Wave Hello: Mary Meyer Keeps Things Clean

If your poolside look is all over the place—or if you don’t have a beachy look at all (shame! ish!)—follow kick-ass designer Mary Meyer’s lead and go monochromatic. Here’s how she rolls. —erica

Mary showing us what she’s made of in the Dominican Republic.

“My beach essential is anything white: white bikini, white tee, white tank, white coverup— anything. It feels right.” —mary

Get more seaside tips right over here!

Wave Hello: Susan Domelsmith of Dirty Librarian Chains Ties On a (Silky) Beach Accessory

The super-stylin’ designers we work with know how to make the most of their rare chances to stow the needles and pliers and head to the water. Here, wave-jumper extraordinaire Susan Domelsmith of the rad jewelry line Dirty Librarian Chains (proof!) shares one of the things she tosses in her beach tote. 

Yes, we know: She’s disgustingly adorable.

“I try to always bring a headscarf to the beach to tame the post wave-jumping frizzies. My favorites have come from vintage or thrift stores—I have this insane one that depicts a leopard sitting in a tree of flowers…but the leopard is made out of leaves for some reason. Folding the squares once into a triangle and then tying two of the corners together at the nape of my neck seems to work the best for me.” —susan

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Oh, this is just your average, everyday hide-shaped zebra towel with its own leather holster, by way of  those rascals over at Maslin & Co (named for Australia’s first nude beach). —erica

Cook & Gates Makes Tote Bags Gallery-Worthy

And piles in enough sand for a faux beach party.

Ethan Cook and Sara Gates turned their hand-dyed, aesthetically complicated bags into the sort of art pieces that earn gallery shows—as evidenced by the one they held at Live With Animals in Williamsburg. Here, Sara, who now runs the biz on her own, explains how the whole thing—including the massive fabric waves—came together.


“That gallery space is actually pretty big—you can do whatever you want. We had these grandiose plans to build rooms and cover everything with our fabric, and we realized it was just too much. I asked Ethan what would be the most inconvenient thing to make out of fabric, and his first response was, ‘Liquid.’ We were like, ‘Let’s make an ocean!’ and went from there.”


“I bought a 1,000-yard roll of canvas, and we used almost all of it. We built a structure out of wood and chicken wire and used fabric stiffener to create the ocean. We did this whole line of beach-bag-like bags, and we made blankets with Mary Meyer.”


“We had a closing party, and surf bands played in the ocean. The whole thing was quite a construction project—it was great, but it was an undertaking. I’ve done installations but nothing this huge. The waves were probably eight or ten feet tall.”


“We had a ton of sand. To do something so simple like that and alter the entire space—we could have not built the ocean at all and just had sand on the floor and still changed the whole experience. You can get caught up in wanting to do bigger and to do more, but we’ve found that keeping things simple and to-the-point always makes it better—a better bag, a better installation, whatever.”

Don’t miss out on the bag Sara made just for us: It’ll serve you well the last few weekends of beach season and carry you straight through the fall.

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For those beachy days when it isn’t quite warm enough to be wearing a teeny swimsuit for five hours straight, throw on this knit kaftan from 6 Shore Road, a line that’s all about the stuff you want to wear for a post-sun Corona with lime. —erica

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How shall we describe this swimsuit by New Zealand designer Emma Ford? Edgy sweet?

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I’m a sucker for chambray—and Apolis Activism, as I’ve mentioned before.

(via free-man)

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We Are Handsome swimsuits, looking even more fun than usual.

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From Pret-a-Surf’s debut collection of swimwear that can handle the water—and a wipeout or two. The line is designed by wave lovers Karen Mulligan (Annie Leibovitz’s studio manager) and Jillian Demling (Vogue’s entertainment editor).