Issue 287 · 12 January 2025
On the Year of Wearing One Coat
A meditation on fewer, better things — and the one camel wool coat that did the work of three.
The Sunday Letter · Vol. XI
Every week our editor writes to you, one subscriber at a time. A short essay, a small wardrobe edit, a hotel we just stayed at, a recipe we made twice. Hand-written in tone, edited in Brooklyn, sent before the kettle boils.
Anatomy of an issue
Six recurring sections, written each Thursday and mailed at sunrise on Sunday. The whole letter is roughly 1,400 words — long enough for one cup of coffee, short enough to finish before the first load of laundry.
A short essay from Maren on something she has been thinking about that week — a trip, a piece of clothing she cannot stop wearing, a question a reader sent in. Personal, unhurried, and editor-written, never generated.
One garment we wore for a full season and still reach for — described with the kind of specificity a print magazine would give it: the weight of the cotton, the cut of the cuff, the maker behind the label.
Editorial, never prescriptive — a walk we loved, a book we underlined, a single ingredient we added to a morning routine. No cleanses, no seven-day plans, no medical claims.
A short letter from one of our contributing writers, stationed across nine cities — Kyoto in rain, a converted convent in Puglia, the corner bakery in Lisbon we walked to twice.
A small piece of table craft — a playlist, a napkin fold, the chocolate we set out on a Tuesday when three friends were meant to come at seven. Always reproducible; never fussy.
Each issue closes with a reader's question answered by the editor in the next week's letter. The Sunday Letter is, in the end, a correspondence — not a broadcast.
From the archive
Browse a few recent issues in full. Every back letter is publicly archived and ungated — the way a good magazine should be.
Issue 287 · 12 January 2025
A meditation on fewer, better things — and the one camel wool coat that did the work of three.
Issue 286 · 5 January 2025
Eight rooms, no televisions, and a kitchen that remembered we were vegetarian.
Issue 285 · 29 December 2024
Why the most relaxed dinner parties happen on a weeknight — and how to host one.
Issue 284 · 22 December 2024
Five books our editors returned to this winter, and the single chapter to start with in each.
I read The Sunday Letter with the same attention I used to give a favourite magazine — and the same care I now give a friend's note. It has quietly reorganised how I plan a week.
The Inner Circle
One letter, every Sunday at 7 a.m. Eastern. Free, always. Unsubscribe with a single click — though, in four years, very few of you have.