It took me way too long to finish the second season of Beef on Netflix. Every time I sat down to watch it, I would tire in the middle of an episode, nothing having to do with the quality of the show, but instead with the heavy themes of capitalism and Marxism that Lee Sung Jin, the creator, went to lengths to explore. And every time, my brain was too wary, my body too tired, to focus on it the way the show deserves.

Beef focuses on two couples: an older couple Josh (Oscar Isaac) & Lindsay (Carey Mulligan) and a younger one, Austin (Charles Melton) & Ashley (Caileey Spaeny). Josh and Lindsay have spent years chasing proximity to wealth and status and move to California to run a prestigious country club that caters to the 1 percent. Austin and Ashley are deep in the kind of naïve, all-encompassing, idyllic infatuation that only young love can produce. They don’t have much, but at least they have each other.

What sets this season off isn’t road rage à la season one, but something more dramatic in my opinion: the younger couple witnesses—and subsequently films—the older couple fighting with rage and violence. The footage becomes a tool of blackmail, setting off a chain of chaotic events, entanglements, and plot twists. The young couple’s hope is that the video can be leveraged to move up the ranks at the country club—and it works. But that’s only the beginning.

The real plot isn’t actually about the incident itself, but about what proximity to power does to people. As the season unfolds, nearly every relationship becomes shaped by usefulness. Beef suggests that capitalism does not merely shape our working lives but fundamentally reshapes our emotional ones too, conditioning people to approach love through utility, stability, leverage, and survival rather than emotional vulnerability and real connection, whatever that means. The tragedy of the show is not that love is impossible, but that under systems defined by scarcity and competition, healthy relationships require forms of emotional risk and mutual care that capitalism actively discourages.

At the center of the country club is owner Chairwoman Park, a billionaire whose wealth and influence quietly dictate the moral logic of everyone beneath her. Park embezzles money out of the club to cover up wrongful deaths by her younger plastic surgeon husband, Dr. Kim. As scandals surrounding the family begin to surface, the people orbiting Chairwoman Park become increasingly willing to lie, betray, and commit heinous crimes in exchange for power, protection, and upward mobility.

When Eunice, the chairwoman’s assistant, grows close to Austin, he begins to believe he’s experiencing something deeper than the idyllic infatuation he shares with Ashley. But what he mistakes for intimacy is actually just usefulness. While Ashley pours all her love into Austin unconditionally as a codependent compulsion, Eunice merely relates to Austin as someone tied to her own survival under Chairwoman Park.

If looked at under a Marxist framework, Josh, Lindsay, Austin, Ashley, and Eunice are all members of the working class “proletariat” who, in the end, should theoretically bond over their shared exploitation and worsening inequality plaguing their lives. In the eyes of Chairwoman Park, they are all the same, even though Josh and Lindsay have spent years aspiring to align themselves with the very people who exploit them.

I thought that Dr. Kim’s monologue did a lot of the heavy lifting to set up the ending of the show. He basically gives Austin, Ashley, and Lindsay a cautionary warning about their future, and an offer to escape the capitalist structure he failed to remove himself from, but they totally miss it because they don’t speak Korean. It’s my favorite scene in the show. Marx believed capitalism itself would eventually push the working class toward collective action because of their collective struggle. But in the end, collective solidarity never materializes. After all, they have to survive somehow. And the people at the top will do everything in their power to stop the working class from banding together.

In the finale, Austin realizes he has not been failing at love so much as participating in another form of transactional relationship entirely. What is most harrowing is what he does with that realization. Rather than stepping outside the system, he chooses it because it feels safer to inhabit a world where relationships are openly transactional than to risk the vulnerability of being unwanted. Moral compromise and exploitation become not obstacles to his ascent, but the very mechanism through which he rises. In the final scene, he and Ashley run the country club, just as Josh and Lindsay once did.

Josh is the only one who is able to break the cycle. He gives up status, leverage, and any possible return to that society when he takes the fall for the embezzlement. There’s no upside, no deferred benefit, no guarantee Lindsay even remains loyal to him until his prison release (she doesn’t). For once, love is stripped of status, utility, and self-interest. It exists outside exchange value. It lines up with the Marxist idea that once relationships are no longer mediated by utility, something more genuinely human can appear.

Capitalism and relationships are deeply intertwined. There’s no one without the other. Human relationships, and most significantly romantic ones, are tied to value, stability, future payoff, and security. Capitalism doesn’t just distort love but it conditions people to prefer exchange over vulnerability. Who do we want to be and what do we want? How can our partners help achieve that?

A lot of online discourse about Beef has touched on how the show paints love as futile. Lee Sung Jin isn’t offering up any groundbreaking statement about why love doesn’t work today. Every generation suffers under the pressure of capitalism, even when it believes it profits from it. Trauma is nothing new, we learn behavior from our childhoods, and we all bring our pasts into our relationships. All of this creates deeply destructive, and often dysfunctional, relationships that survive for the sake of mutual survival, convenience, and fear of loneliness.

The ending, as pessimistic as it is, felt oddly refreshing. I don’t think Lee is suggesting that love is futile, but rather asks why humans remain so obsessed with winning—both in romance and within society itself. How can we build truly healthy, harmonious relationships when we exist within an economic system that keeps us in a constant state of instability, competition, and self-preservation?

It’s not lost on me that there’s an insane rise in popularity of online relationship gurus like the “sprinkle sprinkle” lady and others championing women to be “in their feminine” to find a provider man. What’s framed as a return to femininity, softness, or traditional romance is actually a symptom of late-stage capitalism and further reinforces the patriarchy. Men are conditioned to believe that their only value is in their ability to provide, and women are conditioned to perform the emotional and physical labor that makes it necessary for that to happen.

What’s underlying these creators’ quippy videos is the pervading fantasy of relief. A lot of women are not necessarily fantasizing about dependence in the old-fashioned sense. They’re fantasizing about relief from precariousness, from optimization, from having to constantly monetize themselves, self-improve, negotiate, hustle, perform emotional labor, maintain beauty labor, build careers, and somehow still remain desirable and emotionally available. The “provider man” becomes less a romantic archetype and more a fantasy of structural stability in an economy that increasingly feels unstable and extractive.

Marxist feminists believe capitalism and patriarchy reinforce one another through the nuclear family unit itself: women uphold the family through unpaid emotional and domestic labor, while men control the family through provision and productivity. Patriarchy may privilege men structurally, but it also punishes male vulnerability. Which perhaps explains why so many modern relationships feel emotionally starved beneath all the language of “masculine energy” and “feminine softness.” Everyone wants tenderness, but no one feels entirely safe stepping outside the role they believe secures their survival. Under capitalism, relationships are economic arrangements. Everyone becomes a portfolio of assets.

I write all of this as at least three girlfriends send me daily voice notes about their dating woes and how “men are not lonely enough.” No one seems to be having a particularly good time dating right now. Some people persist in searching anyway, clinging to the possibility that intimacy might still redeem the exhaustion of modern life. Others are opting out altogether. As another friend says, “it’s a really bad time for straight men right now.” I would argue it’s bad for straight women too.

I have spent a great deal of time in psychotherapy and one of my favorite things my psychoanalyst has told me is, “The beauty of relationships is that you can craft the exact situation you want.” Which is why life feels most meaningful in the rare moments when people stop performing curated versions of themselves and allow their real desires, griefs, disappointments, and vulnerabilities to emerge. Someone once told me that a good first-date question should be: What are your core wounds, and how are you actively working through them? Which is an intense thing to ask someone you just met. But just imagine…what if we were able to answer this question honestly?

Maybe what people are actually searching for is not a perfectly optimized partner, but relief from performance itself. Relief from having to embody competence, desirability, status, control, self-sufficiency, emotional management, all at once. Perhaps this is why genuine vulnerability now feels almost radical: it briefly allows people to encounter one another outside the rigid rules of performance, transaction, and survival. There is light here, but it’s thin and often fragmented. That fragile refusal to give up on one another may be the most hopeful thing left in us.

May comes with a kind of fervor this year—at least for me. A lull in brand work has opened into something quieter and far more generative: time spent honing my hobbies, writing, and seeing friends with real intention. It’s also created space to think through new ventures, and, unsurprisingly, the best ideas tend to arrive when you’re not buried deep in DeLiVeRaBlEs ‘n aSsEts!

So the fervor feels less like urgency, and more like clarity: who am I at my core and what do I want each newsletter issue to offer you guys? I loved writing the last one because it felt rooted in the kind of quiet observation that often shapes my days. Making connections and paying attention to raw, human moments—and translating them into something that might invite someone to live a more considered life offline, too.

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My fridge broke down last week and the ensuing meltdown I had over it was admittedly disproportionate to the issue at hand. Of course, it wasn’t really about the fridge. Besides the fact that I had to throw away all my beautiful produce and sentimental foods like my kimchi from Korea, it revealed how quickly a practical inconvenience can tip into existential overwhelm—how something as banal as an appliance malfunction can conjure questions of support, safety, and even loneliness. My landlord did what she could. My mother wailed with me over FaceTime. My superintendent, somewhere in Ireland, ghosted me until I found a repairman myself: a Turkish man who didn’t speak English and told me through Google Translate that the fix would take five to seven business days.

I’ve found that what undoes me is rarely catastrophe. Catastrophe, oddly, I can handle quite well. It’s the mundane roadblocks and the tiny ruptures that expose where I am already depleted. My refrigerator saga revealed a quieter grief: not a wish to be rescued, but a longing for someone beside me to help me—to share the burden of troubleshooting, to problem solve in tandem. Or someone to just wail with me, not over FaceTime but quite literally beside me.

I thought, too, about how many years I’ve lived in this country alone, without family nearby to call and ask to come over. Friends become chosen family over time, yes, but it is different. I’ve navigated much of my 13 years in America on my own. Proud as I am of what I’ve built, it’s comforting to know there can someone you can lean on when something just…breaks. And usually, that someone is a partner or family member.

I’m halfway through my WSET Level 2 wine course and already mourning what was once the beginning of a new endeavor and the earnestness with which I took it on. In the past five weeks since embarking on this journey from hobbyist to (hopeful) expert, I have found a new kind of confidence, which I can only attribute to a trust in self that grows when curiosity is given structure. There is a kind of dignity that comes when a passion is taken seriously. And this is why they tell you to have hobbies!

I’ve been going to bars and restaurants and telling my servers I’m taking the course, and they respond with great enthusiasm. At Chambers—something of a mecca for wine in New York—a quietly formal sommelier (John Paul <3) in a navy twill blazer brought out a spittoon and four blind tastings mid-meal. It was a complete, kind surprise and I was touched. I only got the Pinot Noir correct, and was taught to discern why the others were what they were. At Stars—a new wave wine bar overlooking a freshman NYU dorm I have too many memories in—a disarmingly casual but razor-sharp young bartender in low-slung jeans did the same, sans spittoon. I only got the Vinho Verde correct. (I had gone with a new friend from wine class who also went to NYU with me, and the whole thing felt strangely full circle: back downtown, a student again, but of something entirely different.)

Different priests, same lesson in humility.

I didn’t attend a single brand event this past week except for a ceramics-making night with a clothing brand I worked with once four years ago. The openness in my schedule has done more for my mental clarity than any meditation or mindfulness exercise ever has. I’ve traded back-to-back obligations for early mornings spent writing and midday naps in a red light bed. This, I think, is true wealth.

During the ceramics class, other creatives who I am sure are overloaded every day were hyper focused on shaping clay into whatever vessel they wanted. It was one of those odd nights where you’re locked in to the kind of work you almost never get to do, participating in a small communion built around something tactile. I got a 91 Oura sleep score that night.

Ava and I decided to meet on the Upper East Side—somewhere we both always seem to feel especially happy—for our reunion after a month and some weeks apart. We are both always spending extended periods of time in Asia and we looked forward to this reunion for weeks. Sant Ambroeus Madison was a somewhat random pick on my end, but after being turned away from there on a random Wednesday the other week trying for a solo lunch, I was determined to participate in the fantasy of being transported to Milan in the middle of Manhattan. “YESSS”, Ava responded.

Ava is around six months pregnant, and the first of my close friends to be expecting. I don’t think it has fully hit me yet that her life—and, by extension, our friendship—will be changed forever. There’s a quiet awareness that our time as just the two of us is becoming finite. And if I feel this way, imagine how couples feel!

The momentum of life, and its quiet insistence on change, feels stronger than ever. I feel it when I look at Ava, who appears exactly herself except now with the improbable presence of a little baby inside of her. I hope she still texts me back immediately even after she gives birth.

At the Knicks playoff game, a man seated behind me spent most of the night tossing around small talk and jokes with my friend who dabbles heavily in sports—straight male banter, as I like to call it. It’s fun being in environments where I don’t always know exactly what’s happening, as though I’m borrowing entry through atmosphere alone. I go for the viiiibes, after all. But as we stood to leave, teetering out in my Matthieu Blazy pumps, the guy tapped me on my shoulder, grinning: “Great shoes, by the way. Great. So good, that collection.”

Fluency takes many forms and we contain multitudes. One person reads the game; another reads the shoes. And god forbid sometimes a man can read both!

Charlotte invited me to a dinner at the James Beard House for some sushi innovation that has apparently taken Japan by storm. An odd invite, but we were mainly there for the free sushi and as a launch pad for a girls’ night in the West Village.

The company’s CEO gave a speech and, after apologizing for his poor English—which was really not poor! I’m always sad when non-native speakers feel obliged to disclaim this in a room full of Americans!—stage fright seemed to overtake him. After what felt like a 60-second stretched out silence in his speech, I had to physically move my body into another room from secondhand embarrassment.

Almost absurdly, two waitstaff approached me to ask what perfume I was wearing, saying it was the best thing they had ever smelled. They asked so I had to answer and I felt even more ridiculous for pointing them to a perfume combo that my sister reminded me is literally a thousand dollars.

I realized I lived much of this week offline. And in doing so, I noticed how life keeps unfolding in the analog, interrupting abstraction through human contact. We are always colliding with other people’s attention in ways that soften life.

Why was I so touched by a sommelier bringing out blind tastings I never asked for? Why was my friend so moved on my behalf that he left a 50 percent tip? These gestures register differently from the fucking matrix. And for all the ways I remain plugged into the matrix, I find I can still discern the difference. I’m reminded more than ever how restorative these minor exchanges in the world can be.

I woke up the next day thinking about that sushi robot CEO and how stage fright may be one of the most human experiences left untouched by the digital—the body faltering in public, and a room full of strangers feeling it with you. Embarrassment, too, is a form of communion. Almost nothing is an original experience and that is so comforting.

A lot of the trees seem to have already bloomed past their peak, earlier than I remember from last year. I haven’t put away my coats because I have trust issues. The air is so dry the reoccurring eczema spot on my face has flared up.

And yet, through this awkward dance of being neither here nor there, it’s spring. We begin to shed our layers, unclench our jaws, and stop to smell the flowers. I am feeling more and more like myself again, returning to intuition and instinct to guide me through the last bit of “in between” weather before the summer, my favorite season.

I’ve been thinking a lot about intuition and instinct lately. The past six months have pushed me to question the parameters we, as a culture so preoccupied with optimization and productivity, have come to rely on—when, at the end…

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I was very lucky to return to one of my favorite little corners of the world, Belmond’s Riviera Maya property Maroma, for a little spring break. Sargassum chronicles aside (very scary and sad to see the material effects of climate change), it is still, to me, my idea of a perfect property. A spring break trip always gets me excited for the season ahead and while beach attire is entirely its own genre of dressing, I’m so excited to dress for warmer days in the city. A trip like this always br…

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After getting back from long-haul trips, I leave my suitcase out for multiple days, sometimes even over a week. And lately, most of my travel has been long-haul, so the familiar sight of an opened, full suitcase sprawled across my living room has become normal. It gives me anxiety, but seemingly not enough to do anything about it until a full seven days has passed. Today is day seven, so I suppose I have to.

My clothes in there aren’t folded. Instead, all of my stuff has formed a tall, rounded mound, the result of me rummaging through for very specific things—usually souvenirs or beauty purchases I want to use immediately, as if that justifies leaving everything else untouched. I don’t unpack all at once, only in parts. This isn’t just about my suitcase.

I’m so type B it’s crazy, and it’s gotten worse with age, I tell my friend over lunch at home the other day. The open suitcase was right there next to us. I was a little embarrassed.

The food at the Aritzia luncheon is almost too beautiful to eat, but the moment one person breaks the seal in the spread, we all follow. There’s a wall of farm-fresh produce—some collaboration with an internet buzz-y farm I follow on Instagram—and I fill my bag with it, preemptively stocking up for the weekend I already know I’ll spend alone, recovering from this week of socializing.

I have two more events later that night, and I can already feel how quickly that sense of gratitude could tip into something more brittle. So I make a quiet effort to stay inside the gratitude—to let the day feel full instead of letting the anxiety override.

I made sure my first event back in New York after traveling was a good one. I get to see so many people I admire, people who remind me, in a very immediate way, how lucky I am to exist inside this particular world. To go to a beautiful lunch and call it work.

Michelle and I are among the last to leave, which feels like proof that it was, in fact, a good time. There’s still so much food left. We wrap chunks of Gouda in a napkin and take them with us. The next day, she texts me how happy she is that we took the cheese.

I’ve spent the past year or so trying to cultivate an identity as a writer first, and a content creator second. The insecurity I used to have about “just being an influencer” has shifted into something else—an anxiety around the credibility and legitimacy of calling myself a writer at all.

When people ask what I do, I still feel a kind of anticipatory discomfort around the question and knowing I’ll have to answer it.

You’re very charming, my ex-boyfriend tells me over FaceTime. It lands less like a compliment and more like a reassurance. I don’t think he realizes how much I like hearing that, or how quickly I accept it as enough.

I like how our relationship has evolved into something far deeper than at any point when we were actually together. It feels cleaner now, or at least less reactive. I’m less agitated, less viperous, which I think has allowed me to be softer with him. I’m trying to be softer in general, including literally the volume and intensity of how I speak.

I still can’t feel the turn of spring, which is very rarely the case this time of year. And this is how I realize that I’m not thrilled to be back in New York after three weeks in Korea and Japan. Usually when I take an early spring trip, I come back and feel a noticeable shift, like the city has been waiting for me to return to begin again. But this winter, as everyone keeps saying, has been relentless.

But still, I emerge out of winter relatively unscathed. I feel a particular gratefulness and joy knowing I can do whatever I want in this life. And I realize this comes from being as untethered as possible to literally anything, including a relationship. I’m learning the art of detachment, among other principles that have genuinely made me adopt a more stoic lifestyle, something that seems entirely antithetical to my persona just one year ago.

But then I see one rogue tree on the sidewalk with purple buds and I almost cry.

I stopped by LA on my way back to the U.S. after Tokyo. I needed a sunny buffer before diving back into life as usual on the east coast. My first stop was Erewhon, which I took a Waymo to get to and from. Sitting alone in the backseat with no driver felt slightly illegal, but it was also the coolest thing I’ve done as of late. Like the first time I got to be naked in my first solo adult apartment. I called it cute for knowing how to do the weird, scary left turn thing you do in LA. The contrarian in me orders a blue coconut smoothie instead of the strawberry Hailey Bieber one everyone gets. It tastes fucking good and this is literally something New York will never have.

I used to hate LA in the way every other staunchly proud New Yorker hated LA, which is to say I had already decided how I felt about it before trying to spend any real time there. After just a few days in a hot, bright LA—days filled with shoots, meetings, and seeing friends I’ve gotten really close with in just one year (<3!!)—I realized why I hated it: I literally never had anything to do there before.

Any place is just infinitely better with a purpose and people you love. It sounds obvious, but it didn’t feel obvious before. I think I used to expect a place to give me something on its own. Now I feel more responsible for constructing what I want.

Girls in athleisure with overfilled lips still abound, though.

I started my WSET wine course this week, and in the first class we go around the room and introduce ourselves and say why we’re there. I haven’t felt nervous to introduce myself to a room full of strangers since my NYU seminar days. I liked it immediately—the feeling of being a little too aware of myself. I like randomly feeling nervous.

Everyone is so cute and funny and interesting, I text my friend in the middle of class. There’s a couple taking the course together and I think, how cool is that. Two brothers are taking it so they can better communicate with their Italian winemaker grandfather. Another girl wants to destigmatize Chinese wine.

When it’s my turn, I tell 20 strangers I’m here because I love beauty and leisure and pleasure and travel, and wine sits inside all of that. I want to understand the earth and the history and the artistry behind something that makes me feel so much. I wonder if they liked my answer. I liked all of theirs and I suddenly want to make new friends, an odd feeling I don’t usually have.

I have to leave my first wine class early because of a brand event. I show up to coat check and check in my textbooks and then get my photos taken for BFA.

I keep thinking about Will Welch’s final editor’s note at GQ (it’s a fantastic read, btw), where he recounts asking Jay-Z how he moves so seamlessly between such different worlds of music, sports, politics, and art. Jay-Z just shrugs and says, “I walk into every room as myself.”

When Welch first got to GQ nearly two decades ago, he describes himself as awkward, eager to please, constantly morphing into whoever he thought he needed to be. That was probably me too, five years ago—moving through the various rooms this career, and this life, has put me in, adjusting as I went.

I don’t do that anymore. The anxiety is still there sometimes, as evidenced by my many Irish exits and lone wolf decompression weekends, but it doesn’t change who I am in a room. This first week back from my trip feels like a small distillation of that. Moving through different rooms with confidence, curiosity, and a kind of steadiness I didn’t have before. I know I’m exactly where I want to be, and I’m enjoying learning how to exist inside it.

People keep reminding me that I’m crushing it. That I am so lucky. It feels strange to hear because I know exactly who I am and what I want, despite not fully knowing exactly what I am doing. And at the same time, I have no idea who I am to other people. I walk into every room and let it be whatever it is. I’m starting to think that’s the point.

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I’m in Seoul right now, about to leave for a ski trip to Niseko, Japan. I’m honestly gutted to be missing the impending freak summer weather arriving in New York next week. (For someone who has vowed never to experience a full winter again, I seem to be chasing it.) But if I were in New York, the formula would be quite simple. It would be something that doesn’t require much thought or effort, intuitive and easy but still looks good. Before I left New York, I dressed for the weather I want.

A silk slip skirt, a baby tee, and a cardigan: a formula so simple and effortle…

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Bridegroom, dear to my heart,
Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet,
Lion, dear to my heart,
Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet.
You have captivated me, let me stand tremblingly before you.

Bridegroom, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber,
You have captivated me, let me stand tremblingly before you.

Earlier this we…

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This urgency to share everything has only intensified in our current age of social media, in which we all engage with ~feelings~, ~thoughts~, and ~ideas~ online first. Substack, for instance, has championed deeply personal essays as an art form, encouraging us to alchemize every passing discomfort, grievance, or half-formed realiz…

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This issue is a part of my monthly shopping series “How to be devastatingly hot and cool”.

I’ve returned to the permafrozen snow globe that is New York City after three and a half weeks in Asia, the first two weeks of which I spent in 30°C/86°F weather in Thailand. I’m still not over that trip…I’ve been back in New York for a week now and I suspect it will take me another week to process the trip and then share some resort season inspiration with you. I miss it so much.

January, no matter where it’s spent, has always been to me a month of reset and nesting. It also often feels like the beginning of what could be! With January also comes the relentless cold (for northern hemisphere folks) and the ~elements~ that go along with that. It’s a test of patience and strength that forces me to really think: is it even possible to be devastatingly hot and cool this month!?

This month’s issue of How to be devastatingly hot and cool (albeit at the end of it—apologies, I was in THAILAND for goodness’ sake) yields to nature’s way while also is aware that so much of our sartorial and lifestyle choices should prioritize self-care, comfort, and conservation. It’s about being practical, smart and whimsical. Here are my recommendations for the month:

FASHION

• MZ Wallace makes the bag whose reach spans demographics and occasions. You know what bag I’m talking about. The Metro Tote Deluxe is the kind of tote that proves everyone needs a good quality tote bag that isn’t just a thin canvas one you got for free at an event or as a gift with purchase. MZ Wallace just launched the Park Collection: a collection of bags in the brand’s signature quilt in two structured but very versatile shapes: a satchel and a 90s-inspired shoulder bag, both styled below! I’m also into this carry-all tote that fits perfectly under your shoulder and could work as both a work bag or beach bag. Or consider this cleaner silhouette that feels very devastatingly hot- and cool-girl coded.

  

  

• Triangle scarves and not-your-average beanies are my winter trick to looking cool in the cold.

  • During Black Friday Cyber Monday season, many of you shopped this cashmere triangle scarf that has now sold out many times over, in multiple color ways. Here’s a red one that is heavily discounted, a fun paisley printed one I saw on my friend the other day, and this delicious heather grey cashmere version.

  • Oversized beanies that veer ridiculous are very hot- and cool-girl coded. It’s a spectrum, too! You can start with this oversized beanie from Lauren Manoogian, then eventually level up to this even taller XL one from Margiela. You can play it safe but cool in a good ol’ balaclava, and we could all use a red foulard (50% off, might I add).

• Invest in loungewear that makes you look and feel good if you are spending a lot of time at home this winter. No shade to bulky sweats—there’s a time and place for those, too, just not in this month’s newsletter.

  • Negative Underwear’s proprietary ultra-soft “whipped” fabric is seriously sexy and comfy; these two adjectives can coexist! The lounge set is my favorite iteration in this fabric, but I may as well get the underwear too. And because Valentine’s Day is around the corner, the boxer in the pink color way is doing something for me. If the fitted styles aren’t for you, the whipped fabric comes in a boyfriend tee.

  • Naked Cashmere is having an extra 40% off archive styles, including a silk maxi skirt and a longline cardigan, pieces that work in or out of the home, season after season.

• Chanel’s recent couture show has me interested in sheer-maxxing as a way to add some dainty femininity in a season that punishes skin-bearing. Worn under layers and a thick coat, chiffons, silks, and the like add an unexpected flair that can change your whole attitude towards winter dressing.

  • This sheer bag from one of my favorite Korean brands is heavily discounted and really reminds me of the chiffon bags on the Chanel runway! I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more of these come spring/summer.

  • Sheer skirts worn with black underwear showing through is my favorite winter party styling trick and a surefire way to be devastatingly hot at the function in an unexpected way. I love this Matteau skirt that has an understated thin elastic waistband, this wrap-tie maxi skirt that you could also wear at the beach, and this pink Simone Rocha number that is so just so romantic and has flair.

  • The Rick Owens sale section on SSENSE is not to be missed…lots of devastatingly hot and cool sheer numbers.

• Fall/winter knits are discounted at this time of year as retailers make way for spring collections, but we’re still fully in the thick of winter, so it’s the perfect time to buy colorful knits that will carry you through the rest of the season and play into whimsy.

  • No one does it better than &Daughter, and their winter sale is full of every silhouette and color imaginable. My picks? A pink cashmere tee, a lightweight lime green V-neck, and a ribbed merino polo to be worn sans bra with low-rise jeans and kitten heels.

  • Mytheresa’s extra 20% off sale always reminds me that European retailers have selections you won’t see at American ones. Like this extensive Alessandro-era Valentino knit selection?? This ShuShu/Tong beaded cardigan! Runway Dries Van Noten!

  • Not on sale, but in line with this point…Doen’s beloved Petra cardigan now comes in this rosebud color way that is just so, so sweet.

• On the topic of a big carry-all bag, Louise Trotter’s Barbara bag is the new bag Bottega Veneta is pushing hard this season. It’s a masculine, structured tote bag that means business and is exactly the kind of bag to motivate anyone into living a very fruitful 2026.

SKINCARE + BEAUTY

• Hydration is imperative this month and the key to really keeping it together, cooly.

  • I’m loving Blue Lagoon’s lineup of masks for every kind of situation. I keep this hydrating mask on my desk, apply while I’m working from home, and wash it off hours later. The algae one is also very nourishing. And this lava scrub mask buffs all the dead winter skin cells away!

  • Goop Beauty has proved itself to be the little celebrity skincare brand that could. I know so many skincare enthusiasts that keep reaching for their products. They just launched a rich peptide cream that may be the moisturizer I keep reaching for this winter.

• Every so often, a brand blows up for making and perfecting just one singular product. This one such brand of the season is Bonjout Beauty and they make a solid balm (LAURAJ gets you 15% off, btw). That’s it! It’s a multipurpose balm that can be used all over your face or on touch points like your lips, cuticles, under eyes, etc. It’s made with 68 actives and comes perfectly packaged in a chic, portable metal container.

• A winter scent has always been one of the easiest ways to uplift and cocoon myself during these colder months. The devastatingly hot and cool girl knows that a winter scent has to be one that works well sprayed on thick knits, coats, and layers, and above all feels yummy.

  • Creed’s Carmina is the definition of a yummy winter fragrance that blooms in the cold. It’s a seductive cherry-rose-saffron number that my sister calls a “Turkish delight in a bottle”.

  • Bottega Veneta’s Alchemie is a magnetic pink pepper-heavy scent that pairs beautifully with colorful knits.

  • Prada’s new Infusion de Santal Chai was a recent gift, and it’s a Prada chai latte if you will!

• The devastatingly hot and cool girl is just as much practical about her body care as she is indulgent… and in the winter, she knows that a hearty, comforting body cream is the trick to keeping dry body skin hydrated.

  • Enter: La Roche-Posay’s Lipikar Balm AP+ M. Ceramide goodness that replenishes the skin barrier like no other cream in the winter… it’s unscented and the packaging is, well, unsexy. But it works.

  • But if you must add on a nice-smelling layer on top, Everyday Oil never misses.

HOME

• The devastatingly hot and cool girl knows how to cook! And she’s doing a lot of it in the winter. Le Creuset’s winter sale is the sale that I didn’t know I needed. I snagged their signature Dutch Oven in a beautiful lavender color they call “shallot”. Other highlights include this little heart-shaped skillet or the cassadou, a skillet-dutch oven hybrid perfect for all your winter stews.

• Wine globes make any night at home devastatingly chic and cozy.

  • Zalto wine glasses are the gold standard for a premium wine-drinking experience. The paper-thin rim and stems create some sort of “aerodynamic” sipping experience that optimizes the wine’s aromas. Somehow these Balance Glasses (literal Olivia Pope-style globes) are 25% off, which is rare for the brand!

  • These funky mouth-blown borosilicate wine glasses are reminiscent of the Bottega perfume bottles, and I just think they belong in the home together, no?

• Flannel sheets seem like bedding that your grandmother would use, and for that exact reason, they are devastatingly hot and cool. Just before the holiday season, I got my hands on some striped Zara home ones with my new Ostermoor duvet insert (life changing), and I can confirm that they are toasty and soft and cute and cool and really just perfect.

  • Piglet in Bed makes colorful striped sheets perfectly in line with the whimsical winter color palette I’ve written throughout this newsletter.

  • Coyuchi, makers of my favorite percale sheets, dabbles in flannel too!

    ---

I think there is something to be said about letting January speak for itself and do its thing. A book that completely changed my mindset on winter is Wintering by Katherine May. I even wrote about it back in 2023 and I revisit it every winter. No matter how painful or excruciating the cold is on my body and mind, there is so much power in rest. In fact, it is biologically necessary to let our bodies adapt to the natural world. We are especially in a time of major collective grief and anxiety and we must give ourselves permission to stop and heal from what challenges come before us.

++ If you feel so inclined to donate to the immigrant community in Minnesota, please see some helpful resources below:

Critical Rent Assistance for Central Neighborhood Families - a mutual aid fund for rent assistance in immigrant households

Women's Foundation of Minnesota - a rapid response fund for the immigrant community in Minnesota

Monarca Rapid Response Line - a nonprofit offering training to volunteers on constitutional rights

My Pitbull is Family - an organization helping vulnerable families take care of their pets, including when an owner is detained by ICE

Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee - a grassroots, all-volunteer immigrant rights mass-movement organization in Minnesota

With love,
Laura

Digestifs

#062: My ins & outs for 2025

I am humbled by the extraordinary luck of being surrounded by the people I call friends and family. They remind me what it means to be held by love, to be nurtured by love. The world, as tragic and unstable as it is, has a way of making us doubt the presence of love. But love, as I’ve come to know, is in every little facet of life, every little detail, every little thing, so long as you look and imbue it with so…

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a year ago · 23 likes · 2 comments · Laura Jung

I also fuck with a manifestation mood board, and I highly recommend making one of those because they’re great fun to look at and see what is happening irl in real time. If I showed you my mood board from last year… it looks a lot like my life now :)

There is much to be said about this year and what it has brought me, taught me, enlightened within me, but I just want to marinate on it for a bit and get excited about what I deem in and out for next year:

IN:

• more gate keeping

• unfollowing and unsubscribing (it’s okay, really!)

• being soft

• monday-thursday

• matinee movie screenings

• minimal skincare routine

• having the audacity

• writing with a fine-tipped permanent marker

• watches

• perfume at all times

• Mr. Darcy energy

• root beer

• putting every little thing in the calendar

• being a morning person

• desktop computers

• a 10pm bedtime (still)

• new friends

• cabbages (in all forms)

OUT:

• meaningless FaceTime calls

• oversharing to people i barely know

• pilates as only form of workout

• cluttered closet

• hangovers (even baby ones)

• self checkout

• tolerating any form of disrespect

• AI and talking about it

• half-assed mindset towards anything

• virality

• being dehydrated

• “it’s giving…”

• podcasts

I like lining my lips with a bold color and dabbing just a light sheen of sparkle onto my eyelids. I get a thrill from taking off my coat, checking it at coat check, and feeling good about my outfit. I’m attending chic holiday parties in multilevel townhouses and being dressed by fashion houses my teenage self would never believe is my current reality. I have a lot of fun indulging in shopping this time of year. I feel an overwhelming sense of joy gifting loved ones things I’ve chosen for them and watching their eyes light up. I once cried watching my sister unbox a pair of shoes I gave her, and that’s when I knew: I fucking love gift-giving!!!!

December is a month rife with consumerism. There’s a lot of product pushing, a lot of content positioning shopping as identity (a conversation I absolutely contribute to), and a lot of indulgence that forces us to reckon with our relationship to stuff. I’ve outgrow…

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There are few brands that have reached global cult status like Sézane has. I mean, there’s an entire subreddit for the brand’s fans to discuss everything from product alerts to sizing questions to buying/selling items to each other. That kind of natural discourse around the brand is a testament to how vast their reach is and how beloved the brand is. And for many good reasons!

Sézane’s universe isn’t limited to its signature Parisian-cool girl clothes, though it really feels like they pioneered the look in many ways. The universe includes home, fragrance, menswear, and more. All of their product lines champion style, accessibility, and transparency. (The brand doesn’t do sales, but instead maintains an ecosystem of fair prices and making sure no unsold stock gets unworn and tossed) And it is exactly why it is a one-stop shop for all your gift giving needs this holiday season. For the men in your life (yes, they need gifts too…), the homes you frequent, and even for yourself because that’s always important.

Browsing through their ‘Gift Shop’ is a feast for your eyes. Color coordinated and organized by category for all the people in your life. There is truly something for everyone. Below are some thought starters from me. I’m styling two outfits in head to toe Sézane. You can gift these items individually, together, and really just have fun mixing and matching across categories…

I hope gift giving is a little less daunting with this guide. The good thing about shopping now is that it’s still relatively early! As I’ve gotten older, I find that doing the shopping earlier makes the entire process genuinely enjoyable. And when you’re not fighting against the clock of BFCM deals, you have a shopping experience that is actually a leisurely one.

Happy holidays!!!!

x

In Swann’s Way, the first volume of Marcel Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time (1913-1927), the narrator wanders around Paris revisiting the spots that connect him to his teenage love. After eating a madeleine dipped in tea, vivid memories of his childhood summers come flooding back. And this simple story of a madeleine dipped in tea became a cultural shorthand for involuntary memory—for the way memory lives in the sensorial body, and how its emotional truth often runs deeper than any factual one.

Yesterday, on a dull November morning, I walked through City Hall Park, as I do almost everyday, and saw a big, full ginkgo tree blazing neon yellow against the grey sky. I stepped closer to admire it, to take some photos. And then the scent hit me—sharp and sudden—and instantly I was back in other Novembers: in New York, in Seoul, where trees just like this line the streets I walked with a cracked heart, pretending I wasn’t unraveling lol. Pretending I had it all figured out. My angsty chi…

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Today’s issue finds us on the brink of BFCM madness and a time when even the most seasoned shoppers like myself get overwhelmed. Sales now start earlier than ever and extend well into next week. There are things to buy for ourself and things to buy for others!!! Where to start???! Well, here, for starters. I will be publishing two issues of “How to be devastatingly hot and cool” this month to make up for the past two months. The next one will be a special dedicated edit :) For today’s issue, I’m highlighting the best sales that embody what it means to be devastatingly hot and cool girl. Nothing sponsored, no noise, and as defined below…

• Devastatingly hot but doesn’t try too hard. She just is in her confidence, her aura, her brains, her taste, and her well-travelledness

• Elusively everywhere but nowhere. Her most frequently asked question is “Wait, are you in town?” But she doesn’t travel for the sake of tourism or filling up free time, she is just ~vibing~ and being a citizen of the world

• Effortless ease in which she lives her life and achieves her goals, also known as “lucky girl syndrome”. But! She doesn’t just manifest things to happen, she lives and breathes knowing exactly who she is and what she wants even though she doesn’t have it *all* figured out yet

• A true citizen of the world, has worldly observations and has a foot in various corners of the world because this is how she stays plugged in and connected

• Into very specific hobbies and meticulously cultivates them to her perfection, enjoyment, and self-elevating aura

FASHION

• I raved about Leset’s once-a-year 30% off everything sale in my first issue and I’m back to rave more. Leset is one of those brands that don’t look like much but once you own something from them, you know why they never go on sale and why fashion girls are obsessed. I snagged a lot… including stocking up on the perfect T-shirt, this satin cowl neck top that will solve any casual-but-elevated evening wear conundrum, cotton pants to run errands in and look chic, and a pink sweater I want to wear with all my burgundy things this fall.

• Jamie Haller has a 40% off private sale with code GRATITUDE40, which is maybe one of the most substantial offerings of the week. May I suggest these perfect trousers and these perfect scrunched ballet flats?

• COS makes the clothes we all want to wear with the quality that tells us it’s not another Z*ra or H&M. 25% off sitewide during this time of year is always a good opportunity to get the perfect wool coat, checkered barrel pants I saw on the runway in September, and easy sweaters for all your layering and tying needs.

• Dôen fans should be very happy with the selection of items on sale in their annual ‘Giving Thanks’ sale. The discounts run deep like these cotton pants to live in, their classic Quinn dress, a wool V-neck sweater, and the perfect cover up dress.

• Almina Concept’s fool-proof pieces for generally just looking like you know how to dress while still being comfortable are 25% off. I ordered two of these sweaters—one to wear and one to use as a scarf. And I really love the cut of this crewneck!

• When Khaite is on sale with a deep selection like this? What is there more to say?

• Proenza Schouler is the perennial cool brand for New York women who get it. Prices never ostentatious, quality always good. I added this plaid shirt immediately for wearing, tying around my waist, draping over my shoulder, etc. The perfect gloved heel does in fact exist, and she’s 40% off. This semi-sheer dress under a coat in the winter and on its own in the summer… perfect.

• Janessa Leone makes the accessories that make any outfit actually look like an outfit. Intentional, functional, and with an edge. Her private sale includes the best of the best, like this is the hat I bring with me on every warm weather travel, the perfect winter beanie, and this belt that really upgrades any outfit. Discount automatically applied at checkout.

• Chan Luu is the cool girl brand!!! Every well-traveled woman with the chicest taste I know is wearing something Chan Luu on repeat. 25% off sitewide gets you everything from pearls for the holiday to a mesh tote for vacation. This charm necklace comes with me everywhere, this pinch waist cardigan is the most flattering silhouette, these silver padlock earrings look like they can be a museum, and these cotton poplin pants to end them all.

• Frame’s yummy jeans are 30% off

• I don’t like vegan leather bags unless they’re from Freja, who seems to have perfected it. This hobo carry-all is exactly what every New York woman needs. And then she’ll change into this guy for the evening.

• I was wearing this Artizia scarf the other night and my friend from high school was shocked. Like, literally said, “Wow, it looks so good…” And that’s how I feel about the brand lately. Especially the cashmere! And their trousers!

• I love holiday dressing when it’s a little sexy and not too over-the-top holiday. Ciao Lucia does it very well. THANKS25 gets you 25% off an embroidered satin skirt and this sheer red knit one.

• My favorite oxblood Mansur Gavriel bag is 30% off. The thin strap is so freaking classy and 90s.

• Demellier makes the structured tote bag that makes every travel day look infinitely chicer. But might I suggest the lesser-known Miami? I love how unfussy and easygoing the shape is.

• The Great makes the sweatshirt and sweatpants I wear that don’t make me feel frumpy, ever. And that is the sign of a really good cut and fit. 25% off!

• DL1961 is making a big resurgence and I’m grateful for it because I discovered these jeans that are making a case for non-100% cotton denim… 25% off with the code THANKFUL25.

• My favorite minimalist bikini brand Anemos is 25% off site wide with BFCM2025. Because all you really need is a thin black triangle bikini.

• Heaven Mayhem’s best selling styles, including the little bean corded necklace (now under $100!), are on major sale.

• Polo Ralph Lauren’s signature wool-cashmere cable knits, among many other things, are 30% off. I am snagging this cream one in one size up. Might as well get the matching beanie too.

BEAUTY

• THE cream I keep reaching for time and time again despite everything else I own is Dieux’s Instant Angel. It’s the kind of cream that cocoons your skin in a beautiful glow, ready to take on whatever weather or season. 20% off sitewide, 25% off orders over $125, 30% off sets.

• As a Korean who grew up in Korea… my recommendations for the best SPF are highly sought after. And I love disappointing people when I tell them my favorite sunscreen is, in fact, not Korean but this mineral formula from LESSE. Truly the sunscreen I will use until the end of time.

• Don’t sleep on Japanese skincare! All things DAMDAM is 25% off and they make my favorite cleansing oil, a formula rooted in centuries-old rice water cleansing ritual.

• The devastatingly hot and cool girl is not too fussy with her hair but knows that no matter how intentionally messy you want your hair to look, it must be healthy… OLAPLEX saved my damaged, permed hair when it was on its last breath and we thank her for that. CYBER gets you 30% everything!

• There is no better time to get acquainted with the magic of Eadem than now. This set includes all my favorite products at a discounted price.

• Sofie Pavitt’s Skincare System is what the unfussy cool girls are using. The cleanser is my recent favorite. Lightly lathers, unscented (except for that clean soap smell I love), and hydrating.

• A medical-grade vitamin C serum that doesn’t smell like bacon does in fact exist! JOY gets you 30% off Dermstore.

• Violet Grey’s ‘Best of Beauty’ cult beauty selection has made it onto the sales list… 20% off an order of $250. And said cult selection includes a Mason Pearson hairbrush (this is your sign…), Victoria Beckham’s insanely sexy eye wardrobe, and Fara Homidi’s lip compact that is a hot girl’s best accessory.

• The lactic acid serum that put me onto lactic acid is 30% off.

• Plum face oil has made my nighttime routine very delightful. So much so that I now use plum body butter, too!

• Cadence makes the travel kits that makes packing really fun and dare-I-say beautiful? I love seeing all my little products in these!

HOME

• The chokehold that Flamingo Estate has on the chicest people in the world must be studied. But for now, I can attest the olive oil is incredible and the tomato candle makes me feel things… Thank god everything is 20% off.

• Creed makes one of the most unique candles I’ve had the privilege to light. Not to mention how impeccable it looks in any well-appointed home.

• A devastatingly hot and cool girl is cute and cozy at home. In her Hill House Home pajamas.

• And in her Brooklinen cotton percale bedsheets that are 25% off.

• East Fork Pottery makes any meal at home feel like a beautiful experience. I especially like eating my yogurt bowls out of these.

• A devastatingly hot and cool girl knows her coffee—it’s one of her many things she’s a snob about, duh—and Canyon Coffee makes the perfect blend.

• Are you even a cool girl without a Louis Poulsen lamp or light fixture in your home? Major discounts on lighting including this chic table lamp must be taken advantage of.

Thought starters for you!!! Did I miss anything? What do you want to see more of?!

Have a beautiful week, everyone. xo

Here I am back in Seoul for the fourth time this year trying to self-soothe myself after an incredibly busy past five months and as I gear up for what the business world calls “Q4”. In my industry speak, that’s code for final-holiday-season-push-to-work-as-much-as-possible. My brain, as it currently stands, straddles the dichotomy of exhaustion and ambition, all the while going through my own little October canon event. “I’m baby,” I would once remind myself, but now I am a fully fledged 30-year old. I am in a messy entanglement of growth and setbacks where the cumulative effect doesn’t look like much progress but I have to trust that all the little decisions I make for myself are amounting to something. These trips home amount to something.

On my plane ride here, I listen to a 3-hour track of 432hz frequency noise on loop in between training my TikTok algorithm to give me exactly what I want to watch. Scrolling, in this instance, is soothing. I dab on an essential oil blend called “Altitude Oil” that I randomly found in a PR package. The combination of everything lulls me into a sleep that feels utterly transformative.

I love the lore of my real life because it is mine to laugh at, mine to love, mine to own. I don’t need anyone else’s on top of mine, something I only recently learned. I once thought I did. I thought being partnered only made life more interesting, more romantic, less isolating. It does do that, in part, but it is also testing. And I don’t have the capacity to be tested like that anymore.

Self-soothing means returning to myself—through movement, through ritual, through flight if I must. It’s not always healthy, not always gentle. Sometimes, self-soothing is recording random tiktok videos and keeping them in my drafts for me to see. Sometimes, it’s sending an email out with a 2am time stamp just to feel in control again. Other times, it’s letting my mother massage my feet in silence.

There’s something deeply human about finding calm in chaos of our own making. We call it “self-care,” but often, it’s a negotiation with our own restlessness. Self-soothing isn’t about escaping discomfort, but learning to recognize it as a signal—one that says I need to come home, whether that’s a place, a person, or just a version of myself that feels familiar again.

“How are things in Korea?” my therapist emails me while trying to find a time to connect. “Always so transformative and comforting.” I reply. Because it’s true. Every time I land in Seoul, I feel a recalibration happen quietly under the surface. I don’t post about it right away. I let the place do its slow work on me. I let myself be small, a daughter again, a version of myself that doesn’t need to be optimized.

Self-soothing, I’m learning, is not about quieting the discomfort, but the trust that I can meet it. That I can survive it. Because I always do.