142: The fall shopping spreadsheet is coming back and I need your help

Plus La Garçonne's new arrivals, Nordstrom's summer sale, and Tiina the Store's final discounts.

A reader emailed me this week asking if I was planning on publishing another crowdsourced fall shopping spreadsheet like this one from last year. I hadn’t had any concrete plans for it, but thinking back, I actually found it super fun and insightful—as if the group chat blew up and thousands of my closest friends were giving a candid look into their own painstakingly researched turn-of-season shopping playbooks. Precisely the kind of shopping voyeurism I can’t resist.

So, here’s where you come in. I’m looking for your submissions on the following shopping prompts:

1. What exact pieces have you already bought for fall?

2. What exact pieces are on your wishlist that you haven’t sprung for yet?

3. What designers are you most interested in for the season?

4. Which sites/stores are you frequenting the most for your fall shopping?

5. What types of items are at the top of your to-buy list? E.g. outerwear, jeans, jewelry, home, etc.

6. What have been your most-worn pieces of late summer?

7. And finally, your fall 2023 trend predictions?

Don’t be shy! Feel free to send me your answers to any or all of the above questions by responding directly to this email or dropping them in the comments section. I’ll be publishing the responses and data next week.

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What’s new

La Garçonne “Return to Classics”

• La Garçonne’s new-in edit, “Return to Classics,” succinctly captures both my material interests and methodology around fall shopping: exquisitely made, differentiated basics from a handful of brands acquired in small sets and assembled as a seasonal capsule. It’s an easy and attractive proposition to add a few choice pieces like an Auralee silk hunting coat, Lauren Manoogian crewneck, Lemaire house dress, The Row corduroy pants, Maria La Rosa knee socks, Mackintosh poncho, Maria McManus chunky cashmere knit, and Dries Van Noten silver midi skirt, and then putting them on lo-fi remix for the months to come.

• If you ignore the existential aberration that was Riverdale and go back to the source text, Archie Comics of the ‘50s and ‘60s, you’ll understand that 2023 Betty and Veronica would both be Tory Burch girls, especially in the wake of its fall arrivals. They’d appreciate, from different socioeconomic angles, its sly gestures toward a certain legacy brand that’s currently appropriating a Brooklyn diner—Tory’s new pieces might nod at the silhouettes of Chanel, as in this cardigan that cribs the shape of its signature cropped jacket, but the younger brand makes clothes that belong in a real diner, making the townies swoon with a caramel-colored poplin wrap dress, narrowly missing a maraschino cherry-colored top handle purse with a wayward drip of milkshake, or click-clacking across the linoleum flooring in cap-toe pumps that are sure to pique the interest of the next wave of Tinder shoe thieves.

• I goofed by missing this earlier, but a few of the brands I shouted out as favorites from CPHFW are selling their just-shown pieces via pre-order on Moda Operandi. The Garment and Mark Kenly Domino Tan are my focal points here—the former’s viral-in-the-making scalloped cotton pants and apron top, and the latter’s beaded linen skirt are standouts. The entire edit is also wickedly affordable, with tons of pieces for under $300 (and some as low as $150).

• It’s known that brands will commonly destroy unsold inventory rather than release it to the public at a discount or repurpose it, one, to protect the brand’s value, and two, because separating and sorting finished products into workable materials is much more labor intensive and costly than sourcing them new. Loro Piana’s “Loro” collection of renewed cashmere knits takes the long way there, breaking down its overstock, piece-by-piece, by hand, blending it with a percentage of virgin cashmere to create a waste-deferring yarn out of which a collection of $1,000 sweaters are knit. Attention is the new luxury.

• The long-teased metalware collection from Miami food outfit Ananas Ananas has finally released, with a launch event at Dumbo’s Hudson Wilder taking place later this week. Shiny steel orbs make appearances as feet on serving platters and office-toy-like displays, while trays embrace the wabi-sabi warping effects of shaping metal.

• Church’s may be the Alana Hadid to Miu Miu and Prada’s Gigi and Bella, but a collaboration between the shoemaker and its sister brand Miu Miu is certainly worth our attention. A 4-SKU lineup of leather brogues are modeled in runway Miu Miu, to be released tomorrow.

• The Esse Studios Edition Nine tab has been opened and closed and reopened more than is usual for a 50-ish-product lineup in my browser. The Mono Column Tops don’t need any occasion as justification, but for many of the other command-shift-Ts I hit, I’m acutely waiting for an invite to hit my inbox that makes sense of the Linka Maxi Dress or the Mono Fringe Dress.

• Puppets and Puppets’ FW23 collection could just as easily be the costume closet for a  nascent David Lynch project—the dark romance of red and black makes sophisticated a faux snakeskin jacket and matching, hip-baring trousers that Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage would’ve had custody battles over in Wild at Heart. Corsets and panniers are earnestly deployed in blazers and gowns, and the nearly obsolete home phone is given new life as the handle of a purse.

• The Baserange Winter ‘23 drop is a preemptive strike against the sharp edges of the season. It’s much easier to fathom surviving another slew of cold days when you’re scrolling through this pile of jersey sweatshirts you can tie in myriad configurations around your body like a swaddled baby, cornflower blue skirts that swell and gather under the knee, inky capes in weighty brushed wool, and nostalgically nubby green socks.

• Another approach toward braving the darker seasons is to crystallize moments of warmth and carry them around with you as talismans against the cold, which Isshī has done with its FW23 collection, “De La Tierra.” Leather cords are strung into necklaces of pearls, hand-painted with images that “pull the soul into the ocean of endless childhood,” or collections of shells, stones, and trinkets that seem to each have their own sacred history. 

• Comme Si is presumably riding the high of the past year’s boxers-as-pants movement, infusing its new “Naples on Summer” collection with celebratory colorways (like the pink-and-red buzz of an Aperol spritz or the eager green of freshly shorn grass) that grace both its classic shorts and its prophetic boxer-pant hybrids. 

• A new contender is throwing its hat in the boxer ring: Tekla pairs its crisp, stripey poplin shorts in shades of blue and white with washed-out sleep tees that have the exact energy of the shirt a romcom heroine would nab from her one-night stand. Stüssy also pokes its proverbial head into the Tekla matrix once again with bathrobes that make a renewed case for bathrobes—remember when SSENSE told us to wear them to the club?

• Blumarine FW23 is all about embellishment, from the pragmatic—someone summon the TikToker who tries out weird bags to see what she can fit in these pocket-heavy stiletto boots—to the shamelessly indulgent, as with this revival of the classic butterfly-adorned flip-flop and slingbacks sprouting patent leather rosettes.

• The first ready-to-wear collection by Yume Yume is quickly selling out, though its ethos is very much “let’s try EVERYTHING we can THINK OF at ONCE” (not necessarily a bad thing!). A vegan leather drop-waist gown is on the more legible end of things, but we soon careen into wonderland with a giant, inky flower of a sunhat, shoe pants (shoonts? Let’s workshop), and vegan leather socks (to winterproof the brand’s slide sandals).

• There’s also: Glossier’s stretch tech makes its way into a foundation across 32 shades; Nordstrom gets an exclusive capsule of Burberry, which includes crochet bucket hats, leather slides, and trippy terrycloth tees and shorts; Budapest-based Aeron rolls out a tight edit of satisfyingly heavy monochromatic denim separates; Vanessa Hong works with Reike Nen on a capsule of stiletto boots that cinch over the knee; a quilted jacket and a leather bomber are the lovechildren of Shoreditch Ski Club x Agolde, available at Maison Rogue; Chlöe x Halle’s capsule for Victoria’s Secret Pink has everything from parachute pants to puffer jackets, in hues from Barbie pink to a caramelly khaki; the “pheromone potions” Gabriela Hearst created with Fueguia 1833 are actually just perfumes, smelling of wood and stormy air and retailing for $415 a bottle; Puma and Lemlem collaborate on a capsule of neon-streaked, rave-minded athleisure; and Highsnobiety launches its HS05 apparel brand with an impressive array of pieces like zig-zagged alpaca sweaters in pink and red and cornflower blue button-up leather jackets.

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What’s on sale

Nordstrom Summer Sale

• Nordstrom’s Summer Sale counts over 32,000 pieces, including 3,300 “designer,” and within that, 326 from Nordstrom SPACE—the retailer’s emerging and avant garde incubator. An everyday Mowalola bag is down to $154, some baggy Miaou jeans are under $180, tapered Toteme pants are 60% off as is an Acne Studios cropped puffer and a green A.Roege Hove dress I highlighted in the wedding guest edit. It’s a good—surprisingly good, actually—sale by any standards.

• Moda Operandi’s summer-ending sale is in the wild west of sale-on-sale territory, with an extra 25% shaved off your total using LABORDAY25. We warned you that blazers were coming out of style hibernation, and this wrappy, puffed-sleeve situation from By Malene Birger is 60% off and an unhinged (in a good way) method of plunging into that deep end. Other notable dispatches from the frontier are on a pink silk slip-ish Rodarte gown (why does it feel like a lifetime since we last saw the name “Rodarte” in a sale section? Jpeg of rat smoking a cigarette) and a spiky little black Bevza dress that’s too sculpturally fascinating for the offhanded moniker “LBD,” 60 and 70% off respectively.

• All 11 pages of the La Garconne Long Weekend sale—take an extra 20% off with GLABOR2023—are excellent. It’s almost impossible to find a multi-brand sale with no skips, but this one is so well-curated, it’s the sartorial equivalent to Björk’s Homogenic. The operatic, swooning “Jóga” would be a plant-dyed lace top in waves of indigo by Blue Blue Japan, tha abrasive wails of “Pluto” trace along the jagged hem of a CDG Homme Plus vest, the pleated satin of a teal Noir by Kei Ninomiya skirt ripples like the synth-y pulses of “Hunter,” and a crinkly, strapless Ter Et Bantine dress in a color-redefining shade of purple challenges, with its ballooning shape and technical fabric, what the “shape of a girl” Björk sings about in “Bachelorette” can look like.

• Net-A-Porter’s sale has stayed strong while others have rudely yanked away their pages upon pages of deals. At NAP, there’s even the added incentive of an additional 20% on top of the up-to-80% price cuts on crinkled Interior pants, a Tove wool tunic, a wool cady By Malene Birger blazer, etc.

• The doleful Tiina store closing should also be met with a certain amount of glee, at least while inventory is being cut down to 60% off (30% for The Row and Dosa). In store this weekend, I myself picked up a sort of scarf-collar-wrap by SCHA that’s no longer on site, but I still hold that the accessories are a great entry point to taking advantage of this era’s end.

• Dear Frances’ sitewide 20% off sale is a great place to clean up on footwear regardless of what season you’re pretending we’re in right now: their mesh flats (which they’ve been making for almost as long as The Row) are a good option, but the Edna boots are my pick for this year’s boot ubiquita.

• The Eres Days sale sees the brand’s esteemed swimwear marked down by hundreds. A smart investment in a forever maillot today thankfully means not having to reup the hunt in just a couple seasons.

• The Araks annual swim sale discounts suits like this turquoise, glitchy, cut-out one piece, a bikini top anchored at the shoulder with…a literal anchor, a goldenrod suit with a you-gotta-see-to-understand scrunched-up neckline, and dozens more, so steeply it’s hard to believe—think $200 down to $40, with MOST sizes still in stock. 

• Sandro is offering an extra 20% off the summer collection in its sale section, with almost 400 pieces like a swishy floral minidress, a mustard-colored satin button-down that is destined to unite with a pair of basketball shorts in the warm months and thick woolen trousers all winter, and a leather belt stacked with eyelets, all three items at 50% off.

• B Sides has many a dress and jacket in its archive sale, but of course, its jeans are the stars of the show, whether tapered and hand-dyed in compelling crinkles, subdued and designed for maximal ‘90s boyfriend slouchiness, or fashioned into a swingy maxi skirt—and all three options, plus a handful more, are marked down to $99.

• Use EXTRA15 for a 15% bump on the discounts in the Aeyde archive sale, which is so thorough in its rainbow of a catalog of shoes—everything from F*** Me Pumps, as Amy Winehouse would call them, to lace-up stiletto boots that would kill a Victorian orphan—that it’s easy to miss the jewelry section, but you’re gonna want to scroll down and see what’s up.

• Surprisingly wintry for a sale at this point in the year, the Nili Lotan Labor Day sale is a highly justifiable shopping opportunity, with a floor-length, long-sleeve knit jersey dress, drop-crotch silk pants, a blouse with a spread collar and cuffs like soft black petals, and more.   

• The Outdoor Voices Extra Sale is now up to 70% off, meaning pieces like a silky, athletic bodysuit that could easily be one half of a suit-and-boots transitional weather look are marked off to $19. That’s not a typo, and hardly anything, from the platonic ideal of stretchy black flare pants to flippy little tennis dresses, is over $70 in this sale.

• There’s also: Toronto clothier Uncle Studios is in its extra 20% off sale era, it’s sitewide-discount-pilled, completely lost in the sub-$200 trenches and $90 knits sauce; Anthropologie’s also doubling down with an extra 40% off sale, where the best deals and design can be found in the furniture and home goods section; bras, garters, bodysuits and more take the form of stars, frames, suspenders, and beyond, all for under $175, in the Fleur du Mal seasonal sale; samples of Zou Xou’s leopard-print ballet flats, woven leather slides, and square-toed sandals are all discounted to one or two hundred dollars; Ulta’s 21 Days of Beauty are underway, with daily discounts on everything from cream blush sticks to rose quartz face rollers; use SAVEBIG to take up to 25% off Food52’s stock of kitchen accouterments; and four-dollar cushions, duvets for $30, and more home-rehaul bait abounds in the IKEA U.S. Labor Day sale.

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With contributions from News Editor Em Seely-Katz