In celebration of International Women’s Month, we are pleased to feature Bonnie Langedijk, founder of HURS, a platform exploring fashion, art, food, and design through stories and think pieces from leading women shaping contemporary culture. Bonnie shares a favorite film and reads by women whose work and perspective continue to inspire her.

E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea

"I've long been fascinated by Gray—the Irish designer and architect whose work feels so alive. A friend, Neada Deters, who founded LESSE, recommended this film. The unusual format, those images of the South of France where I spend my summers, the unveiling of a story so few people know. Gray understood something essential: that spaces are meant for living, not merely looking at. And though so much was taken from her—her work appropriated, defaced, nearly forgotten—she never seemed bitter, even in old age. She was a woman who simply refused to let her era define her."

Just Kids by Patti Smith 

"A classic, but deservedly so. I spent three months in New York in 2025, and reading this later in the year brought me right back. What I loved was Smith's early indifference to commerce, her lack of interest in the icons who surrounded her. She carved her own path with quiet determination. She's not afraid to show us her doubt and insecurity and yet she never wavers in her sense of who she is and what she wants."

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

"I'd read Smith's essays for years, admiring her sharp way of looking at the world. White Teeth was my first encounter with her fiction, and it struck me as both strange and deeply familiar. Having recently moved from London to Amsterdam, I enjoyed reading about a city I once called home—still clear in my mind, yet now at a distance. But what stayed with me were the women. Not archetypes or flattened versions of femininity, but actual women—flawed, strong, contradictory. Smith gives them real dimension, which is rarer than it should be."