Gift Guide Part 1

You know what time it is. 🎁

23 Nov

Holiday recommendations from the Dirt team.

Daisy Alioto, Dirt co-founder 

SKIMS boxer briefs for your #1 guy, Blue Bottle Instant Coffee for your reply guy, Ametora for the person you’re secretly in love with, The Beginners by Anne Serre for the person that’s secretly in love with you. Tragedy Oil by Marissa Zappas for someone you plan to haunt.

Zach Bryan on vinyl for your dad or your mom, Bialetti x Dolce&Gabbana for your best friend, “Get used to disappointment” hat for your coworker. This LA Apparel sweatsuit for the girl who makes you want to run through a wall. This mini gold KARA bag for the girl that always dresses up for New Year’s. 

A rare Superstudio book for your sugar baby. Molchat Doma on vinyl for your emotional support ex-boyfriend. The perfect date with someone you want to break your heart: La Mercerie followed by The Earth Room. 

For yourself: Wolford tights that will last forever, a Mejuri ear cuff comfortable enough to sleep in, monogrammed J Crew cashmere (if you get “Dirt” send us a pic for a free subscription), a king cake from Gambino’s––pre-order for Mardis Gras and forget about it. Best surprise ever??

Terry Nguyen, Dirt contributing editor 

My love language is cooking, and I’ve been lusting after a Hasegawa cutting board since I parted ways with my old roommate’s kitchen goods. Hasegawa boards are a blend of plastic and wood, which is much easier on your knife and easy to clean; they are sold in a range of sizes, though they fit best in kitchens where there is a respectable amount of countertop space. It’s the most functional gift for anyone with the cooking skills to moonlight as a private chef, though a pasta maker is a close second. For smaller, more budget-friendly gifts, consider a bench scraper (it’s the most useful thing an ex ever gave me), a stainless steel egg cracker, a niche German tool designed for egg enthusiasts, or a mini Le Creuset cocotte. 

For the introverted friend you see once every few months but text quite frequently (of which I have many
): Get them a membership, which ideally you can mooch off of! This works best if you live in NYC or any major city where there are lots of options, from museums (Whitney, MoMA, Guggenheim) to indie movie theaters (Metrograph, Film Forum). Though if the person in question is a boring corporate zombie, Sweetgreen now does memberships too


A vintage handheld mirror or a copy of Colette’s Cheri for your favorite girl’s girl. A Woof Pupsicle toy for the committed dog parents. A Chanel Rouge Coco lipstick (in shade 444) for the nitpicky mother who can’t resist remarking on your appearance. A plush Brooklinen bathrobe for your father, and a pack of Davidoff mini cigarillos for your other father figures. A disposable film camera with a few nudes for your favorite lover. Costante’s Sade gold hoops for yourself. Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son for the friend who may have a [redacted] problem. Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love for the person you have a crush on. Jacques Prevert’s Paroles for the ex who’s still hung up on you. Roland Barthes’ The Lover’s Discourse for the love of your life.

Osirene, Dirt Community Manager 

Cute smoking accessories for the stoner girlies in your life. 

Under $50. Save your nails or feel like The Dude with a rose joint holder. For the shellegant lady, a clamshell ashtray or two (one for you and one for me). A mini grinder pendant for on the go action although I’ll admit it’s more of a cute conversational piece than functional.

Under $100. Sometimes bigger is better with a jumbo grinder. Big enough to grind an entire eighth (which still blows my mind), the matte finish on this just feels so right after years of metallic grinders. It comes in four different color ways: midnight, white, mauve, and evergreen. This little dirt-y mushroom bong shaped like a small terrarium with an amber mushroom inside the chamber always gets compliments. 

Under $200. Take this as your sign to upgrade yourself and your friends to a flower vaporizer. Possibly my favorite thing this year, Pax Mini is a beginner friendly dry herb vape that is portable and hits very smooth, of course. Both lighter and ashtray, Eddie Park’s vintage-inspired, glass table top lighter is a beauty on its own and is a more affordable option than their acrylic versions (also pretty!). For business and pleasure, a limited edition cigarette case by Sackville x Playboy. 

Jocelyn Silver, Dirt contributing editor

My favorite candles are these elegant striped ones from Le Feu de L’eau, sculpted underwater. They all smell delicious, and I’d be so stoked to get one as a gift (hint). My friend Alana put me onto them, as well as this wonderful organization that makes great gifts: ECF Art Centers, a Los Angeles-based education center for artists with developmental disabilities. The works get updated all the time and there’s always something nice. 

For anyone who wears perfume, you can’t go wrong with a Lucky Scent sample pack. The Carta d’Armenia burning papers from Santa Maria Novella might be the cheapest offering from that brand, and also one of the best—they make your house smell like an incense-y church, in a good way. More smell-related things that seem like a safe bet for most: rose and violet-scented matches from Officine Universelle Buly, a little treat that most people would never think to buy for themselves; this super cute incense holder from Christian Moses; and this gorgeous set of soaps from Oriza L. Legrand, which come in boxes too pretty to throw away (my favorite is the Relique d’Amour, which, like the Carta d’Armenia papers, smells like an old cathedral, only the soap is much less sweet, which I like). 

For the home: Posteritati sells countless movie vintage posters from around the world, making them lovely gifts if you happen to know your giftee’s favorite director or whatever—the bigger ones can get pricey, but they have a number of small posters and prints for under $100. I love anything by Nathalee Paolinelli, and her gorgeous black eggshell dish and this coral sculpture are among the less expensive of her offerings. Spills’ martini spill sculpture (they also do wine, Manhattans, etc.) is an amazing gift for an alcoholic. I’m a dog person but I still really love this calendar of jumping cats by Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek.

For being cozy: Tekla pajamas are so crisp and comfortable. Slippers from a fancy hotel are a real delight—for those in Los Angeles, the Sunset Tower sells them. This is my favorite t-shirt, and perhaps you also know someone insane who would enjoy it. 

For a ridiculous splurge: the Isamaya Beauty dick lipsticks were a real hype item over the summer, but I maintain that they are eternal. 

Michelle Santiago Cortés, Dirt contributor

My gifting strategy is to go for luxury versions of everyday needs, or frivolous luxuries that become every day needs in their own right. Every year I place a huge order at London-based stationer Choosing Keeping that includes an A4 Composition Ledger for journaling, a handful of cards for birthdays, and a big bag of these angel tags (I bought a bag of eight for $15 two years ago and I still have some leftover). I use the angel tags to elevate my gift wrapping, which usually consists of twine and recycled butcher’s paper from packages. Choosing Keeping specializes in marbled, vintage, Italian and Japanese paper as well as vintage and rare office goods that make for great gifts.

By the same token, Nalata Nalata is another reliable retailer of little luxuries. They focus on home goods; I bought two boxes of Long Chikuseiko Bamboo Charcoal Incense; one in Sandalwood and one in Cherry Blossom. You’d think $28 is too much to spend on incense but I’ve been burning these almost daily for the past year and a half. They last, they aren’t smokey, they smell fresh and cozy.

If you want to drop a wad of cash, Cozy Earth makes the softest (also cooling and bamboo-based) sheets and the fluffiest towels. They always have discounts and throw tote bags of fuzzy socks into your order.

My own list of absurdly-fancy-things I probably won’t buy: This squiggly candelabra, this Autumn Sonata bath towel, green glass butter dish, this beautiful tin box of tinned fish from a heritage French cannery (I like the idea of having something beautiful at the ready for impromptu guests and the vintage-inspired box to keep after). Lastly, I have a fragrance in mind that’s in critically low stock and I’ll only recommend it after I secure my bottle.

Maddie Kao, filmmaker and Dirt Intern

Niche magazines for your loved ones’ interests, like the Kiki’s Delivery Service cover from Otaku USA Magazine, or the Troye Sivan cover of Man about Town. Browse at local newsstands for inspiration, like The Kosher News in Los Angeles, or a plethora of options in New York City. Option to buy a frame to accompany them. 

For the one whose music taste you admire: Lauryn Hill’s MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 on vinyl. For the mature twenty-somethings or wlw folks: Olivia Dean’s Messy vinyl or CD. Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers 2LP Vinyl to pass down to posterity. For the design-conscious who want to levitate: red translucent vinyls, RAYE (with The Heritage Orchestra) [Live at the Royal Albert Hall].  For the old-soul young musician: Bewitched Sheet Music Laufey Book.

Non-fiction that’ll change the way you view the world: Braiding Sweetgrass. “Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices.” Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals: “Alexis Pauline Gumbs has spent hundreds of hours watching our aquatic cousins. She has found them to be queer, fierce, protective of each other, complex, shaped by conflict, and struggling to survive the extractive and militarized conditions humans have imposed on the ocean. Employing a brilliant mix of poetic sensibility, naturalist observation, and Black feminist insights, she translates their submerged wisdom to reveal what they might teach us.” This Is Your Brain on Music, the Science of a Human Obsession: “Taking on prominent thinkers who argue that music is nothing more than an evolutionary accident, [rocker-turned-neuroscientist] Levitin poses that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language.”

$5ish. A great pen: uniballℱ DELUXE, Rollerball Pen. The most beautiful sticker (perfect for lovers of the moon, Wasia Project fans): Petals on the Moon Sticker. For cottagecore bookworms: personalized corner bookmarks. 

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PLAYBACK

Snippets of streaming news — and what we’re streaming.

  • Kurt Vile has a new album out 

  • A glimpse of Palestinian hip-hop (no bells)

  • This podcast has everything 

    • “It is a story of drug dealers, hitmen, smugglers, spies – even a corrupt prime minister. And in the middle of it all is William Veres’s quest to save himself. How? By solving the coldest cold case in the history of art crime – the theft of Caravaggio’s Nativity.”

  • Marilyn Minter on Herb Sundays 

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MIXTAPE

Good links from the Dirtyverse.

  • DRAUP puts a digital spin on the concept of “shapewear” 

  • “It was Roth’s MO to craft a fictional truth convincing enough for the reader to resist the given world and succumb to his.” Hannah Gold in Harper’s.

  • Sophie Kemp on Kurt Vonnegut’s house (Paris Review)

  • Patricia Lockwood met The Pope (LRB)

  • “American Girl’s first target audience, now adult millennials, still form a key part of the brand’s fan base.” Who else was a Molly? (The New Yorker)

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