10 What I Can’t Live Withouts That Defined Celebrity Shopping

Longtime contributing Vogue editor André Leon Talley, who died in 2022, was known for his high-end taste — he collected monogrammed Louis Vuitton suitcases and Limoges luncheon plates with drawings by Jean Cocteau — but his 2016 “What I Can’t Live Without,” the first in the series, was less the stuff of a Christie’s auction, and decidedly more down to earth. “He’s one of the most glamorous people in the world, and he’s talking about UGGs,” says Swerdloff of his list, which also included cleaning supplies and an electric toothbrush. It was that toothbrush that inspired the text that for years ran at the beginning of every column: If you’re like us, you’ve probably wondered what famous people add to their carts. Not the JAR brooch and Louis XV chair, but the hand sanitizer and the electric toothbrush.

If it wasn’t for Aubrey Plaza, we might not know about Real Purity’s natural deodorant. It turns out that Plaza, whose list was published in 2017, heard about it from Judy Greer, who later included it in her “What I Can’t Live Without” in 2022. “I do everything Judy Greer tells me to do,” said Plaza at the time. Strategist editors followed suit: Swerdloff and senior editor Simone Kitchens both still use the deodorant. Several other items from Plaza’s list have become Strategist canon, too: Writer Kitty Guo credits the Oribe Dry Texturizing Spray with saving her bad haircut, alongside Lucas Papaw “miracle ointment,” which has appeared in Dido’s, Erin Wasson’s, Selma Blair’s, and Alison Brie’s “What I Can’t Live Withouts” since.

Often, we only get a short amount of time to chat with celebrities about their items — but sometimes they can’t help but gab. What was meant to be a tightly scheduled 15-minute phone call between Debi Mazar and former writer Chloe Anello lasted more than two hours. “She knew who she was. She knew what she liked,” Anello says. “As we were talking about one thing, it reminded her of something else that she loved.” When Anello got off the phone, she had about 60-something items, 50 of which we ran in one of our longer columns in the series.

“I’m a person who tries things for people and gives my opinions. I’ve been given a lot of free stuff because of my job. They let me take home things that I discover on the set. I’m always flying through an airport and I’m like, Oh, what’s this?” says Mazar. When the list was published, “Everyone called me, like, ‘Oh, my God. I love this list. I am so ordering that.’” Five years later, she still wears Chanel No. 5 and agua de violetas, washes her dishes with Palmolive, and drinks Café Bustelo.

“I love the Strategist; I need the Strategist. So many of the things in my life I’ve gotten from the Strategist,” Jason Schwartzman told New York on a red carpet at Sundance in 2024. Months later, senior writer Lauren Ro met with him for his “What I Can’t Live Without” interview. Schwartzman showed Ro the phone case he got for his wife after reading Amelia Meath’s “What I Can’t Live Without” and a Pilot Varsity fountain pen he bought after reading Ottessa Moshfegh’s. The interview went on for nearly three hours over the course of two days, and the post became our most-viewed “What I Can’t Live Without” in 2024. Maybe it was thanks to his enthusiasm: for an airbrush he discovered on the set of Fargo, a light meter that was part of his research for Asteroid City, and Boggle Sit & Solvepuzzles. “He’s somebody that loves to learn. You can just see that in the way that he has chosen the items and how he talks about them and how he has thought about using them,” says Ro.

When we talked to the My Year of Rest and Relaxation author in 2022, she was newly “pajamas obsessed” and sleeping in J.Crew’s End-on-End Cotton Long-Sleeved Pajama Set, a recent acquisition at the time. Moshfegh was wearing the very same pajamas when we called recently: “I didn’t sleep, therefore didn’t sleep in [them], but have been in my pajamas since last night and have not changed because I’m hopeful to sleep more,” she told us. It was the pair that she bought the same year as the interview, and even now, four years later, she still hears from people about them. “I would say every six months or so, somebody tells me that they wear the same pajamas as me,” says Moshfegh.

Similar to Debi Mazar’s multi-hour interview, Samantha Irby’s went from a quick hit to a two-hour call. In the first 40 minutes, she chatted about everything from scam texts to The Real Housewives of Miami. Then she got down to her stuff: There was her Owala (which later led to our investigation into the new status water bottle), the oregano oil a hippie recommended to her at a co-op, and the Lectrofan sound machine she credits with keeping her “marriage intact.” When we spoke to Irby again recently, she told us that she still reads the column and bought the incense Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee burns. “In the way that I’m curious about people, I assume people would be curious about me,” she says. “What does a person who has diarrhea all the time wipe their ass with? You need to know what the real shitters use.” (Charmin UltraStrong rolls, in Irby’s case.)

We’ve regularly talked to people with particular, exacting, and exceptional taste over the years — and there might be no better example than designer John Derian. He’s consistent, too: We interviewed Derian in 2017 and again in 2023 and learned that he still used every single thing on his original list, including the Zig Memory System Calligraphy Dual Tip Marker and Tom’s of Maine Unscented Deodorant. “I think probably the first time I was just sort of like, I’m so basic,” jokes Derian. Basic or not, it turns out that he’s in good company with his recommendations: Danny Meyer also seasons with Maldon sea-salt flakes; Ana Gastayer wears the same deodorant brand, Schmidt’s; and Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Moisturizer SPF 30 protects Chloe Bailey in the Caribbean sun.

No “What I Can’t Live Without” has the number of comments that 91-year-old former talk-show host Sally Jessy Raphael’s 2025 column does: 112, as of the publication of this article. (That’s even more than the 87 left for Ballerina Farm’s Hannah Neeleman and Diane von Furstenberg’s 71.) As one reader wrote, “This is the apotheosis of the ‘Can’t Live Without’ column.” Others loved her Coke Zero Cherry and Sharpie markers. Not that Raphael is reading the comments: “I don’t ever look and see what anyone thinks. I never watch a show I’ve done. People say, ‘Well, haven’t you seen any movie you’ve been in?’ The answer is no,” says Raphael.

When we talked to Lena Dunham in 2017 for the column, she had just wrapped Girls.Nine years later, as Dunham’s memoir Famesick was about to come out, we checked back in to hear about her eBay and Etsy search terms — which we ran in our Secret Strategist newsletter — and her latest batch of things she can’t live without. Her updated list included the Ozlo Sleepbuds she learned about from Susan Orlean’s “What I Can’t Live Without” (both go to bed listening to true-crime podcasts) and Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman for “making choices about what’s important to you.” Readers took Dunham’s recommendations seriously; they were among the most-purchased items on the site this April. “I think Lena Dunham always knows what the hook is,” says Erin Schwartz, who spoke with Dunham over email, phone, and text. “Like the thing about all of her animals wanting to sit on the crystal infrared mat, I thought it was just such an indelible image of this sort of woo-woo mat and the rabbits flustered on it.”

“She really in so many ways, was humbly showing off that she has been on the forefront of a trend, with the Free City T-shirts being on Girlfriends and wearing Ruby Woo, for so long,” says senior writer Liza Corsillo of her call with Tracee Ellis Ross for the actress’s 2026 “What I Can’t Live Without.” Not long after, Corsillo got tickets to Tracee Ellis Ross’s Broadway show Every Brilliant Thing and she recognized Ross wearing a few things from her list, like the Levi’s 1950’s 701 jeans and Asics they talked about. Ross also told us she carried Alex Mill’s Perfect Weekend Tote (monogrammed with her initials, TER) to and from the theater as well. “It makes her feel like she’s part of the Strat family,” says Corsillo. (It was featured on the site as the perfect mom bag in 2025.)