I have a confession: I ruined my first really expensive cashmere sweater. It was a beautiful, dove-gray crewneck from a well-known Italian house. I was young, proud of my purchase, and utterly clueless. After a night out, I tossed it into the washing machine on a regular cycle with my jeans. I pulled out a…
I have a confession. For the first five years of my love affair with Italian fashion, I treated suede like a delicate, untouchable museum piece. I owned a pair of buttery-soft Tod’s driving shoes in a shade of dusty taupe that I was terrified to wear outside. I remember the first time a droplet of…
For years, I treated the interior of my designer bags like an afterthought. I was obsessed with the exterior leather—the glazing, the stitching, the hardware. The lining was just… there. A functional afterthought. Then, one afternoon, I reached into my favorite tote for my phone and felt my keys snag. I pulled them out to…
I have a confession. I once took a pair of my favorite Italian leather loafers and tried to fix a scuffed toe with a bottle of cheap polish I found at a drugstore. The color was slightly off, the finish was streaky, and I spent the next hour trying to buff out my “improvement.” I…
For the first three years I owned my first Prada bag, I treated it like a museum artifact. I stored it in its dust bag, kept it in the box, and never let it touch rain. I thought I was doing everything right. Then one day, I took it out for a wedding and noticed…
I have a confession. I almost lost a vintage Gucci Jackie to a closet I thought was safe. It was a humid August in New York. I had tucked the bag into its dust bag, placed it on a high shelf, and forgotten about it for three months. When I pulled it out for a…
For the first two years I owned my natural leather tote, I treated patina like a flaw. Every water spot felt like a personal failure. Every darkening of the leather around the handles looked, to me, like an imperfection I needed to hide. I remember standing in my kitchen, dabbing at a rain mark with…
I have a confession. For the first year I owned my pair of Valentino patent leather pumps, I treated them like they were made of Teflon. I wore them in the rain. I shoved them into my tote without a dust bag. I wiped them with a baby wipe and called it a day. The…
I have a confession. I once bought a 1970s lambskin jacket that smelled like it had survived a disco fire, a chain-smoking ghost, and a damp basement for fifty years. It was perfect. The cut, the patina, the way the zipper pulled. But the smell. I tried everything. Hanging it outside. Spritzing it with cheap…
I have a confession. I used to think leather conditioning was like seasoning a cast-iron skillet—something you did once, maybe twice, if you remembered, and then you were set for life. I learned the hard way that this is profoundly, almost painfully, wrong. It was a cold January evening in New York. I was wearing…