Good finds + Mounjaro and me
a looooong post
Good morning! Thank you so much again for all the lovely comments under my book post, and for the pre-orders, for which I am truly grateful.
Also: the gorgeous painting on the jacket of my book is by Anna Hymas and her website is here. If you go here you can buy her prints, including of the painting we’ve used for my cover.
Here, in no order, are some things that caught my eye this week, followed by a bit on my experience of Mounjaro. Not as random as it seems - it links to one of my picks.
Most of this post is for paid subscribers. It’s epically long, so maybe make yourself a cup of tea/coffee.
Nightie dresses
This ↑ satin and lace dress from Stella Nova. Black flats, oversized black blazer, done.
These are technically nightdresses ↑, but also summer dresses for sitting drinking coffee in, light gardening, having friends to lunch, popping to the shops, and general milling about. And sleeping in! You could just not take them off, ever.
Double-layer voile, so light as air but not see-through. I have and love this brown gingham on the right - it is so soft and comfortable.
They’re from If And Only If, nightie supremos. Before discovering them I found nighties quite difficult because they’re either faux-prim or faux-sexy and I don’t know which is worse. I love this company for rescuing us all from that fate, plus the nighties are very nicely made.
Rudolf Nureyev’s tomb
This is the sort of (true) story I should tell in an imaginary world where I’m 92 and have taken up smoking again, also morning Martinis. I live at Claridges. I am wearing red lipstick, a bed jacket, huge sunglasses and proper jewels. I beckon my slightly frightened great-grandchildren with a crooked finger and rasp:
I met Nureyev once, at a party on a yacht off Spetses, in Greece, when I was 15. I had the presence of mind to tell him my name was Gisèle, which it had been until about a year before, so we had a chat about Giselle the ballet.
It was a glamorous party - I’d gone with my parents - and him spending 10 minutes chatting companionably to a star-struck 15-year-old was a really kind thing to do. He was also unbelievably good looking, but in a meaningful way - complicated and interesting-looking. (Sometimes very handsome men look almost plasticky, a bit blank, like when they’re not being devastatingly good-looking they might love sitting quietly doing colouring in).
After the party, Daphne Guinness, at the time the girlfriend and later the wife of a squillionaire Niarchos, said they were all going on somewhere, and would I like to come? I begged my parents to let me go, but they had identified the vibe of the thing - Euroglitzy, ‘fun-loving,’ with everyone at least 10 years older than me - and said no, probably wisely.
Anyway: I love his tomb. I love the idea of a grave looking cosy and warm.
Rattan vases
Willow Crossley very kindly sent me the larger of her brand new rattan vases (two sizes, as above, and then all these lovely little bud versions) and I love it too - it’s brilliantly summery and such a good shape, one of those vases that cleverly makes whatever you put in it look more impressive than it actually is. There’s a removable glass insert inside the rattan bit, so you don’t have to worry about the outside getting wet.