Welcome to this new (old) ride

That wasn’t always the case. This is my second time living in Paris. The first time I moved here I was 21, planning to spend a summer with the boy I loved. That summer turned into six years. I was enchanted by the city then (it is, after all, Paris). But there was a part of me that never felt entirely at home. It was Paris and I was … something else. As the years progressed, my longing for where I came from grew stronger.

Eventually I gave in to that pull and returned to New York — which, I found, also felt strange. In Paris I had felt like such a New Yorker, but back in my own culture I realized my years living as a Parisian had reshaped me. I was no longer one thing, but an amalgamation: at home, to a certain extent, in either city, but also slightly foreign in both.

Lately, I have found myself regularly telling the story of how I first came to Paris because, several lifetimes after leaving, I’ve moved back.

Paris has unquestionably changed in the years since I first lived here. It’s more open, its surface easier to crack, and it’s much more international — while also having managed to maintain its absolute Frenchness. I am a different person, too, in midlife with a husband and three kids in tow. But I now love Paris purely, unequivocally, in a way I didn’t the last time I lived here. Is that because of the city or because of me? The answer likely lies at the intersection of both. As Hereclitus said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”

The quote seems especially apt for my life these days, because I am in the process of another return, to a project I thought I knew well. But like my perception of Paris, I am finding even the most familiar things have the potential to evolve into something new.

When I came back to New York in my late 20s, I co-founded a magazine called Dossier, one that impressively outperformed its humble origins (it was quite literally put together on my kitchen counter). When I look back at what our team produced, I see something that lives up to its (rather lofty) promise of providing contributors with a white space in which to share their expressions of the world. Art, poetry, and fashion sat alongside music, food, and other facets of culture, creating something that felt fun, relevant, and unexpected.

Over eight years, we created 12 biannual print issues, a daily cultural website, exhibitions, experiences, and even a brick-and-mortar store. It was a mammoth undertaking for a young, idealistic and completely unprepared group of people. When we made the decision to stop publishing, I was relieved, ready to turn the page on Dossier entirely (but not the team — many of whom have remained my closest collaborators).

In the years since, I’ve had the privilege of helming two other magazines as editor-in-chief, most recently Departures. I was brought on to lead the relaunch of the 40-year-old luxury travel magazine in the early days of the pandemic. At the time, life itself seemed a distant dream — let alone travel, which no one was sure would ever return. Taking on the project felt equal parts escapist and insane. But it was also such an interesting opportunity, at a particularly ripe moment. Ideas of what constituted luxury were undergoing a drastic shift, and Departures was an incredible platform to further a conversation about what luxury actually is: that which holds true value — value created by people, through care, craftsmanship, culture, and human connection.

In the three years that followed, our team grew Departures into an ecosystem that included a daily website, a weekly newsletter, quarterly print editions, social channels, and extensive brand partnerships. But building anything takes time, and it was only this past summer that we were finally beginning to feel like we had the foundations firmly in place, allowing us to imagine what would come next. 

On the first day of August, my father died. On the last day, we learned Departures would close at the end of the year.

Losing a parent can provide the (always true) reminder that life is finite, a nudge to take risks when opportunities present themselves. And so I now find myself doing something I never imagined wanting to do again, but which nonetheless feels like the only thing to do: relaunching Dossier.

In its new incarnation, Dossier will continue to draw on the creative friction that earned it critical acclaim. However, its aperture will widen to that of a luxury travel, culture, and lifestyle publication that looks at the whole world. Dossier’s focus was always on culture at large, so putting travel at its center is a natural evolution. It’s also what interests us the most right now.