Sometimes, the long, twisted story of how Vladimir Putin crushes all opposition can be explained with a single anecdote. The short documentary “Anastasia,” made by Russian filmmakers, takes less than a half-hour to follow a Russian woman, Anastasia Shevchenko, as she takes her mother and two children on a hard-won trip to the Black Sea. This isn’t a holiday, exactly. Shevchenko, an opposition leader who was the first Russian to face criminal charges for belonging to an “undesirable” political organization, was convicted in 2019 and put under house arrest for three years. The authorities were so ironfisted, they prevented Shevchenko from visiting her oldest daughter, Alina, disabled since birth, as she was dying in a hospital. In June 2021, eight months before the invasion of Ukraine, Shevchenko, her mother, and two younger children took Alina’s ashes to scatter in the sea. The film is a delicately etched miniature of grief, familial love, and, in the face of Putin’s grinding repression and cruelty, remarkable courage. (docnyc.net) —Alessandra Stanley

We’re going to let you in on a secret: you don’t need to go to the grocery store this Thanksgiving. Daniel Emilio Soares, a fourth-generation Balducci, will do the shopping for you. He’s the man behind the extraordinary Lower East Side produce market Alimentari Flâneur. Known for procuring a mix of local ingredients and imported goods, Soares melds the “old world charm of European produce markets with the casual romance of Mediterranean living.” With the market closed for the winter, Soares is offering a Thanksgiving basket, starting today. It’s filled with 33 items, from a purple brussels-sprout stalk and white pomegranates to Brie de Meaux. Just text him at 347-264-5671 before November 20 for your cornucopia. ($195 without the turkey, $400 with the turkey, alimentariflaneur.nyc) —Clara Molot

At this moment, we estimate you have a dozen tabs open in your browser, one of which is this week’s issue (thank you for that), and the rest of which are online retail stores. If that’s the case, then there’s absolutely no harm in adding another fabulous item to your bag—or should we say, Brown Bag? Somewhere between a historical account of Manhattan’s Upper East Side and an ode to department-store luxury, the Bloomingdale’s 150th Anniversary coffee-table book offers a comprehensive look into the store’s creation and its ever growing cultural significance. Covering Bloomingdale’s history, from 1872 to 2022, the book chronicles how the once local bazaar turned into a cosmopolitan retail icon. Featuring notable figures such as André Courrèges and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, this book, which drops on November 17, is the perfect holiday gift for the fashion-forward history buff as well as the Forty Carrots addict. (from $75, bloomingdales.com) —Carolina de Armas

As the war in Ukraine rages on, an artist named Alex (last name withheld for privacy reasons) is continuing to forge ahead and practice his trade. At his small studio, in Kyiv, Alex is hard at work making beautiful herbariums from local botanicals, which he still manages to forage. He builds antiqued frames, carefully arranging the flowers before shipping them out of the country. Alice Wawrik, an English dealer of antiques, textiles, and other charming curiosities, is handling all of the logistics involved, and even offering bespoke commissions of Alex’s work through her Web site. While you’re there, browse Wawrik’s smartly edited assortment of furnishings, lighting fixtures, cushions, and other irresistible home goods. (from $520, by-alice.co.uk) —Ashley Baker

Gloves get a bad rap. All too often, they are sensible and hard-wearing, but terribly unexciting. Paula Rowan simply won’t stand for that. The Irish designer takes her responsibilities very seriously, as she is charged with outfitting the hands of some of the world’s most stylish women. (Helen Mirren, Ruth Negga, and Julianne Moore, for starters.) Out of her design studio, in London, Rowan ensures that even basic leather driving gloves look rather extraordinary. Each stitch gets approved by a discerning member of Rowan’s team before the final products leave the workshop, in Italy. As we soldier up for a long winter, we’ll be procuring the Faye style, with dramatically pleated detail around the wrist. It’s a little black dress, in glove form. The statement is so strong that the coat—and whatever is underneath—is almost irrelevant. Good design at work! ($705, paularowan.com) —Ashley Baker

The analog art of embroidery has been going through a bit of a renaissance. In London, Cressida Jamieson, a former fashion publicist turned high-end florist, is now deep into her third act. With her delicately stitched T-shirts and textiles, she has amassed a well-heeled following on social media, and a clientele that includes actresses Kate Winslet and Claire Foy. Likewise, her collaborator, Gemma Moulton, veered away from a career in fashion and antiques to study the art of upholstery. Midway through a coronavirus lockdown, Moulton made her pivot official by founding East London Cloth, an elegant line of handmade floaty linens and soft furnishings. Jamieson and Moulton’s first joint collection, Family Linens, is a whimsical range of hand-embroidered tablecloths, café curtains, pillowcases, and napkins. On sale November 17, these timeless pieces are intended to be passed down from one generation to the next. (eastlondoncloth.co.uk) —Bridget Arsenault