Edition #16
Cheap NYC eats/exxy LA drinks, a Kelly Wearstler pet hospital, Celine pilates, a name for when you give up on life at 4pm on a Monday, & a whole new way to f*ck around with the universe and find out
If you’ve been to LA at any time over the past few years, you’ve definitely made a pitstop at its most important tourist site Disneyland the Hollywood sign Sunset Boulevard Erewhon. And when you were there you likely dropped an absurd amount of money on their famous Hailey Bieber Strawberry Glaze Skin smoothie for health and pleasure instagram. (If you’re not thirsty - in that way - they also sell a single Japanese strawberry for US$19) Everyone has been abuzz this week after a Vogue Business story that delved into the ins and out of the Erewhon machine, namely that they sell 40000 (that’s four zeros) of Bieber’s US$20 smoothies every month. (That’s just the HB ones, not to mention all their other celeb smoothie collabs, like Nara Smith’s or Sabrina Carpenter’s, happening all the time.) I’ve had one and thought it tasted like frothy strawberry-scented sunscreen, but each to their own. What I do like is that some good is coming from all this performance consumerism:
Celebrities are not paid for their participation, but rather choose a charity to receive a portion of the proceeds. “In 2024, we had an incredible year, donating over $2.5 million through our celebrity smoothie collaborations,” Erewhon executive VP Vito Antoci shared on LinkedIn in January.
Alternatively, if you’re planning a trip to NY and want to spend the same amount of money on an entire meal, NY local guide Hell Gate have launched an interactive map of all the best $20 dinners you can get in the city. Having just been there and experienced the joy of our dollar at the Polo Bar first hand (still worth it), this is going straight to the save folder.
Apparently this newsletter features pet news now, but actually I would have written about this even before I was an obsessive dog owner. Opulent-glam interior queen Kelly Wearstler has put her hand to the King Animal Hospital just out of Toronto in Canada. The pics are all on design site Dezeen and from the pink-tiled hydro room with its turquoise pool, calming muted tones, chocolate terrazzo and treatments like underwater treadmills and laser therapy on offer, it’s basically Soho House for schnauzers. I’d happily live there as a human person. I’d also happily be a horse.
Rimowa has been quietly dropping limited collections of beautifully battered-and-stickered vintage suitcases on their various websites around the world. They cost about half as much as a new version but have so many more stories to tell. No word on whether they’ll do one in Australia but if they do, be quick - the drops have been selling out in hours.
Rambull is a newsletter that gives six recommendations from an interesting person every week. The people are a random mix - think authors, founders, teachers, finance peeps - and so are their recs, which is nice in a world where most rec sites are filled with micro influencers still touting High Sport Kick Flip pants. I found this rec from attorney-turned-Harry Styles-megafan-and-author SC Perot kind of inspiring, I’m going to think up my own version:
A few months ago, I started carrying tiny ducks with me everywhere I go. You can buy 200 of them on Amazon for about $8 (search "tiny ducks"). I hand them out to people and call them Good Luck Ducks. I'll close out at a bar or restaurant, flip over the receipt, place a tiny duck, and write a little note: "This is a Good Luck Duck. To bring you good luck and good vibes for whatever you're working on." -- It's a super easy way to spread joy and people's reactions are shockingly lovely. I have had several people start crying--ha!
On the topic of feelings: these are pervasively sad times — both intimately specific and abstractly existential. This Glossary for Generation Grief is a beautiful collection of terms for feelings we don’t always have words for. One standout: Tang-Ping, defined as ‘the act of lying flat on the floor as a way of opting out of the workaday hustle. The tang-ping movement, launched by Chinese youth and now a trend throughout East Asia, is about rejecting the false promises and rewards of a competitive, capitalist economy.’ Otherwise known as 4pm in my house…. 😬
This is old but I only recently stumbled across the principles of the book Die with Zero by hedge fund guy/poker player Bill Perkins. It’s all about the idea that when it comes to our finances the goal isn’t just to make and save it; it’s to maximise fulfilment. The aim is to ‘die with zero’ because instead of squirrelling it away, you spend it on life experiences, looking after your family and friends (when they need it most rather than waiting until you drop dead) and legacy. It maybe made more sense when it came out it, rather in these economically-challenged times where most of us are imagining we’ll die with zero without putting any effort in, but one of the ideas that resonated with me is that positive life experiences are maximised by having them early, both while you’re young enough to enjoy them fully but also because experiences you have early in life continue to “pay out” over the rest of your life through joy, storytelling, and nostalgia. Think of them like a spiritual form of compound interest - Perkins calls these ‘memory dividends’, and that is investing talk I can get my head around.
This site is borderline unhinged but if you’re the kind of person who likes to let the universe decide, maybe kind of profound? You write an email to someone—something you maybe can’t or have been hesitant to say—push send, and there’s a one in 0.0001% chance they’ll see it. Chaos vibes.
I worked for Jackie Frank back in the 2000s when she famously had a treadmill in the office and would insist on walking on it while having meetings with us. At the time it seemed a little deranged but in hindsight—with all the walking pads and treadmill desks around today—she was just a cosy workout-er before her time. My version of this was that at ELLE I had a set of kettle bells in my office and would close the door and get a few sets of swings in whenever I felt the need. If I’d had this Celine kettle bell from their new pilates range, though, I wouldn’t have had to close the door at all. So chic. Do not even get me onto the water bottle… be still my cold, dehydrated heart.
See you next week xx