Kate Berlant’s Merrells
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This roundup of things we liked this week originally appeared in the May 1, 2025 edition of theSecret Strategistnewsletter, a weekly email where we share the stuff our staff — plus a rotating cast of writers, design-world people, and various others with very good taste — would otherwise keep to themselves. If you want to get our picks straight to your inbox each week, sign uphere.
All the housewares at the newly expanded50 Normanin Greenpoint are amazing — nowhere better for fancy little giftable ceramics — but we’re really obsessed with Cafe O’te’s washi-paper-wrapped bar by Wataru Hatano. Alsocustom-engraved knives. —Simone Kitchens, Lauren Ro, and Erin Schwartz
This Week’s List
* Julia Felsenthal just snapped up some deeply discountedCharlap Hyman & Herreroplates from a trusted source, theHousing Works auction.
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* In a search for a kerchief, Erin found these incredible ones by Takeo Kikuchi —lotsofexquisitewovenswhere thepatternhappens “on the loom” and somegreatprints, too.
* Helen Rice, owner of Charleston’sPonytail, let us in on her framing trick: “I order the frames and mats fromAmericanframe.com, but I pass on the acrylic and get glass cut locally. Any of the natural woods are great. I also get the silver painted wood. It ends up being a good deal less! I’ve been buying great art books and framing pages. Have lots of great ones for this purpose atPonytail.” Our own Liza Corsillo alsowroteabout the service back in 2019.
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* Did you know Zoe Latta (of Eckhaus Latta) writes an excellent shopping newsletter calledRotting on the Vine? (Sign uphere; some of the archive is onSubstack.) “It started as just like the weird vintage sweaters and stuff I was saving. It’s only been a couple months, but I love doing it. I’m gonna do a baby issue soon.” Latta also just told us at the Strategist how she’dredo her registrynow that she’s pregnant with her second kid. She’s big into hand-me-downs, including resale sites likeParachute Brooklyn, and vintage kids stuff she finds on Etsy. She sent us some things she’s seen around, but hasn’t yet bought herself, to share with theSecret Strategistreadership:French Babar jumpsuit;1950s bird mobile;appliqué quilt;celluloid mobile;alphabet quilt;Ramblin’ Rose pink wool sweater;’80s elephant undershirt;’70s “hiking” long-sleeved ringer.
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* Lauren foundthese $10 cashmere-blend socksfrom Calzedonia that could pass for100 percent silk ones from Miu Miu. A closer dupe would be these 85 percent silk socks fromFalke, but the Calzedonias were too well priced to pass up, especially since the site runs a buy-three-get-three-free deal. (Phillip Limwears a version of them, too.)
* We noticedKate Berlant, who’s performing in London this week, take the stage in a beat-up pair of our favoriteMerrells, so we asked her about them: “My lesbian boyfriend turned me onto these — I can take no credit for ‘discovering’ them. However, it is worth noting that my father exclusively wore these for years and they are burned into my subconscious as a result. They are the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn. I breezed through 25,000 steps in Paris in them and I want to trademark the term ‘the Merrell effect,’ in which you are more likely to explore a city and perhaps accomplish more in life if you can remain this light on your feet. I once regarded them as sexless, but now see them as a direct portal to the erotic. Sometimes when I step into them, I shake my head in disbelief.”
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Check These Out Too
We spotted some sconces at the newElder Statesman shopand pendants hanging in our favorite cool plant nursery,Takata, both by Moch Hahn, who’s long had a fine-art practice and now apparently makes lighting and furniture under his studio project,Cadis. He told us about how he makes some of his hemp-silk-and-resin lamps:
“I started making the shades to go with some of these hand-bentwood pieces. This was during COVID, and I was in Nashville. It mutated out of that. I got a little bit more comfortable with the lighting and it expanded into what it is now. The hemp silk is sourced from a spot out in Colorado, and then I send it to my friendCara Marie Piazza, who hand-dyes it with various natural dyes. We’ll try to work out some colors and kind of experiment with that. Then I’ll bring it to my studio and cut it out into various pieces, then sew it all together to create some type of volume, which becomes the lampshades. And then they get resin to harden them.
* It’s probably closer to fine art in the sense that I don’t really plan or draw or design; I kind of just take what I have and work through it. I bounce around, but right now, at this moment, I’m working with copper, enamel, hemp silk, and steel. Just this weird mutation of all of them. Elder Statesman purchased the sconce through Michael Bargo. I didn’t even know it was in the store. But I appreciate that a piece can live on its own.”
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The Strategistis designed to surface useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Every product is independently selected by our team of editors, whom you can read abouthere. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.
