong.
I just started listening to this podcast, The Secret Life of Death, in which “each episode is framed around finding a random gravestone of a regular person and researching the life and times of the person in that grave” and therefore EXTREMELY MY SHIT! They are currently doing a six-part (!) series on the Andrews Inn, Vermont’s first and at the time only gay bar, which was open from 1973 to 1984. It was in Bellows Falls, which is not that far from where I grew up in New Hampshire and I had NEVER heard of it! Please recommend other rural queer history stuff to me — I love it!
Finally, would you like to spend a mere $1.99 for an extremely useful and entertaining spreadsheet?! You should! Lakyn Carlton runs True Style, which is a virtual personal styling service with an emphasis on sustainability. Furthermore, she has an incredible Substack, also called
(I am a paying subscriber) AND she has put together an absolutely indispensable guide to sustainable, size-inclusive womenswear at a variety of price points: Where 2 Shop.There are over 250 options within the document, and as Lakyn explains: “This document represents dozens of hours of work not just finding brands, but looking into all the available information on them in order to gauge whether they’re a company worth supporting: that means researching their supply chains, reviews, searching for any articles about them, and finding any relevant ethical/sustainability certifications for every single one — and then organizing it all by "vibe," price, place of origin, and size range.” It is glorious. My new hobby is going through this spreadsheet, learning about brands I had no idea existed, and making little filters for myself at resale and thrift sites.
And now for a brief word from Dame Margaret
Coincidentally given Dame K’s final recommendation above, the no. 1 reason I am adding to the newsletter this week is because this jumpsuit from the sustainability-focused company Sugarhill Brighton just went on sale— down $98 to $69 (nice). It’s both extremely cute, c.f. this picture of me wearing it to the Taylor Swift Eras tour:
And exceptionally comfortable— even nicer than the fall/winter version of this jumpsuit I also own, which I obviously liked enough to functionally buy a second time. The fall/winter colorway is made from a lightweight viscose, but the spring/summer one is made from a lightweight woven fabric that’s super breathable and soft. It really does feel like wearing pajamas. I’m generally between a UK 16 and a UK 18 and, in these jumpsuits, the UK 16 fits me perfectly.
I know I’ve recommended this company before, because I apparently inspired Shawna of
to buy another Sugarhill Brighton jumpsuit which, according to the most recent issue of her Substack, she will be wearing to see Beyoncé in August. I’m including the full card to said issue because it includes a summer playlist that looks… pretty excellent:I will have to pay $1.99 to see if the brand is included in Lakyn’s amazing-sounding spreadsheet.
In addition, both things are pertinent to the another recommendation I came to share: the book City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert, which I picked up thanks to a recommendation from my pal/colleague Vanessa. As I said in our company newsletter:
I was thoroughly delighted by it. I'm so delighted by it that I'd even deem it comparable to I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, which one of my all-time favorite books. In one way, it's even better, as Gilbert doesn't leave her deeply lovable, voice-y heroine at the precipice of adulthood as Smith does. Instead, you get to see the woman she grows into and the life she builds for herself, which is profoundly satisfying. A small but meaningful part of this book's charm is that it's a great but all-too-rare thing: a book for people who love clothing as a mode of creative expression rather than a means of delineating status. Too often, books that care about clothing are also books where, if a handbag is mentioned, so is its designer source-- the clothes aren't about aesthetic joy, they're about wealth. But here, Vivian, who trips into working as a costume designer in her aunt's ramshackle Broadway theater, is someone who loves clothing for its color and form and feel, for its capacity to transform. Brands may be mentioned, but they are not deified. As this is how I approach clothing, it really endeared me to both Vivian and the book right away.
Which brings me to my final recommendation: one type of clothing with which Vivian falls most dramatically in love are elegant slacks. In the book, the aforementioned aunt’s ramshackle Broadway theater is graced by Edna Parker Watson, a bonafide star of London’s West End driven from her home by the Blitz, and Vivian becomes completely enamored of her wardrobe— as did I, by proxy. I mean, who could resist this:
And then there were the trousers— so many pairs of trousers. Some were long and loose, but others were narrow and looked like they would hit above the ankle. (“I got used to wearing these when I studied dance," she said of the cropped variety. "All the dancers in Paris wore trousers like that, and heavens, did they make it look chic. I used to call those girls 'the slim ankle brigade.")
The trousers were a real revelation for me. I'd never been a firm believer in trousers on women until I saw how good they looked on Edna. Not even Garbo and Hepburn had yet convinced me that a woman could be both feminine and glamorous in pants, but looking at Edna's clothes suddenly made me think that it was the only way a woman could be both feminine and glamorous.
And so, it is with a massive sense of personal triumph I now share a link to the closest thing I’ve ever yet found to the Hepburn, or Watson, Platonic Ideal of Trousers: Madewell’s Harlow Wide-Leg Pant. While I cannot vouch for the sustainability of these pants, they do come in a wider array of sizes than Sugarhill Brighton offers— all the way up to a 28W in the classic colors, with both petite and tall options as well. Per the reviewers, they run a bit big— I’m usually a 14 at Madewell, but the 12 is definitely the right fit for me in these— and the DRAPE of this fabric! I can’t say enough about it. It also feels so cool and soft and comfortable even in the heat. I’ve bought two pairs of these pants already (at a substantial discount) and I feel like their dastardly, underhanded introduction of many more colors (SMOKEY GRAPE!?!?!) may seduce me into buying more.
A few crucial tips about shopping at Madewell:
They have very good sales and that’s the only sensible time to shop, if you can make yourself wait.
Make sure you join the Madewell Insiders program, which will entitle you to both free shipping and a $25 gift card on your birthday every year (the only thing that ever persuades me to buy full-price items).
If, somehow, you’ve never bought anything from Madewell before, this link will give you $20 off your first order.
If you can verify that you’re a teacher, student, first responder, medical professional, or military personnel, you’ll be able to get 15% off everything they sell all the time.
They are also a great brand to find for PEANUTS on Poshmark. Once you know your sizes and cuts, you can find a rich array of options secondhand.
That’s all we’ve got for you this week, Dames Nationals! Some combination of the three of us will be hear to delight you next week, never fear.
XOXO/ Dames Karen & Margaret
Re: Madewell discounts - they also still run their denim recycling program, where you bring in an old pair of jeans, and they give you a $20 off coupon for a new pair (must be a full price pair). The old jeans are turned into insulation for homes used in projects like Habitat for Humanity.
Everyone who has seen my jumpsuit wants it for themselves! So thanks again for the recommendation and the shoutout! Can’t wait to check out True Style.