The Gas Station #34

First look at Jonathan Saunders for & Other Stories, the pain of secondary infertility, and is good taste a trap?

Hello and happy half term to all who celebrate. I’m joking of course. Juggling entertaining children with work is nigh on impossible (especially when, like my son, they’re three years old and too young to participate in any of the clubs available). So far we’ve joined the local library, gone to have a professional haircut for the first time (my son will be glad to see the back of my kitchen scissors and his ‘village idiot’ haircuts), visited the dentist (genuinely astounded I had the foresight to book that in for this week), he’s been kindly taken out by two of my childfree, freelance friends for the afternoon, we’ve done a visit to Stratford Westfield (shudder), and, like everyone else navigating half term in London, we’ve gone to the Young V&A. Roll on Monday.

Style

• It’s always enjoyable to snoop around other people’s closets and when it’s the likes of Julia Sarr-Jamois and Leandra Medine Cohen (plus others) and shot beautifully for HTSI, it’s even more fun. Alison Loehnis’ collection of Chanel pumps is quite something.

• Jonathan Saunders’ first collection for & Other Stories launches on 26th February and he says the clothes and campaign are “inspired by the energy of 80s and 90s new-wave youth culture - girls together in an apartment, connection, friendship, and honesty”. The FT also reported on why so many big name designers are taking top gigs with retail giants.

& Other Stories campaign shots

• In ‘The Enduring Influence of Phoebe Philo’, T Magazine picks five of the designer’s legacies including surprising colours, elevated sneakers, out-there casting, weird details, and ‘less worth more’, and points out where they’re all popping up today.

• Five things I’m thinking about this week…

  

  1. I am so in love with this Bode jacket made from silk with illustrations taken from the first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland nestled within the floral motif. I’d wear with dark blue straight jeans and black boots. (Also enjoyed this Vogue profile of Bode’s founder Emily Adams Bode Aujla with lots of lovely shots of her home).

  2. With its finance bro connotations, I can’t do the quarter zip, I just can’t, I don’t care what Chanel says. But I am here for a new polo shirt. Really into this Cos cashmere one.

  3. I sometimes find myself missing a skinny silhouette on bottom so am thinking about going in for these Leset stirrup pants for spring.

  4. I have some very nice, fancy loafers but I’m after a pair of chocolate ruched ones that I can dash around in this spring - basically a trainer replacement and something I’m not precious about. Behold these M&S (!) loafers for grocery shopping and nursery runs.

  5. The Times reported that people are already buying their garden furniture for summer as most of the new collections just dropped. I want to add a comfortable spot in the garden for reading (our current options include the wooden dining benches or the grass, both of which are not great). I have my eye on this new Habitat one.

Culture

• I’m not above snapping a curated shot of a book I’m reading (I did it in my last post!) but am I being performative? This Hypebae piece ‘Being Smart Is Officially Sexy Again, Enter the Era of the Literary It-Girl’ argues that, in a bid to distance themselves from brainrot and AI, women are turning intellect into the latest aesthetic. “After years of wellness-core, clean-girl aesthetics and hyper-visual desirability, intellect has entered the chat. Being smart is officially sexy again. But is this a genuine hunger for depth, or just another self-optimisation project?” 🙃

• This was interesting: Cultured spoke to five authors, including Coco Mellors, Katie Kitamura and Julia May Jonas, who adapted her book Vladimir for a Netflix series which comes out next month, about what it’s like to have their novels adapted for screen - the good and the bad.

• What I watched: I adored Blue Moon starring Ethan Hawke as the legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart (who together with Richard Rodgers wrote enduring hits such as “My Funny Valentine” and “The Lady Is A Tramp”), which follows Hart over one evening in a bar as he contemplates all the ways his career went wrong, effortlessly meandering between being hilarious and heartbreaking. Really recommend this Oscar-nominated film which you can rent on Prime for a fiver. I also watched the first episode of Love Story and I have to say that surely its biggest crime is not its recreation of CBK’s wardrobe but rather how dull it is. Does it get better? It did make me think about growing my hair again though.

  

  Margaret Qualley and Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon

Life

• Loved ‘Is good taste a trap?’ in The New Yorker, which calls upon everything from Belle Burden’s recent smash memoir Strangers, to Helen DeWitt’s novella The English Understand Wool, to one of my favourite books from last year, Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection, to discuss the paradox of taste. “Living tastefully requires making many small, good decisions, and doing this successfully can give you the sensation of heading in the right direction. But the risk of crafting a picture-perfect life is that you’ll lose sight of the big picture”. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’m about to start a kitchen renovation and am slightly paralysed with my desire to make it tasteful. But when it’s the room in my house where I love to cook new recipes, chat with my family and friends, where we play music and laugh, does it really matter if it isn’t perfect? I, of course, want it to look nice but there’s much more important things that go on there than tasteful door handles and taps.

• Really enjoyed the American author Madeline Cash’s Grub Street Diet for three reasons: I recently read and loved her debut novel Lost Lambs; she writes a rare east London dispatch, where she currently lives, that includes restaurants and cafes I frequent; and it’s funny and unexpectedly moving as she grapples with her homesickness throughout the diary. “I buy a Tesco ham sandwich ‘meal deal’ for £5. The meat is a disconcerting shade of gray. I think the expiration date was last Tuesday, but dates are written differently here, so I can’t be sure”.

• The Gun, one of my favourite pubs in east London, closed down last year citing financial trouble. Well, it’s been bought and is reopening in a few weeks as a “traditional London pub reimagined with Japanese food, drinks and great Guinness”. Fun! Pubs are one of the best things about living here and far too many of them are closing in the capital.

Motherhood

• Fascinating, albeit with a very provocative headline: “Aspirational Parenthood - In 2026, the baby is the new Birkin”. The popular brand strategy consultant Eugene Healey (I love following him on Insta) argues that “Having a big family has become, in some ways, the ultimate status symbol, because it requires several forms of privilege operating simultaneously”, while looking at how high end brands, such as Artipoppe and Coterie, have responded to this, particularly in their campaigns which treat children “almost as luxury accessories to the parents’ life”.

• Aliza Sir’s essay on her experience of secondary infertility for newsletter Platonic Love is really moving and I’m sure a very helpful read for anyone in a similar situation. “If in year one I hated infertility for stripping me of joy and being present with my son, I hate it in year two for isolating me”.

• Even though I’m way off this stage, I found this really interesting: recent neuroscience research from Cambridge University suggests that the brain’s adolescent phase extends until the age of 32. With that in mind, as well as the fact that a third of young adults aged 18 to 34 now live with their parents, The Guardian suggests that parenting adult children remains one of the least discussed and understood aspects of family life and here offers guidance and stories.

Off to the playground!

Gillian