Season three of Out of the Clouds kicks off with Kim Walls, a fourth-generation entrepreneur and second-generation health & wellness expert. She’s widely viewed as a clean beauty pioneer, especially given her latest project, Furtuna Skin, the luxury skincare brand she co-founded and where she serves as the CEO.

I mentioned MycoWorks in this week's newsletter opener, who have partnered with Hermès with their mycelium leather project. Meanwhile, Balenciaga launches a coat made in collaboration with another player in the field, Ephea. I’d love to try it on, to discover the material of course, a black leather coat isn’t quite my look. Read about it here.

Now if you’re reading me thinking: that’s great but I can’t afford a Balenciaga coat, when is Zara launching their own, I’m not sure. But I know that the best thing we can do is to ask for (or demand) leather alternatives with our favorite brands or retailers. I love a good shoe and I’m ready for that alternative leather. Marni? Hear me out!

• Change the story and you change perception; change perception and you change the world. - Jeanne Houston

Did I tell you that I got some new shoes? It shouldn’t sound very abnormal (I’m definitely a shoe girl, plus I used to work for you know who). And yet, what’s special is that it’s my first new pair of heels in… four years? Like a large portion of the female population, I’ve moved to 100% flat footwear, often sustainably produced trainers (sneakers depending where you are in the world), like those Chloé ones I am obsessed with.

Thankfully, right on the heels (pun intended) of that trip, I attended a conference in Geneva, the Luxury Innovation Summit & Awards, where I was glad to have my new mirrored pumps. I chose to register for this particular conference after reading that biotech startup MycoWorks would be attending. You may not remember but I wrote about their Reishi faux-leather not too long ago. I figured if such an amazingly innovative company is attending, there are bound to be other interesting people to listen to, right?

Right indeed!

Would you like to feel happier? Do you want to know how to build a (good) life? Well, I bring you answers, with a short read from Oprah Daily and a great (if much longer) conversation 'How to build a life' from the Atlantic Festival between columnist and Harvard Prof. Arthur Brooks (who teaches a class on happiness) and best selling author Daniel Pink.

When mindfulness (or rather Buddhist chanting) meets an experimental theatre company in Hong Kong, the result is the Hua-yen Buddhaverse.

While trends come and go, the spray-on bodycon dress has had great moments in the last couple of decades. So many designers have attempted to perfect this garment, but none managed the coup as well as Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant from the Paris-based brand Coperni.

I can’t remember how I found this sweet article a few days ago, but it’s one of those uplifting pieces that landed just right when I came across it.

How present is joy in your life? I’m feeling lucky right now, joy-wise. Puppy and kittens will do that to you (when you forget about potty training incidents, of course).

There is a lot of fascinating data about how those closest to us influence who we are. But it turns out that it’s not our close friends and family that support career mobility. It’s the ‘weaker’ ties that seem to yield results. The study published in Science was done with the help of LinkedIn’s algorithm. So friends of friends are more important than you think.

I love books. That’s not a secret, and it is a notable trait of my personality. I realise now that way before I had the opportunity to embrace my precious global nomad lifestyle, my readings gave me a sense of connection to the world beyond what I knew, and it powered an early sense of being more than my individual identity. Given how much I value reading, I was shocked to discover the banned books campaign unfolding in certain American schools and touching several million students. as Stephen King put it, "a uniquely portable magic" – and “the portable part is as important as the magic”. Shouldn't we all have access to that magic?

If you are back at work - and perhaps commuting to the office - I’m happy to bring you three fresh interviews on the Out of the Clouds podcast, released over the summer.