Collected not Decorated

Late the other night, I was doing what I do best, delaying my ever-growing nighttime routine for what felt like a geological era, YouTube open, brain and remote fully unsupervised. No more Orient Express train tours or vlogs left to watch (a real crisis, truly), I clicked on Tory Burch’s Parisian flat tour instead. Her art collection rivals a museum. Vintage trinkets, tiger print, polka dot canopy beds, ornate frames leaning against something contemporary, the whole apartment felt like it had been marinating for decades, nothing in it in a rush to be finished. And then she said it, almost in passing, the way people say the thing that ends up rewiring your whole week: “it’s collected, not decorated.” wuuuuutt???!

Aodhan had my phone mid-scroll through a ShopMy look book, and the speed at which I swatted it from his hands to write her quote down in my notes app was not dissimilar to an F1 reflex drill. I have not been able to shake her phrasing since.

Because here’s what I realized, turning it over all week: “collected, not decorated” isn’t really a philosophical system you build on purpose. It’s one you notice you’ve already inherently been running. If you’re a familiar friend of mine, you already know storytelling is non-negotiable around here, for a pair of shoes, a piece of art, a coveted tote, Prince (my mini dachshund, who has a personality bigger than your high school theater lead), a ruby ring melt and redesign, the places we go, the people we somehow end up loving.

Collection vs decoration applies to interests too. It's about things you’ve harbored, tended to, and watered rather than picked up for show. Hearing a sports announcer and being hit with the nostalgia of a sleepy Sunday afternoon in your childhood home. Reading until 3am because putting the book down physically isn’t an option. Going around the table saying your favorite things about the birthday boy / girl (making people feel special, celebrating well). Something about a certain kind of familiarity, sought out and returned to, makes these interests stick.

None of that can be performatively consumed. It certainly can (plenty of people try), it just won’t stick. If there’s one thing I want you to take from the goodies I share here, it’s that they’re goodies because they’re specific, because they carry a SuperSpecialStory you can recall with actual warmth, not just something you paid for and are trying to keep on trend, en vogue. Things you speak of spritely (I just heard a Wimbledon announcer use that word, and now I’m using it too).

Here’s the part decorated can never really account for: it wants an end date. A day you stand in the doorway and declare it finished. Collected doesn’t have that day, because it’s not actually about the room, it’s about you, and you’re not finished either. Every season hands you a different obsession, a different ache, a different thing you suddenly can’t stop noticing in windows. Your space and hobbies just have to keep up as you collect nuances in your life. Allow me to walk you through some of my favorite collected goodies.

When I moved into my first adult apartment, freshly post-grad and completely out of my depth, my mom told me two things I still live by. One: buy home-sized furniture, because when you buy nice, you buy once. My CB2 dresser came from the Crate & Barrel outlet senior year, and I bought it because the proportions and the texture reminded me of my favorite interior designer, not because it was the right size for a 9x9 college room. Two: collect things over time, don’t furnish a room in a single afternoon from a single place. It took ten months to finish that first apartment. I’m only now, with roommates, starting to source furniture for the extra room, our lease started at the top of the year, and I am in absolutely no rush. Goodies things take time. That’s sort of the whole point, actually. A decorated room can be bought in a weekend. A collected one needs you to keep living, learning, growing.

So here’s an unhinged, slightly incriminating inventory of what I’ve actually collected, presented with zero shame, because shame was never going to stop me anyway.

One of my old bosses used to talk about this artist, Erik Stefanski, with a kind of reverence I filed away and didn’t fully understand yet, a sophomore majoring in art who couldn’t yet imagine starting her own collection. Meeting his work properly, years later, mattered for a few reasons all at once: he painted this particular piece after finding out he and his wife were expecting, and it crossed my desk the same season Prince joined my life and at the same time Aodhan and I quietly shifted into something sweeter. You hold things+people tighter after life happens. This AND I’ve attempted to collect little things that “spark joy” since before I could remember. This painting, all yellow and green(e), landed like it was assigned to me.

If you’re even loosely online you know Chanel Surf 2002. The classic flap is the safe, expected route, but the tote version has lived on my vision board through more New Year’s Eves than I can count. I finally hunted one down six weeks ago for a price I’m choosing not to repeat out loud. But I willingly will note that I won the lowball bid. The seller went dark. USPS had zero tracking evidence. I fully spiraled. And then, after a maddening amount of time stuck in an AI phone jail sequence, followed by two hours with the single (only) kindest human postal worker alive, it was sitting on the floor of my local station, waiting. She's home now. I’m aware this is an insane amount of feeling to have about a canvas bag. I have made my peace with that.

Asscher studs! Pear studs! Because diamonds never age, I had some fun with the cut. Rounds are expected, squares are special, pears on ears are pretty rare. Everyone’s allowed one basic vice.

There’s the vintage silver jewelry holder from the Rome flea market, negotiated in broken Italian with a vendor who did not care if I lived or died. I will not stop bringing this up, to anyone, for any reason, and I will absolutely mention the price ($21!) unprompted every single time, because that’s kind of the whole point. Oh did I mention I was with my best friend in the entire world when we found it? One that interned with me at Milliard, the birthplace of our jewelry design fascination and career? Yup. Collected.

There’s this tiny brown Paris64 Prismatic bag, a blissfully unexpected shape, small enough to disappear into, but big enough to carry me through my very first fall NYFW last year. It sat with me through imposter syndrome side-stage at TWP, my first runway show. Through my ongoing, deeply held fear for New York City germs, in every hour I spent convincing myself I belonged in rooms I’d only ever watched from a social screen. It’s the bag that was there while I realized I did, actually belong. Now it sits quietly next to me, collecting the stories that have formed me over the past year!

And then there’s the thing that isn’t a thing at all: card games at the dinner table, late, too many rounds and glasses of wine in, someone always accusing someone else of cheating. It’s not really about the cards. It’s about chasing a specific sound, the one from being a kid at home, everyone still up past when they should be, the same five or six people who’d do anything for you, all sitting around the same table, bonding without technology.

The desire itself, the wanting of that particular feeling, is as collected as anything sitting on my shelf. You can covet an experience the exact same way you covet an object. Nobody warns you about that part. Ohhhhh lawd ok sorry guys that was a lot..

GoodieGang, I bring you Merritt! Freshly minted member of Team Goodies, my remote assistant Merritt has a design eye I genuinely admire, and when I sent her this quote, I half expected a one-line “omg yessss,” but she sent back something so good I asked if I could just put it in the newsletter. So: Merritt, take it awayyyy dolly!

“The idea of ‘collected, not decorated’ is less of an aesthetic and more of an identity. A decorated home has an end state, a day you finally say ‘this is finished.’ A collected home is never finished, because my life isn’t. Every day brings different inspirations that make me want to add or change something in a space.”

“It’s the same with my style, an ongoing creative space, meant to be collected. I want my pieces, in my home and my closet, to remind me of a season, a place, a person. Like the chest I found at an antique market with my mom, I want my clothes to be a ‘one-of’ memory, not just the result of falling victim to an Instagram ad.”

“My fashion philosophy has always been that you should be able to ‘wear your home,’ to exist in a way that feels completely, unapologetically you. A little bit of chaos is necessary for a look to be memorable, refined enough to be comfortable. Isn’t that true of our lives too? We collect it all: hurt, loss, joy, wins. I want my world, my home, and my style to reflect that.”

A decorated life is one where everything was chosen to agree with everything else: matched, coordinated, finished before you even moved in. A collected life looks slightly unfinished, little chaotic on paper, a lot of feeling underneath it, every object arriving on its own timeline because maybe you’re not who you were when you got the confirmation email.

I don’t know what I’ll be reaching for, or aching over, or hunting down at 1am in 5 years. That’s kind of the whole point. Some of you will read this next to a candle you’ve had since college. A stuffed animal you’ve had since 3rd grade. Some of you just bought something today that you already know you’ll be telling a story about later. Either way, keep going. Your room, closet, jewelry box isn’t supposed to be finished. Neither are you.

okayyy ciao mi dear dolls! xHHG