Darlings,

Today is the official start of my maternity leave, and so I must bid you adieu until October. Please continue to email me with comments and love. Most important, get yourself the best summer ever, and I’ll see you in the fall.

Air kisses galore!
Magazine MILF

I used to snigger when I’d come upon Vogue’s lazy-seeming reasoning behind a trend: “It feels right, right now” or “It feels fresh.” But after reading Eric Wilson’s so-called investigative story in The New York Times about the arrival of the round glasses trend, I now realize that Vogue is onto a pretty basic truth about why we like what we like — sometimes, we just do, if for no other reason than we crave change. Because no matter how much so-called evidence one turns up about why so many designers fall for a certain style, as Wilson does, and why we all follow it, any reasoning for something so subjective seems contrived. Besides, as Wilson points out, the last time round shades were hot was in 1989 — and as every experienced style observer knows, two decades represents the life cycle of nearly every trend, from music to makeup to sunglasses.

I know everybody is up in arms about Harper’s Bazaar putting a recylced pic of Angelina Jolie on its July cover — the turn to tacky tabloidism must be a big morale boost in the face of a 15% drop in newsstand sales — but I’m reserving my visual ire for the wasted opportunity that is Vanity Fair’s Johnny Depp cover and feature spread. It’s not often that we get to see the most talented and courageous actor of our generation — and my lifelong “21 Jump Street” crush — in the glossies. While VF’s treatment may be the product of a commissioned shoot, it has the cheap look and feel of pickup art. Now, I understand that Depp is nearly as difficult to style as Jolie, but that’s no excuse for giving us girls nothing gorgeous to gawk at. I mean, how hard could it be to get him to take his shirt off?

If you are looking to fall in love — or merely sigh with longing about a shamefully underknown literary genius — look no further than David Grossman’s wonderfully wistful and highly personal profile of Bruno Schultz in the June 8 issue of The New Yorker. A Polish author who perished under mysterious circumstances in the Holocaust — Grossman adds his own fascinating investigative reporting to the already-existing varying and heartbreaking stories — Schultz, as Grossman puts it, has “an aura of wonder and mystery [that] hovers ceaselessly over his works and his biography,” inspiring such giants as Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick and Grossman himself to make Schultz a character in their books. I’ve no idea what Roth and Ozick did with Schultz, but Grossman’s treatment makes me swoon. The type of gentle soul who, as a fomer student describes him, “kind of apologizes for their very existence,” Schultz, in Grossman’s fantasy, is smuggled out of wartime Poland and jumps into the sea to join a school of salmon — salmon not only because there is something “very Jewish” about the fish’s lifelong journey from freshwater home to the sea and back, but also because, like salmon, Schultz’s writing is so much about “the primal, naked impulse of life, which salmon seem to sketch in their long journey.” Part murder mystery, part pilgrimage of discovery, Grossman’s introduction (to me) of Bruno Schultz, is all six-pointed stars.

When I was a wee lass of an assistant at Visionaire, my daily unifom was anchored by a pair of shiny latex trousers found in an East Village S&M shop. Although I didn’t realize it then, they functioned as unconsciously appropriate suiting for the verbal beatings doled out by evil headmistress Stephen Gan. (Not that I ever succeeded in dominating anything about him except for his rage.) Then I gave notice, and I never wore the pants again. But that was in the era of, like, Y2K, and given today’s gory state of affairs — not to mention the chaos over which I will preside when MILFspring #2 arrives next month — I’m ready to reclaim my shiny, brutalist heritage in the far greater stylish guise put forth by the River Island kids. The tight nude top may be boffo for breastfeeding, but imagine the stain resistance!

River Island via Style Bubble.