Packing lists: fantasy vs. reality
Inside you are two wolves. And maybe two packing lists. But you need both to survive. Or something. (It's very hot out.)
Practical essentials and ideal escapes, just in time for the long weekend.
You’re reading This Heaven Gives Me Migraine, a shopping newsletter about searching for lasting pleasures in a world of disposable garbage.
As we head into a long weekend at the precise moment that much of the country is under dangerous heat advisories, the trench between what idealized travel looks like and what actual travel looks like has, perhaps, never been more vast.
You know what I mean. Your inbox is full of """aspirational""" brands selling you fitted, bodice-inspired silhouettes in crisp white cotton for your upcoming getaway. And you're sitting there going, "yes, I would like to be that person. But unfortunately I am an adult and I have lived enough to know that under-boob sweat is a thing. And that it is definitely going to be visible on that white dress."
Even in the pleasantly temperate days of my mid-June trip to New York, I was unceremoniously reminded of the fantasy vs. reality of travel. I had brought 2 pairs of my most walkable summer shoes, which I alternated between. I did everything right. But by the end of 5-ish days (ish, because of a particularly hellish airline experience, which I won't go into, because haven't we all had our own particularly hellish airline experience?) I was staggering around like someone approaching 90. My feet were a mess. I was in a lot of pain. You know how it goes.
So yeah, "best laid plans" and all that. So here's what I'm going to do. I submit, for your perusal, two packing lists. One is full of all the charming, romantic things we'd like to bring on a summer trip. (And unlike those aspirational emails, I've tried to at least keep this somewhat in the realm of the realistic, without sacrificing beauty and drama and all the things that make life worth living.) And then, just to be fair, a second packing list consisting of the things you really ought to bring with you for, y'know, utility and the somewhat-alleviation of the indignities that summer produces. But, y'know, elevated. Because remember where you are.
Inside you are two wolves. And maybe two packing lists. But you need both to survive. Or something. (It's very hot out.)
No. 1: THE ROMANCE OF TRAVEL
(I've also been recommending things in this vein on REC LEAGUE, which, if you haven't signed up yet, is wonderful. I cannot endorse it enough. If you like this newsletter and want more frequent recommendations with a lot less preamble, go follow me over there.)
"Wow, a black tank dress. Shocking." Okay, I know. But this has several things going for it: first, the crinkle texture lends it some depth and interest, and also camouflages all multitudes of sins. Second, the wrap silhouette is very compelling and chic. Third, because it has a bit more coverage, it's actually a shockingly good "officewear" dress in addition to being an easy vacation dress. It feels like that classic 9-to-5 sheath that everybody has some version of in their closet, but the genuinely-maxi length (take it from me, 5'11—this is less "midi" than you'd expect) and crinkle texture make it feel unfussy and unboring. Pair with a long, modernist pendant necklace and heels or flatforms. Note: the fabric isn't gauzy, so it stands away from the body a bit. This is part of what makes it office-appropriate, but it is maybe a skosh more substantial than your most heatwave-approved pieces,. Proceed accordingly.
2) Dragon Diffusion Nantucket Bag, From $395 (or lower, depending)
For better or worse, the idea of "The Big Summer Bag" has really captured my imagination this year. I've seen a lot of frankly absurdly large woven bags out and about lately, but here's the thing: straw or raffia bags are not, by and large, built for the long haul. Most of them are going to fall apart. Enter: Dragon Diffusion, whose bags are made from leather but, crucially, use traditional weaving techniques that give them the look of a beachy woven fiber. (Would I take this to the beach? No. But a farmer's market? Sure.)
I'm going to be vulnerable with y'all for a minute: I had never heard of this brand until I started on my Big Summer Bag search. But the resale sites are absolutely littered with them. So I'm asking: did these have a massive moment that I completely missed? Was every white lady with a Hamptons house carrying one in, say, 2018? The quantity of them available secondhand seems to suggest that these Were A Thing. But I was unaware. Sound off in the comments to let me know if Dragon Diffusion is so two-thousand-and-late. (I won't be dissuaded at all, but I would like to know.)
There's truly no conceivable reason to buy these new. Hit Poshmark, TheRealReal, and eBay. There are some great shapes and weave patterns to choose from; I'm just particularly drawn to the Nantucket because it has that little scooped-out part for your arm. I feel like I might want this in burgundy or brown? Or even tan? So it stands out against the inevitable black I'll be wearing? Maybe this counts as personal growth.
3) Silk Laundry Silk Mesh Long-Sleeve Top, $195
Of all the seasons, summer is actually my least favorite to dress for. I like the idea of minimalism, but eventually I hit a day in August where I feel that something has been irreplaceably lost from my expression of self and I become so sick of everything in my wardrobe that it triggers a sort of outfit-based existential crisis. I think what is actually lost is this: Layering. So this year, I'm consciously seeking out mesh layering pieces as a possible antidote. This 100% silk mesh top from trusted brand Silk Laundry feels like a good place to start. Will report back.
4) Loeffler Randall Noor Black Leather Sandal, $195
Back on the positive side of minimalism: these are very good. I bought a pair, new in box, on Poshmark for about $60 back in the dead of winter, which is, of course, the best time to buy barely-there strappy sandals. My mental calculus at the time was basically this: Loeffler Randall is always a good brand for me, fit-wise; and I had a gap in my shoe wardrobe for a very sleek, elegant, minimalist flat sandal. Now having worn them almost constantly since warm weather hit, I can confidently say I would pay full price for them if I had to buy them again. I'm consistently surprised at how much they elevate even my laziest summer outfits. I've never been someone who shopped The Row or really even paid much attention to them, but in that hyper-limited capacity, these feel to me like something a chic person who shops The Row would wear. And if you're not walking 20,000 steps per day with zero preparation for said sudden burst of activity, they are very comfortable.
5) Vilhelm Parfumerie Basilico & Fellini, $205
This is the perfect summertime perfume. It smells like if a Caprese salad was a beautiful woman. And if you're sweating through the day, it fades in a non-weird way. Which is not always a given!
Ok. Now onto the non-glamorous stuff.
No. 2: THE REALITIES OF TRAVEL
1) Round Labs Birch Juice Moisturizing Sunscreen SPF 45 ($25)
Let's all groan together in unison as I note: you should be wearing sunscreen on your face every day of your life. You should be applying it liberally in the morning and re-applying it throughout the day. I know you aren't, but you should be.
I haven't managed to get over the mental hurdle of re-applying (how????), but I do judiciously wear sunscreen and have spend $[REDACTED] trying dozens of sunscreens to find the ones that vibe harmoniously with my skin, AND my existing skincare, AND my makeup. My bathroom closet is full of the discarded carcasses of sunscreens that didn't work, a physical manifestation of how freaking fussy sunscreen is and why so many people just don't want to deal with it.
But until the FDA catches up with the rest of the world and approves the new & novel SPF filters that make foreign sunscreens so much better than American ones, this is a struggle we must endure. I've had mixed results with K-Beauty sunscreens over the years, but this one is the first I've found that actually made me believe in a better world again. It's widely available (Target, Ulta, etc.) if you can stomach the markup, and while it's not a particularly lightweight texture (more on my sensory issues in a bit), it's inoffensive enough and MY SKIN ACTUALLY LIKES IT. It's hydrating and somehow, skin-smoothing? Softening? And it's SPF 45, which is another point I'd like to complain about: how come every high-end "life changing" new sunscreen selling at Sephora for upwards of $55/tube is like SPF 30? Honestly, insulting.
Ulta is seemingly having a BOGO 50% off on sunscreen right now, which brings the price on this down much closer to what it'd be if you ordered direct from one of the K-Beauty sites, except you don't have to wait six weeks for it to arrive. So try it. Worst-case: if it ends up in a Sunscreen Graveyard in your bathroom, you're welcome to trade it in for one of the ones in mine.
2) Abi Ame Summer Skin Serum + Lotion, $29
Perhaps, like me, you've seen the UGC video of a woman slathering herself in Summer Skin and breathlessly explaining that it instantly erases all of her skin imperfections and sun damage. I have to tell you, I labored over whether to buy this for MONTHS. I tortured myself. Their social content was a big part of it—it seemed so clearly scammy, so clearly making promises it couldn't keep. (After all, doesn't everyone's skin look sort of "perfected" when there's a wet product with a lot of shine applied to it? As Katie Jane Hughes has taught us, reflectivity is a kind of coverage.)
Eventually I caved and bought it, not because I really believed in the promise of that UGC, but because I have spent most of my life gritting my teeth through post-shower lotion applications because I HATE. THE. FEELING. OF. LOTION. (Increasingly, I am not beating the 'tism allegations.)
Fast forward to my return to the airport, where I was sneaking the half-full bottle back in my carry-on and watching with increasing full-body sweats as the TSA agent rifled through my stuff. In the end, she was a Girl's Girl—i.e., she let me keep the over-the-limit bottle because it was only half-full. But for a minute there, I truly thought that all the pent-up stress and fury of 15 flight delays followed by flight cancellation followed by two hours and forty five minutes of sleep was going to come down, explosively, to getting a $29 bottle of lotion thrown out by TSA. (Huh. Guess I did end up telling you my dumb airport story after all.)
All of which is to say: turns out, I really like this lotion. It's absolutely no miracle product, but it does give a rather appealing, mildly "perfecting" sheen to the skin, and it's super milky and absorbs quickly. It's infinitely more of a utility player than I expected based on their marketing and, well, everything. It's unscented. It now comes in a bigger, more affordable tube instead of a fussy pump. It triggered none of the "oh no you introduced a new product so I have to preemptively panic and freak out even if it's totally mild and non-irritating" reaction that us reactive skin divas tend to get. If the thought of putting lotion on during summertime (or really, any time) makes your skin crawl, this is a genuinely great product for you. I will be repurchasing.
3) Some Sun 100% Silk UPF Scarf, $86
This is not just a scarf. This is a UPF 20-rated, sun protection scarf. AND it's 100% silk. AND it's big—over 27" square. WHERE has this been all my life.
Listen. I'm a hat person. I like hats, and I think in general I can carry them off. But this summer I am not sure what we are doing, hat-wise, as a culture. My oversized, wide-brim woven numbers are feeling a little too intensely Millennial-coded. Ball caps, which I will break my own personal rule to wear only in the most utilitarian cases, like when doing yard work or floating down the Meramec River, are so ubiquitous as to be invisible. In the absence of a New Cool Hat Trend That Feels Spiritually Aligned With My Personal Aesthetic, I've been increasingly turning to silk scarves as my protective sun covering. Tied with long tails at the back, very Pucci-coded, late 60s/early 70s. A sort of Françoise Hardy, Mia-Farrow-in-India-with-the-Beatles kind of deal. Ideally paired with massive sunglasses.
Which got me thinking: SPF-treated fabrics are a thing. Does anybody make a UPF silk scarf?
Turns out, they do. If I had millions of dollars, I would spend all of them investing in this company so they could make a hundred variations of this scarf and also at least several more variations on this shirt. Someone else, please get on that in the interim.
4) Dermalogica Daily Glycolic Cleanser, $39
We have now officially reached the "TMI" portion of the newsletter. (If that's not your vibe, skip on down.) A few years ago I bought this face cleanser, didn't like it, and relegated it to my shower for décolletage purposes. The reason I eventually started using it on my underarms has been lost to time, but eventually I did, and what I discovered is that it makes you essentially odorless. Discovering this is the closest I'll ever come to knowing what the guy who invented Penicillin felt like. But it's true. After a couple weeks of use, I was devoid of scent. Deodorant was applied out of habit more than necessity. Olfactorily speaking, I did not exist. I would be undetectable to any scent-based security measures. I probably could have snuck past the police dogs in the airport, but I wouldn't do that, especially after that TSA lady was so cool to me earlier.
Subsequent research confirms it: glycolic acid is great for your underarm area. You can find cheaper options with this ingredient, sure, but none has ever worked so thoroughly and efficiently as this cleanser. YMMV.
Now, I'll level with you. At $39 to clean just one part of your body, this is probably not an "all the time" part of your routine. But if it's summer, and you're going on vacation, and you're planning to sweat a lot? Especially if you're expecting to sweat a lot in fancy clothes? Or, god forbid, you're going somewhere remote and rugged for an extended period and are planning to re-wear clothes you've already worn? This is for you.
5) Eileen Fisher Organic Cotton Lofty Gauze Classic Collar Shirt, $148
The more time you spend on this planet, the more you realize that everything cool under the sun has been done, quietly, by Eileen Fisher for the past forty-odd years. I know I may have seemed anti-white-clothing-in-summer at the start of this odyssey, but that's not really true. It's just that fit, fabric content and texture are the critical difference between being comfortable and miserable—and no matter how good an actor you think you are, you are not pulling off "effortless" when you feel miserable in your clothes.
I've been wearing a version of this shirt for over ten years. I purchased it from a very cool, minimalist, sculptural clothing brand Black Crane shortly after I moved to New Orleans. Black Crane is a great label, you should absolutely check them out. They understand shapes very well and, as I said, their lovely gauzy overshirt has held up for over ten years. They're doing some interesting sheer olive stuff at the moment. But they don't make that exact shirt anymore, and for this reason, I am returning you to that ever-present beacon of light, that one true source, Eileen Fisher. Because you do need THAT EXACT SHIRT. (And this is indistinguishable, except for the buttons.) I will explain why.
This is the perfect travel shirt, because it's the perfect lightweight layer. The sort of waffle-y gauze is breezy and barely-there, but it's totally unfussy and practical. I wear it to protect my arms from the sun and then tie it around my waist when hiking (a thing I have done, whether you believe me or not). Unbuttoned, it's a perfect poolside cover-up, conjuring that classic rom-com morning after look. It looks great over a monochrome (black) outfit of a sporty tank and linen trousers. It also looks great—and dare I say, "effortless"—over a slinky black slip dress. There are probably outfits that it doesn't look good with, but I haven't found them.
The versatility alone is enough of an endorsement for bringing it on your summer travels. But it's also cotton, so it's easy to wash and dries fast if you get it wet. It's decidedly un-precious. Use it to wipe sweat off your brow or "towel" yourself before heading inside from the pool to get a snack. Knot it on the strap of your bag when you get sick of wearing it.
We like to pretend that we'll become totally different people the minute we start our vacations. We pack for those people instead. But you can't fool Eileen Fisher. She knows us better than we know ourselves.
That's it. Happy long weekend-ing—if you discover something truly great, "aspirational" or otherwise, on your travels, drop me a note. I'd love to hear about it.
