319: One Paris purchase, one post-Paris purchase

Plus Wales Bonner feels so good right now, Co's sale in the $200s, and Carven hits La Garçonne.

Jan 28, 2025

I bought one thing* in Paris: an emergency sweater from Lemaire. But I saw at least four new things (current season, as opposed to the great stuff at the previews) I knew I wanted to tell you about.

These (also Lemaire) boots…I’m laden heavy with pointy-tip fatigue and welcome their bulbous toe and fat heel.
Tabis with a FULL toe split. BTW tabis are about to have another wave of relevance with Glenn (didn’t I call it?) likely soon behind the wheel.
Olga Basha jeans. Maddening how good the fit is…so happy I tried them on…like a loose straight leg that somehow preserves space between your thighs and a cleaved butt, plus they come in low and mid-rises, thank god the end of high is nigh.
And this Toteme dress, a shearling-silk hybrid that’s halfway between young-adult serial fantasy and boom-boom aesthetic. Politically troubling to think about but surely lovely to wear!

I’ve started looking less and feeling more as a shopping tactic. I.e. instead of opening SSENSE or TRR when I get the shoppies, I remember how boring that is and take comfort in that I allow myself to freely get whatever I want when it properly jumps off the page or rack and addresses me directly. (It’s how I felt with the Le Monde Beryl slippers I bought last week without realizing they were about to sell out everywhere.)

That same soul recognition hit me again just shortly after I got back to New York in the form of this Cawley aviator jacket in cognac brown, which I bought it within five minutes of meeting it. I’m surer about this than I am about almost anything.

*the fine print is that I bought a French-plug Dyson AirWrap a few days before flying. I am in Paris at least 4x a year…enough already with hotel hair dryers and packing old flat irons!

What’s new

Didn’t realize how ready I was for new Wales Bonner until I saw this latest collection drop. I don’t think enough people make her brand their whole personality, but they easily could. It reminds me of what Pieter Mulier said yesterday at Alaïa couture about how modernism shouldn’t equate to minimalism. All of these pieces—the jerseys, the utility trousers, the Crombie car coats—are just so full of life.
Speaking of Alaïa, I’m hearing Jacquemus recently hired away a design director from the house, which may explain some similarities in showing the latest collection, “La Croisière.” Be that as it may, I think the pieces are sufficiently different at retail, which Jacquemus’ are already, unlike most of his fashion week-presenting peers who work a season ahead.
Toteme canonizes its most frequented styles with Garderob, a capsule wardrobe of what it (and many) considers the most core building blocks of a closet—light and dark wash jeans, a white tee, a trench, a leather jacket, black trousers, button-downs, a suede work bag I hadn’t seen before that has the potential to go very big…
I haven’t thought much about Australian brand Beaufille in a while, but I have to say, and especially for the price, the new collection looks SO good. There’s a red suede trio consisting of a button-down, long skirt, and Céline-esque bag (for under $700) that makes me very wary of a sell-out. And I want this black denim shirt to wear with everything.
It’s a good week for Mag brands at La Garçonne, where the runway Auralee we saw at last Paris Men’s Week is finally up for sale and Carven has expanded past its previously limited US retailers. (There’s also a sale underway that sweeps in everything from Stein to Sacai.)
Word of new Metier can make me click so fast. The bag brand who I like to call “America’s Hermés” put out a handful of fresh styles, including the absolutely hulking Cala 42. It’s giving Ikea bags for CEOs.
People are mad about Aritzia knocking off The Row in its PS25 lookbook, to which I say, in full view of the current fashion landscape, what else is new? It looks like they even used a Margaux (or close approximation), which I’ve already cited as being a pretty common practice.
It can’t go unacknowledged that Phoebe Philo is back with “Collection B,” so let me just say that it feels both embarrassingly dated and potentially salvationary—kind of as it has from the beginning. Every piece is of the utmost, painstaking precision, and yet I don’t have any compulsion to wear it. What was meant to mark a new chapter hangs in the same limbo as the pages before.
There’s also: Marine Serre lends its crescent moons to French ballet shoe brand Repetto in a witchy collab that invites pattern clashing; COS’ new slim sneaker didn’t stand a chance…sold out in all but two sizes in an instant (totally gone in red and brown though); Comme Si’s excellent flannel offering now includes a Bermuda-length boxer, nailing the proper English-countryside chicken-chasing look; is Ireland trending or did I just go there? &Daughter’s new Arden crewneck is made with 100% Merino wool in Donegal; and Flore Flore adds a new silhouette I’m surprised they weren’t already dominating—the v-sloped skinny strap cami called Isla.

Men’s releases

You can now buy Saman Amel’s ever-selling-out City Mocs (and RTW) on MyTheresa…which will soon be called LuxExperience (!!!), if you think you could ever find a way to get past that.
The OMNIGOD x Alex Mill collaboration Americanizes Japanese denim, which is Americanized in its own Japanese way to begin with.

Home releases

In our current epoch of the It rug, where our rooms can keep up with fashion almost as much as our clothes, the next obvious class of contenders has just arrived via Beni Rugs’ eight-piece collaboration with Lisbon-based Garcé and Dimofski. The off-white and primary-pigmented styles are imbued with a Matisse-like ease and buoyance.
If it felt like Tekla was missing something in its satisfying palette of bold colors, that’s just been corrected with the introduction of the perfectly right Yellow Ochre, found in its towels, bath mats, and washcloths.

What’s on sale

The excellent (and exceptionally deep) Co sale that’s been raging on for most of winter is finally winding down. I had to give it yet another parse through now that it’s reached 70% off, and my biggest takeaway for people who might not know is that it’s not all soft suiting, but also everyday flats and boots, chic parkas, and their version of elevated athleisure, almost all of which hover around the $200 mark.
The Fforme sale that dominated Black Friday weekend is also finally coming to a close, now with an extra 10% off at checkout. We’re 10 days out from the brand’s first show under its new Creative Director, so this may be the wast we ever see of Paul Helbers at what he fashioned into the modern-day Zoran.
Lauren Manoogian’s FW24 has hit sale, earning the season’s knits and wovens a much deserved revisit. A couple things in particular still haunt me from my initial try-ons in the store: this hand-knit hourglass vest that sold very quickly through in my size otherwise I would have acted on it and the somehow neotenic duo of this quilted robe and wrap, all about half off.
Net-A-Porter’s sale counts The Row, Khaite, Loewe, and Dries among its most discounted pieces, marked 70% off, and for the moment there’s an additional 15% discount with EXTRA 15. Take, for instance, this
It’s mostly sold through by now, but Atlantic Ave’s savior of a womenswear store, Outline, has its end-of-season sale on right now, where memorable Super Yaya pieces and various Lauren Manoogian, Our Legacy, and Comme is around half off.
On the occasion of its decennial, Nu Swim has announced a very generous 40% discount sitewide, taken at checkout. I just so happen to have bought this strapless maillot (at full price!), but am feeling the draw to go back for this simple shell dress that I know to be surprisingly flattering to most who wear it, now that it’s down to $73.
A bunch of the brand’s greatest hits are folded into 6397’s warehouse sale: the Chore Coat I lusted over this fall (and still lust over) for $315, the Fairisle Crew down to $415, plus tempting basics like this tee and knit v-neck.
One of the best new global stores, Antwerp’s The Menu, is having a great sale atm—Nicklas Skovgaard, Martiniano, Hai, Cawley, and Saks Potts all included.
There’s also: Nia Thomas’ high-end crochet beachwear comes in below the $50 at the brand’s archive sale; and 25% of proceeds from Christopher John Rogers’ substantial archive sale will go toward supporting Black families affected by the LA fires.

Home sale

Autumn Sonata’s old world-inspired textiles are on archive, bringing tablecloths, napkins, and placemats down by 40%, hopefully not in advance of being discontinued (the brand has become most known for its terrycloth, but these dining sets are just as strong!).

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