Carly’s Cut, Vol. 7

Carly is back with the seventh installment of Carly’s Cut. You can read her last one here. If you are new here, Carly is The Stripe’s Creative Projects Manager. She has such great taste that I wanted to give her a monthly column. Think of her as our younger buddy, telling us what we should know about!

February. The month of love, the tail end of winter, and mercifully the shortest stretch on the calendar. Short as it is, it passed in a blur, and I’m a little sad to see it go. I’m not usually sentimental about months or seasons (this is coming from someone actively begging for warmer days), but this one treated me especially well.

Maybe it’s the sense of momentum building, or maybe I’m just feeling unusually content with where things stand right now, but I’ve got a good feeling about what’s ahead. Ideally, that future involves a little more shopping, a lot more home-cooked meals with friends, and enough quiet time to recharge before diving headfirst into whatever comes next.

Carly’s Cut, Vol. 7

Shopped //

This cold weather has been nothing short of a drag. I know I spent months begging for a slight chill in the air, but after getting stranded in New York during the Big Blizzard, I am more than ready for Charleston’s blooming, breezy spring. Grace and I have been having increasingly anxious conversations about warm-weather dressing, mostly because neither of us feels particularly eager to face our closets once the temperature climbs. Fall and winter in Charleston, however brief, make room for layering and accessorizing in a way that feels expressive and considered. After March, that sense of play gets a little harder to hold onto.

We’ve turned to Substack and Pinterest for guidance, but somewhat surprisingly, most of my recent inspiration has come straight from brand sites. A few clicks through the usual suspects like Rachel Comey, Maryam Nassir Zadeh, Caron Callahan, and others in that orbit and suddenly warm-weather dressing felt a little less intimidating and a lot more interesting.

Somewhere in the middle of all that scrolling, I landed on what feels destined to be my next seasonal shoe fixation: a wedge sandal. Not just any wedge, but the Olympia wedge from Maryam Nassir Zadeh. The moment I saw it, something in my brain clicked into place, and I could not shake the feeling that it was exactly what I had been missing. Every spring and summer seems to bring a new silhouette to obsess over. We have cycled through flip-flops, kitten heels, and everything in between. I was hesitant at first, but once Grace added a pair of Alaïa suede wedges to her wardrobe, I started to feel vindicated in the direction my brain was heading.

In full transparency, the real momentum came from a handful of pairs I spotted on The RealReal, which always turns the search into a mild sport since everything disappears so quickly. A few that have stuck with me include these whipstitch trim espadrilles from Valentino, these t-strap sandals from Prada, these mini bow espadrilles from Tory Burch, these thong sandals from Rarely Alike, and a strappy gold hardware pair from Proenza Schouler. Consider this both a record of the hunt and a warning that I am fully committed to the wedge chapter.

Watched //

In what felt like a slightly unhinged plea to Terrace Theater, my friends and I like to believe we personally generated enough buzz to keep No Other Choice in theaters for a few extra days. Whether that is true or not is beside the point. In the best possible way, the film felt like Parasite’s chaotic cousin, echoing similar themes and tonal swings while carving out something distinctly its own.

We slipped into a late-night showing and ended up with the theater entirely to ourselves, which meant we had full permission to react however the moment demanded. We laughed, gasped, muttered commentary under our breath, and fully surrendered to the experience in a way that rarely feels possible in a packed room. There is something strangely perfect about watching a movie like this in near-total isolation.

Lately, I have developed a small ritual of logging my thoughts on Letterboxd immediately after the credits roll, then falling down the rabbit hole of other people’s takes. The responses to this one were more divided than I expected, but the humor absolutely delivered. A few reviewers called it “the LinkedIn version of Squid Games” and a “crime-ridden Dunder Mifflin,” which honestly gets closer to the spirit of the film than any formal synopsis ever could. Without spoiling too much, I cannot recommend Park Chan-wook’s darkly funny masterpiece enough.

Read //

My reading life lately, to the surprise of absolutely no one, has settled into a proper slow burn. The book I picked up last month works perfectly for that pace. It’s a collection of short stories that makes it easy to drop in and out whenever reading fits into the margins of the day.

In a slightly unconventional turn for this month’s reading roundup, the pages I’ve really been devouring, pun very much intended, belong to Alison Roman’s latest cookbook, Something from Nothing. In my opinion, it’s her best one yet. The recipes feel distinctly Roman but more relaxed and approachable, the kind of meals you can pull together from what’s already sitting in the pantry, which makes the title feel especially spot-on.

My loose plan for the coming months is to cook my way through the book. Not in order, not particularly methodically, but eventually in full. Alison and I will be spending a lot of time together in the kitchen, and my stomach has absolutely no objections.

Saved //

February has delivered a steady stream of exciting newness. In one of my recent therapy sessions, I admitted that I want to start meeting change with curiosity instead of anxiety, and this month decided to take that request very seriously. One thing after another arrived: a new car, a new job, and most thrilling of all, a new apartment. For the first time in my life, I’ll be living alone. Wild, honestly. I cannot wait to make the space entirely my own.

In a slightly unexpected twist, I’m probably most excited about overhauling the kitchen in a way that actually makes me want to cook. If there’s one thing about me, it’s that I love following a recipe and I follow one well. Depending on the day, that makes time in the kitchen either nerve-racking or completely seamless. Recently I came across a photo of a kitchen from one of Grace’s mutuals, and it stopped me mid-scroll. Lizzy Hadfield has long been one of my favorite follows, and funnily enough I was drawn in by her home content well before her fashion or book recommendations.

What I love most about her space is how intentional it feels. Everything has a place, but nothing feels overly precious. It looks inviting and lived in in the best way, the kind of kitchen that quietly promises very good meals ahead. It is exactly the kind of energy I want to carry into this next chapter. If you want your home to feel Lizzy inspired as well, you can start with this ambient table lamp from Louis Poulsen, these stainless steel shelves, and this funky moka pot.

Ate //

There is simply no such thing as a casual trip to New York. Every visit demands a fully mapped-out eating schedule: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and whatever falls in between. My boyfriend had been toughing out one of the more brutal Northeast winters in recent years, so to celebrate his final weekend as a New Yorker, I flew up with a very clear agenda. We would eat, drink, shop, and frolic our way across as many boroughs as time allowed. Naturally, a pretty major snowstorm had other plans, and we ended up spending more time than expected tucked inside his studio apartment. Still, we managed to do some serious eating before the city froze over.

He was staying just a stone’s throw from two of my most cherished restaurants, Rolo’s and Ops, which felt less like a coincidence and more like fate. I like to think of myself as an early Rolo’s devotee, long before the Jeremy Allen White frenzy sent everyone scrambling for a table. On a Friday night we somehow walked in during peak dinner hours with no reservation and were seated immediately, a minor miracle by New York standards. Sitting across from him at a candlelit table with a double cheeseburger, lasagna verde, and a perfectly crisp gin-and-sherry martini felt like stepping straight back into my mid-twenties. The room smelled exactly as I remembered, warm and familiar, but the moment itself felt entirely new.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing in New York, but my best trips have been the ones where old favorites make room for new memories. If you ever find yourself in Ridgewood, consider this your sign to pay the Rolo’s team a visit.

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