Friction Files: Week Six
Wear the cashmere. Don’t save it for a better tomorrow.
Ok folks, this happens very rarely! Light week at work(when it comes to meetings, that is). Spring break, everyone out, including my boss. As much as I love him, who doesn’t love a week without their boss? (if he’s reading this, this is a joke).
Dressing wise, I had a theme this week: Lower CPW(Cost-Per-Wear). So, I went into Indyx, sorted by CPW and decided to actually wear the things I keep not wearing. Let’s see how it went!
Monday
First meeting at 11am. Rare luxury!
My doctor wants me to eat breakfast (is intermittent fasting that girl or no?). I ate one boiled egg. It tasted fine for the first half and then starting to taste like egg (eughhh why does that happen?). I finished it anyway!
Multiple coworkers being out meant the whole week had this easy energy from the start. I also had a window to do yoga in the evening, which almost never happens. I used to practice seriously (finished yoga teacher training and everything), then COVID happened and I just stopped. Monday I went back for the first time in years.
It was a split class, vinyasa then yin. As we transitioned from vinyasa to yin, I felt tears with that first forward fold. I believe in somatic science, how feelings get stored in the body, and something unlocked in that pose. And then the memory hit me. My mom, visiting me here in Los Angeles, doing yoga. This was the trip where she would eventually get diagonosed with cancer (her second time, and the one she never recovered from).
I cried through the rest of the class.
I’ve heard of this happening to people. Grief ambushing you somewhere completely unexpected, years later. It was the first time for me. I’m sharing it because I think most people suppress the hard stuff or only share it in crisis, and that’s not the only way. The good and the bad coexist. You’re probably doing the same thing in your own life. I fully believe the world would be a nicer, kinder, and even more beautiful place if we held space for each other’s ‘yucky moments’ without trying to make the other person feel better. The human experience IS to experience the highs, and the lows. And when we hide or gloss over the lows, it leaks out in other places in our life. Whether it’s road rage, or leaving mean comments on someone’s post. Anyway, I digress.
After yoga I sat in the spa for a bit, then did an Instagram live going over the Tibi summer collection. I love doing these lives! I don’t prep or anything, literally just give my honest opinions. The funniest thing is watching them back because sometimes in the live I’ll say “there is no way I would wear this” and then I’m actually buying that thing.
Oh and the outfit! My mom loved clothes and she wore all of them—never saved anything for a special occasion. I don’t know where I picked up the habit of saving nice things because she certainly didn’t model it. Losing her made me realize there is no need to save things for a better tomorrow. So: 100% cashmere pants, 100% cashmere shirt, cream knit Brunello Cucinelli tie, Margiela tabi boots, Margiela bag. Ya know, just a regular Monday. The cashmere is for TODAY!
Tuesday
Pilates in the morning at 6.30, hard to get up for, glad I went. The whole day felt light. I think the yoga did something on Monday.
The dress is Tibi, stiff scuba-ish fabric with a ball gown shape, very fancy on a hanger. I threw a striped tee on top and wore it to work with tan boat shoes. I love doing this. Dressing something fancy ‘down’ for your everyday life.
Got to do heads-down work most of the day and actually caught up on things. Rare and good.
Wednesday
Same cashmere pants from Monday, completely different outfit. Monday they were all-black and commanding. Wednesday I wore them with a Catherine O’Hara graphic tee, an olive-tan gorg Ring3 blazer-kimono that drapes, and my orange Balenciaga city bag.
Catherine O’Hara’s passing hit me hard, like many others. I just loved who she was. The commitment, the specificity, the way she made everything feel completely her own. I wore her face to work on a Wednesday because I will celebrate this woman every chance I get.
Also my Phoebe Philo top arrived (more on that later) and I was very happy about that. I did not wear it on Wednesday. I saved it for Friday, which I realize is technically saving something, but two days doesn’t count!!
Thursday
Full meeting day, nothing especially memorable—except I finally found a restaurant in LA with great chutney.
I really like dosa and you can get average to good dosa in LA but the chutney is never good. Found Udupi this week. Very far from us but they deliver, and you have to order two hours in advance, which I did, and I was genuinely delighted. Sometimes a Thursday just needs a win like that!
The outfit was LOVE LOVE LOVE today: yellow dress, fringe Margiela suede jacket, Balenciaga printed bag, Margiela tabi mary janes with orange socks. This is actually a color formula I use a lot and have written about before: the flirty neighbors formula. You start with one color and look at what’s next to it on the rainbow. Yellow’s neighbors are orange and green, so that’s what I built around, varying the shades so they don’t match: the yellow is sorbet and pastelly bright, the orange socks are deeper and more burnt, the shoes are a dirty green-brown, the jacket is green-gray. It looks like a lot of colors but because they’re all adjacent on the spectrum it reads nuanced rather than chaotic. You’re wearing a rainbow without it looking like a rainbow (when you want that)!
Friday
Office day, but I carved out a few hours at Cafe Gratitude before heading in. Vegan buffalo cauliflower (I am eclectic) and lentil bowl(I am hunble, iykyk). Delicious!
Beauty Tibi winslow pants with a white stripe, oversized olive hoodie, silver Margiela tabi sneakers, silver Balenciaga bag, and the Phoebe Philo tee finally making its debut. It’s way more expensive than anything I’d normally spend on a t-shirt—a real stretch. But there’s something about how she designs that makes you feel a certain way. The neckline, the sleeve length, the train at the back, the cut. Yes there’s a Mango dupe and no it doesn’t come close. I felt good and that was enough.
The silver at the bottom and the rest out of the fit wasn’t planned but it worked! I am looking forward to wearing this top in a lot many more ways.
I wore cashmere to a regular Monday. I wore Catherine O’Hara’s face to work. I wore the fringe Margiela jacket to a meeting day I won’t remember next month. I wore the Phoebe Philo tee to a cafe on a Friday morning. None of these were special occasions, and that was exactly the point!
My mom wore all her clothes. I’m trying to do the same.
Wear the thing. The better tomorrow isn’t coming. This is it.
No Agenda
No affiliate links, no brand deals, nobody paid me anything. Just stuff I actually like.
Phoebe Philo T-Shirt Train Top
I talk about this in the post so you already know how I feel. It’s expensive for a t-shirt, genuinely expensive, and I still think it’s worth it. The ‘train’ is the longer back hem and it’s the thing that makes the whole silhouette . See, it’s not just a long back, it changes the way the whole top moves and sits.
Maison Margiela Tabi Ballerina in red
Got this already and I’m obsessed. The color is this bright red but then it has a spray-paint patent gradient finish over the matte leather, so it looks like the color is doing something shimmery-shammery. It’s the kind of shoe that makes an outfit look considered even when it isn’t. The split toe is obviously a thing and I love it. Also, i did a reel showing my entire tabi collection.
Dries Van Noten fringed tote in turquoise
They’ve done this fringe bag silhouette before but this turquoise color?? I can’t. It’s lightweight fringed fabric, handles, detachable inner pochette, and that color is just so summer it hurts. On my list!
Aaaaand, that’s a wrap for this one!
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Find me on Instagram @astahearts for more outfit overthink-ery!
Thank you for discussing your somatic experience at yoga. We should absolutely be normalizing the good and the bad coexisting and openly grieving when we need to.
Heavy stuff aside, I adore your writing voice. I don't feel like I'm reading so much as hearing you talk over a morning coffee or tea. It's really nice :)
“there is no way I would wear this” and then I’m actually buying that thing. Same! Once I see others wear, that’s when I often see the value 😍 same with stuff I think YES and I end up not liking for me