What I Can’t Live Without: February 2025 Edition

A monthly catalogue of obsessions

Feb 23, 2025

A few weeks ago, Rachel Tashjian included a note in her wonderful newsletter Opulent Tips, (which I wrote about for the Financial Times many moons ago) about old school fashion journalist Holly Brubach. A New Yorker staff writer from 1988 to 1994, Brubach left to join the New York Times magazine as an editor until 1998, after which she left journalism to take a job with Prada consulting on their store design. She wrote:

I’ve been going deep on Romeo Gigli lately, and I wanted to see what the Met has of his to better inform the buy. I noticed Holly Brubach – another fashion legend! – donated a ton of the Gigli. I searched her name. And wowee – basically the perfect wardrobe. That meant I needed to reread “A Dedicated Follower of Fashion,” since I can now picture what she was wearing when she mythologized Cutler & Gross glasses and eviscerated women for caring about hemline lengths.

Innocently, I clicked on the link to view the pieces Brubach had donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and ended up in an hours-long rabbit hole, totally captivated by her wardrobe. Clicking through the images of boyish Comme des Garçons suits and Prada sport sets, I was struck more than anything by how deliberate each item appeared to be. This collection was not the work of a woman who haphazardly cobbles together a wardrobe out of a melange of thrift store finds. No, this is a woman whose style philosophy is one of careful acquisition. Each piece looks like it cost $1000 and appears to have been considered at length before being purchased; the result of meticulous budgeting and thoughtful decision-making. The clothing may be photographed on a mannequin but when I imagine each piece on an actual person, the level of detail on, say, this Grecian robe-inspired Romeo Gigli dress rises to the level of exquisite. Brubach may have been a fashion journalist, but Carrie Bradshaw she is not. This woman is sensible and does not overplay her hand.

People love to talk about “investment purchases” and how if you spend more money on stuff you’ll buy less, but I’ve found this is rarely true. Thanks to the insidious demon of lifestyle creep, once you—and by you, I mean me—have the means to acquire more expensive things, you’ll probably end up buying the same amount of stuff, it’ll just cost you more. The spend more-buy less philosophy is very far from my own style of shopping, but I can’t help but admire it. I’d love to have a wardrobe full of magnificent, museum-worthy clothes that make me look like a work of art. Which brings me to my first obsession…

What I’m Considering

I recently paid a visit to River Crossing, a relatively new fancy store in Toronto and accidentally stumbled across the Cecilie Bahnsen dress of my dreams. All the ruching and pleating looks so complicated, while the silhouette of the dress itself is exactly what I love to wear. I could probably stare at this dress for hours getting lost in a river of detail. It was on sale for $740 down from $1480, which is insane, but what if I suddenly turned into Holly Brubach and only bought very expensive, perfect things from now on? Too bad. I checked this morning and the dress had sold out. It sucks to see other people living out your dream.

What I Bought

I hate the way Substack crops photos more than life itself

Frankly, the month flew by to the point where I didn’t make any significant purchases. I did have a $50 gift card to Uniqlo, which I put towards these striped linen tapered pants, which I bought because I realize they looked almost identical to the Le Bon Shoppe arc pants I had been coveting.

I also went to the launch of Aesop’s (which I learned is pronounced “Eee-sop”) new fragrance, Aurner, which allegedly is inspired by “Nina Simone, photographs of the moon and the coldness of jade stones.” When I spritz it, I think it smells feminine and floral, much more like a classic perfume compared to their other woodsy scents. I like smelling like an expensive restaurant bathroom.

What I Wrote

For Toronto Life, I wrote about a guy who creates miniatures of lost Leslieville diners.
Also for Toronto Life, an interiors story about Colin Hutzan and Brian Nguyen, two “bona fide eccentrics” who live in a condo stuffed with taxidermy, Rick Owens clothing, thrift store finds, and kooky art. Total Freak Palace alert.
A stunning yet very beige glass modernist house in Caledon, Ont. for Maclean’s.

What I’m Reading/Watching/Enjoying

“Kim Hastreiter, The Queen of Stuff” by Ariel Levy for the New Yorker. To be honest. I’ve always found it hard to reconcile how fascinating I find Kim Hastreiter to be with how little I’m interested in Paper Magazine. (I suspect this is because I missed out on its heyday in the ‘90s.) But naturally, I cannot resist the siren call of a New York weirdo and I adored the descriptions of her apartment, filled with “ceramic potatoes” and “a rug that resembled a pile of Cheez Doodles.” I look forward to her forthcoming memoir, Stuff: A New York Life of Cultural Chaos.
Renee Sylvestre-Williams, who writes the must-read personal finance newsletter The Budgette, wrote a great feature for The Walrus on the limits of “Buy Canadian” in the face of looming tariffs. I learned a lot about what “Made in Canada” really means and the long-term efficacy of boycotts.