No. 0009 // The $36,000 Dress I Never Saw
And the five-second text that's kept my mom friendships alive for years
My phone pinged.
I bought this for you with my eyes.
It was from a woman I used to work with. Blonde, wild, kind, the type to produce confetti from a handbag. She told me she had been at a couture fashion show and seen a dress that cost thirty-six thousand dollars, hand-beaded with rhinestones from head to toe, opalescent, the kind of thing that took nine and a half months and thirteen seamstresses to finish.
She said it was made for me. Not for someone like me. For me. She bought it for me with her eyes.
I was never going to see that dress. She was never going to buy it for me. She was just thinking of me. I’ve thought about that text for years.
Real talk: you don’t need an IRL moment at all. When something specific conjures a person, tell them. It takes five seconds. I have three kids and roughly four free minutes a day. This is how I stay inside my friends’ lives anyway.
I don’t always have time to meet for coffee. I don’t always have time for a real phone call.
But when I see something funny, ridiculous, or perfect, I send it to the person it conjured. I bought this for you with my eyes.
If you send me the right unhinged sign, or a thirty-six-thousand-dollar dress you have zero intention of buying, or a tragically perfect meme made for me, I will feel loved for the rest of the day. I promise you, so will your friend.
Who just came to mind for you? You know the one. Tell me in the comments, and then go text them before you finish reading this. (And heart the heart, if this one got you!)
If this feels like a totally “you” thing to do, you might enjoy Jen Shoop’s Green Flags as well, a list of other beautiful ways to make a difference for someone’s day.
Vote Results are in
Number 3 won, and it wasn't close. A landslide. And I have to tell you a little secret: it was my first choice too, which means either great minds think alike or I have quietly trained you all in my exact taste. (It's both.) The 30x40 is ordered, no mat, and I will be posting a photo the second it's hung! (Here were the contenders, if you missed them!)
Back when I ran a print shop out of my travel archive, I learned which photos deserve to go giant. The best big prints work at two distances.
Nose to frame, where some tiny pattern reveals itself only up close. And across the room, where it all snaps back into one image. An aerial view of a real place. A telephoto of Paris shot from miles and miles away. A print your eyeballs get to keep discovering.
Here's one of mine: Paris, 2015, now living on my wall.
And now, six more from the former Print Shop that I still love:
This is a lovely version by Nicholas Cosedis, whose whole archive is this idea having the time of its life. I really dig a proper aerial shot.
P.S. Fun places to find art for your walls without buying an edition that would break the bank are 20x200 (I loved this Dorothea Lange there), Printed Matter (this poster caught my eye) and any and all museum gift shops, anywhere.
The meme this week that made me laugh the hardest:
And with that, we're done!
hugs!!
Ana