No Dress Code, Please

Last week, I read this article on Motherlode, a New York Times blog. It starts off with a woman talking about how she moved from L.A. to Seattle. When she took her kids to the beach in Seattle, she removed her clothes and was standing on the beach in her bathing suit. She looked around and noticed that all of the other mothers on the beach were fully clothed and staring at her. She felt like a freak.

The piece made me think about being a mother, what mothers wear and how mothers judge other mothers. During the summer here in Pasadena, the temperature reaches 100 degrees. We don't have central air conditioning. It's hot. Really hot. I hate it. So I wear shorts a lot. Not bermuda shorts. And not hot pants. Just regular, old shorts. The other mothers in our apartment complex wear long skirts, knee-length skirts or capri pants. And they look at me the way a tourist looks at the women standing on Hollywood Blvd. You'd think I was in my underwear.

With their pants or longer skirts, my female neighbors wear fitted tank tops or t-shirts. I have never worn anything fitted on top. I was gifted with what feels like to me, a Jack Black-sized gut. I have the body of a chicken. I'm an egg with legs. My neighbors have little waists, and broader hips, butts and thighs. So ladies, give me a break. My flow-y top is tenting my not-so-tight abs and my not-yet-offensive legs are all I have so I'm rockin' the shorts for now.

I just sorta wish that we, as mothers and women, could not make each other feel self conscious when one of us wears a bathing suit or something tight or shorter than someone else. Or when we choose to stop breastfeeding sooner or later; or when someone chooses to either be a stay-at-home mom or a working mom; or when we decide to marry or stay single; or whether we have one child or five, or no children at all; OR whether we are older or younger when we have these experiences or decide to have a different set entirely.

There is no mom dress code or way to be female. Everyone is different. No choice is better than another. Our choices suit us as individuals and there isn't ONE way to do anything. I have no interest in keeping up with Mrs. Jones. I'm wearing my shorts and letting my freak flag fly. Cause I'm crazy like that.

Shorts from American Apparel

Put a Ring On It

Last week, I posted adorable charms I'm currently coveting. Then I found this. It's a little more expensive but would be amazing to have with your own initials, or your husband's or children's or parent's. It's classic, simple and hip--and it just moved to the top of my really, really want list (the circular one in gold, please).

Rings by Jennifer Zeuner. Images from jenniferzeuner.com.

Julius Shulman: Desert Modern

It's a long weekend (yay!) and we are thinking of doing the following: 1)A day at the beach...eating sand, toes in the water, shell collecting, sand castle building and watching the boats, the birds and the sun sit on what looks like the edge of the earth. 2)A day at UCLA's jazz and reggae festival...listening to music on a blanket under the sun, watching Sabine dance and sampling eats from all over the world at the food booths. 3)An evening at the opening of the Julius Shulman: Desert Modern photography exhibit at the Fullerton Museum Center, where my little sister is the Cultural Arts & Events Manager.

Photographs by Julius Shulman via the Palm Springs Art Museum
and Ouno. Julius Shulman: Desert Modern is on display through July 17, 2011
at the Fullerton Museum Center.

Shulman (1910-2009) was an American architectural photographer who was best known for photographing the Midcentury indoor-outdoor architecture of Richard Neutra, John Lautner and Charles Eames, among others. He is also noted for his iconic images of work by Frank Lloyd Wright, Pierre Koenig and Albret Frey. His photographs are now housed at The Getty Center in Los Angeles.

When I was an editor at Architectural Digest, I interviewed Shulman for a story. I was specifically asking him about photographing the work of architect Richard Neutra, but somehow we strayed and started talking about the fact that he lived next door to John Cassavetes in Malibu. He explained that there was a hillside--covered with flowers that were fiery red and deep purple in color--and he loved photographing that brilliant hillside almost more than photographing iconic works of architecture. At some point during my conversation with this renown photographer, I used the word "shoot" instead of "photograph." When I did, he grew silent, heaved a disgusted sigh and replied, "Darling, we shoot deer or wild animals. We do NOT shoot buildings or works of art. We photograph them."

My Two-Second Mistake

When I was first living in New York City (in my mid-twenties), I worked as an assistant to a renown artist. He was married and had one young child, a girl. The wife was also successful and well-known in her own career. She traveled a lot to far away places for business. When I would do work at their home--a cinematic loft in lower Manhattan--for the husband, I would watch his daughter play dress up with her mom's Manolo Blahnik heels, Bergdorf Goodman cashmere sweaters and silk dresses from Henri Bendel. The clothing labels--luxurious, sophisticated and so New York--were something that I aspired to. I remember thinking how perfect and wonderful their life seemed. I envied his talent and coveted her style. It was quintessentially New York, so romantic and the kind of thing you see in magazines.

I worked late with him one evening. The daughter had fallen asleep in her tutu on the all-white, Four Seasons resorts-quality bedding. Remember, it was a loft, one huge open space. The communal building's elevator opened to the living room. I bid him goodnight, quietly so as not to wake the little girl, and called for the elevator. As the doors opened, he cracked a funny joke and walked toward me so that I backed into the elevator and was up against its back wall. He then leaned in and kissed me. He'd been drinking, you know, for inspiration because I think he thought art is better created when your high on something. I don't know. But liquid courage or ideas often fuel an artist's ways.

He was a bit of a swashbuckler, rugged and conventionally handsome, and somewhat famous. My twenty-something-year-old self was impressed by this and kissed him back--for no more than two seconds--until I thought about the little girl sleeping on the bed outside of the elevator and his beautiful wife in her far away place. I remembered that they were bigger and more important than my desire to feel desired. And I knew that he didn't so much desire me as he wanted to escape his perfect, stylish life. I was a temporary evasion, and probably one of many. So I pushed him away and said I had to go. He persisted a little, but eventually gave up and let the elevator doors close. I descended to the ground floor, ran out to the street and caught a cab back to my lower-east-side apartment, where rats ran around inside the walls; where my clothes hung from the ceiling because there was only room for a mattress on the floor; where my neighbors yelled at each other in Spanish; and where needles were discarded on doorsteps.

The artist called the next day and apologized. I felt like throwing up when I answered the phone and heard his voice. I told him I couldn't work for him anymore.

It happened fourteen years ago, but I've felt horrible and guilty about the occurrence all this time. On one hand, I figured his wife had to know that this was probably regular behavior for him (and maybe it was regular behavior for her, too). On the other hand, it wasn't and isn't regular behavior for me. I felt wanted and part of some movie scene for two seconds, but my character in that movie never fairs well. And my real-life character, even though I wasn't married or in a relationship at the time, believes that you don't cheat on your wife or husband, and you don't help someone cheat on their wife or husband either. Not even for two seconds.

Short Dress Up

I love short dresses and always have. I even got married in one. I haven't been able to wear them lately because they are not very toddler-friendly. But I've started to reacquaint myself with them again...they work well with leggings or short shorts underneath...or all by themselves on a date with your husband after baby has gone to sleep.

Banana Republic

Banana Republic

Banana Republic

Gap

American Apparel

Sleep Tight. XO.

Growing up Mexican

There's a little girl named Christina, who lives two doors down. She's six years-old and both of her parents are Mexican. I'm always in the communal courtyard of our apartment complex playing with Sabine. When Christina hears us, she comes out, too. She and I always chat about the neighbors, what she's having for dinner, what happened at school that day OR how she feels about being Mexican.

Most of the children in our town, South Pasadena (idyllic, but a little too The Truman Show for me), attend public schools (they're great and people flock here in droves for that reason). But Christina and her older brother attend a private Catholic school in Highland Park, which is mostly Hispanic as far as ethnicity goes. During a recent evening, I was making conversation and asked her what she was having for dinner. She told me they were having taquitos. She made a face and said she didn't like Mexican food. She proceeded to tell me that she's not Mexican. "My mom and dad are Mexican, but I'm not. I'm American," she said.

I was fascinated and saddened by this. Fascinated because she's found a way in her mind to not be Mexican even though her parents are. Saddened because she doesn't want to be Mexican even though she is. Then I remembered being in grade school and high school and telling people that I was half Spanish instead of half Mexican. I can't remember why exactly I felt the need to do this. Maybe because some of the white kids sometimes made comments about the Mexican kids. Maybe because in high school, Mexican kids were bussed in from East L.A. and many of them didn't speak any English and so they kept to themselves and existed in their own world within our high school. And maybe I didn't want to seem as other worldly as they did to some of the other kids.

I also remembered asking my mother when I was older why she never talked much about being Mexican or made Mexican food or spoke Spanish with us. She said that it was because growing up Mexican here in Southern California was a very hard life for her and her family and she wanted better or more for us. They had very little money (my grandfather was a mechanic, who also worked in fields or on farms picking produce). She remembered not having enough money to go to college (her tuition was eventually gifted to her by a family friend). She remembered her father drinking too much to forget not having enough money--and feeling so marginalized that he couldn't feel much happiness a lot of the time. His heaviness wore on my grandmother and their six children. So when my mother left her parents' house, I guess she decided she would be something else.

While growing up, I kind of forgot I was Mexican until I would go to my grandparents' house (where we went often). On weekends, my siblings and I would travel to Mexico with them for fun. My grandmother spoke Spanish and only cooked Mexican food. We even killed, cooked and ate chickens for dinner in their backyard. We picked oranges with my grandfather and swam in the neighboring canals. But I never told any of my friends this when I came home.

Now that my mother is not alive anymore, I'm trying my hardest to remember those days. To remember my grandparents and know where she came from and more of who she was before I came along. I'm telling anyone who will listen as much as I can all about her so I can keep her as close to me as possible. I tell them she was Mexican and that I am, too. It's funny: In some way, she was trying to forget and now that she's gone, I'm trying to remember. I wonder if some day, our little neighbor, Christina, will be trying to remember instead of trying to forget.

Images from Behance

Drink Up

I'm dying to get some stemless, unbreakable wine glasses. We've broken a ridiculous amount of beautiful champagne flutes and wine glasses lately, trying to snatch them up before Sabine scales a bookshelf, chair or table to get them. Here are a few that I've had my eye on lately:

Crate&Barrel

Target

Govino

Letting Go and Holding On

Today, I am saying goodbye to my mother-in-law and trying to have one last date with my husband before she goes back to Connecticut. So I'm posting something I wrote a long time ago, just after my mother died. It's heartbreaking to remember how difficult those times were, but it's beautiful now to think about how much she left me with.

There's grey light pouring through the windows behind me. Today the day picked the right color. I just read the first two chapters of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and now I am tired and I can't catch my breath and I can't sit still. Those chapters have caused the memories to come flooding back and now I itch in places I can't scratch. I'm flooded with flashbacks. Flashbacks of riding to the hospital in a screaming ambulance with her. She was wide-eyed and terrified and unable to speak and her body felt empty already. Flashbacks of that flannel red plaid pajama top she had on that I still have because it's soft and the last time I hugged her, she was in it. I think I'm still expecting her to fill that pajama top. She literally disintegrated before my eyes. There was so little of her left that I finally had to let go. And all I have left is this motherless limp red pajama top that can't hug me back.

So Charming

I'd really love to have one of these "S" charms (S for Sabine) and an Aquamarine (Kadin's birthstone) charm, too. I love the way that gold and light blue or turquoise look together. And these pieces are just so pretty, simple and meaningful.

Images and pieces from stella&dot.

Basketball Diary

Five years after my mother died (I was in my mid thirties), my father married my mom's friend's daughter. My mom was Mexican; my father and his new wife are Caucasian. When they got married, I was dating Kadin, my now husband. The wedding took place at a golf club in Palm Desert, California, and my father had asked that my siblings and I stand at his side during the ceremony. That meant we needed to also attend the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding.

The party was at the home of my dad's soon-to-be mother-in-law. The house was situated on the edge of the same golf course they were to be married on. It was a gated, residential community/golf country club. Picture lots of golf carts with personalized license plates, older folks in Polo or Hawaiian shirts, and Midcentury houses with manicured lawns and swimming pools.

When Kadin and I walked into the party, it was startlingly clear that he was the only black person there. There was not an Asian person, or even a person who looked Hispanic (my siblings and I are light complected). Kadin was immediately a little uncomfortable, but okay: He attended prep school and is quite used to being in the minority. The fact that there was a sunken bar, where guests were mixing their own drinks, definitely helped. We visited quite often during the two hours we were there. After mixing drink number one, a guest (I'm pretty sure it was a family member on my dad's side who we don't see too often) asked how my family felt about my boyfriend, implying that there must be some sort of controversy. Naturally, I was almost rendered speechless, but managed to spit out something along the lines of: "You know my mom was Mexican, right? Color isn't that strange to us."

During drink number two, one of my dad's co-workers approached Kadin and asked, "So do you play basketball?". Kadin chatted him up for awhile, but grew quiet once the conversation was over. About twenty minutes and another drink later, a different gentleman came up to Kadin and asked him about playing basketball. Thirty minutes after that, my dad's soon-to-be mother-in-law, who doesn't play or watch basketball, stood next to Kadin and said, "I hear you like to play basketball."

We left almost ten minutes later. The multiple strong drinks were suddenly not strong or multiple enough. Now, Kadin watches basketball and plays pick-up games twice a week at the local high school. He's never played professionally or even very much in school. But he was born in the British Virgin Islands. And he did grow up on the East Coast, spending a lot of time in New York City. And he did get a master's degree in Public Health from Yale University. Why for the love of all that is good and holy, wouldn't anyone ask him about THOSE things? Well, I found out later that my dad, in an effort to provide a conversation topic and encourage mingling, told all of these people before we got there that Kadin really enjoys basketball.

My dad and I've always been very close. We spent many, many days and hours in silence together, grieving my mother's death because we were too sad to speak, but didn't want to be alone. A part of me knew he was doing his best to try and support me in my relationship and make us feel comfortable that evening. Another part of me knew Kadin felt awful, self conscious and bruised and sore by the time we left that party. And I knew that he has spent way too much of his life feeling like this because of how some other people view skin color. But I also know that when we're together, he feels none of those things. I couldn't bear the thought that some part of MY family was recreating bruising and soreness for the person that I'd grown to love with every fiber of my being.

I felt trapped. I loved them both. And I didn't want to hurt anyone by saying something or not saying anything. I finally realized that by being with Kadin, I was agreeing to stand up for him and beside him. I realized that it was my job to continue to give him a home in our relationship, a place where he could feel comfortable, confident, happy and not broken, judged or awkward. So I called my dad and told him how I felt. My dad, in his late sixties, is a conservative traditionalist. I was terrified of his reaction. I told him that I knew he meant well, but that you cannot reduce the only black person in a room to the basketball guy. It's hurtful, especially when that guy is so many other things. And that next time, maybe he could tell his friends to ask about Kadin's job or education or where he's from.

My father surprised me. He apologized and said that he saw my point. And he cried. I can't remember his exact words, but he said he didn't want to hurt the person that I love and reduce him to some stereotype or gravely disrespect him. And I don't know if my dad subconsciously had a stereotype in his head when he told his friends to ask Kadin about basketball and didn't mention anything else. And I don't know what his guests were thinking when they engaged Kadin. What I do know is that after my dad and I talked, he understood Kadin is much more than someone who plays basketball. He also understood that encouraging people to ask him about this instead of something else reduced Kadin to a popular stereotype--whether he meant to or not--rather than a complex human being with varied interests and experience.

Photo by Shannon Corr

Eat Draw Love

Doodle dynamo Deborah Zemke presents a tear-off tablet of paper placemats, each featuring step-by-step instructions for turning everyday letters and numbers into extraordinary drawings.

Available at Anthropologie

Eternal Sunshine of the Teddy Bear Hamster

When Kadin and I were dating, he told me that if we were to end up together, we could never ever have a dog. He said that if I felt differently, it might be a deal breaker. Really. He likes cats, but he is not a dog person.

After we were married and I was pregnant, he made me promise, again, that I would never give into our adorable little child's big eyes and pleading voice and buy her a dog. I promised. But I know I am going to cross that bridge in the near future and while I have no problem telling my child no, she really loves dogs and her eyes are really big and beautiful and sometimes hard to resist. So I was thinking about what other pet I might be able to distract her with. I'm allergic to cats. I don't think I can deal with a reptile. I think birds belong in trees, not in cages. And I don't think that I could bear watching Sabine watch me flush a beloved dead goldfish down the toilet.

So I considered a hamster. But then I flashed back to my own childhood hamster horror. My little sister, who loved animals, brought home dogs, cats, rabbits and eventually talked my parents into getting her a teddy bear hamster. They're the rodents with long fur, making them seem cuddly and harmless. This fur puff was neither. It somehow figured out how to get out of its cage. I woke up one time in the middle of the night and felt it crawling on my chest towards my face. The thing was actually in my bed. It would escape for days at a time and we'd find it sooner or later chewing on an electrical cord or crawling around the kitchen floor.

My dad, who always said no to pets, was raking leaves one summer morning in the backyard and decided the hamster should get some fresh air, too. My little sister was at the mall with her friends when my dad took the cage outside and put it on the patio table, which had no umbrella or tree shade. It was in the nineties that day, and my dad forgot to put the hamster back inside the house. They say the hottest part of the day is between ten and two. My dad remembered the hamster at two (My sister was still at the mall. We'd spend the weekend at the mall if we could. You know, the suburbs.). Needless to say, the hamster did NOT survive.

My dad put the poor little guy's corpse in a Miller's Outpost bag and carried it out to the street gutter, where he let it drop. He put the empty cage back in my sister's room and when she came home, he told her the hamster had escaped again. She looked for that hamster for weeks. Of course, he never resurfaced. We told her the truth when she was in her twenties. And I think I remember her not talking to any of us for about a week.

So now I've crossed hamster off the list. What about a turtle? Or maybe an ant farm?

Image from mypethamster.net

Encountering Penelope Cruz

 Have you guys seen Penelope Cruz on the cover and inside the new edition of Vogue? While she's ridiculously beautiful and talented, I really wish she would stop effortlessly making the rest of us look so bad. She had a baby four months ago! I did NOT look like this four months after having Sabine.

When Kadin and I were dating, we drove up to Santa Barbara for a weekend at the Four Seasons Resort (I was doing a design story for a magazine). Penelope Cruz was checking in at the same time we were. She was wearing a knee length black trench coat and spike heels. I had recently gained a few pounds (fat and happy in my new relationship, which included eating and drinking whatever we wanted). My husband, who almost never looks at another woman, stared so long at Penelope that I thought his eyes would pop out of his pretty, bald head. She was speaking with the concierge and so her accent was lending a kind of bedroom exoticism to her presence, making me feel that much worse in my leggings, ballet flats, t-shirt and scarf. I was comfortable; she was hot. And still is. Sigh.

Images from Vogue.com

Waking Up Susie

Every day Sabine and I walk around our neighborhood with no particular place to go. The South Pasadena sidewalks are so clean you could lick them (and Sabine does). Usually I love our walks because I notice things I stopped noticing a long time ago: ants, bees, ladybugs, puddle reflections, tree roots and talking birds on wires, tree branches and rooftops.

But there was one day recently when I just wasn't feeling it. I had a lot of meaningless things on my mind and Sabine's pace was a deterrent rather than something to be savored. We had just turned a corner and I saw Susie, a woman in her eighties who walks her two small dogs (one of which is blind) around the block every day at the same exact time. She also wears the same thing every day: A floral house dress/or moo moo, knee-length nude stockings, a fisherman's hat, what looks like a Member's Only jacket, and sneakers that might just be Sketchers. For the longest time, she'd tease Sabine by taking out her dentures and saying, "I don't have any teeth either."

When I saw Susie on this day, I felt like crossing the street. I wasn't in the mood to talk. But Sabine saw her dogs and ran toward her anyway. For the 67th time, she tried to show Sabine how to pet the dog's back instead of sticking her fingers in the dog's eyes (like I said, the poor dog is blind and Sabine is NOT a gentle soul). And because we have the same conversation and perform the same lesson every single time we see her, I was having a Groundhog Day kind of moment. But then Susie, who was kneeling next to Sabine on the sidewalk just stopped talking and watched her for a minute. Sabine looked back at her, stepped a little closer and put her arms around her neck and her head on Susie's shoulder. Susie hugged her back and I saw her smile a huge smile as her eyes welled up.

I know that Susie lives in the decrepit little yellow house on the corner. Alone (except for the two pups). I don't know if she has family or visitors. But I do know what it feels like to feel lonely. It's a terrible, hollow feeling. And I know that when Sabine hugs me, it's one of the best things I've ever felt in my entire life. When I saw Sabine give Susie that feeling, well, it was like somebody drilled a tiny hole in my brain and all the stupid, meaningless stuff fell out. Watching her warm Susie like that and remind her of what it feels like to be touched, hugged and receive unadulterated affection...it was enough to make my heart explode a little so that I could appreciate the bugs, birds and bees again.

Introducing Missoni for Target

Missoni for Target, coming September 2011. I'm beside myself with joy.

Image from liquida.com

Image from risingwatersentertainment.com

Image from iamfashionweek.com

Image from Glamazonsblog.com

The Color of Skin

On some level, being part of a multiracial family is no big deal. It seems that in one way or another, most people are and most onlookers don't look twice. (Although I did have a tax accountant once who firmly believed people should not wed outside their race and so he set up my then-single Scandinavian best friend with a Scandinavian guy he knew. It turns out the only thing they had in common was their ethnicity. This guy took freak to a whole new level and I'm pretty sure it was the weirdest blind date she's ever been on. But aren't all blind dates weird? Okay that's a different topic for a different day. The point is, said Scandinavian married a nice, not-so-freaky half-Mexican guy.)

According to a recent story in The New York Times, Census Data Presents Rise in Multiracial Population of Youths by Susan Saulny, "the multiracial population has increased almost 50 percent, to 4.2 million, since 2000, making it the fastest growing youth group in the country." The article also says,  "The number of people of all ages who identified themselves as both white and black soared by 134 percent since 2000 to 1.8 million people, according to census data released Thursday." While I find this information to be hugely reassuring in terms of Sabine's growing identity (if she sees more children who look like her, she will feel less marginalized), it's not yet reflected in our community or surrounding communities.

And as a result, some people do look twice. Because people don't usually notice if there isn't disparity in facial features or skin color (for example, my Scandinavian friend and her half-Mexican husband), I'm left to wonder if it's the striking difference in physicality of my family members that makes passersby sometimes stare or take a second look? Maybe yes, maybe no. I don't plan on asking them so I will never know. And a second look isn't that big of a deal. Staring or shaking your head is. And so are comments from the under-exposed.

We live in an apartment building that is diverse, but mostly light-complected. One Caucasian child was playing barefoot in the flowerbed one day. She lifted up her leg and saw the dark brown film of dirt she'd acquired on the bottom of her foot and said, "This is the color of Sabine's skin. It's dirt color!" It wasn't malicious and it was a perfectly innocent observation, but I still got the chills. I just wonder how Sabine might feel about this when she's older and perhaps, but hopefully not, still in the minority when it comes to skin color.

There was another time when a Caucasian boy, who is also about six-years-old, said to me, "You're white, your husband is black and you got a black baby!" And then he started laughing. If it weren't for the laughing part, I might've replied, "Good job, genius.". But since he included the Children of the Corn laugh, I wanted to push him off of his bike. I didn't because his mom is the resident manager of our building. But again, I cringe at the thought of Sabine growing up and potentially having the majority constantly commenting on or pointing out her skin color. Pubescent girls have enough to deal with, don't you think?

Hoop Dreams

Once Sabine will leave my poor ears alone, I'd love to have all of these:

Anthropologie

Anthropologie

Banana Republic

Banana Republic

Banana Republic

A Dozen Wonders

1. Why did Microsoft buy Skype when Skype doesn't really make much money and you can face-to-face chat on iphones and ipads, which means most other phones will have the same technology soon?

2. Why did my neighbor tell me yesterday that it looks like Sabine has gained weight (she's always been of average weight, in the fiftieth percentile)?

3. Why can't I clone myself so that I can spend as much time alone with my beautiful friends as I do with my child and husband?

4. Why did Sabine, who hasn't nursed in two and a half months, start sucking on my shoulder yesterday? Does my shoulder look like a breast or is it just in the same neighborhood?

5. Why did I acquire wrinkles, imperfect skin and grey hair only just after I had Sabine?

6. Why is wine more delicious now than it ever has been?

7. Why does Sabine get down on all fours and drink from puddles on the sidewalk?

8. Why do I hate cooking and love takeout?

9. Why does my 1.5 year-old close doors, push chairs into tables, throw paper in the trash and place dirty clothes in the laundry basket when my husband and I do none of these things?

10. Did you know Bin Laden fathered at least twenty children? How did that guy get so much ass?

11. Why does everyone tell my husband he's in great shape and has the ideal athletic build when he hasn't exercised since 2006 and has no idea that food has calories?

12. Why do I think that Donald Trump actually might've won? Because these days, anything can happen.

Image by Minga via Life According to Celia

Stud Finder

Since Sabine tries to yank dangling earrings from my lobes, I'm still wearing studs most of the time. They're small, and in being so, lend a feminine and understated kind of style.

Anthropologie

Topshop

Urban Outfitters

Anthropologie

Urban Outfitters

Anthropologie

Topshop

Anthropologie

Topshop