Assistant is a bit of a catchall term. Sure, assistants schedule meetings, take notes, and retrieve coffee, but they can also act as a quasi-concierge, sending fruit baskets to top clients and buying gifts for partners. In an effort to unearth the highly specific material needs of powerful people, we sat down with Jules Peres, who’s the assistant to Alida Boer, founder of hair-care brand Nolé. We spoke with her about gifts for more than 70 people on her boss’s holiday list, tracking down an out-of-stock cooler in under two hours, and the luxury sleepwear she surfaced from a one-word prompt.
Gifts
Peres was hired as Boer’s assistant last September after working as a celebrity assistant for over two decades. On most days, she manages Boer’s calendars across three time zones, assists with sample requests and product development, and proofreads social-media posts. Peres also does plenty of personal shopping for Boer, including buying presents.
When October rolls around, they look at Boer’s holiday-gifting spreadsheet of relatives, friends, and business associates. (In 2022, there were 74 names on the list, Peres says.) From there, Boer tells Peres what she would like to give each person based on their interests, and they’ll both make a note of new or favorite brands in the category. Peres then cross-references the document with the previous year’s to make sure there aren’t any repeats, starts sourcing products, and texts Boer screenshots and links for approval. The same process applies to gifting for special occasions like baby showers and birthdays.
Jungmaven tees are a staple in Boer’s wardrobe for their “perfect vintage feel” and price point — they “don’t cost an arm and a leg despite being made of hemp,” says Peres, who now owns around six herself. Boer has about ten of the tees in black and white, and she had Peres buy at least a dozen for her mom and sisters when they visited from Guatemala at Christmas. Instead of choosing neutrals, she gave them their favorite colors (coral, green, and blue), and Boer said her family appreciated how “the hemp draped really lovely and the shirts were really well fitting and easy to wear.”
“There was so much Tata Harper being gift-wrapped in our office last Christmas that Alida could have opened her own spa,” Peres says. The brand is one of her boss’s favorites because it uses high-quality, mainly vegan ingredients and the products come in “beautiful, beautiful green glass bottles.” (Peres says packaging is a big factor for Boer, and she likes to cut down on plastic whenever she can.) At one point, Peres ordered more than two dozen items for Boer’s mom and sisters — including cleansers, moisturizers, and eye creams — because Boer prefers to give an entire routine instead of stand-alone items.
“I love a good shopping challenge, and the best one Alida has given me was to find a special 40th-birthday gift for one of her close friends,” Peres says. “She left the gift up to me with the only specification being it had to be in chartreuse, her friend’s favorite color.” Peres started with the idea of a caftan or kimono and sent a few options to Boer over a four-day span. They agreed on one from Jennafer Grace for its velvet material, and Boer suggested adding another item or two. Peres ultimately landed on a matching pajama set in the same color. Once the items arrived, Peres wrapped them in a large box and sent it to the friend, who told Boer she loved and appreciated the thoughtful gift.
Boer’s go-to gift for new moms is the Solly Baby Wrap, which she used with all her own children. “It’s functional and really comfortable to wear, and it keeps the baby happy because they’re so close to the mother’s chest,” Peres says, adding that the wrap was essential for Boer when she was taking public transportation. Peres has purchased at least six, with Boer suggesting a specific color or Peres sticking with a neutral beige or rose. “If it were up to me, I’d send black for everybody all the time,” she says. “But it depends on the season. Not everybody wants to carry black in the summer.”
Personal items
While most of the shopping Peres does for Boer centers on gifting, she’ll also buy more utilitarian items for Boer’s daily life or personal trips.
When Boer went on a mission to cut down her caffeine intake, she wanted to replace her daily coffee (aside from the occasional rose latte) with a mushroom alternative. Peres says she ordered three different brands, and about a month later Boer decided Ryze’s was the most palatable compared with the other “very, very earthy” options. Peres set up a monthly auto-ship, and Boer now goes through about a bag every week.
Boer recently had her third child and needed to start traveling with baby formula. Not long before driving from New York to her summer house, she tasked Peres with finding three coolers from Yeti; she specifically asked for the 12-ounce soft version because it would be both easy to tote around and spacious enough to carry multiple bottles of formula. (One would keep the formula cold during the drive, while the other two coolers would stay at her properties in New York and Newport.) “It was very last minute, as are a lot of things when you work for someone who has small children and a busy schedule,” Peres says. “A lot of times, you have to pivot rather quickly and be creative about how you acquire things and what is the easiest, quickest way to get it without having to really run yourself ragged around New York City.” After calling five hardware stores, an REI, and a Paragon Sports with no luck, she found the coolers in stock in Stuy Town. It took her 90 minutes to track them down and have them delivered via Uber.
Peres often buys Boer’s children’s clothes when they’ve grown out of them or if they need occasionwear like special dresses. Boer will text Peres with the request, and the two will sometimes text back and forth with options. More often than not, though, Peres has free rein on purchases, and she’ll overbuy a little, knowing she’ll be returning some items. Once, when Boer requested sweatpants for her “super-active” 7-year-old, Peres turned to Nununu, “a very hip children’s line” she had discovered while working with celebrity clients. Peres bought the sweatpants and some shirts for the 7-year-old, along with leggings and a tutu for Boer’s 2-year-old. Both children loved everything, and Nununu is now a go-to for Boer’s kids.
After Boer began experiencing hyperpigmentation and breakouts postpartum, her facialist at JE’DERM recommended these Clinical Resolution Lab serums. Peres spent a couple of hours browsing online to locate both (larger retailers don’t stock the brand), and she has since reordered the serums twice for her boss, who likes that the products feel almost medical grade, “as opposed to something with a lot of fragrance in it,” Peres says. With consistent use, Boer has had fewer breakouts and her hyperpigmentation has faded.
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