When I arrived at Lucky Magazine as a brand-new, lowly Editorial Assistant—many, many years ago—Emily Hsieh was a well established Assistant Editor (i.e. leaps and bounds ahead of me…getting an “editor” in your title is arguably the hardest won promotion in the magazine world). We circled each other warily for awhile: She had an enviable shoe collection, perfect hair, and her West Village apartment had been photographed for the magazine; I was still in a phase where I was making my own clothing, I was working a hairstyle that was a crazier version of the Ashley Judd, InStyle, April 2002 cover, and I was sharing a loft on Canal Street with a bunch of insane people (I say that affectionately). Emily just really had it together in a way that seemed far out of my reach: She has perfect, classic, reliably great taste, and that’s pretty much always been the case. She’s the person I call when I’m looking for the ideal striped shirt, or the most effective vacuum cleaner, or a crowd-pleasing wedding gift. To prove this point, you can see some of her stories for Beso here, and here, and here.
As the months ticked on, we became friends, and I knew it was for real when she actually let me reorganize her closet (admittedly, I’m an ace at closet organization), which was a great leveling ground: Beneath the exquisite veneer, Emily can actually be kind of messy! Ah good times.
Anyway, these days Emily lives in San Francisco with her husband Mike, and their undeniably adorable daughter, Nina where she writes stories for a lot of magazines and makes Meyer lemon pasta and eats Bi-Rite ice cream. Sounds pretty dreamy, right? For Beso, she’s going to write about it all, from baby gifts to nautical tops to hands-down, good-looking home accessories.
