001 Dog whistle fashion

Hello, and welcome to Books & Nice Things! It really is what it says on the tin. My favourite thing is recommending books to people. But I also want to share things that I really love and that are really, really nice.

I’m a fashion and luxury journalist with a focus on watches and jewellery. Throughout my career I’ve mostly worked for newspapers.

I may officially be the last woman on earth to start a Substack - I was meant to start this months ago! No wonder my parents used to call me “Gonna Stevens,” because of all the things I was gonna do! But something I am realising is that sometimes you need to just do things rather than wait until they are perfect. Instead, simply send them off into the world, like a little Substack that is not perfect and definitely not a work of art, and then simply keep on moving. 

Just a note that I might receive an affiliate commission if you buy something through one of my links.

A book I loved this week

I just finished reading When Women Ran Fifth Avenue by Julie Satow, a completely charming history of America’s golden age of department stores. This was a time when they were, as Emile Zola wrote in the 1883 book The Ladies’ Paradise, “cathedrals of shopping.” Some of them had zoos! Couture salons! Window displays by Salvador Dali! The book isn’t just a history of some of the most famous stores in the world, but it also details how the world changed, so too women’s lives - and how fashion shaped this. The book hones in on three women who had a huge impact throughout this time at three different department stores - Hortense Odlum, Dorothy Shaver and Geraldine Stutz. The latter, who turned around the Henri Bendel store (and incidentally as an editor for Glamour discovered Andy Warhol) has become my latest woman of fascination.

Not only because she really introduced the idea of the ‘shop in shop’ in department stores and brought just about every European designer of note to America (her missive to her buyers dispatched around the world was to ‘buy what you like’).  Here are some lines from her obit in The New York Times:

“Based on her taste alone, Ms. Stutz divided merchandise into small vitrines of watches, handbags, stockings, and along one side, an inspiring "Gilded Cage," a giant replica of a birdcage that housed the cosmetics department.”

“Ms. Stutz described her taste for what she called "dog whistle" fashion: "clothes with a pitch so high and special that only the thinnest and most sophisticated women would hear their call."

Yes, we must keep the context of the times she was living in mind for the above statement (she started her 29 year career with Henri Bendel in the ‘60s). Indeed, one of most important clients was the infamous Duchess of Windsor - known for her impeccable taste and also her view that one could never be too rich or too thin.

But Geraldine Stutz was also a visionary in fashion - she discovered so many designers and was adamant that because Henri Bendel couldn’t be the biggest, it would be the most original. She was also so, so chic. Properly glamorous in that Diana Vreeland-ish way of making completely decisive declarations about things. Which is probably the secret to being irrefutably glamorous. My favourite was “fashion says ‘me, too, while style says, ‘Only me.’”

BUY IT HERE: Amazon

A beauty tip

It’s the middle of winter and my skin should be as dry as the Sahara desert but it’s not and truly, I have Helen Garner (who has a new book out this year!) to thank.

Ever since reading in The New Yorker that she once told film director Jane Campion that she rubbed oil over her body after her baths (“Jan [Campion’s producer] and I were flabbergasted, and, like, ‘God, we’ve got to remember to do that.’” Campion told The New Yorker). Apparently your skin soaks in moisture better when it’s a little damp (I don’t think I read that in the New Yorker though it’s probably true!). Anyway I’ve been feeling reasonably hydrated and quite high brow. 

The whole thing reminds me of Diane Vreeland’s ‘why don’t you’ column from Harper’s Bazaar in the 30s, because why don’t you take beauty tips from serious authors?!

I’ve been using a divine and heady one called Beige from Chanel, which I think DV would have approved of.

Buy it from Chanel or another Chanel body oil from David Jones

Cardigans are perfect

I have written many an ode to cardigans. I think they’re a practically perfect wardrobe item - sensible and yet kind of sexy! The best ones are from Sezane. I know this because I now have three of the Gaspard in different colours and it’s the right kind of cosy and slouchy and works with tailored trousers and jeans alike.  On a recent girls trip to Paris (I know! It was as fun as it sounds!) we all got matching navy versions of this one, which is a little more polished genre of cardigan. Do you know what is even more fun than a girls trip to Paris? Getting matching cardigans.

BUY IT HERE: Sezane

Fashion mania: Vertical bags

You know when you get an absolute fashion mania for something and have to find exactly what you have in your mind somewhere in the depths of the internet? My latest has been a vertical bag. I wanted a bag that I could schlep my laptop, and the rest - I am a working mother of two, I schlep. I love a ludicrously capacious bag! My former colleague Mel told me that vertical bags are better for carting laptops because they won’t bump against you like a regular tote bag. I dutifully added this to my fashion knowledge bank and set off searching. 

If you’re interested in the results of my fashion mania search you can find them below:

The Row

Looks so expensive because it is! It’s perfect. 

BUY IT HERE: NET-A-PORTER

Brie Leon

This is the one I have, and it looks more expensive than it is - I think it is the gold buckle detail and also the chocolate shade? Anyway a Vogue colleague and another very chic friend commented on it, which counts for a lot.

BUY IT HERE: Brie Leon

Yu Mei

I’ve seen so many fashion girls with this bag and I think it looks perfectly roomy but stylish in an on-the-run kind of way. 

BUY IT HERE: Yu Mei

Loewe

I love Loewe bags, and this one can pack down - but I tend to think, would I actually pack it down? I do like the thought of being able to do so though.

BUY IT HERE: NET-A-PORTER

Toteme

I love suede but does suede love me?

BUY IT HERE: NET-A-PORTER

An important detail in Becoming Karl Lagerfeld

This year is an absolute boon for fashion related shows and documentaries - proof that fashion is part of the culture. Indeed, with the likes of LVMH buying up entertainment companies, it’s shaping the culture too. The latest one I’ve been watching is Becoming Karl Lagerfeld and I’m only an episode in but I’m obsessed with the tiny detail of how he wore his watch over his sleeves. It’s very Gianni Agnelli coded (another of my all-time style icons). Lagerfeld wore an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, which he once described to Architectural Digest as a “fetish object.” It was a watch he wore for 35 years. In the spirit of making declarations, my new MO is: all serious wardrobe investments ought to inspire fetish object feelings.

(Photo by Daniel SIMON/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

One more book I loved 

I adored Sandwich by Catherine Newman. It’s about a woman who is going through menopause on the holiday - one week in the same house they’ve rented forever - her family takes in Cape Cod each year. I loved the traditions of the family, how they check to make sure everything about the house is still the same and how the grown-up kids want to do the things they loved as kids even though they know the magic has gone. Mostly I loved it because it was a reminder that it’s not life’s shiniest, grandest moments that you typically remember as your happiest.

BUY IT HERE: Amazon

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