Hi Again!
It’s actually been a minute since I’ve written here! I come with a few excuses. First, I had a baby. A lovely baby boy named Hugh, who just recently turned one. I love motherhood, but it is all consuming and exhausting. I now realize two things: The world is not built for mothers and families and it ought to be. Also, childcare is wonderful. But also, The New York Times instituted a rule that one couldn’t have a newsletter and also be a newsroom employee, and so I was told I couldn’t keep doing Imitation of the Rose. But the great (and bittersweet) news is, I’ve decided to leave T Magazine. So I’m back! I’m very excited to write more.
I can’t wait to update this newsletter with thoughts on my favorite summer beauty products, the books I’ve been reading, and more. In the meantime, I wanted to share some writing of mine.
Here’s an essay I wrote about artists married to other artists, and why we are so fascinated with the idea (or at least I am). I’ve been obsessed with figures like Simone de Beauvoir and Francoise Gilot my whole life. Why did I find the marriage between two writers or two artists so romantic when the reality was, when you dug deeper, far less appealing?
Florence Homolka’s “Double Wedding Portrait (Man Ray, Juliet Man Ray, Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning),” October, 1946.
And here’s a profile I wrote of the model Guinevere van Seenus. It delves into a very precise and specific moment in fashion history—1996—the year Guinevere’s career took off. She arrived a little bit after Kate Moss and Amber Valetta (unbelievably, these models represented something more “real”) and around the same time that the high gloss and glamour of the industry became less appealing. (If you know about Guinevere’s Jil Sander campaign, you know.) Reporting on fashion history is more difficult than it seems. It’s well documented, but poorly organized. There are a lot of people behind the scenes who help to make a picture or a collection. And a lot of what you’re trying to understand is a mood or a sensibility. I think it’s why you still need a fashion show in order to understand the clothes. There’s something about being there, the excitement and the energy in the room, the casting, the music, the colors, the textures that all come together in that moment and capture something completely indescribable.
Photograph by Jody Rognac.
Anyway, that’s it for now. Until soon!