There’s still a lot to look forward to, as September comes with plenty of changes (moving apartments being one of them) and plans I’m excited about. This time, though, without the rushed feeling of the summer buzz: the suitcases up and down, the plans, the activities, and that NEED to make the most of a place and the people you’re surrounded by. My social battery has definitely taken a hit after spending so much time socializing, and I definitely came back home feeling like I needed a holiday to recover from the holiday. I’m looking forward to a bit more introspection, and some time by myself.

But I won’t get too ahead of myself. Here are some of the things I’ve really enjoyed this August, thoughts and all.

Worn

Clothes this month have been full-on holiday dressing, in all its states, including bikini and T-shirt for a few days straight. I’ve dressed for the heat, and especially for comfort. In the south of Italy we were moving around on a motorbike, and one has to be properly dressed for that: so the sun doesn’t burn your legs, so your legs aren’t too exposed, and so you don’t risk getting a scratch or two if anything happens.

On the days when I could wear something more put together, or in the evenings when we went out for dinner, I wore a lot of dresses. Apparently it’s a summer thing for me, as I don’t really touch them for the rest of the year.

A special mention goes to this striped cotton dress from Faithfull, which sits beautifully and is instant put-togetherness. Very much the kind of dress you can wear with flat sandals and wet hair during the day, and still feel dressed enough for dinner.

Other items on high rotation have been this T-shirt from The Slow Label (amazing quality, thick cotton, and not white-white but more of an ivory color) and my Dragon Diffusion bag, which has resurfaced in my closet this year after being forgotten all last summer. It’s not necessarily a summer bag, and I bought it in brown thinking about wearing it with my coats as well, but there’s something about the woven leather and the shape that makes it hard for me to wear during other months of the year. Maybe a challenge for this fall.

Watched

I made it a mission this month to go through my endless list of movies to watch. I watched Mulholland Drive by David Lynch for the first time, one of those films I felt I should have watched years ago, both because it’s so iconic and because it’s such an important work in queer cinema. I wasn’t fully prepared for how strange and heavy it felt.

The silences, the slow camera movements, the lack of music in so many scenes, it all makes the film feel suspended in this very uncomfortable way. The outfits and the interiors are, admittedly, great (Betty’s aunt’s apartment is now filed somewhere in my brain as interiors inspiration). That said, it’s definitely not a movie I’d recommend watching home alone at night, which is exactly what I did.

Right after, because I needed some kind of emotional repair before going to sleep, I rewatched Breathless. I hadn’t seen it in years, and it reminded me why I love Godard so much. The pace of the film, Paris, and Jean Seberg’s pixie cut. I’ve thought about cutting my hair that short many times, one day I might finally do it.

I also watched At Land by Maya Deren for the first time. It’s only fifteen minutes long, directed by and starring Deren herself, and it’s one of those films where every frame could be saved as an image. She was a Russian-born American filmmaker and an important figure in the avant-garde scene of the 40s and 50s, and the film has that very experimental, surreal, and dreamlike logic. The story is simple, and as explained by Deren herself, it circles around the struggle to maintain a sense of self when going through life. Mostly, I loved the frames, the close-ups, and the way the body moves through the different interiors and locations.

Visited

On one of the days I spent in the south of Italy, we visited Ravello. It’s a small town perched in the mountains near Amalfi, with stunning views of the sea and home to two of the most beautiful villas I’ve ever been to: Villa Rufolo and Villa Cimbrone.

Villa Rufolo is the more medieval of the two, originally built in the 13th century by a wealthy merchant family, with Moorish, Sicilian, and Norman influences still visible in the courtyard, towers, and cloister. The gardens were later transformed in the 19th century, and Wagner famously visited in 1880, finding inspiration there for Klingsor’s garden in Parsifal. There’s also a William Kentridge exhibition on at the moment, which was very worth seeing.

Villa Cimbrone is known especially for the Terrazza dell’Infinito, a belvedere lined with marble busts and suspended above the sea. Go in the late afternoon if you can, visit both villas, stay for sunset, and then have dinner in town after.

Noticed

A research hole I went into this month started while writing my last article, about ease and clothes that bring us back to ourselves. It made me look more closely at the fact that these clothes aren’t always minimal. We tend to picture uniform dressing, or the clothes we repeat and feel good in, as something severe or practical (a white shirt, black trousers…) but a repeatable outfit can also be printed, glamorous, even a little theatrical.

I mentioned Patti Smith, but there are so many others that come to mind: Iris Apfel and her sunglasses, Grace Jones and her shoulder pads, Anna Wintour and her printed midi dresses, André Leon Talley and his capes, Diane von Furstenberg and her colorful silhouettes and big jewelry. None of them dress alike, but they all have that recognizable thing that makes them them.

I’ve been interested in Diane for a long time. I read her autobiography a couple of summers ago, and she’s had such a glamorous, roller-coaster life, so interesting to read about. I highly recommend it, and I also highly recommend following her on Instagram. She posts the most unapologetic pictures and captions, and this summer she’s been on top form.

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I’ve talked before about the wonders of a midi dress in the summer. For me, it’s the kind of piece that needs no debate and no overthinking: something comfortable, something that doesn’t need much pairing when it’s hot, easy to move in, something that doesn’t tug, sit strangely, or make me feel too exposed, as a shorter dress sometimes would. Something that makes me feel put together enough, while requiring very little struggle.

That’s where ease comes in. Not effortlessness exactly, because I don’t think I fully believe in that: most things that look effortless are usually the result of repetition, trial and error, and many small decisions made before the moment anyone sees the final version. Ease is different, it’s not the absence of thought, but the result of thinking about something enough times that you don’t have to think about it anymore. It becomes second nature, a form of self-knowledge.

That dress feels easy because I’ve worn it many times before, and before that, some version of it. It’s a piece of clothing I don’t have to negotiate with, the same way I don’t have to negotiate with jeans and a white T-shirt, a ballet flat, or a long black coat. I’ve worn them so many times that I already know how I’m going to feel in them, and it’s that repetition that has taught me which shapes make me feel good, which fabrics start to annoy me after three hours against my skin, and which shoes will ruin my day.

I also don’t think ease can be reduced to comfort. Comfort can be purely physical, like a soft fabric. A very comfortable piece like a hoodie, on Zoë Kravitz, comes with ease because it belongs to a whole language already built around her style: the slouch, that slightly undone feeling in all her looks. On Anna Wintour, (who has also admitted to never wearing a hoodie before), it would feel imposed, costume-y. The piece is the same but only feels ‘correct’ in one of the two cases, because ease doesn’t live in the piece itself, but in the relationship between the piece and the person who wears it.

When working as a stylist, I spend a lot of time thinking about impact: what will photograph well, what will create tension, what will make an image more interesting. I used to think good style had to involve some level of reinvention. A new idea, a new shape, a new reference, something unexpected. I love a styling trick, a strange proportion, a piece worn the wrong way, or something that changes the mood of everything around it. Styling can be fun, bold, and can challenge the way we think about clothes. But there’s a lot to be said, too, about the less impressive things, sometimes the less obvious ones, the repetitions that hold everything together when our brain is somewhere else.

There’s something I really love about people who dress with that kind of consistency. Not necessarily uniform dressing, and not necessarily minimalism, but people whose clothes seem to belong to them completely. Patti Smith in her tied and undone tailoring. The Olsen twins in oversized layers and face-covering sunglasses. Patricia, Jean Seberg’s character in Breathless ( I rewatched it the other day, a really good movie for late summer) in striped T-shirts and shirts. And, of course, Joan Didion, with her cashmere sweaters and sandals (which I’ve already ranted about here).

I guess this is what I’m trying to get at: ease is not about which pieces you’re wearing, or about looking like you didn’t try. It’s about having tried enough times. It’s about not having to think so much about clothes (which of course makes the clothes more interesting). It’s about what requires no performance, what brings you back to yourself. What you can grab from your closet at 5.30h after a holiday.

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Coming back to Barcelona after a few weeks away has hit me like a brick: the heat, the amount of people flooding the streets, friends already off on holiday… Luckily, I’ll only be here for a few more days, loading and unloading the washing machine and trying to see everyone who’s still around.

Worn

It’s been a truly weird month for clothes. It started with proper summer dressing by the beach and ended in winter gear (anorak included) in Iceland. I’m not going to bore you with all the details, as I already talked about what I packed for those beach days here, and what I’ve been wearing lately here.

Iceland was a whole different story, though. Before this trip, I didn’t own proper winter gear or any real hiking clothes. Three days before leaving, a text from my mom (the OG Type A in my family when it comes to packing for trips) woke me up from my over-reliance on my own wardrobe: ‘Did you get a pair of Salomons? Waterproof rain pants?’ I ran. And I owe the trip to her, because it was cold and rainy most of the time.

Other than the unexpected winter clothes, July has also been, as July usually is, a month of swimwear, first by the beach, then in the different hot springs around Iceland. I’ve been leaning toward swimsuits a lot more this year, mostly in neutral colors (even though I’m currently eyeing this one from Lido and this one from Massimo Dutti, waiting for it to come back in stock. A love affair with red).

This one from The Slow Label has been a favorite for a few years, and it’s holding up so well: it’s white, but hasn’t stained or stretched out.

This one from Hunza has also been a favorite this summer. The plunging neckline makes me feel sexy. The only downside is that the fabric is very thick and takes a really long time to dry.

Read

I finished Flashlight by Susan Choi in the car while driving through Iceland, which somehow felt like a very fitting place to read it. It’s been quite a long read. I really enjoyed the beginning and really enjoyed the ending, but somewhere in the middle I almost thought about dropping it, as I found it hard to relate to Louisa, one of the main characters. I talked about this book much more enthusiastically here.

I’m currently reading Circe by Madeline Miller (refreshing my Greek mythology knowledge before watching The Odyssey) and I’ve been flying through it. The pace is quick, and Miller’s descriptions are exquisite, making me root for a very misunderstood witch.

Watched

Thelma & Louise. I can’t believe I hadn’t watched this movie until now. It made me want to get in a car, drive through the desert, wear high-waisted jeans and a white tank, and never answer to anyone again. It’s funny, sad, beautiful, and quietly devastating, with one of the best onscreen friendships I’ve seen.

The two protagonists, Thelma and Louise, are not written as perfect women. They’re messy, funny, scared, impulsive, loyal, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes brave. Their friendship feels alive, and it changes them. Louise gives Thelma courage, Thelma gives Louise softness and joy. By the end, they’ve both evolved so much, and they’re radically different women than they were at the beginning.

And then visually, it’s incredibly seductive: the desert, the car, the light, the dusty motels… It all creates this very specific idea of freedom, very sweaty, worn-in, and cinematic.

Listened

The soundtrack of Thelma & Louise (‘The Ballad of Lucy Jordan’ is a banger) and many other hazy, slightly strange songs by female singers: Marianne Faithfull, Asha Puthli, Patti Smith, Saâda Bonaire, Laetitia Sadier, Madonna. And in the last few days, the latest album from The Strokes. It’s just so, so GOOD!

Hope this has been inspiring, and catch up again soon,

xx Aina

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It usually comes after a few months of the same kind of weather. For me, it tends to happen around February and March, when I start dreading the coats and long sleeves I’ve been wearing since November, and then again in August, after dressing for summer since June and July, sometimes even May. That’s when I go back to the folder. It reminds me of what has worked before, what I actually like wearing, and what I can put together again when I feel like I’ve run out of ideas. Here are a few, in case you need some new ones too.

I’ll probably be going back to that folder on my phone for the rest of the summer.

xx Aina

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I spent last week by the beach, on a little summer getaway in Costa Brava, and I’m quite proud of the job I did this time. A few packing rules I always follow:

• Every piece (whether it’s a top, dress, pair of pants, skirt, or anything else) needs to work in at least two looks or for a few different occasions.

• No pieces I don’t feel 100% beautiful, sexy or comfortable in. Too many times I’ve packed a pair of pants ‘that hasn’t been worn in a while’, only to arrive at my destination and remember exactly why I haven’t worn it in years: they just don’t look good.

• Only weather-appropriate fabrics. On too many occasions, I’ve packed a pair of wool tailored trousers because I love how they fit, then haven’t been able to wear them because it was boiling hot. Pack for the weather you’re actually getting, not the weather you wish you were dressing for, or you’ll end up not wearing 95% of your suitcase and reaching for the same dress on repeat.

• In the summer, easy-to-pack pieces that don’t require too much fuss. Nothing that looks terrible if it gets a little wrinkled.

• Always pack a belt. The most basic outfit looks a hundred times better with a belt.

• Pack at least one baggy or oversized pants + T-shirt combination. I tend to go for slinky, slimmer-fitting pieces in the summer, but sometimes you just want a little breathing room, especially when traveling.

• Make some bold, fun choices. When I’m on vacation or traveling, I’m always a little bolder with my outfits, don’t ask me why. I love taking a few more creative risks I probably wouldn’t take at home, and summer holidays are the perfect time to get slightly out of my comfort zone.

This is how my suitcase started:

I usually start with shoes, because once I know what I’ll be walking in, everything else becomes easier. I packed a pair of leather flip-flops, mules, and two new pairs of sandals. Risky business taking them on vacation straight away, but I actually loved wearing them. Both are from Mango, here and here.

I also like to start with my toiletry bag and accessories and just get them out of the way. I packed the perfume I use every day, a few bits of makeup (this mascara and eye pencil from Victoria Beckham are so good) and a cap I got in Sicily last summer and have worn to death.

For the actual outfits, my Type A self needs to lay everything out, or try everything on, before anything goes into the suitcase. I need to see the pieces together first and make sure they work in more than one way.

This black midi skirt for example, I paired with a linen top, and with a striped shirt.

I wore it those two ways, and also with a black top and the same belt. I adore this look. I feel so much like myself in a black tank that fits well.

I also wore this Nutka Studios dress a lot. It ticks the oversized/baggy box because it’s very loose-fitting, and it has a gorgeous flower detail that keeps it from being just another black dress.

And these two other options: one for the scorching daytime heat, and another for when it got a little chillier in the evenings.

On the last night, we went to one of my favorite small towns in the area, walked around, and had some ice cream. I wore this Octobre shirt I’ve been wearing loads this season, and a vintage Sportmax scarf as a skirt, which I already raved about a few weeks ago. You can find similar options here and here. The cream tones matched perfectly, and I felt sexy in it.

Hope this gave you a few ideas for your next few days away!

Talk again soon,

xx Aina

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I knew what I was going to find here (all my friends had been posting about the canicule, and I’d seen some of the menswear shows being moved to earlier morning hours to avoid the heat) but I wasn’t prepared for this. Luckily, and unlike most Parisian buildings, my hotel has AC. I’ve been trying to make the most of it, as if staying inside for as long as possible somehow makes being outside, when you have to be, a little easier.

Apart from the air conditioner, here are a few other things that brought me joy this month.

Worn

I spent a few days on short holiday trips this month, first in Costa Brava and then in Naples. It wasn’t scorching hot yet, so I was still able to wear slightly more covered pieces.

I wore this Marle top a lot this June, paired with black pants for dinner dates, or with skirts and silky pants during the day. I love how a wrap top can be styled in so many different ways, and can look either very put together or more relaxed depending on what you pair it with (similar second-hand options here and here).

These St.Agni wedges have also been on high rotation, as they’re super soft, and comfortable enough to walk around even if they’re quite high for my usual heel choice (my heel tolerance is not the best).

I was stepped on in the Paris metro at the end of May, then had to wear a size 37 for an e-commerce shoot a few days later (when I’m usually a 38 or 39) so my feet are completely destroyed, bruised toenails included. These have been a lifesaver: they don’t dig into your skin, and they leave your toes out, which is exactly what I needed.

In the last few days, with this crazy heat, I’ve gone extremely minimal: white tank + midi skirt, white tee + linen pants, silk midi dress. Things I can slip in and out of easily, and could potentially hand-wash in my hotel room sink.

Saved

The ‘Recently Saved’ folder on my phone looks like this:

Listened

A lot of fun, funky music. Nu Genea and Khruangbin have been part of my summer repertoire for the last couple of years (I actually saw Khruangbin live last August in Copenhagen). They always put me in a good mood.

A few favorites if you need some new recommendations, ‘Acelera’, ‘Disco Sole’ and ‘Marechià’ from Nu Genea, ‘Pon Pón’, ‘Todavía Viva’, ‘Pelota’ and ‘People Everywhere’ from Khruangbin.

Noticed

Another research hole I went into this month happened after I posted a note on Georgia O’Keeffe’s style and realized just how many brooches the artist owned.

I’ve saved so many images of her over the last few years. Her personal style was just fantastic: modern, severe, authentic. The hats, the shirts, the kimonos, the way she styled her hair…

She wore lots of brooches. The most famous one is the piece Alexander Calder made for her around the mid-1940s: a brass brooch that spells out ‘OK’, an abbreviation of O’Keeffe’s name. She preferred to wear it vertically, with the K below the O.

When her hair turned gray, she thought silver would suit her better, so she had a replica made in silver, which she wore for the rest of her life.

I also love this small sphere one, which she often wore on shirt collars or as a detail at the neckline.

That’s all for now!

Hope this has been inspiring, and catch up again soon,

xx Aina

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The atmosphere, and the context outside, can deeply transform the reading experience: enhance it or completely ruin it. I’m not looking for dense thinking pieces, tedious books, or anything too sad. In the summer, much like in life, I want my books to be light, airy, a little whimsical, and especially gripping: the kind that keep me reading for hours without being able to lift my eyes from the page.

This list is a little bit of everything.

Bonjour Tristesse, by Françoise Sagan

If there is one book to read in the summer, it is this one. It’s set on the French Riviera in the summer, relatively short, and a beautiful, light read without being superficial. The novel tells the story of Cécile, a seventeen-year-old who lost her mother when she was very young and spends her summers in the south of France with her playboyish father, a handsome widower.

Through her eyes, we experience a summer of hedonism, parties, and pleasure, the world of her father and his love interests, but also Cécile’s first romantic experiences and discoveries. There’s not much at stake, at least on the surface, and it’s easy to relate to Cécile and her point of view.

Flesh, by David Szalay

I devoured this book in London last month (I actually recommended it already in my May favorites) and I think it’s perfect for reading by the pool. It’s gripping from the very beginning.

The story traces the life of István, first as a fifteen-year-old living in Hungary with his mother, and then as he grows up and moves from an impoverished life there into elite circles in London. It’s structured in snapshots and follows István through decades, across very different phases of his life. It’s brutal, absorbing like any other I’ve read lately, and an interesting take on modern masculinity.

Flashlight, by Susan Choi

A bit of a cheat here, as this is the book I’m currently reading and haven’t finished yet. Flashlight tells the story of a family: an American mother, a Korean father, and their American-born daughter, Louisa. The novel alternates between the perspectives of all three, moving forward and backward in time from a turning point in their lives, which also forms the book’s opening. While on vacation in Japan with her father, Louisa is found unconscious and drenched on a beach at night, with no memory of how she got there. Her father is missing and presumed drowned.

It’s a big book (a proper doorstopper) but a great one to take on a trip if you know you’ll have time to read. It’s very absorbing, and especially interesting as it touches on key moments in twentieth-century history, including postwar Japan and Korea.

Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami

I’ve reread this one multiple times, and first read it in the summer, three or four years ago. It’s Murakami’s best-known novel, and a must-read for anyone who loves a coming-of-age story.

It tells the parallel stories of Kafka, a teenage boy who runs away from his home in Tokyo in an attempt to escape a prophecy, and Nakata, an elderly man whose childhood accident left him with unusual abilities, including the power to talk to cats. The two narratives eventually ‘connect’.

It has the right amount of whimsy (magical realism, like another book later on this list) blurring reality and dreams while touching on themes of self-acceptance and the human ability to shape one’s own fate.

The Lost Daughter, by Elena Ferrante

Leda, an English literature professor, takes a solo beach vacation in southern Italy. She rents a small house near the beach and spends her days laying in the sun next to Neapolitan family, quickly becoming captivated by the young mother and her daughter. Through what she observes at the beach, the relationship between mother and daughter, and between the little girl and her doll, Leda relives her own relationship with her now-grown daughters, and her past begins to surface.

Ferrante’s writing is raw, gripping, and deeply emotional. She dives into Leda’s character: a mother who resented the loss of her career, independence, and youth. It’s a short, intense novel, and it really absorbed me when I read it a couple of years ago.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez

My favorite book of all time, One Hundred Years of Solitude has something for everyone. I’ve reread it multiple times, and I think it’s the perfect summer doorstopper if you haven’t read it yet.

The novel tells the story of the Buendía family across seven generations: the founding family of an isolated town somewhere in Latin America. Through their lives (and there are many of them, you will need a family tree to keep track) García Márquez explores fate, human nature, solitude, the inescapability of death, and the triviality of our lives against the scale of the world. The storytelling is immense. It’s one of the defining works of magical realism, and it also touches on colonialism, violence, and love.

Outline, by Rachel Cusk

Cusk is one of my favorite writers of all time, and this was one of the first novels of hers I read. It’s also set in the summer.

It tells the story of a middle-aged novelist teaching a creative writing course during an oppressively hot summer in Athens. Written in the first person, it unfolds through her conversations with students, people she meets at dinner, and strangers on the plane. Through these exchanges, we come to understand more about her and her past. If you like it, it’s the first in a trilogy: Transit and Kudos follow. Her novel Second Place is also one of my favorites, maybe a little darker for a summer read, but a recommendation nonetheless.

On my current summer reading list, these are the ones I have lined up:

- We Do Not Part by Han Kang

- White Teeth by Zadie Smith

- Turbulence by David Szalay (can’t wait to read more by him)

- Saving Agnes by Rachel Cusk

Happy reading and talk soon,

xx Aina

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The camera roll is usually the first place I look. I start by pulling up recent stylings I’ve worked on, partly because they help me remember how I want to pair things, and partly because they push me a little outside my comfort zone. A recent favorite is this look I styled on Ynaê: a black midi dress, which is usually what I gravitate toward during the hotter months.

The one she’s wearing is vintage DKNY, silk and double-lined, with a gorgeous knot detail at the bust. I found a similar one here, and this other one is also a great option if you’re on the lookout for your own. It’s easy, looks good, and in black, it transitions effortlessly between different contexts.

On her, I paired it with a vintage 1920s ivory bangle and a pair of old kitten heels from my own closet. Similar ones here from Toteme, and these vintage Gucci ones are absolutely fabulous if you happen to be a 40.5. I would have bought them immediately if they had been my size.

I really like the detail of the silk scarf in her hand. It followed the storyline we were building, but at the same time, it’s a practical choice in real life if you need a quick cover-up. This one is vintage Sportmax, also silk, with an embroidered pattern and long fringe, one of my best vintage finds from last year.

Speaking of scarves, I’ve also been styling them on the head. Here’s Ynaê again, with another vintage silk scarf from Sportmax (you can find similar ones here and here).

This one is slightly more structured, which allows for different styling options. I’ve used it before as a cover-up, almost like a skirt, and also as a top, pinned at the back with a large brooch, as I did here on Lolita.

A few looks later, I used the same brooch again, this time to add a little more detail to an otherwise quite plain cream top.

This one is vintage too, but a good brooch is not hard to find. Both of my grandmothers had large brooch collections, and when I first started becoming interested in them, the first thing I did was dig through their jewelry boxes. The second was fall into a research hole that took me from The Row Spring 2026 lookbook to Georgia O’Keeffe’s brooch collection (my summer muse).

I like brooches because they are slightly old-fashioned in the best possible way. They belong to a kind of dressing that feels more intentional: a small object can completely change the mood of a look. They can hold a scarf in place, close a shirt, sit on the waist of a skirt, fasten fabric at the shoulder, or simply interrupt a plain blouse with a little weight or uniqueness. There’s something very personal about them too, maybe because in my case they’ve often come from someone else’s jewelry box, or because they feel less trend-led than other accessories.

I love the ones from Sophie Buhai (I’ve had the Leaf Silver Brooch and Scarab Brooch on my wishlist forever) and also the ones from Agmes, especially this one.

Hope this gave you something to save, wear or think about,

xx Aina

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The version told by George Hoyningen-Huene, photographer and later a close friend of hers, sounds slightly different: ‘One day, as she was about to cross Park Avenue in New York against the light, an elderly gentleman took her gently by the arm and stopped her. It was Condé Nast, who had a keen eye for a beautiful girl. He offered her a job modeling.’ It’s easy to wonder whether she deliberately placed herself in Nast’s line of sight, hoping to catch his attention.

I first ‘met’ Lee Miller at a retrospective of her work at Tate last November. Until then, I only knew her as Man Ray’s model, so the exhibition was enlightening: the model turned actress turned photographer turned artist turned photojournalist. Miller was a chameleon in a way few people are.

She was born in a small town near New York in 1907 and posed for her father, an engineer and amateur photographer, throughout her childhood and teenage years. Her first work as a professional model was for a department store in 1926, and a year later, after that fortuitous meeting with Nast, she landed on the cover of Vogue.

Professional modeling was not a real job at the time, as magazines featured a mix of photographs and illustrations as visuals, usually of socialites. Her first Vogue cover was drawn by Georges Lepape: a close-up image of her, bright-eyed against the glittering New York skyline, wearing a cloche hat.

She then began modeling for some of the biggest names in fashion photography, both in commercial and editorial work: Cecil Beaton, Arnold Genthe, Nickolas Muray, Edward Steichen. She embodied the 1920s, with her androgynous figure and sleek short hair, and began using the name Lee (she was born Elizabeth) a modern, unisex name that seemed to fit the new persona she was becoming.

But Miller was far more interested in placing herself behind the camera than in front of it. In 1929, she moved to Paris to begin an apprenticeship with Man Ray. They started a heated love story that lasted a few years and produced some of the most beautiful and well-known Surrealist images. Her move to Paris and collaboration with Man Ray initiated a frenzy of events. Between 1929 and 1932 alone, her CV is astonishing: she became Man Ray’s creative partner, met a wide circle of Surrealist artists, published her images in French, American and British Vogue, documented surgical procedures as a medical photographer, starred in one of Jean Cocteau’s films, and traveled to England, Germany, Spain, Tunisia, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium.

Commercial work, both as a photographer and as a model, helped her pay the bills and connected her to artists of all kinds, while also nurturing her own artistic practice. Some of my favorite works of hers are the self-portraits she shot for British and American Vogue, where she was credited as both model and artist.

And still, her life was only just beginning. She would go on to found her own photography studio, marry an Egyptian businessman and move to Cairo, become a US war correspondent, and document what was happening in the concentration camps of Europe. Her artistic sensibility is what runs through all her work: the strangeness of her angles, the bravery of her framing, her instinct for choosing a point of view that offered another reading. Her work touched advertising, fashion, portraiture, still life, landscapes and photojournalism. It is incredibly diverse, built around wherever life happened to be taking her at any given moment.

‘The best thing you can do for yourself is actively increase your surface area for luck to hit you. Go outside, try new places, attend events, speak to people and ask questions. The more you do, the more serendipity will find you,’ says a Tumblr quote from someone I have saved on my phone (I do still use Tumblr, yes). Miller was certainly one to increase her own surface area for luck.

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Worn

A good black trouser is what I always reach for, especially when I’m traveling or in a funk (both applicable this month). May started in London, still chilly, and then continued through Milan, Venice, Barcelona and Paris in the middle of the worst heatwave. A black trouser is what has carried me around, almost always styled with my trusted black ballet flats.

This month I’ve been leaning towards this pair from Lumi Ease, a recent brand discovery. They sit well on the hips, they’re not heavy, they don’t wrinkle much, and have a beautiful lace detail at the bottom.

I also got a manicure, which is sort of new for me, as I can almost never have my nails painted. This last week of May I was fully doing styling work, so I got them done in this beautiful dark cherry color.

Read

A big month of reading, I bought and read many books. Special mentions go to The Details, by Ia Genberg, and Cells, by Gavin McCrea. I read them quickly on the London tube, but the winner of the month (and maybe of the year) has definitely been Flesh, by David Szalay.

It’s been a long time since I read a book that made me want to keep reading like this one did. The storyline moves quickly, and as a reader you are completely hooked from the beginning. It won the Booker Prize in 2025, which is always a good sign. Here’s how they describe it on the Booker Prizes website:

Something to let your mind fully sink into a story, and a really good summer read.

Watched

Io Sono l’Amore, directed by Luca Guadagnino. It reminded me of my time in Milan, of my favorite places, of Villa Necchi, and made me fall in love with Emma Recchi’s wardrobe. The movie is beautifully shot, moving, romantic, and exactly what I needed for smiling and crying throughout.

Visited

I discovered the jewelry collection at the V&A in London almost by chance. I’ve visited the museum a couple of times during my stays in London, but it’s so huge I always feel a little overwhelmed by it, and had never made it to this section before. If you like jewelry or fashion, I would highly recommend it.

There’s a lot of information accompanying the collection, and everything is organized chronologically. Very interesting to see the shift in materials, gems and silhouettes as the years go by.

Saved

Lots of shoes, I’ve realized. Maybe it’s the shift towards summer dressing, especially after the heatwave, but my ‘Recently Saved’ folder in my camera roll is almost entirely filled with flip-flops and sandals.

Hope this has been inspiring, and catch up again soon,

xx Aina

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I lived in Milan for a little over a year in 2022, and from my first visit, this place captivated me. Ever since, nearly every time I return to the city, I find myself going back. The building was commissioned in the 1930s by the Necchi-Campiglios, a family of Lombard industrialists, to architect Piero Portaluppi. Today, it stands as an icon of Italian Rationalism, attracting designers and creatives who flock to Milan for fashion and design weeks.

The rigorous lines of the façade soften once inside. Walnut floors, reflective surfaces, geometric motifs, rich colors: the deep blues in the seating area, the green sofa that almost disappears into the vegetation outside the windows. Everything feels dense, heavy, expensive. In the opulence of the materials, one immediately understands the family’s wealth and why it has become the household name it is today.

I stumbled across the house again recently while watching Io Sono l’Amore, a 2009 film directed by Luca Guadagnino, and starring Tilda Swinton. The film is one of his most celebrated works, before Call Me By Your Name (2017) and Bones and All (2022), and a delight for the senses. The house is almost ever-present and impossible to miss. More than a backdrop, it exists in constant conversation with the characters, influencing how they exist inside and outside of it.

We first meet Swinton’s caharcter, Emma Recchi, in the villa, polishing silver shoulder to shoulder with the staff before an upcoming dinner. She’s the perfect wife, mother and hostess, trapped in a role that she’s beginning to outgrow. In that first scene, she wears a beige cashmere polo and light trousers, with only a few pieces of jewelry and a rigid headband: austere, restrained, elegant. She almost blends into the woods and marble surrounding her.

Throughout the film, Emma appears in six key outfits that mirror her gradual transformation. Inside Milan and inside the villa, she wears soft neutrals and controlled silhouettes. Outside of it, during her love affair, scarlets and tangerines. Her clothes become both emotional and spatial language: the further Emma moves away from the villa and all it represents, the more color enters her wardrobe.

A couple notable favorites include a bright red cocktail dress for lunch and a gorgeous lilac coat she pairs with a pearl necklace to pick up the dry-cleaning.

Costume designer Antonella Cannarozzi worked alongside Raf Simons to create Emma’s wardrobe. Apart from a lot of Jil Sander (Simons was then creative director of Jil Sander), Emma also carries multiple Hermès bags (slightly open and a bit weathered!), including a Birkin, Kelly, and Massai.

The looks were either custom or adapted from Simons’ Jil Sander collections, reworked in new colors and fabrics, mirroring Emma’s inner world. Many reinterpret silhouettes from the 50s and 60s, and with the villa as backdrop and the classic silhouettes, there’s little to anchor the film to 2009. We search for clues outside the house: the cars on the street, the clothes of passersby. Yet none of it feels forced. The impeccable lines of Emma’s clothing, the regal presence of the villa, and the story, one of passion, love, and loss, exist outside of time. A true feast for all lovers of fashion and design.

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Long gone are the days when, as Meryl Streep said in “The Devil Wears Prada,” everything we wore and wanted to wear was ‘selected for us’ by an elite of editors and stylists. Today, algorithms pick for us. Trends like last year’s ‘Balletcore’ or ‘Quiet Luxury’ are prime examples of this new landscape: they took off on TikTok and quickly made their way into runways and stores. Many have their origins on forums or platforms that rely heavily on community (Tumblr, for example), and some had been brewing there for years before reaching any other platform. A single image or product is often enough to sprout the craze: Bottega Veneta’s sardine bag or Sandy Liang’s bows on everything led the ‘Sardinecore’ and ‘Coquette’ trends, respectively, in 2023. 

Within platforms like Instagram and TikTok, these so-called micro-trends are everywhere, and their influence is hard to dodge. As users, we play a dual role in their proliferation: we’re both the trendsetters and the consumers. With every like, comment, and share, we help them spread as they cater to other users with similar interests. Once ‘picked by the algorithm,’ the app thrusts them into the spotlight and, just a few weeks later, into the storefronts of mainstream brands. 

The dominance of algorithms raises questions about individuality, creativity, and the structures shaping our tastes. I will be investigating the mechanisms and implications of algorithm-driven trendsetting on consumer behavior, fashion industry dynamics, and cultural homogenization, and diving into how brands can navigate this ‘new’ landscape of virality and if they really need it in order to succeed.

What Are Algorithmic Feeds?

Almost all our digital feeds today work via recommendation algorithms. Through data collection in all its forms (cookies, past likes, clicks), online companies and social media platforms can predict what we will click on next and, as they're designed to optimize for engagement, feed it to the user. When any content takes off, it's automatically integrated into the algorithm, suggesting interest in its content and birthing a new trend. This is what's called the 'Algorithm Amplification Effect'. 

Almost every kind of speech and discourse online today is mediated by algorithms, and apart from the ethical and social implications this has, it essentially erases differences and creates uniformity on different levels. As Kyle Chayka argues in 'Filterworld,' recommendation algorithms have taken increasingly more space, and the user has less control over what they see, producing algorithmic homogenous things and experiences and, consequently, flattening culture. 

Because social media is integrated into almost all aspects of our lives, how these platforms are designed greatly impacts our lives, online and offline, and it seems we're just starting to realize this now. Algorithmic systems are not neutral, and compared to non-algorithmic systems (like the beloved and very missed chronological feed), they amplify certain types of content, discourses, and styles while suppressing others at the same time. At the speed at which they operate, they push and discard trends that rise and fall like one-hit wonders. 

This speed also causes a second issue: because we're going through trends so fast, different aesthetics are trending simultaneously, even those considered opposites to one another. Silhouettes from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, and even the 00s and the 10s are in. Skirts are micro-minis (like those from Miu Miu), but also midi (90s pencil style) and ankle-length (in a The Row, 'Quiet Luxury' kind of way). Trends like ‘Cottagecore’ and ‘Gorpcore’ have coexisted in a certain moment, the same as ‘Y2K’ and ‘Coquette’, the first with its midriff-baring tops and slouchy trousers, the second with hyper-soft bows, laces, and ruffles. There's the 'Lazy girl aesthetic' but also the 'Corpcore' aesthetic to dress for work. In a recent article from Business Of Fashion, both 'Quiet Luxury' and its new antagonist, 'Loud Luxury' (opulent logos everywhere and exaggerated silhouettes), were mentioned as trends to watch in 2024. At this pace, essentially, what's in today will be out tomorrow, and what will be in tomorrow will be outdated in a week. 

Balancing Trends With Brand Authenticity 

Some brands have started adapting their merchandising and their overall production to accommodate these new opportunities that social media fashion trends represent. Revolve, for instance, features a selection of waistcoats, maxi dresses, and wool turtlenecks when searching for ‘quiet luxury’ styles. Urban Outfitters also has a selection of items under the ‘Y2K’ aesthetic, with parachute pants and tight long-sleeve tops. ‘Blokette’ and ‘Put A Bow On It’ (aka Coquette) have recently substituted the ‘Balletcore’ aesthetic that had been at the top of the featured selections for a few months. This is not exclusive to fashion retailers. The same has happened in beauty, with retailers like Sephora quickly stocking those products that are trending searches on apps like TikTok and on the path of becoming viral, as with Olaplex’s conditioners and hair masks or tools like the gua sha. 

While capitalizing on social media trends can boost sales, it’s also the shortcut to losing a brand’s DNA and purpose. As many of these trends overlap each other, the mishmash of styles can be very hard for consumers and brands to navigate. Over-relying on the hype caused by a certain micro-trend is another danger brands face when dabbling in this game. With the rise of the ‘Scandinavian girl aesthetic’, brands like House Of Sunny or Ganni skyrocketed, with some of their designs quickly becoming cult favorites (like House Of Sunny’s Hockney Dress). In the summer of 2021, that easily identifiable style became all the rage, with every influencer on Instagram wearing it to stroll around European cities and retailers like Boohoo pushing out dupes that looked suspiciously similar to the original. For a brand, keeping up with this kind of virality is not easy and means re-centering itself after gaining immense success from a specific product that can now be seen everywhere.

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American painter Cy Twombly is well-known for his painting style of lines, scribbles of words, and poems on large canvases. He battled years of eye-rolls and criticism for his highly expressionistic perspective on art in a time where color and bold representation were all the rage, led by the Pop Art movement. He finally achieved recognition for his work in the latter half of his career after more than 30 years of devotion and dedication to representing sensibility, sensuality, and emotion.

While studying at the Art Students League in New York in the early 50s (where he met Rauschenberg and where the two became inseparable), Twombly also became interested in photography and began taking/making photographs with a pinhole camera. In the following years, he would photograph some of his friends, Franz Kline and John Cage at Black Mountain College, and the objects and things he would encounter while traveling.

The scrawls, scribbles, and ripples of his paintings attempted to retain a particular moment in time, and his photography tried to do the same. By using a tool so rooted in immediacy, he was able to inform his art and record the work-in-progress in his studio, but also to preserve the fleeting details, memorabilia, and lightplays that surrounded him. The textures and light were what interested him the most. In his Polaroids, objects aren’t often shown as a whole but as details and parts of something larger with its own consistency and nature, locked in a moment in time: the roughness in the skin of a lemon, the little scabs of dried paint in a brush.

This magical, almost out-of-earth feeling that his photographs evoke isn’t just his talent but the printing process they’ve been through, called Fresson printing. The technique was developed by a French family in the end of the 19th century, and has been handed down from one generation to the next, keeping some of the elements of the process secret and making Atelier Fresson (in the outskirts of Paris) the only place it can be done.

Fresson printing makes mood and character a priority, emphasizing light and texture in a way that no other photography printing process does. Colors are fretted, blended, profounded, and the results look like rich, moody pastel drawings that have stoically survived the test of time. Not much is known about the process, but the most fascinating thing is how reliant on chance the whole thing is, depending greatly on the conditions the photograph is manipulated in and on the experimentation of the people who work on it. It takes them around six hours per print, and they only make about two thousand prints a year for some of the most celebrated photographers of our time, like Sarah Moon or Sheila Metzner.

The Fresson family has stuck to their old ways of running their business and to their 2000s website, which harks back to the early days of the Internet. A few tabs, a salmon background, a serifed font, a main navigation with pages that change color once clicked. Unexpectedly, there is something very comforting and familiar about it, much like in the photographs they produce, which resemble paintings more than photographs. It’s the same familiarity that runs through Twombly’s polaroids, in the everyday objects they represent, and in the ordinary beauty of the crinkles of a cabbage and of the folds in the petals of a tulip.

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At the time, Jeanneret was developing his first ideas on Purism and worked closely with writer and painter Amedée Ozenfant. La Roche was rapidly taken by the Purist principles of reduced, ‘pure’ forms and simple geometric angles and shapes emphasized through color and decided to start his own art collection. His first purchases where the Flacon, guitare, verre et bouteilles à la table grise by Ozenfant, and Composition à la lanterne et à la guitare by Jeanneret. 

His interest in Purism wasn’t only crucial for the development of the movement in itself but for the development of art history. In the words of art historian Franz Meyer, ‘If in 1920 you gave yourself the brief to build a museum collection of Cubism and Purism out of the important works of Picasso, Braque, Gris, Léger, Lipschitz, Le Corbusier, and Ozenfant you could hardly have chosen in any other way than he [La Roche] did. In 1920 there were no curators and no commissioners who could tell you which pictures should have a place in a museum’. 

La Roche had a great eye for art. He also had incredible luck. In 1921, eight hundred Cubist paintings by Picasso, Gris, Léger, and Braque entered the Parisian art market. The paintings belonged to a German art dealer and were confiscated back in 1914 by the French government as enemy property. They were sold in four auctions between 1921 and 1923, and Jeanneret and Ozenfant acted as his bidders, acquiring, for a relatively cheap price, a selection of some of the most important works of the period. La Roche’s art collection was rapidly expanding, and his small flat overlooking the Champs de Mars was not fit to house it. It was then that he commissioned Jeanneret to build a villa for him. 

Maison La Roche-Jeanneret is one of the famous ‘purist’ villas built in Paris from 1920 to 1930, a hidden treasure in the sixteenth arrondissement. To access it, one must take a private roadway off the Rue du Docteur Blanche, arriving at a small square.

Surrounded by tall bourgeoisie buildings, Maison La Roche-Jeanneret is a ‘stony hued’ (in the words of Le Corbusier himself) short and elongated building, with clean lines and simple forms, composed of two semi-detached houses. One of the houses was meant to accommodate La Roche and his collection, the other Jeanneret’s brother and his family. Today, Maison Jeanneret contains the offices of the Fondation Le Corbusier. Maison La Roche is the one that can be visited. 

When Jeanneret secured the site in 1920, he needed to compromise on certain elements: the available land was very limited, and height restrictions were set. Other buildings surrounded the plot, and Jeanneret had to build a square to access the house from the main roadway. However, he was able to build the house as he intended and preserve the integrity of his original design concept. 

The use of new building materials at the time, like reinforced concrete, allowed Jeanneret to start playing with what he would later call the Five Points of Architecture, a series of architectural principles that prioritized the use of pilotis (columns), an open floor plan, a free façade, horizontal windows, and a roof terrace. He would use these principles as the basis of his designs and as underpinnings for his urbanism theories, which he would later apply when working on a committee for the Vichy Regime that collaborated with Nazi Germany during WWII. 

He made dubious political alliances during his lifetime; some argue that he was constantly cozying up to those in power at the time. Quoting architecture critic Deyan Sudjic here: ‘Le Corbusier was not the first architect to discover that making great architecture depends on a very close relationship between the architect and the rich and the powerful, and in some cases, some unsavory rich and powerful.’ 

Maison La Roche-Jeanneret also allowed him to put into practice one of his dearest concepts, the ‘architectural promenade.’ The interior of the Maison is arranged around two spaces, one ‘public’ (hall, painting gallery/living room...) and the other one private (bedroom, dining room…), each accessed by a staircase on either side of the entrance hall. Entering the house means committing to an architectural show all the way through. One feels like there’s already an established path that must be followed across the rooms and across the different viewpoints. 

A great example is the gallery room that displayed all of the banker’s artwork. It’s a horizontal space that contrasts with the verticality of the previous room, the hall, composed of two floors, connected by an elegantly curved ramp that curls into the hollow of the façade. The ramp invites the visitor to continue the walk around the house and offers new viewpoints and perspectives that bring together interior and exterior, up and down. In his words, ‘Imperceptibly we climb a ramp, a totally different sensation from climbing a staircase made of steps. A staircase separates one floor from another; a ramp connects.’ 

La Roche fell in love with his new house. In a letter to Jeanneret dated March 13th, 1925: ‘This house gives me great joy, and I convey to you my gratitude. You have brought to completion an admirable work that, I am convinced, will mark an epoch in the history of architecture. […] What especially moves me are these constant elements that are found in all the great works of architecture but which one meets so rarely in modern constructions. Your ability to link our epoch to the preceding ones in this way is particularly great. You have ‘overrun the problem’ and made a work of plastic art.’ In a gesture of gratitude and to supplement the price of the villa as it ‘cannot be calculated,’ La Roche bought him a 5HP Citroën. 

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As a self-professed Didion fan, I've read everything from, about, or on her and have my Pinterest boards filled with pictures of her as the embodiment of all things tasteful, intellectual, and beautiful. Perhaps it's because she functions as a 'mental shortcut' as Haley Mlotek wrote for the Awl in 2015 (when Didion was all over Céline's ads), to all of these qualities that her figure appeals to me (and to so many) so much. The loose hair, the large sunglasses, the cashmere sweaters. The cigarettes, the long dresses, the bare feet.

She was the paramount of style for many, and as Mlotek argues, especially for a certain type of person: 'she requires very little explanation to a very large group of people, representing a class of consumers who tend to be young, female, upper middle class, white and somewhat inwardly tortured.' I not-so-secretly tick most of these boxes. 

People have often tried to draw lines between her writing style and clothing choices. Born in California in 1934, Didion quickly became one of the pioneers of the New Journalism, along with other writers of the time like Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, infusing her pieces with both facts and personal narratives while reporting the American social and political landscape of the 60s and 70s. Her writings were published in Time, Vogue, and Esquire during those years.

She was the quintessential observer, offering incredibly immersive perspectives on all the topics she touched. She could make the everyday elaborate and profound, almost magical even, combining stories and using her experience to narrate very specific contexts. Throughout all her pieces, she kept an incredibly controlled style (she admits her perfectionism in this interview from 1992, one of my favorites from her), measured her words, and revised paragraphs almost obsessively. 

One of her most iconic moments is the packing list she had taped inside her closet door during the years she worked as a reporter. The list starts off with very general clothing items: '2 skirts' and '1 pullover sweater', and then becomes increasingly specific and peculiar ('mohair throw,' 'bourbon,' 'baby oil'). In her words, the list allowed her to pack 'without thinking, for any piece I was likely to do.' The list doesn't offer any sense of style or guidance, just practicality and decisiveness. Lots of it. As she mentions in the words that serve as a footnote, 'this was a list made by someone who prized control, yearned after momentum, someone determined to play her role as if she had the script, heard her cues, knew the narrative'. 

Her self-assurance and methodical ways were instantly translated into her looks. In pictures, she's always in a silk dress, an oversized shirt, a cashmere sweater. Wearing those giant black sunglasses covering half her face. The hair loose and un-styled. Bare-footed or wearing either flip-flops or sandals. The permanent, slightly waif look, a mix of fragility and strength that seems to increase as she gets older. When hearing her in interviews, one can't help but notice her voice - low, delicate, and calm - her lips downturned, and her mouth barely open when speaking. No version of Didion seems to exist out of that ease, comfort, and effortlessness, a very distinct mix of elegance and melancholy. 

Clothes to Didion weren't a way to know herself or experiment: they were a way to tell others who she was and how she wanted to be perceived. Of being in control. In 'Goodbye To All That,' one of the essays in Slouching Towards Bethlehem, she comments on a dress she bought back in California to wear on her first trip to New York. 'When I first saw New York, I was twenty, and it was summertime, and I got off a DC-7 at the old Idlewind temporary terminal in a new dress which seemed very smart in Sacramento but seemed less smart already, even in the old Idlewind temporary terminal […]'. The silhouette of the dress, the color, where she bought it aren't important, but how she felt in it, out of place, uncomfortable. 

Didion carefully chose the words on the page, and she selected her clothing items in the same way, with extreme consideration of the function and the possible outcomes. In the end, she was not just wearing clothes; she was reporting and writing in them. Clothes had to allow her to stay anonymous in a way, to 'pass on either side of the culture,' as she mentions at the end of the infamous packing list. 

In a British Vogue interview from 1992, Georgina Howell asks her what she was wearing when reporting from San Francisco in 1967 while hanging out with 14-year-olds high on acid who had run away from home. 'I went as myself' was Didion's answer. 'I thought it would be dishonest to go in as anything other than what I was. Some people were amused by this. Some were derisive.'

Ultimately, her clothing decisions mattered less than the fact she made them and stuck with them, whatever those were. Including the 'maybe broccoli doesn't like you either' apron that was auctioned after her passing or the fur boots she wore when photographed at home, maybe because of the pain of Parkinson's disease. Maybe because of fashion. We'll never know. In everyone's favorite Didion essay, 'On self-respect,' she describes it as 'the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life.' Perhaps it's precisely that - flagrant self-respect - the key to that wardrobe of consistency and effortlessness. 

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His body of work has become somehow ubiquitous. Some argue that the excessive number of brand collaborations that have appeared in the last few years, especially with Basquiat, is almost immoral (my favorite is teethmalloy (166) in this article from Grailed: ‘Let this man sleep’). 

This commodification of Basquiat’s legacy irks many, especially those in the art world that were close to him during his life. Back in 2021, a Tiffany advert featuring Beyoncé and Jay Z posing in front of Equals Pi spawned comments from some of his acquaintances, especially after Tiffany’s chief executive Alexandre Arnault had told Women’s Wear Daily that the artist must’ve referenced the jewelry brand when choosing a similar hue for the painting to the signature Tiffany blue. 

Basquiat’s former assistant Stephen Torton stated on an Instagram post that ‘[…] this very perverse appropriation of the artist’s inspiration is too much… That [brands] speculate and monetize, commercialize and manipulate every manifestation of this rebellious genius is not to my taste, but that is the game’. In the case of Basquiat, with an artistic production so strongly tied to race and politics, these kinds of associations are inevitably meant to backfire. 

However, for the estate, managed now by his two sisters after the passing of his father, licensing is great business. It also helps bring contemporary art to a wider audience. In an interview for Artnet in April 2022, Lisane Basquiat said that their strategy has always been making his brother’s art accessible through licensing. ‘If a person can’t afford to purchase a painting, they can still purchase something, some physical thing that gives them the ability to have access to Jean-Michel’s artwork.’ 

The licensing of Basquiat’s work is part of a larger cultural phenomenon that doesn’t just involve him. Artists like Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Yayoi Kusama or Kenny Scharff have all had ongoing associations with brands and manufacturing houses, especially since the early 00s, when brands like Louis Vuitton started rolling out leather goods and ready-to-wear with high-profile artists. Before then, we had Schiaparelli and Dalí in 1935, the OGs of the brand-artist collaboration, and Paul Poiret in the 1910s, that already understood that associating with artists gave his couture house an edge. 

Still today, these kinds of collaborations are an incredibly sought-after opportunity for brands, and some of them are constantly tapping into them. By associating with artists, alive or dead, they’re able to manufacture easily marketable collections or products to a built-in community, reaching new audiences that maybe weren’t within their scope before. But most importantly, it’s a way for brands to absorb the cultural capital of blue-chip names and link themselves by association to specific social, political, and cultural movements with relative ease. 

In ‘Fashioning Contemporary Art, ’ Nicola McCartney and Jane Tynan mention how these associations help brands link their products with artworks, claiming certain cultural legitimacy and benefiting, by proximity, with a certain history and tradition. In their words, ‘the more the fashion industry reaches out to other disciplines, it seems, the better it can accrue cultural capital […].’ And it’s not just a matter of taste or aesthetics but about incorporating the artist’s life, beliefs, fights, and ideologies to make them the brand’s own, often in a very superficial way. A t-shirt with a print of Marsha P. Johnson by Warhol, for example, it’s inextricably tied to the gay and trans rights movement of the 60s and 70s and clearly communicates something about the brand that is emblazoning it on their t-shirts (even if it’s often just a mere performance).

However, there’s a key difference between brands working with artists like Kusama or with artists like Basquiat and Haring: they’re deceased. Late artist’s only ‘work’ through licensing, while Kusama or Murakami actively create for their ongoing collaborations. That’s also one of the reasons we see the work of Basquiat, Haring, or Warhol everywhere, on skateboards, hoodies, and socks: there’s no fear of diluting their reputation, which is something a living artist is constantly aware of. It’s an endless cycle of repurposing old artworks, finding new ways to commercialize them, and targeting the byproducts to the right audiences. 

Licensing late artists’ work not only generates this kind of ubiquitous production but also creates increasingly fickle projects that are disengaged with the artist, their life, and their work. Keith Haring is a blatant example of this. The American artist actively campaigned against racism and drug abuse and fought for queer rights before dying of an Aids-related illness at 31. Before his passing in 1989, he set up his own foundation to provide grants for other Aids organizations. Nevertheless, most of his recent collaborations disregard his activism and certain parts of his life, especially those surrounding his sexuality. 

In an article for The Guardian, Gil Vazquez, executive director of the foundation, addressed these concerns, recognizing they’re often accused of not highlighting Haring’s fight against HIV in their licensing program and of contributing to the erasure of his struggle and struggle of the many that fought and died. ‘It is a reality that we, the Haring Foundation, do not shy away from.’ He also added that they don’t think it’s fair to force a brand to tell a story that doesn’t make sense for them and how they would ‘love an opportunity to work with a brand that does want to tell a story about the HIV/Aids struggle in the 80s and 90s using Haring imagery.’ The door is still open. 

In the end, art is more commercial than the art world and its members are ready to admit. In the era of unbounded collaborations and especially when it comes to artists that aren’t here to speak for themselves, it’s in the hands of brands to rethink these kinds of collaborations, by recognizing artists for their work but also for who they were and by staying away from superfluous, redundant and often limiting displays of their oeuvre. And maybe even abstaining from a collaboration or two.

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Gerber is not the first celebrity to be photographed posing with a book. Apart from Emma Watson, there's an endless number of celebrities that have used books as a form of self-definition (or snobbery, if you will). Julia Fox talking about her upcoming 'masterpiece' of a book that ‘started off as a memoir,’ Sarah Jessica Parker posing with a hat and The catcher in the rye, or models like Bella or Gigi Hadid exiting shows holding Stephen King or Camus. If you're lugging a tome around every day and constantly being photographed with it, it's worth choosing something intellectual and thought-provoking enough.

And it's not just celebrities that use books as instruments of self-expression. We all do it, maybe not in a paparazzi shot, but when posting covers or quotes on Instagram, maybe even a picture of ourselves reading. Or when arranging our bookshelves a certain way because we have guests coming over (like Ashley Tisdale in that video of Architectural Digest, where she reveals she had her husband buy 400 books to fill the shelves before they came to film).

Good time for a disclaimer: I myself continuously post about what I read on Instagram, have bought more than one book for its cover, and maybe even carried it around in my hand instead of in my bag just for the aesthetics. If you read and never felt the need to share it, I'm jealous. 

Using books as props is nothing new, and definitely not just a product of digitalization: they've continuously been used as both art objects and social and economic indicators throughout history. Hans Holbein the Younger, back in 1533, immortalized in The Ambassadors, two men standing on either side of a shelf filled with musical instruments, astronomical objects, and two books (a book of arithmetic and a Lutheran hymnal) meant to showcase their learnings in both God and science. And J.P Morgan's infamous library, an Italian Renaissance-style palazzo library completed in 1906 meant to represent something more than his passion for books and his need for a reading nook. 

In the 21st century, we've merely translated these attitudes into the digital space. Books aren't just signs of status or intellect but also part of our personal branding, and we definitely treat them as such. We've all seen those layouts of tousled sheets, a cup of coffee, bare legs, long socks, and a book flipped over that were overflowing / haunting our Instagram feeds back in 2017. Before that, we had the color-coding book trend in the 2014-2015 era, with endless pictures of rainbow bookshelves, all organized by color. And later on, the spine-less bookshelf (undoubtedly the dumbest of them all), a craze in the minimalist space that implied turning the spines of your book in, pages out. 

The most disturbing part isn't this obsession for showcasing books in the digital space but how it translates back to real life. The aestheticization of books doesn't stay there; it has immediate effects in the real world as they become increasingly intertwined. Some of the best-selling books of 2022 and 2021 appeared on Tik Tok before hitting the best-sellers lists, most under #BookTok, where users create short videos raving about some of their favorite reads. The hashtag and the overall community that supports it has established itself as a powerful force in the world of publishing and has undoubtedly helped many authors sell (like Colleen Hoover or Madeleine Miller with It Ends with Us and The Song of Achilles, respectively). 

How books look on social media is another added layer. We're not only choosing a book by its cover but taking pictures of it and sharing them online. Because of this shift in our relationship with reading, the publishing, and design industries have also tried to adapt. That's why most modern book designs look the same. The cover of the book du jour is either a bold and bright blob, a strikingly emotional image (see A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara), or a clean background with a feature element (Utopia by Heidi Sopinka, The Idiot by Elif Batuman). Things, including books, need to be Instagrammable enough, appealing in miniature, on social media but also in Amazon storefronts. Even publishing houses like Penguin feature an ‘Instagrammable Book Covers List’ with eye-catching book covers that ‘spice up your Instagram feed.’ 

When ebooks and tablets started appearing, we thought it was going to be the end of books. Still, print may or may not be dying, but we're still holding onto the symbolic and aesthetic relevance physical books have, whether we're actually reading them or not. They still hold the same value they've had for centuries, as reading material, as props that embody our intellectual preferences, tastes, and beliefs. This time, however, they're not just meant to be seen by our close acquaintances or friends but, potentially, by anyone in the social media sphere. They ultimately hint at our interiority and help represent us as individuals in an ever-changing digital landscape that can't hold onto something for too long.

Thanks for reading!

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