ON BANDANAS

Bandanas have always followed me around. Not in any intentional way. I've never collected them, never gone looking. They just seem to appear — one tied around the handle of my tote bag, one hanging from the rearview mirror of my Land Cruiser, another on my laptop bag, and one folded quietly in the back of my sock drawer.

I couldn't tell you where most of them came from. One I can account for. A red one I borrowed from the guy at the truck rental counter in Cabo, to flag the end of my longboard where it hung past the tailgate. I didn't get the chance to give it back. I don't think he expected me to.

They arrive, they attach themselves to something, and they stay.

A bandana is almost nothing. A square of cotton. But it's one of the few things that does whatever you ask of it. Tied around a neck, a wrist, a handle, a ponytail. Knotted into a bag strap. Pressed into service as a napkin, a headband, a flag for finding your car. It never complains about the job.

Objects that live somewhere between practical and sentimental. They carry time, and traces of the places they have been. The sun fades them unevenly. The corners soften. The fold lines become permanent, like a map of every way they've been worn.

Some things get beautiful because they are used, not because they are preserved. A patina that is earned. Utility proven. Character defined.

The kinds of qualities I've always admired in people too.

xx lp

Lisa Popp is the founder and creative director of Stillwater, a small-batch women's apparel brand she started in Los Angeles in 2014. Everything is designed in her Los Angeles studio and made locally. Runs Deep is her journal.