“My mom was effortlessly cool,” Becky Miller writes on this week’s Fashionable Love essay. “Darkish sweaters, no make-up, unbrushed but in some way unruffled hair, the occasional dangly earring, an air of confidence and tranquillity.”

However when Ms. Miller was 11, her mom died of a mind tumor, leaving her daughter with solely recollections as a reference for the kind of girl she aspired to change into.

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