August Love Letter: A Suitcase Full of Favorites

The pieces that carried me through eight days in Spain.

This love letter is to the clothes I never have to think twice about.

When I pack for trips like this, I pack the way I always do — a handful of well-chosen pieces that mix and match into full outfits, that feel great to wear and hold up in a lot of situations. These days that mostly means Elizabeth Suzann and Aliya Wanek.

But before I get into the actual clothes — a small step back. When I started Safran Everyday, I was thinking a lot about the slow fashion movement, and Safran came out of wanting those same ideals applied to small home goods: thoughtful colors, thoughtful design, good materials, things that are well made and actually function well. I needed a toilet paper roll holder, and what I really wanted was the Elizabeth Suzann version of one — something made with that same care, that I'd trust and keep using instead of replacing.

So packing for eight days of bike touring in Basque Country and Cantabria, my bike clothes aside, I brought Elizabeth Suzann Petra tops in blue and white linen — cropped just right, fitted just right, the kind of top I don't even have to think about pairing with anything.

My red silk Florence pants, wide-leg, with pockets Old Flame Mending added a while back — maybe the best money I've ever spent on an alteration — silk that feels almost dreamy to wear, somehow dressed up and completely relaxed at once. And a couple of Aliya Wanek pieces: a dark green cotton matching short-and-top set, so comfy I basically lived in it, and a black jumpsuit that took me from the beach straight to dinner without a second thought.

Both brands are minimalist in the way I'm always drawn to — sturdy, considered, nothing extra. And then I just... didn't think about clothes again for a week and a half.

Every morning, whatever I grabbed worked, fit right, looked like me. It wasn't until we were deep into the trip that I realized how rare that actually is — how much of my daily life usually involves some small negotiation with what I'm wearing, and how none of that happened here.

We'd taken the shorter route on purpose that day, to leave room to stop. What looked like a couple of tents from the road turned into a full market once we got closer. It was hot — the kind of hot that made sense once we learned Novales is known for its lemons, some quirk of microclimate that lets them grow there.

We were near the end of the ride, coming down a hill into a town called Novales — Cantabria, known for its lemons of all things, some microclimate quirk that lets them grow there — on our way from San Vicente de la Barquera to Llanes.

We got lemonade from a stand there and it might be the best I've ever had. Matt disappeared into the vintage stalls almost immediately, the way he does, and came back later with things he'd decided on easily.

I went stall to stall on my own, and there was a cover-up — with bright green and pink embroidery, more pattern than I'd normally wear — that I looked at for a long time and never bought. I couldn't get past whether I'd actually reach for it once I was home, or whether it would just become one more thing hanging in the closet.

I don't think I made the wrong call. But standing there, comparing it to how easy the rest of the trip had been, clothes-wise, I noticed something: the ease I feel with my Elizabeth Suzann and Aliya Wanek pieces isn't really about the pieces themselves.

It's that I've worn them, washed them, mended them, worn them again, until they stopped being decisions and just became mine. That kind of trust doesn't happen in a market stall in an afternoon. It has to be built.

It's a lot of what I think about running Safran, too — not sustainability as a slogan, but that same idea: fewer things, made well, that you actually keep reaching for, until they're not a choice anymore. I want the things I make to earn that, the way my Petra top has, the way those pants have. Not everything gets to be a bright green and pink cover-up from a market in Cantabria. But I'd love for more things to get the chance to become as unremarkable — in the best way — as the clothes I never think twice about.

Truly,
Maia