Here and There #5
The best summer staples via Roxanne Assoulin, an awareness practice for travel/life from the genius Leigh Patterson of Moon Lists & inside Mediterranean grandmas’ kitchens with author Anastasia Miari
Summer Packing Diary: Roxanne Assoulin
It’s no secret we love a good travel uniform. So when Yolanda met jewelry designer Roxanne Assoulin at Il Pellicano’s 60th anniversary this summer and was “where’d you get that?” to every single thing Roxanne was wearing over the weekend, she asked her to share it all with us here. Known for her stackable maximalist jewelry beloved by fashion editors and stylists, Roxanne’s day-to-day look is surprisingly pared back and full of repeat favorites: the perfect tees, jeans, and a well-edited mix of classics she wears on heavy rotation, always in multiple colors. We talked to her about her summer travel uniform, packing routine and general style philosophy. —Carly Shea, contributing lifestyle editor
CS: Should we start head to toe? Those glasses are so cool—what are they?
RA: These are Oliver Peoples and Cucinelli glasses—they did a collaboration about five years ago and I guard them with my life. I have these tortoise reading glasses and one pair of black sunglasses. So I have one glasses case that I work out of, and one pair is always on my face and the other is in the case, because if I lose them, I'll kill myself. But that's the way I roll, usually. I find one thing I like and I'm in. And then if I buy something else—like, I went out and bought a pair of Miu Miu glasses—I can't even wear them. I don't even know who I am in them. So it's funny, someone takes a picture of me and I go, who is that?
CS: I’ve heard you’re a uniform dresser—in summer, what are your go-tos?
RA: So, in the summer, I wear Kule t-shirts and I love them in solid colors. I have—not exaggerating—four navy, four black, four white and two gray. And I rotate them because when I put them on, I look neat and it's easy. I wear them with my favorite jeans, which are from R 13. Those are my favorite jeans in the whole world, so I have them in white, dark blue, I have them in all colors and all shapes. I always say my style icon is a cross between Elsa Peretti and Cary Grant. I just love the way Cary Grant dressed back in the day, when he played To Catch A Thief or An Affair to Remember. I'm like, a little obsessed with him, but I still think there's a femininity to it. I'm not really a pant person anymore, it's too high maintenance for me, so I do jeans with a t-shirt or a big, oversized cotton shirt. I have old ones from Nili Lotan and The Row that I love. Hartford is also a great brand that I like for cotton shirts. And that's my day-to-day work uniform. I'm giving you all my secrets, because when we do photo shoots people literally DM me, “What's on the model? What's all the clothing?” but it's all my clothes.
CS: Well, now you can just send them the link to this and say, read it all!
RA: Oh my god, I'm so happy. I buy good things and wear them for a long time. I don't like things with a logo, but I like luxury. So every year or two I would buy The Row’s sweaters, maybe two from a season. And then I collect them, so I have a ton of them and I wear them to death. If the moths go near them, I just give it to my cleaners and ask them to sew up the holes. I’m not so precious with my stuff, I just like to wear it. So for summer that’s what I wear. I have a Phoebe Philo belt that I have in black and brown, and thick and thin, literally four belts that are the same, because I'm crazy. I want to wear it with jeans that have a small belt loop, I want to wear it with jeans that have a big belt loop. And I wear bandanas. Usually they're 45 RPM. It's a Japanese brand—I love their bandanas. For shoes, I change. I used to like Birkenstocks, but I don't really want to wear them anymore. I have a Saint Laurent sandal that I wear all the time. And this Phoebe Philo sandal that has a little heel, so I wear it with anything that's dressy. For sneakers I'll wear Jack Purcells.
CS: And for the beach?
RA: I have a pair of The Row sandals that I wear to the beach—I won't wear leather to the beach because I don't want to ruin anything. And then I wear a pinstripe Kule t-shirt. I wear long sleeves, not short sleeves, or I’ll wear a linen shirt with these drawstring linen pants that I bought in Australia about eight years ago from the brand Frockk. Now I just buy them online, and those are my beach pants. And then I wear Donni pants sometimes, too. I only wear one bathing suit, the Eres aquarelle. I have it in every color except pastel.
CS: When you're dressing up in the summer, are you a dress person?
RA: No, I never wear dresses. I don't dress up that much anymore, just because my friends don't dress up like that anymore. Even if it's a big dinner, I'll wear a pair of The Row cotton pants with a nicer t-shirt. R 13 does a pink jean, but it's the same kind of jean that I always wear. So I'll wear that with a brown shirt. And I never really get dolled up. The only time I got dolled up was at Il Pellicano, and even then it's the same thing—I wore a white long skirt with a sandal that's so similar to the sandal that I wear every day, but it has a little heel. And I wore a red or a navy sweater. For that kind of stuff, I'll go to Prada to find a nice skirt, but I usually wear it with one of my sweaters. And I won't wear a t-shirt at night for dressing up.
CS: Do you have any bags you love for summer?
RA: Yes, this bag I wear in the summer out at the beach I bought maybe 10 years ago from Tiina's in Amagansett. I wear it all the time around here to do errands. It’s been my summer bag for the past 10 years. And then the love of my life is my beach bag from 45 RPM. It's originally a rice bag. I also have a big plain straw bag that I throw my towels in, and then this is my night bag from The Row, which I buy in black and brown. I always buy things in two colors. Loafers I buy in two colors, jeans I buy in white, tan, and black, but then I wear them for a long time.
CS: When you're flying do you have a specific outfit that you always repeat?
RA: Yeah, I'm not a sweatpant person. I do not like sweatpants or active wear. I bought a pair of The Row jersey pants and a t-shirt and leather jacket that were really nice and I gave a try coming home from Italy, but it didn’t work. I just like looking nice on the plane. I think that it's something my mom taught me—she used to wear suits on the plane back in the day. But I just like going on and coming off the plane looking okay. So I do wear a baggy jean and a long sleeve t-shirt with a navy sweater over it, and then I have a Moncler vest and a jacket that I wear on top because I'm always freezing. So that's my plane uniform.
CS: How are you accessorizing this summer?
RA: For jewelry, I keep giving mine away, and then I end up with nothing in my house. But I have a tubular collection that I just love so much. We did these rings and a little cuff, and a necklace that's all very plain so it doesn’t look like I'm trying too hard. Again, I don't love labels. I love cashmere, I love luxury, but no one needs to know anything. So I design jewelry for myself, because I really don't want to go out and spend $10,000 on a necklace or a bracelet. So, you know, I just make it and then it's like, $120.
I also don't wear things on me that are recognizable from my line, because I get a little self conscious if people ask “Oh are you the designer?” But I'll wear one thing—like the whole time at Pellicano I wore this one necklace which was a prototype. But it’s just one pearl on a leather cord. And everyone was asking about it, and I had to say, “Not until next year, hon.”
CS: Ha! What about suitcases? Do you have one that you love?
RA: Yes. I use the Rimowa trunk all the time. I think it's great, because when you open it things don't fall out. It zips on top—the top is small and the bottom section is big. So I check that, and I'm so afraid of it being overweight, so I have this little thing that slides on top of it that I also check. I put all my books, makeup, anything that's heavy in the bag on top. I bring five books with me wherever I go, I'm a book person—I can't read on a Kindle. I can't read on a computer, like, I can't even read an email. And then I bring a wheelie, because I don't want to carry a bag. I check the trunk, and the bag that has makeup, a hair dryer, anything that's heavy. And then I carry on a small Rimowa and an old Hermès bucket garden bag that's my travel bag. Everything is black, which is easy and it all goes.
But, I’m the worst packer. Instead of packing enough for seven days, I packed for 21 days. I packed enough shirts for 21 days in case I wanted to wear a white shirt every day, forgetting that we can clean them in hotels. You know, I'm always learning, too. But the one thing about the Pellicano which was great, is that everyone had more luggage than I did. I thought I came with luggage, and then I looked around, and I went, whoa, oh my god. I'm so golden.
THE RECIPE: Tarta de Limón
Greek-born writer Anastasia Miari has lived in Sicily and the South of France, is married to an Italian, and has traveled widely through Spain, the Balkans, the Levant, and North Africa—so when it comes to the Mediterranean, she gets it. After a decade in London making slow-cooked lamb with orzo instead of Sunday roast, she moved back to the region and began working on Mediterranea, the book she wished she had back then. Mediterranea is her third book celebrating grandmothers, following Grand Dishes and Yiayia. Because it’s impossible to transcribe a grandma’s recipe over the phone (where measurements like “a splash” or “a drop” are often misconstrued in translation or gesticulation), Anastasia traveled to each woman's home to cook with them—meticulously weighing, tasting, and recording each detail as they cooked. The result is a deeply textured, vibrant collection of stories and recipes from across the Mediterranean basin: from French grand-mères, Spanish abuelas, Italian nonnas and Greek yiayades, to Turkish büyükanne, Tunisian jaddat, Croatian bake, and more.
The photos were all taken in their real kitchens and gardens as the sun was setting, or in some cases, with full flash in the dark after a long day of prep. As we flipped through the book, past beautiful photos of women who are a billboard for the Mediterranean diet, we stopped at a photo that was our instant favorite: Tita, in her farmhouse kitchen in Soller, Mallorca, feeding a horse who had wandered in to say hello. Anastasia said that morning as she gathered lemons and eggs from Tita’s enormous garden, horses, dogs, and family members all passed back and forth through the kitchen.
The recipe they made together was a lemon tart that Tita’s mother taught her to make over forty years ago, that she still makes on a weekly basis. Her tip: “The key to the filling is to cook it very slowly over a low heat so that the eggs don’t scramble. I use the eggs from my own chickens which I think also adds to its flavour. Good quality eggs from hens that are happy and free to roam are the only eggs one should eat.”
Tarta de Limón
For the base
200g of plain flour
60g of sugar
100g of unsalted butter
One egg yolk
30g of water
Filling
200ml of lemons - juice of 4 lemons
160g of sugar
6 eggs
Preheat oven to 190 degrees fan and then grease and line a 28cm tart tin
With a stand mixer combine the flour, sugar, butter and one yolk of an egg with 30g of water. Combine well with the stand mixer and take out and work the dough for a minute with some flour sprinkled on the work surface then spread into the base of your tart dish, pushing the base out along the bottom of your dish with your fingers, making sure it comes up the side of your dish. (Tita does this by dropping the ball of pastry dough into the centre of the tin and spreading it out to the sides of the tart dish and up past the edges with her fingertips, ensuring the base and sides are even). The crust will shrink in the oven so it’s a good precaution to have the pastry rise slightly over the sides of the dish.
Place your base in the fridge for 30 minutes to cool and for the butter to set and harden. Then bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown while you prepare the filling.
In a saucepan combine the sugar with the lemon juice then crack in your eggs and gently turn on the stove to a low setting. Whisk gently and continuously over a low heat, taking care not to scramble the eggs. They must cook slowly and come together like a custard.
Once the crust is golden, pour the egg and lemon mix into the tart dish then leave in the fridge to cool for a minimum of 30 minutes.
Mediterranea by Anastasia Miari with photographs by Marco Argüello (Quadrille, £28), publishes 31st July
YOU SHOULD MEET…. Leigh Patterson, founder of Moon Lists and the creative studio, Lucca
I met Leigh ages ago—I had to go back in the email archives to figure out when. Our first exchange was in July 2015, when she interviewed me for a project she was doing with A Piece Apart. Then in 2018, we reconnected when she asked me to take part in another project of hers, Moon Lists. Even though we’ve never met in person, there’s just something so magical about the way Leigh’s brain works. I love her thoughtful, quietly radical way of seeing the world—when I read anything she writes, I feel moved and inspired as I was back in my college days and read John Berger’s Ways of Seeing. Moon Lists is a kind of call to attention—like a guided journal, it invites you to slow down and notice the subtleties in daily life, but without any of the rigidity or pressure that can accompany it.
Leigh’s excellent Substack is full of inspiration, built around prompts for everything from “getting closer to your own edge” (“what’s been your most elegant way of saying no lately?”) or “verifying your humanity” (“what’s something that’s happened to you that is so bizarre it sounds made up?”). There are so many good ones, she turned them into a book, which makes an amazing gift, as do her little field guide notebooks, each one tailored to specific frameworks like finding the everyday in the profound or prompts for a heatwave). It’s also clear that these reflections echo through her creative work at her studio Lucca, for clients like our friends at Antica Terra to the Gjelina group who share her soulful, depth-seeking approach.
We were excited for this Q&A for many reasons. Personally, because I finally got to interview her (I may have been a fan before, but after this, especially all the pen talk…superfan!). But also for all of us, because we think her series of prompts for travelers, which get under the skin of all phases of a journey—from the expanded headspace of being somewhere new, to the complicated feelings that can surface on a return voyage—are just so good. I talked to her recently on Zoom (our first time seeing each other!) and we’re working on some custom travel prompts for you soon. But in the meantime here’s a bit more about Leigh, plus a few of our favorite travel prompts from her.
How would you describe Moon Lists to the uninitiated, and when did you make your first one?
Moon Lists is a low-commitment, journal-adjacent project about better noticing. I publish workbooks and write monthly lists of prompts for people who don’t like prompts: questions designed for thinking in sharper, more specific ways and seeing life less generically.
It’s not really about journaling in the traditional sense… it’s about learning to see your own life more clearly. About tracking what’s been occupying your brain, noticing patterns, and taking inventory of the present.
I’ve been working on Moon Lists for nearly a decade, though it’s taken many formats over the years. It started as an interview series exploring other people’s responses to prompts, then in 2019, I published the first workbook.
Have you always been a journaler? What is your preferred medium?
I’ve always liked writing, but the most meaningful kind for me happens more through note-taking, close reading, and short observational bursts of writing rather than anything longform. Love a jot!
My favorite notebook is the unlined A5 Midori.
My favorite pen is the ZEBRA Sarasa .5mm Gel Pen (especially in their slightly “off” colors - they make a great soft black, navy, and brown). I also love a very precise, thin-tipped marker for list-making or quick notes, and especially these Teranishi “Magic Pens.” (I like these specific pen/markers so much that on my last trip to Tokyo I got a wholesale account, bought an extra suitcase, and schlepped back a bulk order of all the hard-to-find colors to stock them (soon) on Moon Lists. I am aware none of the above is normal behavior.) I have also written more about notebooks and pens in Substack posts.
Tell us about your professional creative life with Lucca studio – who are some of your clients and what do you do for them? How has the attention you’ve cultivated for Moon Lists helped your creative life?
I started Lucca as a studio for editorial projects that resist easy categorization. I collaborate with artists, designers, brands, and institutions to develop books, longform campaigns, and narrative frameworks… usually beginning with the work of articulating what matters most. The process is often inquiry-driven, rooted in research, and shaped by language. Some of my ongoing past and present clients are Le Labo, Antica Terra winery, J.Hannah jewelry, Saie beauty, Literary Sport, Proper Hospitality, Canyon Coffee, and many artists, filmmakers, and researchers.
Over time, I’ve learned I’m most useful when I’m helping identify what’s missing, getting to the depths of an idea, or naming what’s already there but hasn’t yet been seen clearly.
Moon Lists functions as a kind of litmus test that everything else filters through. Writing prompts each month and making the books gives me a way to take inventory of my own brain and organize my inputs. It’s helped me stay aligned with a way of working that feels relevant and productive, but also intentionally non-formulaic…and allows me to follow the more circuitous route when that’s the one that feels true.
How often do you travel?
Very frequently. Between January and July of this year, I was home for maybe a month total. I’m currently in the process of uprooting entirely: moving out of my house in Los Angeles and stepping into a new chapter (but unsure exactly where that will end up).
I feel incredibly lucky to have the kind of flexibility that allows for this kind of movement, and that I’m in a position to say yes to the possibilities in front of me. I don’t really think of life as segmented into “travel” and “real life”...it all feels mashed together in a way that’s become natural. I’m at my best when I’m in a state of transition.
Do you prefer quiet places where you can retreat and reflect?
Sometimes. I love going to quiet places with friends and/or my husband, where we can fully zone out, swim, make elaborate dinners, and have long, looping conversations that don’t always surface otherwise. But I don’t tend to seek out remote solitude for long stretches. I can spiral a little too easily inside my own head.
If I’m traveling alone, I prefer being in a city where I can walk, listen, observe, have dinners at the hotel bar. I love traveling solo, but I find it more generative for me in environments with energy and movement, rather than total stillness.
Do you plan in depth before a trip and then find you are always in a state of trying to meet expectations? Or are you a more spontaneous/go-with-the-flow traveler?
I cannot escape my Virgo default wiring and love research and planning. That said, I have no problem abandoning it once I’m there. My general attitude is to come prepared… but go with the flow in the moment.
Where have you been recently that you adored?
Hotel Borgo de Mer in Marseille. A beachside hotel where your room opens directly onto the sea, which was totally unexpected. Don’t skip the basement sauna!
What place has most surprised you? (In a good or bad way!)
Teshima Island, Japan (advice was to go and not look anything up, and I’m really glad we listened).
What places have most inspired you creatively?
Far West Texas. Parts of Tuscany (the namesake of Lucca). Tokyo. Copenhagen. Orcas Island. Each place has held something different for me.
Takeoffs and landings: Do you ever get especially contemplative when a plane is taking off or landing? Do you have any rituals around these passages?
I always listen to the same song during takeoff. Not exactly superstition, but more because I’ve done it so many times it’s become a kind of internal barometer. I can tell who I was at different times just by remembering how the song felt, whether I was leaving feeling like I wanted to escape or returning with relief, etc. Just a little built-in check-in point that helps me see where I’m at.
Aisle or window seat?
Window.
What’s the best meal you’ve had while traveling?
My ideal meal is a long lunch in the sun at Rochelle Canteen: fish, salad, bread, wine. But also: tortellini in brodo and artichoke frittata at Trattoria Sostanza in Florence. Or a grilled red bean mochi from the vendors at the Toji Market flea in Kyoto with a coffee.
How do you ground yourself in a new place/hotel room?
I am very connected to certain fragrances and always bring a box of Bodha “Calm” incense (it's smokeless so you won’t set off the alarm!) which just smells like home to me. A friend told me she always buys a bouquet of flowers when she’s in a hotel room which I’ve always found so incredibly chic. Maybe I’ll try it this month while I’m en route.
Here are five of our favorite travel prompts from Leigh’s series. You can see the full posts here in Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
Limbo
Waiting to board the train. Mid-flight. Sitting on the sidewalk before dinner. Travel requires specific intervals of waiting around, transition, and locomotion — recall a memorable moment that took place during a state of limbo.
Impossible Story
Anthony Bourdain: “To sit alone or with a few friends, half-drunk under a full moon, you just understand how lucky you are; it's a story you can't tell.” Recall an experience that may not have warranted a retelling…and yet its impact lingers.
(Abstract) Souvenir
Beans on toast. An outfit pairing, observed (i.e., a man dressed entirely in shades of tomato). A scoop of ice cream served with a chilled thimbleful of fernet. A stranger’s specific je ne sais quoi….
Take note of an idea, a pairing, a nugget of intangible ephemera you’ll bring back with you (perhaps to incorporate into your own life or try on for a while).
Touchstone To-Go
I have two friends who always carry a little something in their pocket. Brad keeps a stone. Maggie, a brass-cast acorn. And the times they’ve emptied their pockets in front of me to reveal that yes, it’s still there, I’m a little awed by the dedication: keys, wallet, phone, acorn.
What’s your version of the stone or acorn? Not necessarily something you literally carry in your pocket, but an object that holds the same “here I am” energy…something that means more to you than it lets on.
Lens Cleaner
Identify something that has found a refined clarity through distance — something that has become more clear about life at “home” through time “away.”
This lineup was the essence of late summer, captured perfectly in a blog post in all 3 features. Well done!
Roxanne’s style is perfect. Elegant and confident yet casual and comfortable.