I've been talking about it a lot * the week April Fools' Day was canceled

A string of opinionated random thoughts.

my idea of stay at home

Love

• The road to the perfect amber fragrance *UPDATE*: I found the most exquisite jewel bottle of Ambra Estratto Triplo in an equally magnificent Santa Maria Novella blue starred box … in my bathroom. That … is … exactly … who … I … am. It’s been there, in front of me, every day, but yesterday a towel fell on it and it opened. I even remember the year I wore it, the summer of 2008, when I spent over a month in Italy. I opened the empty bottle, and, oh yes, it was the smell of a damn good summer. I remember buying it in the Florence store while taking Cecilia for her first experience of choosing her first fragrance (Lily of the Valley). I checked, and SMN still has their Ambra Eau de Cologne, but they don’t have the concentrated triple extract. I am starting to think that there must be a sort of sourcing shortage, were we in an amber drought even before tariffs? BTW, this is the reason why my newsletter is called like that: I think fast and deeply, ask a lot of questions, and talk obsessively about something, like a dog with a bone, but I am so grateful that I have so many readers.

• A TV moment, more two: 1- I laughed ferociously with The Residence, produced by Shonda Rhimes with Uzo Aduba, and especially enjoyed the satire of the murderer, no spoilers. 2- I found in the “New For You” offer on Hulu, Antoni’s (from Queer Eye) National Geographic's 6-part series No Food Like Home and binged on it, laughed, cried, and rejoiced. Girl, I do anything to avoid the news.

• A mental break moment: I have seen somebody mentioning #noscrolltuesday to take a 24-hour break from social media. I also had a series of DM exchanges on IG (ironically) with a friend who took a few months’ hiatus from Instagram. It was more of an interrogation: did you feel lost initially? did you find yourself holding the phone, ready to scroll to then realize there was no app to open? how does it feel now that you have the app back on the screen? did you have a plan on what to do in your free time before deleting the app? what’s the difference in your screen time? BTW those are all the things I went through when I deleted Facebook in 2016. For now, I will not open IG on Tuesdays, and if anyone wants to join, let me know, maybe that day we can find time for a chat?

• The Camargue boot *UPDATE*: My friend Tracey approves of La Botte Gardiane and says they get perfect after a year.

I don’t care

• For that ever present spaghetti clutch: it makes me uncomfortable. I eat food, I prefer a wrinkled shirt to a shirt with food stains, I can’t think of wearing food, especially overcooked spaghetti.

• I can’t reconcile the concept of stealth luxury with the trendy milky, Russian or whatever you want to call those long fake nails. IMHO a Jaeger-LeCoultre and a navy blazer would do it.

• I am tired of having to explain myself (this is the type of week)

The sustainability debrief

It’s a 3-level carbon footprint reduction debrief kind of day: :

1. INDIVIDUAL: There will never be clarity or a full circular economy until we eradicate from our brains that addiction to buying cheap fast trends. Falling into the trap of planned obsolescence is weak, we have enough tools and knowledge to elude the truth.

2. SOCIAL: Beginning September 2025, Amsterdam Fashion Week adopts Copenhagen FW’s Sustainability Requirements to strengthen Europe’s sustainability progress and supporting designers to drive positive change. Note: the British Fashion Council, Oslo and Berlin FWs have already partnered. Brands willing to present are to submit documentation proving their practices adhere to the required Minimum Standards (2020) and Additional Actions (2024). “Sustainability is not an option – it's the future of fashion, and we are shaping that future today.” - Danie Bles, Pres. AFW

3. THE UNIVERSE: spacewaste.official the new Vestiaire Collective’s mock startup launched on April 1st. A straight forward attack against the hypocrisy of overproduction and overconsumption (refer to point #1 above). For context: We produce 92 million tons of clothing waste annually, enough to dress the next six generations or to wrap a second Moon. Love how hard they went to even adopt a recognizable font of a ridiculous space initiative.

final’s tonight!

How do you say it in Italian?

Una parola è poca e due son troppe we say it of a person of few words. It means “one word is too little, two words are too much”. This is something my grandmother always said of my father who would have turned 82 today.

For all my new followers and anyone who wants to chat, feel free to check out my style diary, the book I wrote and published, and my posts on Instagram.