Picture purrfect
“It forced me to dig in deeper to think about what I cared about,” Berman says now. “I felt like, screw Starbucks, but didn’t know what the alternative was.”
For friends and family outside the city who’d appreciate something quintessentially “Chicago” for a holiday gift, these elegant old-fashioned glass tumblers, featuring details of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Chicago-area buildings—the Avery Coonley Playhouse window in Riverside and the art-glass skylight in the Oak Park Home and Studio, for example—are less obvious than, say, a framed city skyline photo and considerably classier than a Chicago shot glass from Walgreens. —Laura Pearson $13.95 each at Chicago Architecture Foundation, 224 S. Michigan, 312-322-1132, shoparchitecture.org.
Bitchin’ stitches
It’s easy to love LaCroix, the sugar-free, sodium-free, calorie-free sparkling water: its design is straight out of the 90s; its cans are colored like Easter eggs; and, despite originating in Wisconsin, it boasts odd, faux-Euro flourishes (the grapefruit flavor isn’t “grapefruit,” it’s “pamplemousse”). A friend of mine and her boyfriend drink so much of it that they simply call it “water.” (“Babe, can you grab me a water?” “Sorry, babe, I drank the last water,” ad nauseam). LaCroix’s rising popularity has produced skyrocketing shares for the brand’s parent company, National Beverage Corp., but this isn’t just another millennial-focused trend, as initially characterized by New York Times Magazine writer/LaCroix drinker Mary H. K. Choi (“one of those food-as-personality things, where otherwise dull people develop an ‘obsession’ with something ostensibly exotic . . . and pass it off as a quirk”). No way. The reverence is real. And any serious LaCroix consumer will want to dress appropriately. This “fav bev tee,” designed by Edwin Menacho and available via Solid State Goods, should do the trick. —Laura Pearson $25 at solidstategoods.bigcartel.com
Music Box VIP status
