A Week In Review: Bordeaux, Venice and A Year On Earth With Mr. Hell
Coming out hot, written with room service from the Mondrian in Bordeaux and the airport in Nice
Hi my dear friends,
I hope you guys are doing good.
I am in Bordeaux, writing these lines at 10pm sitting on my kingsize bed in the beautiful hotel Mondrian Bordeaux Les Carmes. I ordered room service from their incredible Japanese restaurant Morimoto for dinner while writing this newsletter. Doing this kind of makes me feel that I want to always write like that, feels really right haha.
The hotel kindly put us into one of their nicest suites with an incredible terrace, they have a beautiful spa and swimming pool with a fantastic relaxation area and I really wanted to stay longer. But more about this another time.
This Friday, when this newsletter is launching, my husband and I are off to the Biennale in Venice, where he and his business partner are hosting their first premium members event for Super Super Markt. Our first stop will at the Guggenheim which I am so excited for. I haven’t been to the Biennale and Venice for some time, so I am really looking forward to it!
My next months are filled with a lot of exciting work projects: I am planning a video campaign production in Puglia for one of our clients for which we booked a fantastic team and I cannot wait. We are also planning a great Paris & Marseilles adventure for a fashion brand for which we did a rebranding and we have some more projects lined up that I can’t wait to get started on. August will be slow and full of holiday vibes I hope (I need some time off). My husband and I will probably hang out around beautiful Swiss cows, hike, eat cheese and read, sleep a lot, do little day trips…Can’t wait.
Today I thought I’d share some interesting and inspiring things I came across:
Books
I read two books last week, both because they were suddenly discussed everywhere and I wanted to join the conversation:
One of them was Wives Like Us by Plum Sykes, who, since her book launch is popping up everywhere again (Plum Sykes x Neverworms interview, Fashion People by Lauren Sherman x Plum Sykes podcast). Sykes was a contributing editor of American Vogue in the 90s, and wrote the book Bergdorf Blondes published back in 2004. Wives Like Us is set in the countryside, in the Cotswolds, in a high-spend scenario, where we meet the countryside princesses who fiercely compete over houses, staff, outfits, children and garden. Sykes is really good in meticulously describing details of outfits which build a complete picture of the people. It’s a light read, but one I thoroughly enjoyed and made me laugh.
The second book I read, also because of the hype and controversial opinions was A Year On Earth With Mr. Hell by Young Kim. The book is a forensic dissection of the author's intense sexual relationship with writer and punk rocker Richard Hell. Enjoyable are the references she made to art, people and fashion, the language is at times very explicit, which is fun when people poke over your shoulder to see what you are reading and you then want to explain, but do it in an awkward way… Lovely.
Next one on my list is Once upon a Time by Elizabeth Beller, a book about the life of the very stylish and mysterious Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, who tragically died in a plane crash together with her husband John Kennedy.
I also want to read All Fours by Miranda July. I loved all her books and can’t wait to read this one. My best friend L. told me that she will be on a book tour in June, I definitely want to go!
Newsletters
I somehow managed to subscribe to 64 newsletters in total, of which 10 are paid. I always stumble across such interesting new ones, which in total adds up to a sum that is not so reasonable to follow up with, sometimes I do read a lot, but I 100% have to do some clearing here. Some of my favorite newsletters with you:
For beauty insights I read The Review of Beauty by Jessica Fino: She is Number One when it comes to critically observing the beauty market from Gen Alpha obsessing about aging or Taylor Swift perfume.
Another Substack I recently discovered is Neverworns by the very cool Liana Satenstein: She says: This is a place for people to connect over details they are absolutely obsessed with in film or music videos, whether that is Madonna’s lip liner in “Bad Girl”, the layered meaning of hard-handled bags, the anime opening in Toni Braxton’s “He Wasn’t Man Enough”, or Gwyneth’s key tray in A Perfect Murder. I like you already, Liana.
Articles
I also have subscriptions to about 1000 newspapers and pages, and I love when people link good articles in their newsletter. So I will do it for you too, there are so many articles out - curation helps. Can you tell, my favorite thing to do is research.
So below is what I enjoyed to read recently:
Substack: A Deep Dive Into the Rare ‘90s DKNY Book That Became a Fashion Bible
Wall Street Journal: Fashion’s Favorite Makeup Artist on Sephora Tweens and Taylor Swift
Air Mail: Angelika Hicks Guide to Brooklyn (I love Air Mail!)
Images
I found this image I saved on Instagram so beautiful, it is an editorial shot by Maona Micoud, styled by Margot Rousseau for Cartonmagazine.
Vestiaire:
Below some items I saved this week because I thought they were very hot:
Marques Almeida orange fur jacket, size L, 368€
Gucci turquoise heels, size 39, 269€
Prada yellow heels, size 40, 473€
Roberto Cavalli flower denim, size FR 40, 99€
Paco Rabanne leather belt, 95cm, 103€
That’s all to report for now.
Bordeaux and Venice city guides are coming. I'll probably also do one on Puglia, Paris and Marseille after my trips. People keep asking me what to do in Paris, and I usually only have time to share my Google Maps with 250 saved locations. I want to change that! Soon.
Happy Friday my friends, speak soon.
Bye!
LKD