10 Things That Delighted Us Last Week: From Perfect Boots to Tween Sweaters

Once Strategist contributor Fanny Singer’s daughter graduated from the rock-and-recline phase, it was finally time to replace the recliner-glider chair in her nursery with something more suitable to be “snuggled in, slept in, climbed on, and really used for years to come”: a face-meltingly comfortable, nontoxic chair-and-a-half. After considering a slew of chairs that were either too large, too expensive, or too synthetic, Singer landed on this one from Medley Home that’s made with natural, eco-certified, and high-quality materials. “My daughter — who calls it ‘my chair’ — loves crawling up into it and making a bed for herself and her dolls,” Singer writes. “It already looks and feels like it’s been in our family forever.”

“I am very particular about my glassware and have always felt that wineglasses are either too big or too small,” restaurateur Flynn McGarry told us. These glasses, which you’ll find in his new restaurant, Cove, are just right: “From a restaurant perspective, it’s large enough because you get all the scents, and it also appeases the person that wants the big wineglass,” he says. “But visually it has the right proportions to appease me, who doesn’t like these giant wineglasses.”

Though Strategist writer Dominique Pariso occasionally treats herself to a water-based facial, she was finding them too expensive to go often enough to see lasting changes to her skin. But now that she’s mastered Shark’s new at-home facial device that exfoliates, sculpts, and hydrates, she can give herself an at-home version of the treatment every week. “I’m excited to add it in alongside my LED mask and microcurrent device for a full, at-home facial experience,” she says.

“One thing I quickly realized is that with a newborn, every second counts, and even taking off a sweatshirt before changing a diaper can be the difference between war and peace,” writes Strategist contributor and new mom Oset Babür-Winter. She’s chosen (relative) peace by making this buttery-soft and wrinkle-free set that includes pants, a tank, and a robe her postpartum uniform. Best of all, she says, “I never have to worry about pushing up the perfectly cropped sleeves of the Storq kimono wrap, which stay out of diaper cream, Aquaphor, and, most important, bodily fluids on the changing table.”

Strategist writer Erin Schwartz was so taken with the rounded edges and stark angles of a lamp they spotted at Benthos, a vintage-clothing shop in Chinatown, that they asked the owner where it was from. He pointed Schwartz to designer Elijah Roth, who has been handmaking the lamp from laser-cut aluminum panels and a 3-D-printed light diffuser for statusy shops like Komune. “It’s kind of a different lamp, depending on which angle you’re looking at it,” says Roth.

“During New York Fashion Week last month, I noticed a surprising trend: Everyone was wearing toe shoes,” writes Schwartz in this week’s installment of “Strategist Brain.” As it turns out, they were, well, five toes ahead and already owned a few pairs of the new status shoe. “If I were to get a third pair, it would be these Roadaround shoes,” Schwartz adds. “I love the wide-set laces and chunky sneaker sole, which is blasphemy to barefoot-shoe evangelists but great for me.”

For Susan Orlean, these are the capital-P Perfect boots right from the heel to the toe. “I’ve been wearing these for probably at least 20 years,” she says, adding that while they’re incredibly sturdy, she goes through them because she wears them so often. “They’re just the boot,” she adds. “It’s got a stacked boot heel, and the toe is pointed without being so extremely pointed, but it’s definitely a pointed toe.”

It was only a matter of time before the Gap tapped Sandy Liang to create a collection full of Peter Pan–collar poplin shirts, faux-fur pullovers, and, of course, bows. “I’m guessing these pieces will go quicker than even the second edition of Gap x Dôen,” says our writer Ambar Pardilla. So if you’re not sure what to buy, take Pariso’s advice: “I’d recommend getting ahead of the deer-print trend now and buy the Bambi jacket.”

Our junior writer, Bella Druckman, recently found herself sandwiched between gaggles of tweens and teens at Soho’s Joe & The Juice. After spotting this zip-up cable-knit hoodie on no fewer than six of the wee shoppers, she says, “I wondered: Is this the new “It” sweater, taking over for the $38 dupe of Polo Ralph Lauren’s American-flag sweater that they told me they were shopping for six months ago on Tween Row?” With only a few fall days behind us, it’s too early to tell. But “with the same babysitting-cash-friendly price tag of $38 and a similar blend of cotton and acrylic, I’m willing to guess it’s a strong contender,” she adds.