Welcome to “In Harmony with,” our ongoing series where we invite those who inspire us to share their stories and the rituals that help them stay grounded.
This month, we traveled back to our Connecticut roots to spend time with Samantha Yanks, Co-Founder of The Connecticut Edit, a digital platform she runs alongside her daughter, Sadie. Together, they spotlight people, places, events, and businesses shaping life across Connecticut. Samantha is also the Editor-in-Chief of Westport, Weston, & Wilton Magazine, where she combines her passion for storytelling, brand building, and community.
We spoke about the influence of place on personal style, the meaningful rituals that become part of our lives, and what it's like to build something creative alongside your daughter.
Having grown up in New York City, the Hamptons, and now Connecticut, how has each place influenced your personal style and way of life?
I am answering this the morning after the New York Knicks won the National Championship, so New York is very much on my mind and in my heart right now. New York made me sharp. Everything about that city teaches you to edit. Edit your wardrobe, your time, your words. The Hamptons softened me. Sand, salt air, open fields, everything. I leaned into ease in a way I never had before. Connecticut is where it all came together. There’s a casualness here that I love, but I still want things to feel considered. My style now is really a layering of all three. It’s structured in palette and purposeful but relaxed, classic, considered, never stiff. Let’s call it “beach with a backbone.”
One ritual we especially love is your tradition of framing seashells collected during your travels. How did that practice begin, and what does it mean to you today?
Funnily enough, I’m answering this from Miami, one of the places where my beach tote is always full of shells by the end of the trip. It started almost accidentally. We’d come home from a vacation with shells we couldn’t bring ourselves to throw away because each one, or collectively, they held a moment. Eventually we started framing them in white-on-white glass shadow boxes, in collections based on where they came from, and suddenly our walls became a kind of autobiography. It’s one of my favorite things in our home because it really represents our love of warm weather, adventure, and they’re hung in places we see them often. They bring a sense of calm and togetherness. Travel as art. Memory as décor.
Like us, you and your daughter Sadie are a mother-daughter team, and you and Sadie, both only children. How would you describe your relationship? In what ways are your personalities similar, and where do they differ?
There is something about only children that I find remarkable and I say this with full bias. They learn early how to be comfortable with themselves, how to move between the world of adults and peers with ease, how to be resourceful and self-reliant without even realizing it. Sadie embodies all of that, and what makes her extraordinary is that she carries it with genuine humility and heart. She is driven, independent, and resourceful. Resilient without being hardened. That combination is rare at any age.
Where we are most alike is in our showing up. We both understand that showing up fully, consistently, whether you feel like it or not is the real differentiator in life. Some of the most important lessons we’ve both learned came through sport. Sadie is a competitor, and so am I. The court teaches you things no classroom can like how to handle a loss, how to stay composed under pressure, and how to be a teammate. Those lessons live in both of us and I see it in the way she approaches everything she does.
Where we differ is that she is far more measured than I am. She thinks carefully before she speaks. I feel first and figure it out as I go. Together, we balance each other in the most beautiful way. We keep each other grounded, there's an unspoken language that we share. I always say a triangle is the strongest shape and there is something about the way we move through the world, alongside my husband, David, and her father, together that proves that every single day.
Tell us about the origins of The Connecticut Edit. What inspired you and Sadie to create it together?
I had spent 25 years building national media brands, among them Vogue, Oprah, Gotham, and Hamptons, and when I landed in Connecticut, I looked around and thought: this place deserves its own discerning voice. Not a mommy blog, not a local events calendar, but a real editorial platform that treated Connecticut the way a glossy would treat New York. We were home during COVID and we just started. No formal launch plan, no investors, just the two of us, a shared vision, and a deep belief that community is the most powerful currency there is.
Our mission to connect, captivate, and celebrate our community through the lens of social consciousness has remained steady, and our content goes through that filter. We craft stories that give people a first look, a sneak peek, something buzzy and shareable and immediate. What started on social media at @theconnecticutedit has expanded to a website and, most importantly, into events. My feeling, which is unwavering, is that human connection and gatherings are about essential ways to collaborate and stay curious, so our brand is the rooms we build and the people we bring together.
We create ways that help people discover Connecticut, maybe in a way they had not thought of before. The greatest joy comes from supporting local business owners and founders, many of whom are fellow women taking risks just like us.
The greatest learning is that our community trusts our voice. They want to see Connecticut through our lens, whether as an adult navigating the area, as a college-age woman discovering what Sadie connects with, or as both of us together. Many of our partners value what we each bring to the table, and that is truly a dream. 
You’ve shared that you love supporting female-founded businesses, and many of the pieces you wear, and showcase in your home, have special stories behind them. We’d love to hear about a few of your favorite pieces and what they mean to you.
There are two collections I really pride myself on. We have amassed quite a portfolio of work by local female artists and craftspeople in our home, which is primarily where my focus lies. Kelly Rossetti from Westport, Nancy Sharpe based in Shippan Point, Sue de Chiara in New Canaan, Stacy Kunstel of Dunes and Duchess, Katy Garry, and several others whose work I return to again and again.
And then there is jewelry. As a former fine jewelry and watch editor at Vogue, my love will always live there. I only wear necklaces by female jewelers. I love the idea of supporting women closest to my heart, literally. My current neck stack tells a story. There is a piece from Serpentine that my husband designed with Ali Galgano for our anniversary, which means the world to me. A piece I adore from Savannah Friedkin that represents beauty found in rough New York City sidewalks, which hits differently as a born and raised New Yorker. The Samantha Necklace, which the founders of KVO Collections in Darien named after me. A heart made of three diamonds that represents my family trio, David, Sadie, and me, because a triangle is the strongest shape. A tennis necklace from a dear friend’s line Genevieve Lau. And a piece by Orly Marcel, who is Israeli, and whose approach to joy and meaning I connect with so deeply.
I also wear a longer chain with charms that carry real significance, including two sevens for my birthdate. One is from Jennifer Fisher’s early days as a designer. I watched her build that business firsthand and wearing it feels like an origin story. The other is from my friend Melissa’s line Devon Woodhill. I am never done collecting, and many of these pieces trace back to my Vogue days. That history lives on my jewelry collection every single day.
We always enjoy seeing the unique ways our community incorporates My July into their daily rituals. Can you share your favorite way to use Gold Mine?
If you know me, you know I love a glow. It is non-negotiable. I was an early adopter of face oils and have tried more than I can count, so when I tell you Gold Mine hits differently, I mean it. There is something about this one that the others simply do not replicate.
Some days it is all I wear. Just Gold Mine and a dab of lipgloss and I am out the door feeling like myself. It gives me this slightly sun-kissed quality that feels effortless rather than done, which is everything. In the winter it is a genuine pick me up, and during the sunny season it just amplifies whatever glow I already have.
When I do wear makeup, I use it as a base first and it creates a luminous canvas that makes everything sit differently on my skin. On lighter days I mix a few drops directly into my foundation and the result is that lit-from-within look that no highlighter has ever quite given me. People always ask what I am wearing and the honest answer is not very much. That is the magic of a great oil, and Gold Mine does it beautifully.
Would you describe yourself as more of an introvert or an extrovert? How does that shape the way you work, create, and connect with others?
I am an extrovert who deeply needs solitude to do her best work. I will walk into any room, host a gathering, deliver a keynote, moderate a panel, and love every second of it. And then I need quiet time alone to write, think, and reset.
But if I am being honest, some of my greatest creative energy comes from hosting a really nice lunch and bringing interesting thinkers together. I believe the greatest gift you can give someone is your time, and there is something about a great conversation over a great meal that unlocks things. Lived experiences, genuine connection, real joy. Those are deeply human moments and I am drawn to creating. I love hosting lunches at our home that are built with intention but without a fixed agenda or predetermined outcome. Just the right people around a table, good food, and the kind of conversation that follows you home. The ideas that come out of those meals have shaped so much of what I do. Community is not just something I write about. It is how I actually live.
What does living in harmony mean to you?
It means building a life where the work and the life are not in conflict, where what I create reflects who I actually am. For a long time I chased titles and mastheads. Now I chase meaning. Living in harmony means waking up in a town I love, building something with my daughter, telling stories that matter to real people, and knowing that the platform we have built converts audience into community and community into something that lasts. The Connecticut Edit gives me genuine purpose and I am proud of what we have created together.
It is also essential to me to be present. I may not respond immediately, but when I am with you, you have all of my focus. I want to create positivity in the world, both through our platform and personally. We have had a challenging start to 2026, but with resilience and each other, we work in unity to move through it. That, to me, is harmony.
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Find Samantha:
Personal Instagram
The Connecticut Edit Instagram
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Interviewed & Photographed by Micaela Hoo, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, My July. Bio picture by Katie Tuzman of Brook Road Photography, provided courtesy of Samantha Yanks.
