To every woman reading this — happy Mother’s Day. Whether today fills you with joy, grief, longing, or some complicated in-between, I see you. Give yourself grace. Sending love.
Before I get into all of it — the links, the trends, the things I’ve been adding to my cart at midnight — I need to set the scene. It’s Sunday. My bedroom smells faintly of construction dust (more on that shortly), Henri is pressed against my legs with absolutely no intention of moving, and there is a lukewarm cup of coffee on my nightstand that I keep meaning to drink. This is motherhood in its most honest, unglamorous, perfect form.
Henri made me a mother five years ago, and I have said this before, but I will keep saying it: I didn’t know I was capable of loving something the way I love him. He has taught me more about patience, about slowing down, about finding the extraordinary in an ordinary Tuesday afternoon walk, than any book or podcast or therapy session ever could. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t worry. He notices every single thing. I am a better person for knowing him.
“He has taught me more about patience, about slowing down, about finding the extraordinary in an ordinary Tuesday afternoon walk, than any book or therapy session ever could.”
This morning, we stayed in bed a little longer than usual. That was my gift to myself — just that. No alarm, no scrolling, no agenda. Just Henri’s warm weight and the sound of birds outside the window, before the construction crew arrives and turns our house into what feels like a minor renovation of the Louvre’s underground tunnels.
Speaking of which — the overhead construction has been, let’s say, character building. Dust is everywhere. I have dusted the same shelf four times this week and I have genuinely started to wonder if I am losing my mind or if the dust is reproducing. It’s going to be worth it. That’s what I keep telling myself. And I believe it, mostly. The end result will be a primary bathroom that finally feels like it belongs in the house I’ve been slowly building into a home. For now, though, we’re in the messy middle — the renovation equivalent of that specific moment in a sourdough journey when you’re not sure if the dough is alive or dead.
The Great Bathroom Color Debate of 2026
Here’s where I need your honest opinion, because my husband and I are at an impasse. The overhead work above the bathroom is nearly done, which means the next step is patching the ceiling and walls and giving everything a fresh coat of paint — temporary, since we’re doing a full renovation later this year. The paint is really just a placeholder while we live with the space and make real decisions.
My husband, ever the pragmatist, says bright white. Clean slate. Easy. Forgiving. It will photograph beautifully, he says, and when we do the real renovation, no one will have to paint over an unusual choice. He is, objectively, not wrong.
But here is where I am: I’ve been looking at rooms on Pinterest for approximately three weeks straight, and I keep gravitating toward color. Not a trendy color for the sake of it — I’m thinking about something moody and interesting. A warm sage that leans almost grey. Or a terracotta that reads like a sun-soaked wall in the south of France. Or even a dusty, chalky green that would make the white marble (eventually) sing. Something we’d never normally do. Something that lives in the “why not” category, because the renovation is coming anyway and we might as well enjoy the in-between.
I think there’s something quietly liberating about the temporary. When everything is going to change anyway, you have permission to play. To try the thing you’ve been afraid of. To be a little bold. I’m still deciding, but I’m leaning into color. Life is short and paint is cheap.
The Links: What’s Living in My Head Right Now
Alright, let’s get into it. Grab your coffee, fix yourself a croissant — or if you’re like me this morning, eat it while hovering over your laptop before the first Zoom of the day pretending you’ve had a very calm, intentional morning — and scroll on.
The Story That Started My Week
I have a deep love for a good house story, and this one delivered: a French chateau provided a fairy tale ending for a Los Angeles family. The story of how a family left California and ended up restoring a French chateau is the kind of thing I read slowly, on purpose, to make it last longer. It’s aspirational without being unrealistic — they’re not billionaires, they’re just people who made a wild, brave choice and figured it out. I love them for it. I want the book deal. I want the Netflix series. I want to stay in one of the guest rooms when they eventually open it to visitors.
There’s something about the chateau renovation story specifically that gets me every time. Maybe it’s because we’re in our own (considerably less glamorous) renovation era right now, and the idea that dust and disorder eventually become something beautiful feels personally important to believe right now.
Grandma Jewelry Is Having Its Major Moment — And I Am So Here
I want to talk about the jewelry trend happening right now, because it is one of those things that feels completely inevitable in retrospect. Grandma jewelry is the cool girl accessory you actually need this summer — and if you’ve been on Pinterest or Instagram at all recently, you already know what I’m talking about. The brooches. The layered gold chains with heirloom pendants. The chunky cocktail rings worn casually, in the daytime, with a white linen shirt and old jeans. The pearl drop earrings that look like they belonged to someone’s Parisian grandmother and were passed down through four generations before landing on someone incredibly stylish in Brooklyn.
This trend is not about looking old. It is about looking intentional, storied, collected. There’s a richness to it — the aesthetic antithesis of fast fashion, which is perhaps exactly why it feels so aspirational right now. These are pieces that look like they have a history. Even if you bought them last Tuesday from an estate sale seller on Etsy, they feel like they mean something.
And then there’s Sezane, which is never not doing something brilliant with accessories. The bracelet stacks they’ve been posting lately — bold, colorful, layered, unapologetically maximalist in the most Parisian way — made me stop scrolling in a real way. I’ve been inspired to go bigger, bolder, more colorful. I’m adding these to my collection (because why not, it’s spring, it’s my birthday month, and I have no impulse control when it comes to bracelets), and I already have this gold set which is usually sold out but is currently in stock — move fast on that one.
What Parisians Are Wearing Right Now — A Personal Report
I was in Paris this April, and I came home with approximately fourteen saved notes on my phone, three new pieces I did not plan to buy, and a deeply renewed conviction that the French have figured out something about dressing that the rest of us are always approximately eighteen months behind on.
I put everything I observed — the trends I spotted, the things I couldn’t stop seeing — into a full piece on Everyday Parisian: What Parisians Are Wearing Now. Including the one bag I saw everywhere, and I mean everywhere. (Go read it, you’ll understand why I almost went back to the boutique twice.)
The overarching feeling of Paris this spring was one of relaxed precision. Things that looked effortless had been thought about carefully. The woman who appeared to have just thrown on a striped shirt and wide-leg trousers and a silk scarf and then happened to be wearing the perfect small gold earrings — she had not just thrown it on. She had considered it. That’s the real French lesson: the effort is invisible, but it’s there.
There’s also a notable return to color. Not the neon maximalism of a few years ago, but something richer and more considered — burnt oranges, deep blues, unexpected sage greens. The kind of colors that look good in every light and even better against sun-warm skin. Spring in Paris doesn’t apologize for its palette, and neither should you.
The Beauty Shelf Confession
Let’s talk about the bathroom counter, or rather, what has taken over it. Someone asked me on Substack about a French beauty brand and whether I had thoughts, and the simple answer is: I have many thoughts. I have been testing and trying and quietly accumulating an embarrassing number of bottles and tubes and glass pots, and eventually I had to just write it all down.
Everything on my bathroom shelf — and counter, because it has absolutely spilled over — is now documented in full on Substack. The French brands I’m reaching for first. The thing I use every single morning that I would genuinely be upset to lose. The one product I resisted for two years and then started using and immediately understood why everyone talked about it. It’s all there.
The current landscape of French beauty is having a genuinely exciting moment. There are brands doing things with skincare texture and fragrance layering and ingredient storytelling that feel completely different from the American or Korean beauty approach. It’s less about clinical efficacy and more about sensoriality — the ritual, the feel, the experience. I’ve fallen into it completely and I don’t regret it at all.
Speaking of beauty tools: La Bonne Brosse has made it into Nordstrom, which means it’s officially more accessible, and I’m so glad. I have the #3 and use it every single morning on dry hair. One important note because I’ve gotten questions: this is not a blowout brush. You cannot get the bristles wet — it will damage them. This is a pure daily dry-brushing tool, and once you start, the texture of your hair will change in a way that feels almost impossible. Consider yourself warned, in the best way.
Style Right Now: Flared Jeans, Double Belts, and Slicked-Back Everything
A few very specific things are happening in fashion right now that I want to flag because they’re moving fast and they’re going to be everywhere by July.
First: flared jeans are back, and I say this as someone who has lived through three iterations of this trend and still has her original pair from college. The current version is different from what we’ve seen before — it’s less ’70s costume and more elevated and intentional. The proportions are better. The rise is higher. They’re being worn with fitted knits and low boots and blazers in a way that feels genuinely modern. If you’ve been curious, now is the moment.
Double belts are the more unexpected one. Harper’s Bazaar covered the how-to, and I’ll be honest — I was skeptical. Two belts? On one outfit? But the styling examples they showed converted me. It’s a very specific kind of chic, the kind that reads as sculptural and considered, and it works particularly well with the flowy linen and relaxed tailoring that dominates spring dressing right now.
And then there’s the slicked-back hair moment. Thirteen slicked-back hairstyles for spring and summer — a roundup I bookmarked because my hair has been in approximately the same bun for three weeks and I felt inspired to try something with slightly more intention. The sleek, pulled-back look is having a genuine run right now, and it pairs beautifully with statement earrings, which brings us all the way back to the jewelry conversation. It’s a very complete look. Very clean. Very Paris.
What I Gave My Mom for Mother’s Day
My sister and I had a conversation a few weeks ago that started with “what are we doing for Mom” and very quickly became a deeply practical discussion about sleep quality, mattress age, and the fact that our mother deserves better rest than she’s been getting. The decision arrived quickly: we’re upgrading her mattress.
Helix is our preferred mattress — I’ve been sleeping on ours for over a year now and the difference from what we had before is genuinely significant. I’m having Mom take the sleep quiz (it takes sixty seconds and it’s surprisingly good) but I’m nudging her toward the organic option, which is what we have. If you’re in the market, MEMDAY25 gets you 25% off right now, which is a very good deal for something that will change how you feel every single morning.
There’s something about giving the gift of rest that feels deeply motherly to me — a very specific kind of care that says I want you to be comfortable, I want you to feel good, I want the daily infrastructure of your life to support you the way you deserve. It felt right.
The Scent Story I Didn’t Know I Needed
I want to talk about Grasse, the birthplace of perfume, and its current revival, because it’s the kind of story that makes you want to immediately book a trip and walk into the oldest perfumery you can find and smell everything.
Grasse is a small hillside town in the south of France — Provence, technically — and it has been producing perfume ingredients for centuries. Jasmine, rose, tuberose: the flowers that still form the backbone of the most iconic perfumes in the world often trace their origin there. The story of its revival is tied to a renewed global interest in natural fragrance, in provenance, in the idea that the thing you spray on your skin before you leave the house has a story that goes back generations.
I also watched the 60 Minutes clip, which I highly recommend if you have ten minutes and a love for beautiful French countryside cinematography. Fragrance has become such a significant part of personal style for me over the past few years — it’s the invisible layer, the one people can’t see but will remember. The Grasse revival feels like a reminder to take it seriously, to seek out the story behind what you wear.
The Book That Has Hollywood Buzzing — And My Thoughts
Belle Burden’s Strangers is the book everyone is talking about, and I’ve been sitting with my thoughts on it since finishing it last week. I shared them in full on Substack, because it’s the kind of book that deserves more than a few sentences. What I’ll say here: it surprised me. It went somewhere I didn’t expect, and by the end I was reading with the specific kind of breathless focus that only happens a few times a year. Worth it.
The Henri Paragraph (Yes, Every Week, Always)
I clicked on this article about what if you could give your dog a longer life and I want to be transparent with you: I am not fully okay after reading it. I knew going in that it would make me emotional, and I read it anyway, in the way that you sometimes do with things that hurt a little because the feeling is also important.
Henri is five. That’s not old. We have so much time, probably. Statistically, likely. But the specific grief of a dog’s shorter life — the fact that you know from the moment you meet them that you will love them for their whole life, and their whole life is not your whole life — is something I think about quietly, the way you think about things you can’t do anything about but can still honor with attention.
All I want is more time with him. All I can do is make the time extraordinary. This morning, we stayed in bed longer than we needed to. That was the right choice. That is always the right choice.
The Frozen Yogurt Dispatch and Other Joyful Things
I know this seems like a pivot, and it is, but stay with me: three different eras of frozen yogurt is one of those pieces of cultural writing that you read and think, yes, someone needed to write this, and I’m glad they did. Food history told through a specific treat’s cultural rise and fall and reinvention — it’s the kind of thing I love.
I also want to note: I saw a new shop open in Paris that sells Greek yogurt and olive oil, and I need to try it urgently. There’s something so right about the combination — rich, grassy, clean, a little unexpected — that it makes complete sense. Paris is always doing something new with something ancient and making it feel inevitable. This is that.
The Best Sellers and the Bits Worth Knowing
A few practical things before I let you go:
This week’s best sellers include the Boll and Branch sheets (which are as good as everyone says, and the weight of them in the summer is exactly right) and these adorable Eberjay pajamas (the kind you’ll actually want to wear, not just own). I’m also loving this shirt dress for spring — easy, put-together, the kind of thing you reach for on a Tuesday and feel immediately like you made an effort.
Third Love is running a buy one, get one 50% off promotion right now, which is the exact kind of practical thing that sounds boring until you realize your bras are two years old and you’ve been meaning to update them. The t-shirt bra is the workhorse. The strapless is the one I reach for more than I expected. And the reminder: get resized at least once a year. It changes everything.
I ordered a kettlebell for our home gym, because my trainer has been very convincing about what a single good kettlebell can do for your strength routine, and I finally caved. She’s going to show me the fat-burning exercises that make it worth the investment. I’ll report back.
And finally: this stunning townhouse renovation in NYC is exactly the kind of thing I look at when I’m in the middle of our own dusty, chaotic in-between and need a reminder that the before really does become the after. It’s beautiful. It’s the whole point.
Also very much adding this Florence hotel to my bucket list. Italy is always the answer. Especially in autumn. Especially with a good book and no agenda. Florence specifically has a quality of light in October that I’ve been trying to describe accurately for years and can’t. You just have to go.
If Paris is on your agenda for any season, go read my piece on what to do in Paris when it rains, because there will be at least one rainy day and it can be wonderful if you’re prepared. Some of my best Paris memories involve rain, honestly. There’s something about a wet Paris street that makes everything more cinematic. You’re welcome in advance.
One more thing from a reader: blog reader Amy sent in this article on overtourism — the CBS News clip — and it’s a thoughtful, honest look at a complicated question. As someone who writes about travel and has a complicated relationship with the ethics of encouraging more of it, I found it worth sitting with. Thank you, Amy. This is exactly why the comments and emails matter.
That’s everything for this Sunday. Thank you for being here — for reading, for sharing, for sending links, for caring about the things I care about. Mother’s Day, for me, is mostly about gratitude. Grateful for Henri, who made me a mother. Grateful for my own mother, who is about to get a very good night’s sleep on a new mattress. Grateful for my sister, who is always the one who makes the good ideas real. Grateful for you.
Go be gentle with yourself today. Stay in bed a little longer if you can. Take the longer walk. Call the person you’ve been meaning to call. Eat something good. Wear the earrings.