Pink of Perfection

When I feel lost, I like to sit with my friend, Alison, drinking wine and talking our heads off. Ideally, this will happen in a French-inspired setting with a zinc bar, accordion music in the background, and a mirror with drink specials written on it in a Gallic scrawl. We will arrive for lunch and then, happily accepting a gratis second glass of beaujolais nouveau, linger until it’s getting dark outside. We have, after all, a lot to discuss, like creativity and ambition, friendship and self-care, and other really important things, like color gel manicures and the outfit-transforming power of a belt. Our date yesterday couldn’t have come at a better time. Truly, it was heaven-sent.

When I am feeling lost stylistically––which can begin as mere dissatisfaction with an outfit and devolve into “good god, what is my life about?”––I like to watch A Woman is a Woman. When I’ve lost my way, there it is: my stylistic true north. Red tights, white walls, a bicycle in the living room, white sheets, milky coffee, yellow roses, bangs, heavy black eyeliner. There’s a sense of whimsy, a swingy soundtrack, a fur-collared jacket, and oh: Jean Paul Belmondo. Why did I let jeggings distract me?

Happy weekend!

The other night I enjoyed one of Whit Stillman’s talkfests, The Last Days of Disco, and I couldn’t get over Chloe Sevigny’s costumes. Not the one-shouldered spangly disco dresses (how au courant!) or sequin tube tops, and certainly not the high-waisted jeans and crop-top t-shirts, but the classic preppy chic that thirty years later, actually looked really cool. The crisp blouses, the a-line shirt-dresses, the smart blazers all seemed timeless. Not in a dowdy Talbots way, just in a cool, unfussy way. Here, an affordable look book of movie style inspiration. Happy (snowy!) weekend!

I feel ridiculous complaining. After all, I’m not the one standing under the hot lights, or worse, holding the hot lights. But all the same, I’ve felt dumpy and stinky all day, my feet ache, and more than ever, I understand how Greta Garbo felt.

Making movies isn’t as glamorous as I thought.

This week, I am a food stylist on the set of Colin Hearts Kay, a modern day Annie Hall set in Brooklyn. In the past 24 hours, I have made a mock cassoulet, a tarte tatin, and a buche de noel. I’m glad two out of three were familiar faces, but even so, I think I’ve folded under the pressure a little. Never before have I struggled so much with pastry or to whip egg whites. Suddenly, I saw whisks and oven temperatures through the eyes of someone who doesn’t just la-di-da her way through cooking; it all seemed hard, confounding.

Surely I will stand at the stove and make a grilled cheese sandwich soon and it will all seem simple again. But for now, I don’t even want to go back into the kitchen. When the mere idea of cooking makes your stomach turn, what do you do? Stick to salads and Chinese take-out? Force yourself in front of the stove?