A thread, ever hanging
rai·son d'ê·tre, perhaps?
Everyone keeps demanding I start Le ‘Stack. By everyone, I mean people I love, people I trust, and also even people who employ or have employed me, all of whom I’ve found easy enough to shoot down.
So instead of starting it with something useful, I’ll start with why I can’t start it!?
If you’ve met me, or know me through the internet of things already, you know I’m a deeply optimistic and decidedly happy person !!! So naturally, I keep agreeing with the Negative Nancies in my head saying who tf cares what you, Catherine, have to say about *waves hands* anything and everything (mostly shopping), instead of believing people who I love or pay me, telling me my work(?!) is worth sharing.
Most days, I worry about oversharing and not being the perfect candidate for a civilized office(…) job with benefits ever again. Next, I worry about opening my prose to the armchair Virgo moon grammarians and hate-followers, myself included. And somewhere in the middle arena of concern, I’m lost on where to stake a claim or a title since I have, at present, 1090 tabs open in this browser and 453 more on mobile (not including private, lord knows what the RealFeel® tally is). So I keep spiraling, starting with the “But why now? Why me?” and ending with, “Who could possible want to know what sterling silver ring I’m fantasizing about to keep my sanity afloat in this horror-filled, dumpster fire of a week, or what books and bumper sticker I threw together in a care package to a recently single friend, or most of all, who cares to know the raw, unfiltered contents of the embarrassingly only-child personal dialogue that has run inexhaustibly through my head since the adolescent era of DeadJournal and Xanga.” Woof.
I will be the first one to say in client calls, and to my young and voracious child, and in many an ill-fated interview over the recent years that “I don’t have all the answers.” I remind the child of this fact of life often—and that no one does. And that’s the point! (Maybe of everything? I digress.)
The thing is, I know a lot. Too much of some things, perhaps, too little of others. But I do know that in this tight corner of the digital fashionsphere there are clearly defined experts in their clearly defined fields, where by contrast, I feel like an amorphous generalist in a chaotically abstract field (whilst beige and excitable and texturally interesting, at my best).
Par example, if you want to know how shoes are masterfully constructed and how to break in sandals with rubbing alcohol, see Jessica’s Shoe Gaze. If you’re hellbent on being smacked in the face with incisive fashion history and current critical context, see Jeremy’s perfect Lewis’s. Have classic, well-earned taste and cash to match? Becky is your beacon. A little unhinged from momming through covid and need advice from someone dripping in gold bars with the best taste west of Texas? Welcome, Ms. Laurel. Minimalist maker extraordinaire and word spinner, Erin! Ketchup purveyor Maddie! (JK, but still impeccable commentary.) Daring, joy-seeking dresser Jalil, duh. Community nurturer and poetic life narrator LaTonya! Kitchen freak Julia! Actual world-changing and overarching personal hero Anja!!!
I could go on. My Substack profile tells me I personally follow over twenty folks here (as opposed to the untenable thousands on IG), and seeing each of their names in my 97% full inbox is a delight. But to whom would my own amorphous yet textural missive be any kind of charm??
Considering you’ve made it this far, the answer is probably you. And I’m so glad you’re here. Because the god-honest Leo sun-sign truth is…I love an audience!! I don’t do this for me, obviously, I do it for you and always have.
I don’t think this space will be about my retail consulting work that I do in Cap-rising margins and metrics, and it probably won’t be about my kiddo newly ID’d on the spectrum or my own parenting anxiety with compounded and probable AuDHD because I’m still very much in the insecure exploratory phase there. But it will be about objects I adore, ideas and people I respect, collections to start and ne’er complete, and products that garner a story or a tale in the name of art or craft.
And okay, to be trite or transparent, if you’re like me who craves some credentials to cite before trusting the source: I’ve bought and sold millions for Bird Brooklyn and goop, studied art and hand sewn fashion, shopped and styled for political firsts, managed meetings for Barneys GMMs, market edited on Saks.com, named colorways, curated textiles, ran socials, knit runway samples, even A/B tested and copy edited for fun, and most recently, led sales and strategy for beloved knitwear brands of the sustainable and cultish ilk. So sure, I know some things and love what I do. That’s it. That’s the pitch.
No, buying more things we don’t need (“to impress people we don’t like…”) nor reading my ramblings will not save the world. (In fact, one morning, exactly 8 years ago TODAY, the week after yet another fateful election cycle, I wrote this post from a hotel room at a Long Island wedding to lick the WW wounds and can still feel the sting.) But given the state of things, and feeling like almost nothing will change, I aim to highlight a few that *could,* lest we stop trying.
So as we rapidly, rabidly, and on fumes approach MY FAVORITE season, that of gifting, maybe I’ll point you towards beautiful things that make you or someone you love crack a smile, something crafted with care, from people who are kind, who are thinking about our collective future, and most likely, aiding causes directly or indirectly we hope to see sustained for the next, oh I don’t know, four-to-forty more years.
It’s 1.22am1 and you know now my big three signs if you were reading carefully. I can hear the upstairs neighbor’s musical movie soundtrack playing its last abhorrent hit (maybe they’re high??), and the baby will be crying for milk in less than 5 hours (mere minutes before the Kindergartener screeches about our guessing his breakfast preference incorrectly for the 52nd day in a row), so probably time to call it a night.
And lastly, again, forever, I do not know everything. (Remember, all these 1017 words were exactly about how I don’t know what I’m doing.) But I sure as hell would love to find out together. So if you’re looking for something, tell me here! Tell me what you need most from me! Let me help you! Don’t like being limited to a single niche below? Leave a highly specific shopping problem in a comment! And maybe I’ll start there for my first drop in this well-heeled bucket.
Thanks for the audience, as ever. I hope you don’t hate this as much as I do!!
xx
CFLA
lol actually 3:21am after rereading this nervously before pressing preview and maybe publish
I’m so glad I failed at talking you out of this!! ❤️