And then you know what happens? You come back to your iPhone, look back at the forecast and realize you’re not in start-up nation. Where you really live, the tales of Memorial Day Weekend are far more disconcerting. 55 degrees. Rain. Thunderstorms–that forecast may as well share what it’s really thinking: Hey, asshole, remember when you put your coat in storage last week? Big mistake. Huge.

But I’m not one to gloat in misery, oh no, and thus by osmosis neither are you. Eventually summer has got to come around, right? So we may as well start planning and let this weekend inaugurate summer in a slightly different capacity. Maybe, too, if we convince ourselves the forecasts are wrong and our clothes are right, we can find ourselves sunscreen-laden and daiquiri drinking.

Just kidding, I fucking hate daiquiris. Let’s stick to plan A. Your summer stripes, right this way.

1. Oversize denim jacket, Topshop, $90

2. Linen, striped scarf (you will wear it as a sarong, right?), Lemlem, $140

3. Denim shirt slash dress slash jacket slash perfect to put over a bathingsuit or, you know, your naked body, Maison Martin Margiela, $425

4. Owl intarsia cotton-blend shorts, Etoile Isabel Marant, $290 (and, full disclosure, I am wearing them right now.)

5. With this precise T by Alexander Wang black and white striped linen shirt.

6. Red floral tea dress, Topshop, $85

7. Dolly cricket striped flats (an elegant alternative to Soludos, and a perfect antidote for those of us who don’t particularly love flat sandals), Tabitha Simmons, $395

8. Navy and black panama hat because, why not? Live a little, J. Crew, $58

9. Gold coast shades, Nasty Gal, $40

10. Printed ruffled triangle bikini–and I know what you’re thinking–why now after all the despair I just shared? Because it’s nearly 60% off, people! Zimmermann, $110

11. Embellished sandals–these ones make my heart sing–Tory Burch, $276

Doesn’t that feel great? Talk to me–what do you like? What do you hate? Happy long weekend, folks!

As a direct result of this morning’s post, which explains in eloquent detail precisely why the J. Crew catalogue has maintained an almost violent ability to remind Mattie of her shortcomings (she’s 5’2, she loves J. Crew, J. Crew loves capri pants, capri pants hate Mattie), and the unshakeable chic factor that reveals itself when considering Jenna Lyons, we thought there was no time like the present (tense pun wholly intended) to reflect on some of our favorite hits care of the pioneer in specs herself.

If you’d like to reflect on the length of the previous sentence, you can do that too, but I digress.

I started falling into the dangerous black hole of Google search immediately after the Mail Order post went live. I didn’t come out until an hour ago and only then to get some coconut water which turned into a strange closet perusal which was only really strange because for the first time in a long time, nothing seemed as interesting as my most basic denim. What is it about Jenna Lyons’ dexterity to combine a seemingly banal t-shirt with even more regular pants and make it look…one in a million? And why can’t I do it, damnit? Is it her height? I’m only like, three (fine, four) inches shorter. The way in which she stands, which infers a note of carelessness in spite of the complexity almost always evident on her outfits? I can act.

The woman has swag.

It might be in the details–the unequivocal pleats, and prints, and slight but calculated slouch in her pants. Or maybe it’s the disconnects–sequins and a fatigue print, her pink satin skirt paired with a denim jacket-as-blouse, or that taupe v-neck sweater which, duh! should only ever be paired with an entirely feathered ballgown skirt. By the time I was through clicking through photos, I could barely discern the difference between sequins and feathers anymore. What are either, after all, if not a paradoxical cushion to assuage the discomfort of tight-ish jeans?

There’s a strange, inimitable magic about the way Lyons dresses that never reads inaccessible. This even in spite of my relentless trying to get it right but never, ever actually succeeding. Is this why we constantly must to be reminded that it’s not about the clothes, it’s about the lifestyle? I don’t know. I’m just going to keep clicking.

It’s only taken me about three years, but I’ve finally come to accept the fact that I do not look good in capris. I am now reasonably sure that—deep breath—I never have. Worst of all, I suspect our incompatibility has been fairly obvious from the start. At 5’2, I’m not exactly the target demographic for a clothing item that deliberately slices my already pint-sized limbs in two. This seemingly obvious logic notwithstanding, I’ve probably tried on well over a hundred pairs. In observance of pastel-hued resort seasons gone by, I’ve dutifully experimented with stiff cotton ankle-grazers and stretch denim skinnies. On particularly adventurous occasions, I’ve whisked printed silk styles back to low-lit dressing rooms—only to be hopelessly disappointed. Just last week, I slipped into three neon versions of the same questionable cut. They looked predictably horrendous. Year after year, my frame and I are forced to face the same dispiriting conclusion. The cropped pant is not the pant for me.

Or at least it hasn’t been since I graduated pre-school.

I hate to point fingers, but there’s only one person to blame for the hours wasted in search of this would-be platonic pair of pants. Jenna Lyons, I love you, but you’re bringing me down. Or perhaps, more precisely: your catalogue is.

My relationship with the monthly J.Crew catalogue began innocently enough. I first subscribed to it on an early visit to the retailer’s Columbus Circle location in New York. “It’s sort of like a magazine,” explained some bespectacled saleswoman. “We can send it to you, if you’d like.” Given that—as anyone who has ever been fifteen can attest—there are few things in life more thrilling than mail that arrives with your name on it, I did not hesitate to give her my home address.

In truth, I have always liked catalogues. I can only suppose affection for them—and their promise of orderly commercialism—served as my own minor rebellion against the resolutely mismatched décor of my Upper West Side apartment. My alternative father—not merely “artsy,” but actually an artist—had always rejected the upholstered dining sets and coordinated flatware characteristic of my friends’ homes in favor of flea-markets finds and antique-store acquisitions.

Once, when I asked him to buy me an area rug for my room so that I could curl up on the floor to read, as my best friend did on her I’m-straight-from-page-18-on-the-Pottery-Barn-Kids catalogue, he picked up a street-fair-issue carpet that somebody had probably died on. After I told him how jealous I was of the Tiffany’s Elsa Peretti bean necklaces that all my friends sported, my father bought me an old jade necklace that weighed as much as a plate. In protest, I put myself on Limited Too’s mailing list. (By the way, when I finally rediscovered the jade necklace some time ago, Zoe Saldana stopped me on the street to ask its origin. Ugh, parents. Am I right?)

And yet, despite my enthusiasm, I have only vague memories of those early years of J.Crew subscription. Were it not immediately disposed of, the brand’s “magazine” was likely most often relegated to my family’s multipurpose “arts-and-crafts” drawer. What I imagined I’d someday do with a stack of then-more-CPA-than-CFDA glossies is anyone’s guess. When I finally emptied that drawer on one of my manic cleaning benders, I discovered a collection so great that I could have easily gift wrapped my entire apartment in twinset-laden wallpaper.

Under Jenna Lyons’ matchless supervision, the twinsets of yore have since been replaced by a preponderance of chambray and sequins and somehow winningly ironic taffeta. Lumpy blazers have been excommunicated, Lulu Frost reigns supreme, and I’ve spent more money than I care to admit on olive green outerwear. And while I’ve never pasted the pages of the J.Crew catalogue onto my room’s walls, I’ve pinned more than a few to my corkboard. There’s a moody black-and-white image of a girl perched on a seaside cliff wearing the kind of one-piece bathing suit that I’d never be caught dead in. (Polka dots? Not my thing.) There’s the cheery bridal party grinning in orange-pink lipstick and paler pink gowns. (I don’t even want bridesmaids.) And then, of course, there’s the J.Crew catalogue circa Summer 2012.

In it, a Parisian-looking character rides a leather-trimmed bicycle wearing a pair of—what else—micro-printed capris. I was in love the moment I laid eyes on them. But more even than I wanted the capris—and, oh, did I want them—I wanted to be the girl outfitted in them on page 47. Did it matter that I didn’t own a Dutch-style bike and that when my hair was frizzy it never looked so unintentionally chic? Did it matter that I looked jaundiced in orange lipstick?

No.

Since its transformation into high-street icon, J.Crew has been celebrated for its accessible, on-point offerings, but I’ve come to realize that it’s not merely the J.Crew wardrobe I crave. It’s the lifestyle. The truth is I don’t want to buy J.Crew as much as I want to live in its perfectly proportioned universe (which is to say, fishing lobsters, on a boat, off the coast of New England). And I don’t need capris for that. A certain citron-hued yellow shift dress, however, is an absolute must according to a bespectacled someone I know.

After the last round of Fashion Weeks, I was delighted to learn that the bank of latter words would assume a position in the upper echelons of fashion, care of the meditated hair trends at Creatures of The Wind, Prada, Oscar de la Renta, Bottega Venetta and Roberto Cavalli. Would this mean that the definition of chic was shifting further from the prototypically well put together woman and making a home for itself among the hood rats of the East Village–and Saint Laurent? I’m not quite sure–but in the wake of my shorter locks, there was absolutely, positively, no-fucking-way I wasn’t giving the trend a try for myself in slicked back form. Why? Because my hair gets oily so fast anyway, I may as well capitalize on the handicap/turn it into a proficiency. Plus, once I saw Penelope Cruz do it and she looked awesome.

Using three Bumble and bumble products and one of the Sebastian variety, (I started with the invisible oil, sprayed my entire head with it and then cloaked that layer with the mousse only to top it off with the Bb shine and Sebastian’s clay-ish putty,) I went for it.

The result? Slideshow image #6, which may mean nothing interesting or particularly comedic to you but this is precisely what my father looked like in 1990. Red silk Balmain blazer and everything. My older brother, Haim, had a decent run with the slicked back hair thing in 2005 and now I can’t shake the uncanny semblance to family members strictly of the male variety.

Naturally, I am very comfortable with it.

As an unrelated but equally important note: if you flip through to slideshow image #8, you will find that I continue to maintain an aversion towards pants. Do with that what you will. And back to the hair–what do you think? Are you willing to give it a test run?

Runway images via Vogue.com, photos of me and the products by Naomi Shon. Wearing a Balmain blazer, Pamela Love choker and Khai Khai YOLO necklace. The bracelets are Vita Fede.

For me, this happened last Saturday. While looking for a pair of white sneakers, I happened upon a green toothbrush. This would have been fine and well if the circumstances of my closet allowed for the co-mingling of shoes and dental accoutrements but such is not the case and you know what that tells me?

I should probably see a dentist.

Illustration by Elizabeth Tafaro

Staring at the pile of clothes accumulating under bigger piles of clothes and my unintentional beginning to discern the pants from the shirts from the dresses from the belts, (useless fact: I counted three butterflies on three separate garments in one such pile,) I was almost sure that the task of cleaning this particular closet on this particular day was an insurmountable one. I am historically pretty good at keeping shit clean–if not for the sake of my own sanity than because I respect my belongings. I’m not exactly sure what drove me to begin subsisting among such an utter mess but with summer about to usurp spring’s marginal throne, it was clearly high time I get my shit together–literally.

And so, I began blasting Drake’s Started from The Bottom (I couldn’t wait to be capital-H-Here,) and started from the bottom. Here are five tips I gathered in my quest to clean my closet.

1. Tackle what is directly in front you. Now, I can’t speak for you, but I know that when I see a big ass mess, I often have a hard time determining where to start the clean up process. I also know it’s fairly futile to put effort into stressing myself out. Just start with what’s in front of you–begin folding or laundering, or creating a new throwaway pile and watch the mess begin working itself out.

2. Yes, color coding is fun but it’s also a little aggressive. I can’t speak for you on this front either but I tend to do this really ambitious thing when while folding my shirts and replacing them on their shelves or in their cabinets, I color code them. In my head, I think I believe that if they’re separated by color, I’ll have an easier time finding them but maintaining a rainbow closet is not easy. Creating cleaning algorithms that you can’t follow through with is silly. Ultimately, we really shouldn’t be having a hard time finding our shirts to begin with. If this is the case, creating larger throwaway piles is likely in order.

3. Of course, when I say throwaway, I don’t actually mean throwaway (unless the garments in question are stained, wildly old or perpetually smelly). Clothing donation funds that I am particularly keen on include The Salvation Army, Housing Works, and Yeshiva University’s ongoing drive. When considering precisely what to throw away, ask yourself this question: if I haven’t worn it in at least two seasons, will I ever wear it again? For the often hyper trendy, fleeting items, chances are you’re thinking: what if it comes back. Am I right? But even if it does come back, it won’t be for a long while and by then Zara will be creating a far superior iteration of the precise garment and you won’t even deign to reflect on what’s lost.

To resell your clothing, I suggest visiting Copious, where I’m reselling mine.

4. When considering what to keep, implement this rule of thumb: There are obviously garments that remain in our closets until death do us part and the previous tip does not suggest those tangible memories take a backseat. If we’re speaking in terms of, say, the formal dress or jacket your grandmother gave you, or that old blouse from when your dad was 30 pounds lighter, you’re far more likely to harbor the memory and subsequent item. If you’re having a hard time letting go of something, ask yourself how many ways you can wear it incorporating additional clothes still alive and kicking in your closet. If the answer is upward of three ways, keep it.

5. Maintain your new closet. Cleaning your closet is a lot like getting a bikini wax. If you neglect the targeted region for too long, the next time you commit to, you know, cleaning it up, it’s painful, frustrating and time consuming. If, however, you vow to maintain its cleanliness (so to speak), it almost feels effortless when you confront the hardship which, at this point, isn’t even really all that hard. (Give or take a wax strip or two).

The magic in question, of course, is wholly dependent on whether or not you will let me cut your hair.

Today, I’m going to take a different approach and open up the floor to a conversation that you will lead. The hope is that the conversation in question will be elicited by the above video, which was shot by the ineffable Naomi Shon last month. After having cut my hair approximately sixteen times (but who’s counting?) in the course of six months, I recognized that it was obviously high time I try my skills on other people (and on the rare occasion, things–see: that plant). The result: several uneven, otiose trims that angered the range of hair professionals familiar with the afflicted heads.

I don’t know, though, there’s just something inordinately powerful-feeling about the raw, do it yourself nature of cutting your own hair–and conversely, something wholly endearing about the heightened relationships you can forge with those who trust you enough with their heads. Know what I mean? Talk to me.

I’m wearing a backless denim Acne vest thing and Sally LaPointe shorts.

I have found that remaining in sleepwear is depressing and tends to strip your soul of the creative power it needs to shuffle through the day. I am not, however, against working/writing/dancing topless. That is an entirely different ballgame and if you’re lucky enough to employ yourself or work on a freelance schedule that permits you “you time” that is work time too, give this a try.

The other thing about working from home and more specifically working alone from home is that sometimes you’ll get up around 2PM and realize you haven’t opened your mouth or spoken at all yet that day. When that happens you might stutter or say something really incoherent but you should remember it will pass.

Now, I know what you’re thinking–it’s May, assbrain. No sweaters here, pal. As temperatures get warmer, I will likely only suggest that you amend the sweater rule and opt for the aforementioned denim shirt in rotation or a linen, jersey slub tank top and swap out the jeans for a mini skirt (or, you know, cut-offs) that is not silk so to spare it a life of perpetual wrinkle-dom.

American Apparel sweater, D-Squared jeans, Isabel Marant sneakers. Photos by Naomi Shon

When I showed my parents this clip from David Foster Wallace’s now ubiquitous commencement speech, delivered in 2005 at Kenyon College, titled This is Water, they had no idea who he was.

I couldn’t judge them (and if you don’t know, I certainly won’t judge you either). Frankly, the only reason I am familiar with the prodigious writer is because my parents are the very people who afforded me the opportunity to earn the precise “fancy liberal arts education” that Foster Wallace mentions and re-mentions through the duration of his speech.

Underneath the YouTube clip of this video, which is a fairly new, highly produced short-film-esque version of the original speech, a small note reads “David Foster Wallace died tragically in 2008.” This, of course, prompted my mother to ask me the inevitable:

“You want me to take advice from a man who died tragically? How did he die anyway?”

“He hanged himself,” I explained, to which she shut her laptop and asked that we change the subject.

I tried to explain to her (and perhaps myself) that his suicide was an obvious testament to his clinical depression but perhaps even more importantly to his untrammeled awareness and understanding of life on earth.

I’m not sure that I should continue here–my cognition of suicide is rudimentary. Frankly, I hope that information never has to forgo its current status. But my point is simply that the knowledge Foster Wallace has bequeathed me in various collections of his work: Consider the Lobster, Girl with The Curious Hair, and even the fragments of Infinite Jest that I have been able read, has never felt tainted by his death.

It had never even occurred to me that taking life advice, no matter how powerful, astute, otherworldly brilliant, from a man who effectively chose his own death, deliberately over life, might register discordant. Whether the messenger was capable of maintaining his own advice, harnessing the energy he emanates in his prose and essentially feeling the way many writers can’t–like after he’d let it all out, shared everything he could, and edited ad nauseaum, he wasn’t utterly empty–seems irrelevant when put up against whether we can accept the advice at face value.

When supposing “face value” in conjunction with advisement and the grand philosophical, non-platitudinous “meaning of life,” I think it’s in our best interest to assume that there is no other value option. There are no guarantees on earth and if we don’t function presently, consuming (which does not necessarily mean agreeing with) the utterances we’re offered as they come–without calculating what they might mature to mean because in the real-time-moment all that matters is their current meaning–we’ll be more comfortable people for it. Think about that and comfort and what comfort really means for a moment.

After watching the above video–which comes in the wake of graduation season–you should know that none of this means anything if you can’t take it for what it is: insight that millions of people have come upon, but that is catered to you and for you, igniting an evocative relationship indigenous to just yourself and the words.

Charlotte and I have recently found ourselves at the helm of what now seems like the handbag chat that won’t end. We’ve been discussing what we like vs. what we hate ad nauseam, unsuccessfully trying to chalk up the findings to larger (millenial?) statements that effectively make no sense. We’ve mutually concluded that in the event we’ve decided not to abandon handbags all together (she and I have both observed that immobilizing use in either of our arms seems silly if we’ve got pockets–which becomes less likely as jacket weather trifles away,) nondescript, quirky totes or teeny-titaki hard shell clutches, soft zip pouches and diminutive shoulder purses are occupying most of our mind space. Why? Here’s a cheap stab:

The caveat regarding the latter forms appear in their inability to make grocery shopping or “errand running” (what constitutes an errand?) any simpler but my uneducated guess on the attraction may have something to do with our inconspicuous hunger to be “chic” again. And I’m not quite sure leather hobos and enormous carry-alls that can hold several pair of shoes at a time fit that particular bill. Show me a woman walking down the street, however, small clutch in hand, a discernible sense of ease on her face and I will try to see her clutch and raise her a small shoulder bag that denotes an ability to condense, edit, and travel lightly which therefore infers that the small bag holder maintains perseverance, self-control and an overarching sense of perfection across all boards of that which is not tainted. Yes?

No real conclusions have been drawn on the tote’s front (none that could not besiege the previous explanation, at least) but I will say it’s interesting to note a departure from classic it-bags (there is a fundamental difference between a leather carry-all and a canvas carry-all) to celebrate the prospect of brand anonymity. Maybe an urgency to preserve the obscurity our social lives is next? Bag credits below.

1. Anya Hindmarch Ipanema shells clutch, $550 at Shopbop

2. Lazy Oaf Weirdo tote bag, $14.42 at ASOS

3. Siren Mini in mustard, $495 at Reece Hudson

4. Serpui Marie Buntal minaudiere, $190 at Shopbop

5. For shits, fun, OMGs and hahas: Olympia Le-Tan’s ineffable Jane Eyre embroidered clutch, $1870 at Net-a-Porter

6. Samudra Rocky Point pouch, $65 at Shopbop

7. Charlotte Olympia embroidered popcorn shoulder bag, $495 on Net-a-Porter

8. Blue Q Bicycle pouch, $8.49 on ASOS

9. Mary Katranzou printed leather large pouch, $950 on Luisaviaroma

10. Patent floral mini satchel, $44 on Pixie Market

Thoughts? Ideas? Proclivities? Anything? Anything?

“Thanks,” she began explaining, “It’s a weird green henna product.”

“So it dyes your lips?” I was confused.

“Temporarily, yeah,” she told me as she went on to share the tale of her findings:

On a frigid night in a hole-in-the-wall bar in Berlin, I met a magician–and by magician I mean a denizen of Berlin by way of France, who insisted I try her mystical green lipstick.

“It looks different on everyone, it reacts to your body chemistry and turns a pinkish reddish hue. It has henna in it so it stays on evenly, all day. Everyday if you want,” she told me.

I was sold. Who wouldn’t want a part in this bizarre beauty witchcraft? But the selling point quickly became the Mount Everest standing between myself and the lipstick when the friend in question explained to me, just as I was readying to pay whatever it would cost that one could only procure the lip stain in Morocco.

After some frantic internet searching, I discovered that the lip stain is not a native product to Morocco and that color changing lipstick is a relic of the past (see: the 1980s). Back then, it was marketed as “mood lipstick” and changed color according to your mood.

As far as the chemistry goes, it appears that the main ingredient in many of these products is Red 27, which when dissolved in a waterless base, appears colorless.  However, when it comes into contact with moisture, it reacts to the pH (pure hydrogen) balance and temperature of your lips which causes the color change. This reaction to the skin’s acidity accounts for the variance in hue from person to person. pH levels can also alter based on diet and stress, which is another variance among different people. The lipstick is a simple reaction to a change in solubility from direct contact with the skin or even the moisture in the air.  While this lipstick is magical, technically speaking it does not penetrate the chemistry of your body to customize a perfect hue that works with your coloring.

In searching the U.S. iterations of these products, it does not state anything about them containing henna, however the more ambiguous Moroccan version may still.  Henna is a common product there as is utilized for lip coloration. My experience with the product is that it stays on for hours on end without messing up the way a typical lipstick would. It has a matted effect as if it is in fact tattooing or staining the lip.

Naturally, I too became bewilderingly curious to try the green lipstick inconspicuously but successfully masquerading itself as the answer to my red-lip, red-teeth and often red-pillow-next-morning quagmires. Upon first try, I looked into a mirror no more than twenty seconds post-application. I learned that perhaps a rosy pink wasn’t the color for me. Five minutes later, I looked back into the same mirror and observed that the color had grown deeper, darker and far more suitable to augment but simultaneously endorse the state of my lips’ innate color.

I’m still not quite sure how the glorified, semi-permanent lip tattoo knows how to ink me in a way that seems so precisely aware of that which “works” on me.

In the photos above, you will notice that I’d originally smeared the lipstick across my bottom lip to discern the difference between my natural color and the enhanced color. In the subsequent photos, you will see both lips stained. Twenty four hours post documentation, both lips are still distinctly pink. My pillows have yet to witness any color casualties.

Charlotte found the product for us from eBay so if you’re interested in giving it a try for yourself, here’s a link to b-b-buy. Re the outfit and accessories above, my dress is Rochas, the earrings are Delfina Delettrez (left ear, lips) and Pamela Love (right ear, duh). The bracelets are Tiffany & Co and nOir and the rings are by Khai Khai.