Fashion Design Schools: 4/12/20

Saturday, April 18, 2020

try using the Notes app...for everything

I’ve never kept a diary. I’ve carried a notebook with me on most days of my adult life, but there are no deeply personal thoughts in there. Only reporting and lists. Many, many lists. Grocery lists; clothes-shopping lists. At one point, I even had a specific type of notepad delineated for daily to-do lists, of which I would often discard and rewrite multiple times a day. I spent several years stockpiling my preferred reporting notebook, too, a stenographer’s pad — not gregg ruled! (Very important!) I bought them in Japan, in Brooklyn, and online from shops in Portland, Vancouver and Sydney.

I still typically have one of those notebooks with me. Just in case. But I’m not longer so worried about running out, because I’m increasingly dependent on the Notes app. I write columns on it and show reviews and story outlines. I use it when taking notes during phone interviews. Sometimes, I even use it to type notes on my laptop during in-person interviews with subjects who aren’t weirded out by the idea. (Yes, I record, too. DM me to learn more about my personal crusade to get journalists to stop wasting so much time transcribing interviews.)

I use the Notes app for life, too. Lists of restaurants I want to try, filed by city and year. Lists of music I want to try, filed by year. Lists of chores, lists of books I want to read, lists of books I’ve read. Lists of what we need around the house. Hundreds of half-baked ideas, hundreds of vague reminders to look stuff up. (A recent example: “Intro song 500 days of summer,” the last movie I watched on an airplane. An uninspired but unforgettable choice, given what we came home to.) Also, it’s where I write tough emails that aren’t ready for my inbox and random thoughts I don’t quite know what to do with just yet.

The Notes app, sitting up there in the cloud, simultaneously available on my laptop and iPhone, is the diary I’ve never kept. Over the past few weeks, people who are relatively safe and not sick have been talking a lot about ways to cope. There’s no right answer. For me, I exercise, I watch TV, I keep lists, I meditate using a guided recording that I keep — you guessed it — on the Notes app. All of this is to say: I highly recommend it.

Some of What I Wrote (and Said) So Far in 2020:

For Luxury, an Acceleration of the Inevitable
Independent Fashion Labels of the World, Unite!
Case Study: The Next Wave of Luxury E-Commerce
Independent American Fashion Businesses Are Unravelling. The Government Must Help.
Outdoor Voices CEO Tyler Haney Steps Down As Losses Mount
One Year After Karl, Where Do Chanel and Fendi Go From Here?
What Comes After Barneys and Opening Ceremony?
The End of Opening Ceremony Marks the End of Shopping As We Know It
Social Distancing With You (The Needle & the Mouse)
Mickey Drexler on How to Make Things People Will Buy (The BoF Podcast)

What I'm Reading, Listening to and Watching:

The Umami Theory of Value: Autopsy of the Experience Economy (Nemesis)
A great newsletter for music and reading recommendations (Public Announcement)
A great newsletter for recommendations of things you don't know you need, but do (A Thing or Two With Claire and Erica)
A great podcast by the same people who do the great newsletter (A Thing or Two With Claire and Erica)
Giri/Haji (Netflix)
The Sopranos (HBO)
Los Angeles Modernism Revisited (Amazon)
Den of Thieves (Amazon)
Setting Boundaries (NYTimes)
Cross-Body or No Cross-Body: Which Side Are You On? (NYTimes)
Female Founders Have Used Their #Girlboss Status As a Brand Builder. Behind the Scenes, It's Complicated. (BoF)
Designing in a Crisis (The New Consumer)
In the Fight Against Coronavirus, the Hermès Scarf Becomes an Unlikely Weapon (GQ)
Los Angeles Apparel Company on Instagram Live (@losangelesapparel)
Brené on Anxiety, Calm + Over/Under-Functioning (Unlocking Us)
Ben Sinclair on Marc Maron (WTF)
Home Alone Together, in LA (TNY)
Where to Buy Great Coffee Online (Bon Appetit)
It’s All So … Premiocre (The Atlantic)
Is the Music Copyright Business Worth More Than Ever? (Billboard)