On a rainy, balmy, beautifully gray Saturday earlier this month, I nestled my face into a digital facial imaging process machine, or a VISIA. It looked about as Kronenbergian as it sounds: a Cross-polarized UV light swung a 360° axis around my head, photographing each visible inch of my face, from my widow’s peak to the tip of my chin. Every freckle, mole, wrinkle, rogue eyebrow hair, and melasma bouquet was accounted for, tallied, and systematized. There is something oddly serene in feeling a bright, white light tickle your cheekbones; in stepping out of your body and witnessing it objectively, without reaching for the balm of aesthetics or the relief-thrill of turning away from the mirror. This is my face. This is how it exists in the world. Now what?

I received the scan at the boutique aesthetics studio OVME. The business of aesthetics is undoubtedly controversial, and I’d finally gotten to the age (26) where I was thinking more about the way I looked less from a youthful mode of self-hatred and more from a desire for health. I worked out, I took a glut of supplements, I ate whole foods, I slathered and plumped my skin in a 12-step, meticulously designed routine. And while my skin wasn’t perfect — nor was I very much interested in perfection as an aesthetic or spiritual pursuit — I was interested in making sure my skin health was robust, and that I was doing what I could to not destroy our bodies’ largest organ.

When the scan was over, I’d been expecting vanity metrics — the summation of my face translated into raw data, designed for easy solutions: fill that pore, dissolve this wrinkle, temper that rosacea spatter. What I was not expecting was something no one, not even me, could’ve ever seen in a mirror.

Since time immemorial, women’s beauty rituals have been treated as frivolous, excessive, or fundamentally unserious. (Therein lies the rub — what’s so wrong with a bit of frivolity?) “All we are really seeking is a reliable way to show ourselves love when so many people around us are telling us we’re worthy of little more than contempt,” says Kristin Iversen in NYLON. Skincare, despite its scientific bedrock, has continued to live in a weird space between legitimate healthcare and snake oil: buy this algae serum. Peel the topmost layer of your skin off. Look 15 forever. And while none of this is particularly new criticism, the ascendancy of dark horses in the skincare business — like Primally Pure, whose recent SPF campaign came under fire for claims that their products were “100% poison-free” — has made the question of skincare’s health legitimacy even more pertinent.

And while the merits of specific formulas, products, or branded campaigns can be endlessly debated, technological innovations in skincare are much harder to dismiss. “The future of aesthetics is no longer just about treating aging; it’s about supporting healthy aging through regenerative medicine and evidence-based innovation,” says Iman Shamloul, PA-C. Imaging, diagnostics, and dermatology-backed formulations have risen considerably, like exome serums and Lancôme’s Cell BioPrint, which assesses skin-surface protein biomarkers to predict ingredient responsiveness. Being able to see how and why the skin, as a whole organ, changes, rather than simply waiting for a product to do its promised job (or reacting to what we can already see), is transformative. While this isn’t to say beauty = medicine, it is to say thus: as the skincare industry finds more footing in tried-and-true, quantifiable clinicality, rather than the subjective or decorative, other associated industries — like aesthetics — are following suit.

With clean, freshly washed skin, the VISIA scan broke down my skin into seven categories: wrinkles & fine lines; texture; surface spots; emerging brown spots; red areas; visible pores; clogged pores; and UV damage, and balanced my results against the global aggregate of anyone who’s ever had a VISIA scan. It was the last category that revealed what I couldn’t see: that I was in the bottom eighth percentile of sun damage in my age group. As a Southern WASP who spent most of her childhood running on the beach, I’ve always had very fair skin poxed with freckles, darkening and deepening in the summertime. The scan captured subterranean freckles and dots, invisible to the naked eye, secretly covering my entire face like a Pollock.

And while my first instinct was to brush this off (So what! I like my freckles!), I’d found out that the extent of that UV damage could, later on, aggravate my risk of sun cancer — disconcerting news, given I’ve had family members fight melanoma. “UV exposure accumulates over years, causing repeated DNA damage to skin cells. While the body is able to repair much of that damage, repeated sunburns and chronic UV exposure increase the likelihood of permanent DNA mutations over time, which can ultimately contribute to the development of skin cancers,” said Shamloul. And while this was just raw information, not a diagnosis, it showed me something I never would’ve known had I not received a scan.

After all this data, I then got a purely pleasurable, analysis-free beauty experience: a Hydrafacial. Using gentle, oddly satisfying suction, the esthetician glided the Hydrafacial device — a mini-vacuum with a hydro-dermabrasion tip — across my skin, extracting impurities and exfoliating dead skin cells I’d never be able to remove with an at-home exfoliant. Then came a layer of nourishing serums to replenish my barrier. As someone who holds a lot of lymphatic fluid in their face, I could feel every ounce drain from under the skin, flowing down my neck and toward my traps. And while I appreciated getting my lymph moving, it wasn’t like I hated that I also looked a lot more glowy and sculpted by the end, either. I don’t think a facial needs to cure anything to be worthwhile or generative, whatever that means to you. But I also don’t think the things we do for aesthetic reasons are inherently unserious.

If this were a morality play, I wouldn’t harangue you about how everyone deserves a facial (though I actually do think that, along with $10,000 and a good lip balm). What I would tell you, though, is that everyone deserves to have the kind of information a VISIA scan makes legible. If something relatively quick and harmless can illuminate something imperceptible — and if something like that can change how you think about your health — then beauty tech isn’t an indulgence, nor is it frivolous. It’s another way of understanding your body. OVME offers the VISIA scan free of charge, and I’ve urged the people in my life — both skincare devotees and agnostics — to consider one. Because while skincare will be thorny and complicated until quite possibly the end of time, your skin (and your health!) really doesn’t have to be, freckles and all. 🌀

Savannah Eden Bradley is a writer and fashion editor born in 1999. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the fashion magazine HALOSCOPE. Her first book, Ladies of the Canyon: Fashion and Fear in Los Angeles, is forthcoming from University of Texas Press. You can stalk her everywhere online @savbrads.

Surprise! The second season of Smell That Movie, HALOSCOPE’s fragrance-meets-film podcast hosted by Carly Silverman, arrives next Friday, featuring guests Laura Oberwetter (Clue Perfumery), Fran Hoepfner (Vulture, New York), Tynan Sinks (Smell Ya Later), and many more. You can listen here or wherever you get podcasts. 🌀

If you listened to season one of the Smell That Movie podcast, then you know that two of my very favorite things are films and fragrances. While you can enjoy both from home, I think it’s more fun to make them an active part of your practice.

For me, enjoying film and fragrance out in the world in New York City — walking, viewing, smelling — is meditative, and it’s usually what I’m picturing if you ask me for my perfect day.

So, if you find yourself in NYC, let me share with you the best ways to take yourself on a film-and-fragrance date. There are, of course, a lot of places to see movies in New York, and a lot of places to smell beautiful smells. Below are the areas I believe provide the best and most plentiful opportunities to do so.

NOLITA

Perhaps the best, most full-day film-and-fragrance day you can have in New York is in Nolita. Elizabeth Street and its surrounding area have become a hub for fragrance (I call it Little Perfume). Little Perfume is a hop and a skip away from the Angelika Theater or the Anthology Film Archives. After seeing a film at either theater, you can easily walk to fragrance boutiques: Stéle, Osswald, and Scent Bar; the heritage Italian house Santa Maria Novella; the Greek house the Naxos Apothecary; and the Korean house Elorea. For candles, diffusers, and bath products, visit Blueme. And there are always locations of many popular houses like Le Labo (original location), Aesop, D.S. & DURGA, Diptyque, Glossier, Boy Smells, and Commodity. If you head a touch west towards Soho, you’ll find the new US location of Penhaligon’s, as well as Kilian and Amouage. You can truly spend all day smelling around Nolita. For Anthology Film Archives, I recommend checking showtimes, as they don’t screen as many films as other theaters. For the Angelika, if you’re a member, tickets are half off on Tuesdays, and you get free popcorn for your birthday month!

UPTOWN

The uptown version of this day centers around another jewel in the Angelika crown — Cinema 123. It has some arthouse charm with the added bonus of a Coca-Cola Freestyle machine. For smells, uptown you have the expansive fragrance collections of the New York department stores Bergdorf Goodman and Bloomingdale’s. You also have the US location of the Brazilian brand Granado, the ultra-luxury Swiss brand Amaffi, the Dior store, and the heritage brand Krigler, which is located in the concourse of the Plaza Hotel. You can also walk a little farther north on the east side and hit Museum Mile; some of those gift shops carry fragrances, too.

WEST VILLAGE

In the West Village, you have two incredible repertory/independent theaters: IFC and Film Forum. For fragrance, you have a few of the usual suspects (Aesop, Diptyque, etc.), but you also have Naked Ghosts, Frédéric Malle, Bond No. 9, Ranger Station, and, further west towards the Meatpacking District, Parfums de Marley.

LOWER EAST SIDE

Back on the east side, and further downtown, you should smell around Aedes — a 30-year-old fragrance boutique on the Lower East Side, as well as Seoul-based brand Nonfiction’s first U.S. location. Then, you can head to the haven for cinephiles, the Metrograph Theater. The Metrograph also has a restaurant (The Commissary) for those looking for dinner and a show.

BROOKLYN

In Brooklyn, there is another Little Perfume forming in Williamsburg, near both Williamsburg Cinemas and the North Brooklyn Nitehawk location. Much like Nolita, there’s a Stéle, a Scent Bar, as well as the usual suspects (Glossier, Olfactory, Aesop, Le Labo, Diptyque, Byredo, Malin + Goetz, D.S. & Durga, etc.), but there’s also Japanese brand Linc Original Makers as well as Beautélier’s.

A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT FILM & FRAGRANCE EXPERIENCE

If you want to go beyond simply smelling around a store, a 20-minute walk from the AMC Magic Johnson Theater in Harlem is MUSE. Modern Urban Sensory Experiences (MUSE) is an appointment-only perfume destination in a townhouse that specializes in curating a unique collection of niche, luxury, emerging, and global fragrances. Kimberly Waters truly creates an all-encompassing sensory journey (one I had the joy of attending back in 2022).

Despite not being in a perfume hub, I wanted to include my personal favorite movie theater on this list: the Prospect Park Nitehawk. For a sensory experience before your movie, I recommend spending time in Prospect Park across the street. You can check online to see what’s currently in bloom and where. Or you can wander and get lost in the park’s lush flora; just don’t miss your movie. 🌀

Carly Silverman is a writer and producer who’s worked in television + digital media. Her passions are film, fragrance, literary fiction, animation, and the New Jersey music scene. You can catch her doing comedy with Young Douglas or here on X.

By Ana Beatriz Reitz

Velvet Canyon eyewear has something distinctive: a cool, effortless attitude that blends retro allure with a sustainable sensibility, the kind of aesthetic that feels like it already belongs in a film. Think Thelma & Louise, La Piscine, or Almost Famous — you know the vibe.

No wonder, then, that these bohemian ‘70s road-trip lenses have captivated It Girls like supermodel Bella Hadid, model and author Emily Ratajkowski, musician Suki Waterhouse, boho-chic legend Sienna Miller, model Kate Moss, and actresses Laura Harrier and Daisy Edgar-Jones. There’s no denying that the label, founded in 2017 by sisters Bec Nolan and Cass Moase alongside photographer Ali Mitton, has cemented its status as one of the coolest eyewear names around.

Ahead, HALOSCOPE sits down with Bec Nolan to trace their journey from Byron Bay, Australia to the global market, diving into how a shared sun-kissed vision, a love for nostalgia, and a distinctly ‘70s free spirit became the foundation for a new era of nonchalant, magnetic eyewear.

Ana Beatriz Reitz: When and how was the moment you decided to launch a sunglasses label, and why specifically sunglasses?

Bec Nolan: In 2017, I was working as a clothing designer, styling photoshoots and unable to source the sunglasses that I wanted to feature. So I designed our first collection based around that: those styles that I wanted to exist that I couldn’t find anywhere. Specifically, ‘60s and ‘70s styles in really a beautiful, tonal color palette.

ABR: I love the energy Velvet Canyon gives. Effortless, retro, with a sun-soaked edge that belongs to a girls’ trip à la Thelma & Louise. How did you, your sister, and Ali land on this name, and what was the feeling you were specifically trying to capture with it?

BN: We wanted the name to sound like a movie — maybe a sleazy ‘70s spy thriller with a femme fatale lead. We’ve made a few short films as campaigns and tend to approach our shoots in a cinematic way, which has influenced both our designs and brand voice. We like to have a little backstory or character associated with each design.

ABR: What details do you obsess over that most customers might never notice?

BN: I like to think that our customers do notice the details, and that is why they buy from us as opposed to one of the million other brands! We do keep things minimal, so each detail must be there because it is beautiful and adds to the overall experience.

ABR: When did you first realize the brand was becoming a favorite among the “It Girl” set? Was there a specific moment, celebrity sighting, or street-style photo that made it click?

BN: From the beginning, we were lucky to have been worn by some very influential people. 2020 was definitely when things really started to ramp up, and Kendall Jenner was wearing her Zou Bisou’s on repeat.

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ABR: What role have TikTok and Instagram actually played in shaping the brand’s following — [is it the] algorithm, or something more organic than that?

BN: Instagram was really important to us early on, and it’s how we managed to grow so quickly. It was back when it was still completely organic. And still fun. These days I’m just so fatigued with social media that we’ve taken a step back. I know it’s something I need to invest in more, but I kind of hate it, just how much time and life needs to go into the little screen.

ABR: How do you feel about the “It Girl approved” label? Is it something you lean into or push back against?

BN: The thing I love most when I see celebrities who are followed for their style wearing Velvet Canyon is knowing just how many options they have, how many items they must be sent, and yet they chose ours.

ABR: Which unexpected person or moment wearing Velvet Canyon meant the most to you?

BN: To be honest, I get just as excited when I see people in the street wearing our sunnies as I do when I see a celebrity has worn them. I remember being on vacation in Puglia in Italy and seeing a girl wearing them, and she looked SO good, and I was just so happy.

ABR: You’re headquartered across Byron Bay, L.A., and Paris, three cities with wildly different ideas of “cool.” How much of the brand’s appeal comes from refusing to pick one?

BN: Our headquarters has actually just moved from Byron to Melbourne this week, and the founders are now based in Mexico and France — none of us can seem to stay in one place for too long. I do think we are influenced by our surroundings, but Velvet Canyon lives in its own world, in its own era.

ABR: Does staying “cool” get harder as you grow? Or is it an easy task for something that channels it so effortlessly?

BN: I don’t think being cool has ever been the goal, and I certainly don’t think that is something one can — or should — chase. It’s not that we are anti-trend — if something feels right for us and aligned, then we will incorporate it. But it needs to feel like something true to the Velvet Canyon story. There have been moments when I tried to include a style that felt like something people would respond to, even if I didn’t personally love it, but ended up not doing well. It’s a lesson for me to trust my instincts and not try to cater [to] everyone.

ABR: Eyewear is a category that doesn’t get the same sustainability scrutiny as, say, fast fashion garments. Do you think consumers are asking the right questions about their sunglasses?

BN: Acetate eyewear [is] generally a lot lower impact naturally than clothing — acetate is a plant-based material; there is also plastic eyewear, which is usually cheap, but even designer brands sometimes make their frames from petroleum-based plastic. So I think the same scrutiny isn’t necessarily there just because the impact isn’t as extreme. People buying eyewear should certainly be checking that their frame is made from acetate if they are interested in [fewer] plastics. It’s tricky with lenses because there is glass, which is not practical as it can shatter, or different types of plastics. I think the most important thing is to buy high-quality eyewear that will last a long, long time.

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ABR: Was sustainability part of the founding thesis from day one, or something the brand grew into as the industry and the customer started demanding it?

BN: Of course, yes, from the beginning it was important to us to make sure we had as low of a climate impact as possible. It’s been frustrating at times because we want to do things perfectly and sometimes our idea of how we want to do things doesn’t match with the current technology, we end up trialling materials that sound amazing but don’t quite hold up to the level of quality we expect and it’s about that balance of doing the best we can while making a product that is going to last.

ABR: There’s real fatigue around sustainability claims in fashion right now because people have been burned by greenwashing for far too long. How do you build trust around that without sounding like every other brand?

BN: It does feel a little like people don’t really care anymore, and with the rise in popularity of online fast fashion, it can feel hopeless. But we just have to trust that our customer understands and values well-made pieces.

ABR: What’s something you had to learn the hard way as the brand started growing so quickly?

BN: That growth isn’t necessarily consistent and can come in waves rather than a steady incline.

ABR: Are there categories beyond sunglasses you’re excited to explore?

BN: Right now, I just want to keep things simple. More categories [mean] more work and likely expanding the team, and I’m waiting for the day when that sounds appealing to me again, but at the moment I’m enjoying having some free time to spend with my daughter and enjoy life outside of work.

ABR: Where do you want Velvet Canyon to be in five years?

BN: Everywhere.

ABR: What’s one thing about the brand’s future you’re excited to share that hasn’t been made public yet?

BN: We took a little design hiatus just to recalibrate and take our time with a new collection. We went from three seasons a year to no new styles at all in the past year. So we have a new collection launching in November, and I’m so excited for some fresh pieces!

ABR: And what can we expect to see from the new collection?

BN: A return to our roots, yet with a completely new energy. 🌀

Ana Beatriz Reitz Gameiro is a Brazilian freelance journalist covering fashion, entertainment, beauty, and culture. Her work has appeared in publications such as FASHIONISTA, V Magazine, Polyester, Remezcla, and NSS. She is also the voice behind The Devil Writes Fashion (previously For Fashion’s Sake), a weekly newsletter where fashion is dissected, celebrated, and occasionally roasted with humor, heart, and just a little bite.

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By Karla Lategan

“Wake up, it’s 2016.”

Natalie smiles into the camera in a pink tank top and skinny jeans. Major Label’s “Lean On” blares as she performs some variation of a TikTok dance in front of L.A.’s palm-tree-flecked skyline. Washed in the purple tones of the Rio de Janeiro Instagram #filter, the video feels like a time capsule — perfectly designed to recreate the carefree iPhone 7 ambiance of the mid-2010’s.

Though the scene around her is an imitation, it’s clear her excitement is not. Natalie is part of a growing cohort of young people using every power available to forcibly turn back the clock. Hervé Léger’s bodycon dresses backlogged on Vinted saves, chrome eyeshadow tutorials trending on Instagram, girl-centric pop music soundtracking TikTok’s dances — everything short of the dog filters’ unfurling tongue and Avicii himself have been dug out of old Snapchat memories, under the anthemic motto “2026 is the 2016.”

It seems we’re all collectively closing our eyes and wishing ourselves backward. But can we really jar the zeitgeist of a bygone era and keep it shelf-stable long enough only to crack open on the coldest of cultural winters? And why, now, are we so eager to rummage through our prepper pantries?

Looking back at the early 2010s, the era felt scored with an undeniable sense of forward momentum — so much so that it has since been flattened into the shorthand of “millennial optimism.” That optimism was not just felt, but seen. It lived in maximal cut-crease glam, in the sugary-saturation of Tumblr pink, in the layering of neon green over neon orange, and in the thousand variations of palm tree print sold from Primark to Paco Rabanne.

On TV, Lena Dunham “found herself” in Bushwick warehouses and lost herself to season-long situationships, all while dressed in bright green jersey tops and lady-bird print dresses. At the same time, independent print magazines, like NYLON, ran articles with step-by-step instructions on “How To Change The World,” next to spreads of brightly clad, upbeat young warriors ready to leave their mark in tweed and Aztec print.

And design houses — from Stella McCartney’s unicorns, to Gucci’s parrots and Dries Van Noten’s cheetah print — reached for motifs that implied terrain not yet mapped. In a time when the culture still believed the future was wide open, fashion dressed for its expansion.

Back then, the future felt malleable and fashion engaged with it playfully. After 2016, the culture hardened. Politics became increasingly polarising and our clothes, like the world around them, turned black and white.

Now, a decade on, the aesthetics that once defined the big and bold 2016 era — saturation, gloss, the word “swag,” and sing-along pop — are back. Gen Z, who feel cheated out of the Bushwick Warehouse Raves, BuzzFeed Office Jobs, and the VICE gonzo documentaries they were promised by millennials and their Obama-era optimism, are once again using dress as a deliberate tool to influence mood.

So-called “dopamine dressing” — a trend of late 2025 to use dress to positively influence moods — arrived as a workaround: a way of engineering pleasure back into our lives when it stopped arriving on its own. Fashion creator Sammie Lena describes dopamine dressing as “wearing clothes that bring you the most joy and confidence.” Her list of clothes that induce this kind of euphoria includes but is not limited to: leopard print, polka dots, gingham, layering bold colours over metallics, and adding on as much big, chunky jewellery as your arms can carry.

This logic hasn’t faded into a fast fad. If anything, it’s intensified through to the new year into an outright call to arms. Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel in Bambi spots, Alaïa in tiger stripes and Prada in zebra — bold animal prints are again appearing everywhere from fur coats to ballet flats, dressing the collective psyche in the wild, the ungoverned, and the untamed.

Off the runway, Addison Rae is wearing aqua blue latex dresses, Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet are in head-to-toe Chrome Hearts orange, and Rachel Sennot’s I Love LA is studded in barely there, skin-tight neon. Fashion is once again in the mood to play, and to step foot onto the playground is to insist that fun is still to be had.

Against a backdrop of hardened cultural division, fewer certainties, and narrower futures, this visual excess insists on novelty when none feels guaranteed.

Our growing appetite for play goes beyond how we dress, and into our relationship with the broader world. Across feeds and For You Pages — “my year of whimsy,” “whimsy goals,” “how to add more whimsy into your life.” The word “whimsical” has become nothing short of a Gen Z buzzword, with countless videos and articles detailing how to rewire play into your life, whether it be cutting your pancakes in the shape of love hearts, sending postcards to friends, or bedazzling your BIC lighter with pink rhinestones. Embracing our collective sense of silliness is a way of refusing seriousness as the default emotional register.

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In the same tone, young people are consciously switching algorithms for analogue: CDs, mixtapes, DVDs, and magazines. Physical media that reinforces presence over convenience;

choices, patience, and limits over easy-access, infinite-scroll, device-driven dopamine.

Just before escaping London’s January greys for a South American holiday, a friend dug out her old family camcorder. We tested it in the living room before she left, waving at the lens, watching ourselves move across a small screen in big pixels. Lugging the heavy bulk from its dusty box, through easyJet’s carry-on prison, and across the mountains of the Colombian jungle — just to film a worse version of what an iPhone could — might seem like nothing more than nostalgia-driven escapism. But it felt like something deeper: a desire to be more present with our memories as we make them. Signaling a return to the same carefree style of capturing memories we had back in the mid 2010s, when the collective gaze still faced forwards.

We can’t return to 2016, no matter how much glitter we pack onto our eyelids, but we don’t need to. Dressing for a brighter future may be how we begin to believe it. Aesthetics don’t just reflect how we feel; they train how we move through the world. Against the greyscale dopamine drought of recent years, the bright and playful optimism of the 2010s feels like a breath of fresh air. To reach for these aesthetics now is to borrow the same visual language – one that treats optimism not as a mood, but as a muscle. 🌀

Karla Lategan is a writer based in East London. Her work explores the intersection of fashion, culture and media. Originally from Australia, and with a background in sociology, she writes with a curiosity for people and the social forces that shape them.

By Tess Growney

For Gen Z, personalizing your everyday essentials is the shiniest new fashion trend. Purses covered with charms and ribbons, Phone cases with beaded wrist leashes, plastic figurines dangling from anything and everything with a loop attached. We thought we’d seen it all until the latest essential to get a makeover: the journal.

Gone are the days of the “secret diary,” an inconspicuous notebook brandishing warnings not to read any further (OR ELSE!). Always carefully stowed away so it wouldn’t fall into the hands of an enemy, or worse, a crush. Now, the humble journal is a luxury accessory bound in patinaed leather, monogrammed with the owner’s initials in gold foil and decorated with sentimental charms. Owners flaunt them on social media, showing off how they’ve decorated their journals and even what is kept inside. The once-secret journal is now an open book confessional.

The trend of sharing journals on social media can be traced back to the bullet journal of the mid-2010s, created by designer Ryder Carroll and popularized by millennial bloggers like Rachel Nguyen. But where the bullet journal lacks in decor (the most being a few stickers slapped on the front of a Moleskine or Leuchtturm), this new form of journaling doubles as both an organizational tool and a fashion statement.

In 2023, Victoire Valmary began posting videos on TikTok to attract business and an international clientele for her family’s handmade leather-bound notebook company, Louise Carmen. The brand, established in 2016 by Fabien and Nathalie Valmary, came after a year-long family trip through Asia, which left Nathalie in need of a way to organize her many notebooks from her travels. The result was the first “Louise Carmen” made of leather that Nathalie picked up at a market in Thailand, and colorful elastic cords that fastened all her notebooks into place (in the vein of the Japanese Traveler’s Company notebooks). It would become the prototype for their now vast selection of journals offered by the Parisen brand, which has garnered a 148k following on TikTok.

But with these journals starting at €122 EUR (around $139 USD), stationery enthusiasts have followed in Nathalie’s footsteps to create their own versions of the Louise Carmen. Philly-based jewelry designer and co-founder of Cult of Angels, Brooke Pizio, made her first journal as a birthday gift for her roommate, who was interested in the Louise Carmen notebooks. At the time, Pizio had leatherwork experience designing accessories like bags and leather cuffs with antique pendants, but had never made a journal.

“From the very beginning, my search to find one for my roommate in a certain color was impossible, and I couldn’t really find one, so I think that I tapped into a market that I didn’t know really existed,” says Pizio.

She’s now received an influx of commissions not for jewelry, but for stylized notebooks with elaborate cross-stitched designs, embroidery, and silver adornments. In recent months, she’s created journals for all purposes, from vow books for couples to commemorate their wedding day to a collection of pink suede journals for influencer Anastasia Karanikolaou, which stuck out in a “PR haul” video on Instagram alongside Rhode lip balms and Balenciaga tees.

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A chic, personalized notebook has become another bookish accessory that leans into the trend of literacy – or, at least the appearance of it. An influx of celebrities such as Dua Lipa, Reese Witherspoon, and Kaia Gerber promote titles both well-known and under-the-radar for their respective book clubs. Long-form social media platform Substack is flooded with discourse, whether informed or baseless, from young writers and music-industry moguls like Rosalía and Charli xcx, the latter of whom just scored Emerald Fennell’s buzzy (and heavily stylized) adaptation of the gothic classic Wuthering Heights. One can achieve a “smart” look simply by carrying a novel or a notebook as they would a clutch.

For people creating these fashionable journals, like social media and marketing consultant and creator Hailei Wynter, who created hers in the fall of last year, the style is more than maintaining a writerly image; it is a functional form of personal expression.

“I love making the things that I reach for every day beautiful so that I am more likely to use them every day,” says Wynter, “I want everything I pull out to be very customized and unique and different and feel very me.”

However, fashioning these journals goes beyond external impressions. Whether using a Louise Carmen or something they’ve crafted by hand, creators are sharing how they’ve organized and decorated the interiors of their journals, too, in videos often dubbed “journal tours” or “journal ecosystem tours.” They reveal pockets filled with stickers and pens, photobooth strips clipped onto notebooks, then explain the purpose behind each notebook bound in the journal, and even flip through entries.

“I like posting that content for other people to give recommendations because that’s how I put my ecosystem together, just by watching a ton of people and seeing what would work best for me,” says Wynter, who posted her own journal ecosystem video as a “yearning for connection.” Even before joining this digital community of crafters, Wynter and some coworkers all gathered to share how they’ve organized their journals for the new year.

It makes sense that, in a digital age when young people are feeling more isolated than ever, many are turning to analog interests to foster new relationships (even if those connections start on a social media platform). My own Louise Carmen is the product of my friendships.

At the end of 2023, I had discovered Louise Carmen through TikTok, and then through my friend who had just come back to New York from Paris with a red, pocket-sized version. I had planned my first-ever solo trip for the spring of 2024 and knew that, even though I couldn’t afford the notebook, I would visit the store to window-shop. On the first morning of my trip, I woke up in Reykjavik to a Venmo payment. All of my friends, knowing how much I wanted this notebook, had pooled together money so I could afford one of my own. To this day, it’s the most meaningful gift I have ever received. Every time I look at it, I see the journal as a connection to all the friends who put it in my hands, and the charms that connect me to each place I went on my first solo trip.

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This specific type of journal is a fashion statement as much as it is a gateway towards connection. A stranger sees someone’s fabulous, meticulously designed journal, and it opens the door to deeper conversation, not just about the craftsmanship and design of the journal itself but also what’s inside — a person’s thoughts and observations, interests, and personality are all bound together in one place. People connect and build long-lasting connections that outlast any trend cycle or fashion fad.

And it’s longevity that draws people to the Louise Carmen notebooks and their subsequent iterations. Due to their customizable nature, they can shift both functionally and stylistically as a person’s life does over time. They are both timely and timeless. 🌀

Tess Growney is a writer based in Brooklyn with words in HALOSCOPE, Stereogum, Spin, and IRK Living. She’s interested in writing about the intersection of music and fashion history, planning dinner parties, and curating playlists. You can find her at @tessgrow or at any vintage store in NYC.

By Bella Blue Bloss

Dogs may be man’s best friend — but a girl’s are usually famous dead women. Whether it be Laura Palmer, Princess Diana, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, Sharon Tate, Marilyn Monroe, Lux Lisbon, Ophelia, Juliet, Amy Winehouse, or Sylvia Plath (the list is truly endless), we all have one that haunts us. But what is it about these dead women that has such a hold on culture, and, more specifically, on girl culture?

Historically, men have sexualised the dead bodies of women, most notably in the Victorian era. Pale, gaunt-looking women were the standard of beauty at the time, immortalised in the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite artists. Dead women were the ideal, preserved in their youth, forever beautiful and passive. Is it still about looks, purity, and youth now that it is girls who love them, or is it something deeper? Edgar Allan Poe famously said, “The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.”

I have been thinking a lot about this obsession with dead women, as the gallery I work in has been tirelessly prepping for their exhibition marking the 100th birthday of Marilyn Monroe. As portraits of her are plastered across gallery walls and social media, excitement and anticipation have been high among visitors, bringing one of the most well-known and adored dead women back to the forefront of popular culture. Marilyn Monroe is an example of a woman who was primarily loved and watched by men, and even in her death in 1962, she was subject to obsessive male behaviour. Notably, Playboy’s founding father, Hugh Hefner, purchased the plot next to hers, and the plot above went from her ex-husband Joe DiMaggio to entrepreneur Richard Poncher, whose widow sold it to an anonymous bidder on eBay in 2009. Poncher reportedly had told his wife, “If you don’t put me upside down over Marilyn, I’ll haunt you for the rest of my life.” Monroe had no control over the men she would be lying in eternity with, and no way to fight against their sexual motivations. In death, she has still never been left alone.

Despite the almost constant male attention, I have observed that it is primarily women and teenage girls who have shown the most interest and excitement in the gallery’s exhibition. Monroe’s legacy has become more than just her sex symbol status; she is now recognised as a talented comedic actress and businesswoman, fighting for women’s independence and agency in the film industry. The public hardly knew her, and yet the adoration and obsession with her are global and constant.

Just under a year after Marilyn Monroe, Sylvia Plath died — another woman wronged by men and adored by women post-death. Many girls’ and young women’s first encounter with her was on Tumblr: seeing quotes from her poems and journals pasted over aesthetic images, poetry inspired by her, black-and-white pictures of her from when she was young, and, of course, many references to her death. What seems to come along with a love for her work is an immediate knowledge of and focus on her infamous suicide. Plath died from putting her head in a gas oven in her home in London in 1963. Plath’s struggles with mental health and her attempts at suicide throughout her life are very present in her work; her words are so deeply personal that it is impossible to disconnect an interest in her from her untimely end. In every generation since her death, girls relate to her words, whether through her poems, by seeing themselves in Esther from The Bell Jar, or by finding solace in the pages of her journals.

Over the decade that I have known about Sylvia Plath, I have been in two minds about the obsession with her suicide. References to Plath’s death happen a lot in popular culture: we see people with DIY cardboard ovens over their heads on Halloween; the Gilmore Girls making jokes about it 20-odd years ago; Emma Roberts’ character in Adult World attempting suicide in the same way; girlbloggers posting “I am one bad day away from sticking my head in the oven”, and even a fake porn thumbnail with the title “young MILF gets stuck in the oven.” Although I understand that her death is undeniably connected with her body of work and, in turn, is an easy way to refer to her or honour her, the visuals and memes related to it often come across as mockery, and it seems that is entirely what Plath is reduced to: the woman who stuck her head in an oven. We rarely, if ever, see the same happen to male artists: Kurt Cobain, Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake, etc.

The most recent visual reference to Plath’s suicide was in Lana Del Rey’s music video for “White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter,” bringing Plath’s death to the forefront of popular culture once again. In the song, Rey coos about how wonderful her husband is, so much so that she wants to cook for him, an unusual and out-of-character desire for her oeuvre. The homemade music video compiles clips of Rey singing the song in her house; in one, she is seen from behind in a satin bronze skirt, seductively putting her head in the oven. This irked many fans. Rey often references Plath in her lyrics and poems; she clearly has an affinity for her work, as many women do, and it is unquestionable that this was also the case. This visual, however, comes across as erotic and at the same time romantic, considering the song’s lyrical content. This imagery, along with the lyric “I know you wish you had a man like him, it’s such a bummer,” appears distasteful, considering Plath had a tumultuous relationship with her husband, Ted Hughes, which many relate to as a factor in her death. The discourse around Rey’s music video spanned a wide breadth of reactions, with some saying it is disrespectful to visually mimic someone’s suicide, while others defended Rey, who has alluded to suicide attempts in the past and perhaps is using the imagery as a tool to communicate her healing. Despite Rey’s reasoning and intent, which we do not know, there is still a level of romanticisation which Plath’s family has continuously spoken out against. Plath’s daughter Freida Hughes wrote a poem titled “My Mother” where she said “Their Sylvia Suicide Doll, who will walk and talk and die at will, and die, and die and forever be dying,” emphasising how Plath will remain a dependable victim of her death if people continue to manipulate and aestheticise her image in that way, making her a visual symbol of tragedy as opposed to an important literary icon.

Figures like Plath no longer exist in our current culture, at least beyond reference. We are in an age where artists are no longer just artists, but commodities; they are marketing opportunities, walking advertisements. We romanticize dead women like Plath because her suffering wasn’t a commodity — she wasn’t performing it; she was living it, and she wrote about it because that is all she could do. We don’t have a 21st-century Plath and we never will. Girls obsessing over and referencing Plath isn’t necessarily a desire to be her, but instead an escape from artists today. Plath was confessional, raw, and honest about her struggles with mental illness; it’s almost impossible to find anyone now who doesn’t have a BetterHelp sponsorship or a discount code for anti-anxiety meds.

In that way, Rey references Plath because she doesn’t fit the narrative of contemporary celebrity culture. Rey leans on nostalgia and on artists of the past who had experiences similar to hers; she rarely relies on advertising. She is far from a modern-day Plath, but much like how we look to dead female artists for authenticity, Rey looks to them for inspiration.

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Monroe has also been an overriding symbol in Rey’s work both visually and lyrically. In her music video for the song “Candy Necklace,” Rey takes on the personas of doomed Hollywood starlets: Veronica Lake, Elizabeth Short (more commonly known as the Black Dahlia) and Marilyn Monroe. The video offers a behind-the-scenes look at filming a music video: hair and makeup being applied, camera equipment, lighting, set design, and Rey talking to the team.

The song critiques the exploitative nature of media success, especially for female stars. In the video, Rey explains the concept to her team: “Why it was all supposed to be behind the scenes was because all these women who changed their names and changed their hair like me, it’s like they all fell into these different snake holes. So the whole point is like, ‘How do you learn from that and not fall into your own thing?’” The “snake holes,” I imagine, allude to the coping mechanisms that many stars develop to deal with the pressures of success — drug addiction, alcoholism, surgical procedures, suicide. In her scene as Marilyn Monroe, Rey is sitting in an Eames chair in a mid-century style room, dressed in a black turtleneck and trousers, a blonde wig, and a diamond necklace. She poses like Monroe in some clips and appears sad and contemplative in others, expressing the contrast between performance and reality. Rey, through this video and song, implies that being a woman in this industry inevitably leads to demise. The end of the video heavily alludes to the deaths of all of these women, visualised through the necklaces and diamonds falling into a pool of blood and a shot, Sunset Boulevard-style, of paparazzi photographing from above, capturing the dead body.

We all cling to these women of the past because we crave what we no longer have in our culture. Sabrina Carpenter is branding herself as a 1950s starlet; Legally Blonde is coming out with a prequel series; Brutes by Dizz Tate was pitched as “The Virgin Suicides meets The Florida Project.” Is it still possible to pioneer originality, or are we only capable of selling a sense of nostalgia?

People like Marilyn Monroe and Sylvia Plath represent emblems of their crafts, and now all we see are others attempting to echo or reimagine their careers. It’s easier to sell yourself as an artist, especially in an age when virality is the quickest road to fame, if you echo the familiar. And although people love the nostalgia that these artists provide, constantly seeing these references played over and over again is becoming exhausting.

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When you have a favourite dead person, all you have is their art and an idea of them. You don’t have to stay up to date with their brands or personas, or question if what they’re doing is a publicity stunt. Dead people can’t enter a new “era”. It is all authentically them and the art that outlives them.

They give us a different perspective, a fantasy, an escape. Perhaps our only escape from the algorithm. 🌀

Bella Blue Bloss is a writer and editor from London. She runs the Substack blog Fragmentary Girl, where she publishes essays on feminism, art, culture, literature, and fashion, exploring female representation in the visual arts and media. Bella is currently working on her first book, an essay anthology edited and written by herself and other up-and-coming feminist writers. You can find more of her work on her website and follow her on Instagram @bellabluebloss.

By Lauren Lexa Brown

As Joshua Citarella and Caroline Busta were setting up their latest project, placing Nick Land books amongst miscellaneous viral pharmaceuticals, nestled beside a True Anon tote bag and Red Scare shorts, the news broke that The Onion had purchased Infowars, and that Tim Heidecker would be their new creative director. The timing of this world-imploding announcement was not only the perfect cherry on top of their months of painstaking work, but a time stamp in media culture marking the complete magnetic pole reversal of a landscape where alt-media has planted itself firmly in and amongst legacy media, fertilized like a giant beanstalk, and now looms heavy over the mainstream.

ADULT SWIM DAYS

Before there was Slushy Noobz and Emergency Intercom, there was Tim Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!. Upon its conception in 2007, the reaction was often disgust — the surrealist, anti-humour comedy of the show had very polarizing effects. Shock-based gags, body fluids, and skits made to repulse audiences made it a good Christian American parents’ nightmare, but a cool kid born in ‘94’s favorite thing to watch. If you’re unfamiliar with Tim’s sketch work, you’ll likely recognize him from the viral “it’s free real estate” meme. The resurgence of this meme in 2016 was being used left and right, mainly in the context of colonization — its Google searches peaked in November 2025, when Israel’s attacks on Palestine weighed heavily in the news cycle. The breakthrough of Tim and Eric’s fringe comedy sketch into mainstream culture was an intriguing foreshadowing of what was to come — a glimmer of what the future held for alternative artists and comedians.

Cartoon Network’s channel, Adult Swim, hesitantly championed the duo’s quirks and oddball absurdities. The lo-fi, highly saturated visuals — what the kids today might call “liminal”, and what kids back then called “random” — fit in nicely with the channel’s other bizarre offerings like Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The show was wholly unique, however. “Awesome Show” fed off the deepest bowels of human discomfort, with fake advertising shot to look like early cable television, and surrealist sketches akin to VHS footage you might find in a New Mexican gas station bathroom.

So, how did Tim manage to become — for all intents and purposes — the creative overlord of the most prolific conservative media corp today, when only 16 years ago he was acting as a child-clown salesman and breeder, defecating in bedpans and having co-stars dissect it, consuming his own vomit on camera (more than once), and suckling milk out of Eric Wareheim’s chest? You might think it’s due to him getting older, growing up, or perhaps leaving behind his juvenile antics of the early aughts. But he was already 30 years old when “Awesome Show” premiered — already graduated from Temple University film school, where he met Wareheim. This is something else, something nobody has done before, but most of all, this is the consequence of funny men channeling the power of their masculinity into something productive, rewarding, and entertaining — the pig has grown wings and left the building.

THE ONION

The Onion, an American digital media company that has been delivering knee-slapping satire since 1988, has catered to a generally leftist audience since its inception. Up until 2024, it had been owned by G/O Media, a large holding company that also houses Clickhole. The Onion is now owned by Global Tetrahedon, a Ben Collins-owned company which, as you may learn upon reading their site, is essentially a meme in and of itself. The United States’ most precious export is news, and wars are fought over media just like they are for oil — but instead of maiming civilians with AKs, the weapon of choice in our post-literate society tends to be visuals that, when met with the exhausted eyes of average Joes housed in food deserts, paint a mosaic of bombastic narratives lacking any nuance whatsoever.

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July 2 marked the first official Onion as InfoWars livestream, with over 2,880 people tuned in across platforms such as YouTube and Instagram. The implications of this massive media overhaul are likely to make waves across the world — Heidecker and the team plan to donate proceeds of their merch sales to the families of Sandy Hook victims, a horrific mass-shooting event that Alex Jones famously denies ever happened. It’s reported that they already have $100K planned to donate, even though the takeover isn’t officially complete.

In an exclusive quote provided to HALOSCOPE, Heidecker commented on the comedy being chronically underplatformed and underfunded:

It’s hard to say how far the show will reach for sure–news outlets like New York Daily have covered the story, but often only refer to Tim as an “Alex Jones impersonator”. Regardless, an institution like The Onion taking the reins from a notorious far-right media conglomerate is a piece of history that should be taught to school children starting yesterday. As a pseudo-millennial, the notion of reviving Adult Swim on the internet is wonderfully exciting. As I reflect on Heidecker’s career, I feel a sense of involuntary paternal pride. This is an event I just know my old communications professor would have us study in a course called “Media and Mayhem” or something. Let us all rejoice, taking pause to acknowledge that male comedians can indeed still contribute to the greater good. 🌀

Lauren Lexa Brown is a writer, medical office assistant, and the editor-in-chief of Heart Note Press. She collects and studies media — both physical and digital — specifically focusing on visual culture, fragrance, psychology, and anthropology.

By Emma Tranter

In the days after Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration, I read far more about Rama Duwaji’s fashion choices than any other element of the ceremony. Tabloids feigned outrage, noting that her boots, made by sustainable footwear brand Miista, retail for $630: the New York Post declared the look “gave more socialite than socialist” and “flew in the face of [Mamdani’s] ‘everyman’ image.” In typical fashion, the story was picked up by other outlets, even prompting a furious Instagram story from White House secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Many rushed to Duwaji’s defence. Her stylist, Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, emphasised that the boots were on loan, bemoaning the presumption of the opposite on her Substack. In Vogue, Anna Cafolla explained how borrowing archival pieces demonstrates Duwaji’s commitment to circular fashion while strategically disassociating her from price tags that might make her seem out of touch. For Forbes, Gemma Allen objected to a history of political wives’ fashion being treated as a morality test while, in Vanity Fair, José Criales-Unzueta wrote on the political considerations both Mamdani and Duwaji have to juggle in their clothing choices.

Vanessa Friedman covered Duwaji’s fashion in more depth for the New York Times, arguing that regardless of the context or intention, her outfit at the inauguration offered an image of “aspiration and coded luxury.” I’m not sure that, compared to similar once-in-a-lifetime formal occasions, this would be so hard for ordinary people to relate to — consider the cost of even a low-budget wedding dress. While Friedman is right that it’s “not as if the general public can borrow a pair of designer boots,” this framing overstates the inaccessibility of luxury fashion. After all, for ordinary people the occasional indulgence from the lower-priced end of the designer market can be far more affordable than formerly accessible amenities – like education, medical care and homeownership – that the average earner has been priced out of.

But how should a socialist dress? It’s a loaded question, especially for a woman. The idea of fashion as a specifically feminine fixation is self-perpetuating; growing up with the expectation of interest and finding our appearance under the harsh scrutiny of a patriarchal world, it can easily become a central concern in our daily lives. I often think of Rosemary Hill describing what happens between women and their clothes as “a kind of third rail of female experience.” Coded as a woman’s world, inaccurate as that might be throughout the industry itself, fashion is often considered frivolous and indulgent.

It’s not only reactionaries who perceive fashion as a hypocritical indulgence for a socialist; leftists themselves frequently joke about the personal conflict between their politics and the allure of materialism. “Marx failed to consider…” begins a popular joke format. Of course, this sentiment is tongue-in-cheek, not exactly expressing a sincere fear that socialist politics cannot accommodate “how good life feels when you wear a brown suede jacket,” but it does gesture to widely held views of socialism as aesthetically bleak and austere.

But there is no avoiding that others will read into what we choose to wear. Even if you believe that left-wing politics necessitate a rejection of luxury and frivolity, there are aesthetic choices that you will have to make that communicate such disinterest. Much is made of the scene in The Devil Wears Prada in which Meryl Streep explains why her assistant’s unfashionable sweater has everything to do with the fashionable world of the magazine she runs. It is perhaps a facile view of the many contexts any one garment can be understood in, but it does at least illustrate how influential some of these contexts are. Anti-fashion is itself a style, and the aesthetic history that has influenced the creation and design of clothing is never absent. Even if we have chosen a garment for solely practical reasons, it continues sartorial communication with the world regardless of our intention.

Practical choices can become more calculated aesthetic messaging, too – just think of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s worn trainers, shared on her social media to illustrate the mileage she’d racked up door-knocking. What had been a practical choice became symbolic of her tireless efforts canvassing, framing herself as a politician winning by a “shoe-leather campaign”, the underdog connecting to would-be constituents in person.

A shyness of high fashion is understandable for a socialist under scrutiny, given that more than a luxury industry, it is one that has often had a troubling relationship to fascism. Coco Chanel famously had Nazi ties, attempting to use the German occupation of France to seize control of her company from her Jewish business partners, while Hugo Boss was a committed Nazi whose company manufactured SS uniforms and Cristóbal Balenciaga designed for the family of Spanish dictator General Franco. Plenty of designers today dress the women (and men) associated with President Trump, even if perhaps they are wary of publicising it too much; brands that have designed custom looks for Ivanka Trump include Oscar de La Renta and Givenchy.

As such, Karefa-Johnson’s thoughtful styling choices, rooted in vintage pieces and loans, work to distance Duwaji’s image from that of the wealthy, indulgent client of luxury goods conglomerates. Public figures occupy a difficult space regarding their fashion, particularly those, like Duwaji, who have not exactly sought to be in such a spotlight – their clothes are often read as advertisement and influence. Moreover, I wonder what we concede as socialists when our approach to fashion requires so many caveats. Why should we accept that luxuries, and even beauty in the abstract, are by default the realm of the wealthy few?

In all this outrage, few have articulated what they believe is an appropriate alternative to good, expensive shoes. Of course, your average metropolitan fashion girlie is practised in the art of bagging designer items for a bargain, but these excuses mean little to right-wing tabloids. This leaves cheap shoes, poorly made from cheap materials by underpaid workers in sweatshops.

Miista, the London-based brand whose Shelley shoes were the cause of all this controversy, has its own factory in northern Spain, where their shoes and garments are made by skilled artisans. The brand has emphasized their slow fashion approach and commitment to craft, even working with local schools to support the next generation of artisans.

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Meanwhile, as fast fashion accelerates at an unimaginable pace, garment workers suffer dangerous working conditions and poor pay across the globe. In 2013, over 1100 people, mostly garment workers, died in the collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh. While industry conditions have ostensibly improved, a factory fire last year in Dhaka killed sixteen, recalling similar fires in Pakistan, Egypt and Indonesia. In Leicester, UK, garment factories pay far below the minimum wage, often exploiting workers’ immigration status and limited English skills to do so, while in Southern California, the US Department of Labor found widespread violations among garment manufacturers. Perhaps even worse, while researching this piece, it was striking how much reporting on sweatshop labor is already out of date, given that the worst offenders in fast fashion are now significantly outdone by Shein and Temu.

When we abstract fashion from the labor that it depends on, we lose sight of each and every garment as a material object. At the Tate Britain’s ‘Sargent and Fashion’ exhibition in 2024, I was struck by how little attention was drawn to the production and construction of garments, even as the very dresses John Singer Sargent had painted were displayed alongside his portraits. But in one corner, next to a portrait of socialite and suffragist Adele Meyer, a book lay open in a display case. The book was Makers of Our Clothes, a report by Meyer and trade unionist Clementina Black, investigating conditions of garment workers in London. The report was part of the efforts of the Anti-Sweating League in campaigning against the poor conditions in sweatshops, leading to the creation of the Trade Boards Act 1909, which introduced and enforced a minimum wage in the poorest paid trades.

In a moment of sharp class tension, some socialites took a charitable interest in working conditions, especially those of working women. Still, such advocacy was not always welcomed by workers and trade unionists with open arms; during the New York shirtwaist strike of 1909, anarchist Emma Goldman’s response to support from socialites dubbed the “mink brigade” was famously chilly, insisting on the necessity for the labor movement’s independence from capitalist philanthropists.

Beyond the centrality of garment-worker organising to labor history, socialists have defended the value and necessity of beauty in everyday life, particularly identifying the production of luxury goods as a place where artistry meets labor. In 1871, when Parisian citizens took control of the city and established the Paris Commune, the Commune’s Federation of Artists was formed, bringing together painters and sculptors with artisans working in the decorative arts. As Kristin Ross discusses in her book Communal Luxury, this inclusion “subvert[ed] the hierarchical relation between art and industry,” a bold stance demanding autonomy and dignity for all artistic workers.

An interesting case study Ross presents is that of communard Napoléon Gaillard, who considered himself a “worker” and an “artist-shoemaker.” In exile after the commune’s brutal end, Gaillard wrote a philosophical treatise titled The Art of the Shoe, which Ross notes sought to argue that the opposition “between the useful and the beautiful” was transcended by shoemakers, who therefore “should be accorded the dignity and remuneration [they] deserved.” His vision, Ross explains, was “a shoe made at last ‘not for the foot as it is, but for the foot as it should be,’” instead of the “narrow, pointed, deforming instrument of torture” that was the modern shoe. Last year, fashion entrepreneur and artist Ramdane Touhami took inspiration from Gaillard, naming an artisanal leather shoe in his honour, with a lengthy dedication to “comrade Napoléon Gaillard” inscribed on the insoles.

At the mayoral inauguration, Lucy Dacus sang “Bread and Roses”, a folk song that began as a poem by James Oppenheim. The song has long been associated with trade unionism and feminism, voicing demands that, along with “bread” (the meeting of the most basic physical needs), “roses” are also needed: “art and love and beauty.” The slogan which inspired the song also influenced the DSA logo; the song’s inclusion says a lot about the image Mamdani wishes to project and the commitments he wishes to make central to his tenure.

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As the right wing press and politicians no doubt continue to look to Mamdani & Duwaji’s lifestyle for points of attack (certain, as Ross says of the commune’s critics, “that sharing could only mean the sharing of misery,”) we can take a lot from those who have fought for a world “where everyone, instead, would have [their] share of the best.” It’s a concern that spans from the hand that makes a shoe to the foot that wears it. A refusal to see a more equal world as one of only scarcity but, as Dacus sang during the inauguration, one built on “the sharing of life’s glories.” 🌀

Emma Tranter is a writer and bookworker based in London. She writes about literature, fragrance and feminism at her Substack, Heart Notes, and is online everywhere @emmatranter_.

By Bee Beardsworth

The first time I smelled Marlou’s Doliphor, I had a visceral reaction. The hairs on my arms stood on end. I was transported. An ivory-walled room, dry with summer heat but saturated with lust, corporeal condensation sliding down the walls. Shards of sunlight danced on the ceiling, chipping away at the shadowy corners as linen curtains danced under the tugs of a voyeuristic breeze. Sheets drenched in feral human scent, the smell of dried sweat and intoxicated half-dreams, infatuated bodies ouroborously entangled around each other. The softly seductive smell of the back of a lover’s neck as I pressed my face into the slightly sweet, slightly saline, almost untouched crevice.

I had never smelt a perfume so skin-like. It felt alluring yet unsettling, fleshy vulnerability and animalic allure distilled and bottled like some sort of Hannibal fantasy that perfectly overlapped with my own halcyon memories of a lustful bygone summer. It felt human, close, safe. I was obsessed.

In a myriad of constantly shifting scent trends, our love of the so-called Skin Scents seems not only to endure but repeatedly return to the leader’s position. Marrying the chemical with the corporeal, skin scents tout one core promise: your skin but better. What exactly is it that we can’t get enough of? Or is it simply just skin deep?

My love affair with skin scents started early on in my olfactory obsession. In the first throes of my twenties, a 5ml of Le Labo’s Another 13 slipped into my possession, hooking me with its strangely synthetic muskiness. All used up, I went to the Le Lebo counter with the gauche recklessness of a young woman trying to forge her definitive presentation and irresponsibly spent money on a 100ml bottle, printed with my name in the facsimile typewriter font that inevitably rubs off.

Musing on that period, I realise what made me fall so in love with a scent as simple and subtle as Another 13. Underneath the sheen of artificial ambroxan lies something you can’t put your finger on, something that comes alive on your skin, like an unseen creature moving underneath a pile of discarded clothes.

Although the molecules that we most often closely associate with skin scents stem back to the animalic notes of the perfume revolution circa late 19th century, the Skin Scent is — ironically — the product of a scent story that is decidedly synthetic. In 1973, IFF created a synthetic aroma-molecule with uniquely woody undertones called ISO E Super. For years, this was laced through perfumes to add a layer of fleshy ambery warmth, most notably Dior Fahrenheit and Creed’s Adventus.

Claiming to be disillusioned with the predictability of the mainstream industry, perfumer Geza Schoen discovered the chameleonic quality of pure ISO E Super after developing a fascination with how it changed when it touched human skin. In 2006, Escentric Molecules bottled this fascination into their inaugural scent: Molecule 01. This was my next skin scent obsession.

“We came out with something that was almost impossible to categorise because nobody had experienced anything like it before,” Geza Schoen tells me. “The idea of wearing a single aroma-molecule as a fragrance was almost unthinkable. We made the molecule itself the protagonist. That was a radical idea at the time.”

Radical indeed, yet also bizarre. What does Molecule 01 actually smell like? Geza describes it as “woody, velvety and cocooning, but also strangely elusive.” I would argue that these descriptors are bordering on wishful thinking, especially to the untrained nose. Whilst Molecule 01 has a smell, the smell is almost nothing. But that’s the point.

The millennium marked a point of transition — not only chronologically but also psychologically and socio-politically; the crossing of a threshold from a century marked by the most rapidly technological advancements humanity had ever seen to a new era that felt limitless and boundless. Everything had the potential to be modern, minimalist, and sexy — bitten by the Millennium Bug. Consumerism, music, the future… it was all steeped in the sheen of gleamingly slick accelerationism. Tapes turned to CDs, VHS to DVD, computers to laptops and film to digital. Identity moved into a new articulation; hyperindividualism bloomed in the fertile ground of early internet culture.

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Molecule 01 wasn’t a perfume that told you who to be. It was a perfume for the new age. A new age that seemed to have an endless horizon and increasingly formless self-expression, elevating who you already were in a way that, through being a nonconformist, was truly rebellious and revolutionary. From gym to office to club to bed, there was no need to slow down, to change, to disrupt the adhesion from one identity to another. Molecule was simple enough to be streamlined, yet still indicated a sense of superior taste and eclecticism. And because of how ISO E Super adapts uniquely to each skin type, there is only one prerequisite: there has to be a You first.

Le Labo’s Another 13 and Juliette Has A Gun’s Not Another Perfume both followed in 2010. Despite the similarly chalant names (another perfume…), both scents took the simple seed Molecule had sown and grafted it into something that promised your skin but better with a little something else. Another 13 alchemises ambroxan and ambrette into something warm yet metallic with a strangely synthetic coolness that summons an olfactory imagining of an Under The Skin extraterrestrial humanoid. In JHAG’s Not Another Perfume, Cetalox takes centre stage. A synthetic note created by Firmenich, Cetalox sits somewhere between ISO E Super and Ambrox and was introduced in 1993 to imitate the musky, slightly creamy smell of one of the most expensive and rare perfume ingredients, Ambergris. On my skin it comes through like some sort of high-end eco-disinfectant with a hint of pear. And lest we forget the ultimate It Girl skinscent that had every Millennial worth their weight in American Apparel and Girls in a chokehold: Glossier You.

Just over a year ago, Skin Scents started cropping up on my FYP. I initially chalked it down as another symptom of the Clean Girl hangover, but they weren’t all fresh linen and your skin but better. Whilst the true and tried aforementioned classics started trending, something new was emerging. Skin scents were getting weird, sexy and even a little dirty.

With the explosion in popularity of niche perfumery that accompanied the rise of #PerfumeTok in the early 2020s, more subtle scents relying on clandestine whisperings of solo connection shared through screens soared into the limelight. Fugazzi’s Angel Dust is one such wunderkind. Despite the EPD being released in 2021 to lacklustre success, TikTok’s proclivity for platforming the personal lifted the scent from sitting in a bargain bin to flying off the shelves at Sephora. Suitably, the perfume is constructed to “celebrate the introvert,” claiming a gentle strength and silent attractiveness through the use of so-called “polite molecule” Cashmeran, which their copywriter personifies as notorious for intimacy and privacy. Perfect for the Big Tech-terrorised COVID Generation.

Not to be a stereotypical party girl, but I do have to take it to a place of brat, briefly. Or more specifically the SWEAT Tour, a #collab between popstars du jour Charli xcx and Troye Sivan. Sweat and perfume are a match made in heaven, and in their 2024 press run, Charli and Troye named then-yet-to-be-released Luca from Tsu Lange Yor as their signature scent of that moment — a PR move no doubt spurred on by it being Troye’s brand, but nonetheless another layer of skin scent resurgence.

Luca is an Ambrox and sandalwood-heavy skin scent with hints of fruit and earthiness, radiating with a warmth and texture like the baby hairs behind your ear. Described as “both grounding and animal,” it was made not for subtlety but for sweat, seduction and (hopefully) sex. “Luca came from wanting a scent that feels close and real, like a second skin,” Troye tells me. “As things get sweatier, those musky and amber notes pop more, making it feel personal and alive. It’s built to last through the night and keep things interesting.” It’s no surprise it’s the brand’s top seller.

But there was one skin scent that truly started the 2020s renaissance: PHLUR’s Missing Person. An ode to heartbreak and longing, the scent of freshly washed skin is mixed with something echoing a clean, empty bed. At once undeniably familiar and deeply melancholic, the perfume logged over 200,000 backorders before it was officially released, owing to viral videos of the tearful reactions evoked by smelling the scent-soaked white boyfriend t-shirt vacuum-packed into the PR pack.

The familiar, the comforting… is our obsession with skin scents really just that simple of a craving? After all, we can’t go a day without mentioning the loneliness epidemic. But to label the hundreds of thousands of people who love skin scents as simply lonely would require a level of assumption that is both lazy and unlikely. The gay man I met on the weekend has an amazing boyfriend, but he wears Another 13. I love wearing Missing Person to bed, whether alone or not. And before someone mentioned pheromones, the idea that human smell can detect pheromones is actually a total myth.

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There is something more abstract lingering underneath our skin scent obsession — something that I think has intensified in the last 20 years. Molecule 01 was an idea of the future: an olfactory utopia of simplicity, efficiency and hyperindividuality. So were its immediate successors. The recent resurgence in skin scents indicates a yearning, but not just for corporeal closeness. We yearn for a past that never materialised. The trend of skin scents came back at the same time Y2K propagated across social media, visually communicating the nostalgia a new generation of consumers has for an era they didn’t experience but that held the promises our current epoch doesn’t. As Mark Fisher posited, the slow cancellation of the future has not only deflated expectations of change but has situated us in a time where it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Accompany that with how “the internet and mobile telecommunications technology have altered the texture of everyday experience beyond all recognition,” and how “there is no present to grasp and articulate anymore.”

If we can’t imagine escaping capitalism, then how better to express a silent rebellion and desire for protest driven by a subliminal sense of despondency and nihilism layered with nostalgic melancholia than an overpriced perfume?

It isn’t that simple, either. Dousing myself almost daily in different skin scents for the past few weeks, I discovered my final prismatic reflection and favourite experiential element. A sticky, humid day in June saw the launch party for Discothèque’s Next To Me Or Nothing, an opalescent ISO E Super scent laced with sake, milk and jasmine. Drawing inspiration from gauzy dreams of jazzy ‘90s Kyoto, I smell the strange solidarity of bodies pressed close with strangers in a moment of strobe-light fractured hedonism, the feeling of collective effervescence as you lose yourself in others, a haze of ecstasy and indescribably human euphoria. A few days later, I unboxed a tester of Mabelle O’Rama’s Lunar Dust. One spritz and my mind wandered from terra firma to ether, the cool, metallic quality leaving an otherworldly scent trail that shimmered like moonlight in a pond. Marlou’s Doliphor has haunted me in the most erotic way since I first tried it months ago. These perfumes speak to the esoteric and the unknowable that underpins everything that is human, the olfactive acting as a bridge to both the nostalgic and the fantastical. In the age of ever-deepening artificiality, to evoke the human is rebellion. It will always be deeper than skin deep. 🌀

Bee Beardsworth is a perfume princess, Professional Party Girl, semi-retired model and unretired writer known for her innovative approach to fashion, beauty and culture. From her viral videos on perfume to cult beauty writing for Dazed and Coveteur, Bee captivates audiences with her tongue-in-cheek humour, unorthodox insights and charismatic allure. For an ever-updated vantage point of her London life, completed uncurated carousels, and perfume videos such as The Smell of Sex, scroll to @beebeardsworth.

By Gabrielle A.D.

After six years spent living in quiet comfort among the greystone dwellings and crisp, often frigid air of Chicago, I recently decided to uproot myself in favor of greener, warmer pastures. Having grown up in a rigidly conservative, small Midwestern town, my sights had always been set on graduating to The Big City(™), where I could immerse myself in culture and surround myself with like-minded creatives. I’d already done the NYC thing in my early twenties, and now, I’d done my time in Chicago. Living in two of the country’s three largest cities before hitting my thirties: check.

Los Angeles, then, in all of its verdant, sun-drenched glory, was beckoning—the last, and arguably most beautiful, of the Big 3 for me to conquer. So, I packed my bags, rented a minivan, and drove cross-country to my new home in Hollywood, aware of the stereotypes that plague it, but optimistic nonetheless. If I couldn’t avoid it altogether, I told myself I could at least deal with the rabid vapidity of influencer-slash-celebrity culture, so long as it remained on the periphery, and so long as the rolling, bougainvillea-draped hills and the glittering Pacific waves were there to soothe me.

I’d love to claim these last seven months in La La Land have brought me nothing save serenity and a surplus of Vitamin D, but it would be dishonest. Los Angeles is fabulous, really, and provided it doesn’t crumble into the sea anytime soon, I could see myself living here for decades to come. But beneath the perpetually cerulean skies lies something… Toxic. And I’m not referring to the smog problem. Rather, I’ve found that, despite all my previous visits and preconceived notions, I was still woefully unprepared for full inundation into this Uncanny Valley-esque matrix.

The regularity of unnatural, unnecessary aesthetic interference, the insouciance with which such procedures and products are met, has been startling to witness. After only a few months of exposure, the prevalence of “self-optimization” and “looks-maxxing” culture here triggered an “AM I F*CKING UGLY!?” meltdown that left me sobbing in the bathtub for hours. Tears streaking my porous, peachfuzzed cheeks, snot bubbling out of my prominent aquiline nose, I could feel my grip on reality slipping—it seemed as if no one, myself included, could remember what natural, unaltered faces and bodies look like. Initially, I was eager to blame my new surroundings, to use the city and its injectable-loving inhabitants as scapegoats. But of course, once I took the time to cool off and zoom out, I was able to reconcile this face-and-figure-obsessed phenomenon as neither new nor unique to Los Angeles. I recall reading and nodding fervently along to Jia Tolentino’s article “The Age of Instagram Face” in the New Yorker in 2019—my first year living in Chicago—and though the subject matter remains evergreen, it’s safe to say the aesthetic ante has been significantly upped since then.

Obviously, this generation is infatuated with frivolous cosmetic procedures. One could venture that the obsession is a knee-jerk response to an increasingly hideous, ever-deteriorating world—I mean, look around. Earth is quite literally burning. Innumerable innocents are being slain as a result of wicked war-mongering and government-funded genocide. The planet’s most prominent political figureheads are flaunting their pedophilic preferences with impunity. Surely in such a grisly, nihilistic age, it’s natural for people to turn inward. The world may be an ugly, brutal thing, but the self? That can be optimized, or so we’re told—and sold. The platitude “control what you can control” comes to mind here.

This pursuit of aesthetic perfection, however futile, could be serving as an individualistic defense mechanism, a deflection of sorts. If everyone is so beautiful—smoothed and symmetrical and softened beyond recognition—can the world really be so obtuse, so… ugly? More likely, though, it’s a distraction, one whose effectiveness relies on this very futility. If flawlessness is forever out of reach, the quest for it will be unending, and the instinct to look outside oneself will be dimmed, if not extinguished altogether.

Perhaps I’m being too generous, and this philosophical outlook is a steaming pile of bullshit. Maybe the explanation for such a self-obsessed culture is as simple as this: in an increasingly technological age, we all spend too much time staring at and thinking about ourselves. Social media is a strange, omnipresent beast—one that rots our brains from overuse while tacitly suggesting we cease to be should we refuse to engage with it: if we don’t exist online, we don’t exist at all. Most platforms are hypervisual, forcing us to face our own reflections and others’ with ridiculous frequency, thus inviting unprecedented levels of appearance-based scrutiny. So-called “flaws” that would likely go unnoticed in the pre-iPhone era are now glaring, and anyone with login credentials can point them out—often cruelly—leaving hostile comments under the guise of relative anonymity. The converse, then, is also true: those the internet deems attractive are generously rewarded with praise and positive engagement galore. Increasingly, it feels as if beauty is less so in the eye of the beholder and more so in the hands of those doling out likes, comments, shares, and follows.

Furthermore, it seems the very definition of beauty, something that is supposedly subjective by nature, is shrinking, being measured more by an absence of flaws than by an assortment of idiosyncratic features or a uniquely enchanting aura. As Tolentino so keenly observed in the aforementioned New Yorker essay, the dominant beauty ideal nowadays, colloquially referred to as “Instagram face” or “iPhone face,” cherry-picks the most desirable traits from various ethnicities—“an overly tan skin tone, a South Asian influence with the brows and eye shape, an African-American influence with the lips, a Caucasian influence with the nose, a cheek structure that is predominantly Native American and Middle Eastern—” to create an ethnically ambiguous, alien visage, one which rarely exists in nature and is largely unattainable without injectable and/or surgical intervention. Innumerable celebrities and influencers—such as Bella Hadid, the Kardashian/Jenner clan, Emily Ratajkowski, etc.—are widely hawked as aspirational beauties because they boast such desirable attributes, though they weren’t born with them. It’s common knowledge that these women have spent exorbitant amounts of money and time under the knives of some of the world’s most renowned plastic surgeons—and yet, regular women are still expected—by men, by relentlessly demanding algorithms, and, most depressingly, by our own internalized biases—to adhere to such lofty criteria.

That same logic, or lack thereof, also applies to body standards, which maintain that the slimmer the physique, the better. Not to rail on Miss Hadid, but her freakishly low BMI being dubbed aspirational and/or attainable for the average person is alarming, to say the least. Gone are the body-positive days of the twenty-teens, which, while often performative and annoying (I will die on the hill that “All About That Bass” is among the most obnoxious songs of all time), were still preferable to the current algorithmic onslaught of anorexic-slash-orthorexic influencers masquerading as “wellness coaches,” despite their only qualifications being ultra-sharp clavicular bones and prominent thigh gaps.

The astronomical surge in GLP-1 usage for cosmetic weight loss is no coincidence. The number of ads I’m digitally force-fed daily—most of which star a svelte, athleisure-clad white woman encouraging me to shed ten pounds in two weeks via one drug or another—is as infuriating as it is harrowing. I mean, give me a break. It all hearkens back to the body standards of the early aughts—when I was coming of age—and when being rail-thin was all the rage. However, I’d argue it’s even more pernicious today, as we find more creative ways to market voluntary malnutrition as self-care. According to the American Medical Association, spending on semaglutides such as Ozempic and Wegovy rose more than 500 percent from 2018 to 2023, from $13.7 billion to $71.7 billion, with Ozempic-specific spending skyrocketing from $410 million to a startling $26.42 billion. Another report from CNBC states that GLP-1 prescriptions rose a staggering 300 percent from 2020 to 2023, totaling nearly nine million, while data analyzed by Trillian Health, reported on by CNN, shows that one-third of Ozempic patients do not have any history of Diabetes, the treatment of which was the drug’s intended purpose.

It feels rudimentary to note that women and girls are, and always have been, held to higher beauty standards than our male counterparts. I mean, duh—Feminism 101. From the time we’re toddlers, taught to pedestalize princesses and frilly femininity, it’s implied, if not explicitly stated, that beauty is power, an invaluable form of currency, the only womanly weapon worth wielding, its pursuit paramount.

Nowadays, this pursuit feels unprecedentedly urgent because as our screen time climbs, so do the stifling standards to which we hold ourselves. It’s all a vicious, dysmorphia-inducing cycle. Is it any wonder, then, that cosmetic interventions are more accessible and popular than ever? Though it’s strangely difficult to nail down precise statistics on the subject—most are suspiciously sourced directly from plastic surgeons’ offices—it’s apparent to anyone with eyes and/or internet access that there’s been an increased demand for such procedures. In fact, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons cites social media as a primary catalyst for the industry’s exponential growth:

“‘First, the overall popularity of procedures is increasing,’ said Ramanadham. ‘Social media is making plastic surgery more acceptable and helping to get rid of some of the negative stigma traditionally associated with it. Additionally, the demographic is changing with younger patients looking into various procedures and thinking about plastic surgery, especially nonsurgical, as part of their overall wellness. Finally, we see a direct relationship between procedures that are trending on TikTok and what patients are coming to the office for.’”

Considering approximately 55 percent of TikTok’s users are under the age of 30, well… I’ll let you do the bulk of the math here, while proffering another startling statistic: per the NOW Foundation: 45.5% of American adolescents report considering cosmetic surgery in recent years.

All of that said, I empathize with the impulse to “alter one’s avatar,” as such interventions are so often and so cavalierly referred to. I truly do. To claim I’ve always been immune to such propaganda would be a bald-faced lie. Though it has long-since dissolved, I had an $800 vial of Restylane Kysse pumped into my lips in 2021, for no better reason than everyone around me was doing it, and “Maybe,” I thought, “this will finally be what takes me from an eight to a ten.” Spoiler alert: it didn’t. In fact, aside from the immediate post-injection swelling that left me slobbering on myself like an infant, it scarcely made a visible difference. Even my eagle-eyed mother couldn’t clock the change. Plumper pout or not, the visit did accomplish something, in that it made me painstakingly aware of other “imperfections” in need of remediation. If you’ve never had to examine your reflection beneath the blinding lights of a med spa while an impossibly smooth-skinned aesthetician points out everything they’d change about your face—asymmetry here, sagging there—consider yourself lucky. I didn’t even know what nasolabial folds were, or that they were considered an aesthetic affront, until they were so harshly highlighted to me.

Since that fateful day, I’ve had a few lip-flips, plus one poorly injected bout of TMJ-related Botox that cost me $850 and left me with a bulging masseter. And though I’ve sworn to myself I’ll never pull the rhinoplastic trigger, I’ve caught myself googling “affordable nose job near me” more than once (typically in the throes of PMDD-induced fugue states). Critically, though, my participation in all of this does not equal endorsement. I do not think any of this is good, healthy, or wise. Without delving too deeply into my personal medical history, it makes sense that I’d be susceptible to such patriarchal ploys. As someone who has suffered from and undergone intensive treatment for an eating disorder, resorting to extreme measures to “fix” my corporeal form is, unfortunately, all too familiar. Really, I’m an aesthetician’s ideal victim—crippling dysmorphia plus unfettered perfectionism is one hell of a cocktail. I never thought I’d be glad of my relatively low income, but in hindsight, a lack of spare cash in my mid-twenties prevented me from making impulsive alterations I know I’d regret today.

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Before I trudge any further into contentious territory, allow me to offer a disclaimer: I do not consider women who have plastic surgery, use semaglutides, etc., to be The Anti-Feminist Enemy. As I said, I understand the impulse and the stakes—we live in a patriarchal society that insists upon women’s desirability. Don’t hate the player; hate the game. But still, the enthusiasm with which all of this is being peddled and the lack of critical thought surrounding it trouble me deeply. It’s heartbreaking that we as women are so eager to erase and mutilate ourselves for the sake of catering to whatever beauty standards happen to be trending—standards which, by and large, most of us had no say in creating.

Let’s use cosmetic rhinoplasty as an example: have you ever heard of someone emptying their savings to enlarge their schnoz? While I’m sure there are a few exceptions, most nose jobs prioritize shrinking, slimming, and lifting, often with the intention of achieving a perky little ski-slope silhouette. Thus, when one decides to undergo such an operation, they’re implicitly agreeing that smaller noses are preferable, which, in turn, bolsters the unfair (but not untrue) notion that smaller noses hold more societal value—a belief that is not-so-inconspicuously rooted in racial and ethnic superiority. That’s not to say anyone who gets a nose job is racist by default—that’d be ludicrous—but the societal undercurrents and Eurocentric preferences that influence the decision certainly are.

It’s also important to note that, when discussing beauty standards, the word “trending” does a lot of heavy lifting: like most fads, aesthetic ones are mercurial. One year, voluptuous Coke-bottle bodies and juicy BBLs are flooding your social media feed; the following year, it’ll be overrun with nonsense terms like “yoga boobs” or “leggings legs,” which begs the question: is the high cost—both monetarily and physically—of enduring such invasive, often irreversible procedures really worth the gratification rewarded for adherence to a fickle trend? As horrifying as it may sound, sometimes, the answer is yes—pretty privilege, like white privilege, male privilege, and class privilege, is real and prevalent. The social rewards bestowed upon hot people are easy to spot—e.g., an abundance of friends, followers, lovers, and freebies—but the economic advantages afforded them are less obvious. Several studies have indicated that conventionally attractive people are more likely to be hired, receive promotions, and earn more money than their less attractive peers.

Occasionally, pop culture hints at an iota of consciousness, rightly criticizing the dystopian nature of (gesturing broadly) all this. A prime example is the critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated horror film from 2024, The Substance, wherein Demi Moore stars as an aging celebrity who, desperate to cling to her stardom, begins abusing an illicit drug that births a younger, hotter version of herself, a more aesthetically pleasing alter ego (played by Margaret Qualley) through whom she can relive her glory days. Long story short, the experiment goes horribly awry, though I won’t spoil it by providing any further (hint: gorier) details. Summarily, the film is meant to spark a dialogue about the immense societal pressures and sexist standards that plague women today. It’s a fantastic movie, no doubt worthy of the accolades it received. However, the moral of the story seems to have been lost on the two lead actresses, evidenced by Qualley’s subsequent (alleged!) boob job and Moore’s subsequent (also alleged) GLP-1 use, which left her looking skeletal on the 2026 red carpet. So it seems Hollywood’s shining moment of self-effacement and the optimism it inspired was nothing more than a flash in the pan.

While I’m sure many find that specific instance, as well as our beauty-obsessed culture more broadly, unnerving, people seem increasingly reticent to discuss it. Beneath every photo of one emaciated actress or another—depressingly, this list of names is ever-expanding—you’re guaranteed to find users expressing their concern, genuine or otherwise. You’re equally as likely to behold a barrage of defensive comments, imploring people to “stop commenting on women’s bodies!” As well-intended as the latter approach may be, it does more harm than good in the grand scheme of things—we all know problems won’t go away simply because we ignore them.

Why is it, then, that such idle responses have gained momentum? Is it because people genuinely don’t see the issue with women whittling away to nothing, or forcibly altering themselves beyond recognition? That may be true for some, however difficult to comprehend. By and large, though, I think we have “choice feminism” to blame for this pervasive passivity. In the words of every gender studies professor who has ever lived: let’s unpack that.

Choice feminism, occasionally referred to as post-feminism, has become a mega-hot topic over the last decade. Succinctly defined, it’s the belief that any choice a woman makes is inherently feminist because she chose to make it. This ideology can be attributed to the more marketable, mainstream variations of third-wave feminism spawned in the 90s and early 00s—think Spice Girls’ hot pink, glittery “girl power” motif, which prioritized individual empowerment and sexual liberation—as opposed to the more stringent, more urgent second-wave movement, which strove for basic legal and economic equality, reproductive rights, etc. Nowadays, American women can be anything—gatekeepy girlbosses, TikToking trad wives, Percacet-popping podcasters, cultish Pro-Ana vloggers, lobotomy-chicified bimbos—and all will be met with exclamations of “slay mamas!” and “yassss queen!”, no matter the detrimental effects such decisions may have on women or society’s perception of us, writ large. Don’t get me wrong, I believe women should have the right to make our own choices, period—but I also believe we reserve the right to criticize one another’s choices without being pigeonholed as “regressive” or “anti-woman.” In the past, for example, when I’ve expressed dissent re: plastic surgery, I’ve been pummeled with baseless accusations from other women; I’ve been called a “pick-me,” “not a girl’s girl,” “jealous,” “too woke,” “rad-fem,” “hater,” and, most ironically, “an ugly bitch.” Such reactive dismissals, usually uttered in the name of choice feminism, serve more to infantilize women than to liberate them, suggesting women are incapable of fielding criticism or engaging in thought-provoking discourse without becoming hyper-emotional, petty, or defensive.

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Mind you, it’s not like I’m out here spewing misogyny to invoke such vitriol, saying things like “all these chicks with filler face are busted bimbos.” Rather, I’ve been urging others to approach these matters with a healthy amount of skepticism. I don’t think it’s radical to suggest we, as women, could afford to love ourselves more, nor do I think self-love is something that can be bought. The latter sentiment really riles folks and is invariably rebutted by the insistence that women elect to undergo these procedures of their own accord, for their own benefit—but I’d like to push back on that, too. When we convince ourselves that the choices we make are for our own sake, we don’t have to think too deeply about whom or what those choices actually serve, and thus we feel less guilty about succumbing to patriarchal pressures. “I got my XYZ done for me!” is a quick, widely accepted retort that shuts down any room for analysis, but it’s a fool’s errand to believe that the choices we make exist in a vacuum.

The insecurities which cosmetic procedures or semaglutides aim to ameliorate did not arise out of thin air—somewhere, somehow, we were made to feel unworthy, unpalatable. For example, let’s revisit my short-lived affair with lip filler. At the time, I’d strutted into the plastic surgeon’s obnoxiously ornate office with an eager, albeit anxious smile, having successfully deluded myself, claiming the nearly 1,000-dollar pursuit of suppler, juicier lips was no one’s idea save my own, despite the encouragement of a man I was seeing, who so selflessly volunteered to pay for it. Also lingering in the recesses of my mind was a snide comment a girl had made to me in junior high, something about my having “bird lips” and a big nose—two attributes I’d never felt insecure about until that moment. I’d also been told my boobs were too small, my arms too hairy, my thighs too bulky, my face too square, etc., all things which have been reiterated over the years via social media and pop culture, more generally. This isn’t a “woe is me” moment—I neither desire nor expect pity for sharing these things—but it is a relatable moment, because it’s safe to say every woman, everywhere, has had her appearance dissected and disparaged at some point. Having insecurities thrust upon us—directly or indirectly—is a universal experience. That said, I doubt any of us would be compelled to break and rebuild our noses or suck the fat from our cheeks if we lived alone on a desert island, which really calls the notion of “choice” into question. Not to go all Andrea Dworkin on you all—I recognize that she, like all of us, was an imperfect feminist—but she was spitting when she wrote, “Being female in this world is having been robbed of the potential for human choice by men who love to hate us. One does not make choices in freedom.”

My issue with choice feminism isn’t just that it’s intellectually lazy—it’s more nefarious than that. As it is wont to do, capitalism sank its fangs into the feminist movement, draining what was once a serious political ideology of its potency until it became mild enough for mainstream consumption. Feminism, then, became less of a loud-mouthed, hairy-legged pariah and more of a bedazzled, Barbie-pink buzzword. At first glance, the popularization of progressive politics seems like a net positive. While it may be irksome to devout ideologues to see their beliefs reduced to cheap merchandise, at least more people are talking about it, right? To some degree, sure. However, while representation can lead to progress, it is not progress in and of itself. Shockingly, the selling of “smash the patriarchy” mugs at trendy retailers has not, in fact, resulted in a smashing of patriarchy. Starting political conversations is important, of course, but it’s a first step at best—and when paying lip service is the extent of one’s activism, one cannot expect a raucous upheaval of the status quo, which is precisely why reigning institutions insist upon its sufficiency.

Likewise, the existing hegemony cannot, and will not, be toppled by a hyper-individualistic, neoliberal agenda, such as that which choice feminism fosters. Choice feminism does not simply pedestalize the individual—it eschews the collective entirely—asserting that any win a single woman experiences is a win for women everywhere. Sure, a syringe of Sculptra here and there might boost a woman’s confidence, but the ensuing dopamine rush she experiences should not be conflated with empowerment—a word that, like feminism itself, has been thrown around much too liberally, reclaimed and repurposed by the very institutions that prey upon and profit from our insecurities. Alas, one woman’s Instagram-approved glow-up is not the key to liberating marginalized communities. Who knew?

As choice feminist rhetoric forsakes the collective, it also, by default, forsakes intersectionality—a crucial development in feminist theory coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, who described it as “A prism for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other.” Meaning, when it comes to matters of gender inequality, one must also consider how factors such as race, class, sexuality, etc., interlock and contribute to oppression. I.e., there are levels to all this. The choice feminist camps claiming surgical makeovers and rapid weight loss are acts of empowerment do not only fail to understand the definition of empowerment, but—even if abiding by their own disjointed definitions of the word—they fail to consider the wide swaths of women who cannot afford such alterations, which, in addition to the hefty price tags they boast, require ample free time to pursue (especially when post-op recovery is involved). To say there is a gaping racial and class divide in the industry is a gross understatement, as 78% of plastic surgeries in the US are performed on caucasian women. That doesn’t necessarily mean more marginalized sects—queer women, women of color, women of lower socioeconomic status, etc.—are immune to the looks-maxxing marketing being shoved down their throats. Instead, it increases the likelihood of them seeking out dangerous, discounted procedures, often performed by underqualified or inexperienced aestheticians, or participating in medical tourism, which is shady at its best and deadly at its worst. Insofar as women are literally dying to appeal to society’s aesthetic demands, I’d say we’ve taken the adage “beauty is pain” much too seriously.

If you’ve read this far and you’re still thinking along the lines of “chill, it’s not that deep,” there’s probably little else I can say to change your mind, which is fine. Go off, I guess. But in a world chock full of uninspired AI slop, wherein fast fashion reigns supreme, and social media has reduced what was once personal style to neatly packaged, purchasable aesthetics or “cores” (e.g., ballet-core, cottage-core, coquette-core, etc.) that encourage widespread uniformity, uniqueness is scarce and, therefore, increasingly covetable. Frankly, uniformity in fashion is dreadfully dull—imagine how fucking boring the world would be if everyone’s faces suffered the same homogenous, hollow fate. Not to be a doomer, but at this rate, that path of soulless sameness is the one we’re careening down.

If, on the other hand, you’re thinking, OK, so what is to be done about all of this? Truthfully, I don’t know. This is, after all, a frustrated, long-winded rumination, not a manifesto; and if there were a clear-cut path to women’s liberation, it’s safe to say someone much wiser than I would have discovered it by now.

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What I do know is that this iPhone-induced psychosis is not for the faint of heart. I’m struggling with all of this as an adult with a fully developed prefrontal cortex and years of therapy under my belt—I cannot fathom being an impressionable teen with internet access in this era of artifice and emaciation. I thought 2013 Tumblr was bad, but the thinspo blogs of yesteryear pale in comparison to what we’re seeing today; at least they called a spade a spade, a bone a bone, a Botox syringe a Botox syringe. The toll all of this is taking on the collective psyche is surely immeasurable, ensorcelling us to look at dying, plasticine women and cheerfully agree that they are healthy. And while I’m neither qualified nor equipped to prescribe a universal remedy, allow me to inject you with an invaluable piece of advice that has helped me more than anything:

Girl, log off. 🌀

Gabrielle A.D. is an LA-based writer attempting to live as authentically and as lesbianly as possible. She can be found on Instagram @infinite__breast, where she occasionally shares more of her work, though she often deletes social media and goes off-the-grid for the sake of her tenuous sanity. She also highly recommends Bricking one’s phone (this is not a paid sponsorship) and going outside.

By Bella Blue Bloss

You and your companions take a trip to the well and, like Alice, you tumble in and emerge into an alternate world. It feels both aged yet familiar, uncanny yet beautiful; the landscape hums with something mythical.

Epona’s Spring/Summer Ready-to-Wear collection is exactly that: seven garments that transport you into the world of Epona. Founder Rhiannon Davies is a London-based designer who centres her work around her folksy roots from Somerset and Wales. With influences of equestrian heritage, Celtic folklore and the human form, Davies bestows a strong visual language that is uniquely personal, with a distinct contemporary edge.

Titled The Chalice Collection, after the Chalice Well in Glastonbury, which appears to be straight out of a fantasy, with beautiful Victorian decorative ironwork and the healing qualities of the water. Davies’ anecdote of the well being a “portal between temporalities” enriches this collection with a spiritual and historical framework. Pulling from these Victorian influences and the mystical qualities associated with the well reflects perfectly in the collection. With soft feminine silhouettes paired with coarse leather accessories, this collection is romantic yet structured and robust.

Epona is created around an equestrian paradigm, inspired by her Celtic name Rhiannon and its mythological associations with horses, along with Epona, a counterpart to that name. Equestrianism is the theme that runs through this collection, marked by a horse’s elegance, beauty, and embodiment of power, status, and freedom.

In this collection, Davies upcycles materials, accessories, and trimmings from her previous collections, notably the repurposing of horse saddles in Look 3 and the gorgeous brown leather saddle bag, styled in Look 1. In Look 3, we witness a reimagining of the classic mini shift dress with an equestrian edge, Davies constructing the neckline and bodice with horse saddle leather to create a structured garment. The quality of the dress’ body material mimics the soft, leathery skin of a horse.

The horse hoof shoe, a signature design in the Epona world, reappears in this collection. Constructed without a heel, the wearer quite literally steps into the shoes of a horse. With the resurgence of the Tabi shoe in popular fashion culture and other hoof-inspired shoes by Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen, Epona takes this trend to another level.

The Victorian era and Davies’ Goddess muse is visited in Look 6 with the “side saddle gown,” conjuring images of the wearer on horseback with the full skirt billowing in the wind. A contemporary twist on the Victorian gown, Davies reflects on the restraints of Victorian women who were expected to remain modest and feminine whilst riding horses. The full-length skirt is combined with a button-up, form-fitted cardigan, evoking a more modern look, accessorised with an oversized black leather clutch, which is embellished with an upcycled Victorian picture frame synthetic floral arrangement. The riding aesthetic is also mirrored in Look 4, reinterpreting contemporary riding uniforms by pairing black riding shorts with a nude pink, softly corseted bodysuit, and in Look 7, where the flared black trousers echo the shire horses’ hooves.

My personal favourite touch in the collection is the floral embellishments. Gorgeously constructed from synthetic hair, upcycled from Davies’ CSM graduate collection, and fixed with pearls, the flowers draw in both the feminine delicacy and strong allusions to a horse’s mane. This carefully considered artistic ornamentation is also a nod to the Victorian era, the practice of making jewelry from loved ones’ hair for lockets or chains to honor the dead or as a sentimental gift. The hair symbolised memory and emotional bonds; Emily Brontë famously owned a bracelet woven from her sister’s hair.

The hair flower motif unifies the collection across the first 3 looks. In Look 1, the soft nude fitted bodice of the dress continues down the body, and the draping from the hip cascades down where hair flowers catch the light with tiny encrusted beads and pearls. Followed through to Look 2, a white duchess satin dress echoes the Victorian riding attire. A leather belt sits on the hip following the line of the bodice above the fullness of the skirt. From the front, slung on the hip at the back, it reveals a large hair flower with an oversized central pearl. In Look 3, a hair flower with a long ribbon, mimicking the horse’s tail, is embellished onto the saddle collar of the brown leather mini dress, a juxtaposition between the delicate and the robust.

In curating this collection, Davies has defined the visual language of Epona. While the equestrian aesthetic has been consistent throughout her previous work, The Chalice Collection utilises it more as a brand symbol as opposed to a collection focus, giving the collection a strong sense of identity. The Victorian flair combined with folkloric elements makes for a magical experience when viewing the collection as a whole; it makes you feel as though you are in the world of Epona, not simply observing it. The details and accessories are so considered and create really unique visual symbols that repeat throughout; I hope to see some of these elements become emblematic of the brand. 🌀

CREDITS

Designer/Brand — Epona

Fashion Photographer — Dani Nolan

Models — Carys Bonell, Josie Berr

Bella Blue Bloss is a writer and editor from London. She runs the Substack blog Fragmentary Girl, where she publishes essays on feminism, art, culture, literature, and fashion, exploring female representation in the visual arts and media. Bella is currently working on her first book, an essay anthology edited and written by herself and other up-and-coming feminist writers. You can find more of her work on her website and follow her on Instagram @bellabluebloss.

Welcome back to The HALO Report. With HALOSCOPE venturing onto Substack, your weekly dose of news, sales, and long reads spanning the fashion world and beyond will now be delivered directly to your inbox!

World Cup season is in full swing, and no matter which team (or teams!) you’re rooting for, it’s time to enjoy the sense of unity and cohesion this summer’s sporting events have brought to the world. Even the Knicks’ huge championship win, mostly a boon for NYC, brought tears to the eyes of TikTok watchers around the world, with Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s epic followup speech sparking comments such as “that’s MY mayor” from users in Pakistan, Prague, Philly, and beyond. Love Island (both UK and USA)’s continued run is another flavor of sporting event, with team Brinity (USA contestants Bryce + Trinity) dominating the public’s affection and filling with more TV the scant hours not already booked with, as the world outside of the USA would say, futbol. It is a joyous affair, this feeling of being on the same team as the rest of the world for once–here’s hoping the sentiments we’re sharing in these summer months continue to warm us well into the winter. This week, will Whimsicraft save us from capitalist dereliction (?), Mayor Mamdani’s World Cup jerseys were a hit, Ralph Lauren sings while Louis Vuitton sinks, Rob Rausch has come out of hiding to venture into throngs of fangirls in NYC, Damson Madder has a lovely sale, and more.

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The latest long-ish reads from the brightest minds in fashion and beyond.

• “Make Way for the Paper Bag Princess,” Lauren Lexa Brown’s new piece for HALOSCOPE, is a brilliant introduction to the newfound aesthetic of “Whimsicraft,” referencing everything from one of my personal favorite childhood stories to Mark Fisher’s anticapitalist critiques in a meditation on the dismal state of the world and what we can do to make it more beautiful for ourselves.

• This isn’t news anymore, as the first run of jerseys has long since sold out, but “Exclusive: Mayor Zohran Mamdani Is Launching Affordable NYC-Inspired World Cup Jerseys” via Yang-Yi Goh for GQ is a snapshot of the sporty, pseudo-patriotic style that’s defining American (yes, all the Americas) this summer, the summer of the 2026 World Cup. I was lucky enough to have a friend who braved the overheating line and sent one of the black-and-white jerseys to PDX for me (thanks, Ellie!), and I can attest to the high quality of Mazzi Sports’ local fabrication and the beauty of Arsh Raziuddin’s designs.

• “Prep Never Left,” a review of Ralph Lauren’s latest men’s show by Samuel Hine for The Cut, is hardly a revelation after years and years of thinkpieces on how prep never left in 2022, 23, or 24, either. However, it’s a welcome reiteration of the fact that Lauren’s vision of “prep” and “Americana” continue to expand and become more inclusive year after year, to delicious sartorial effect and great cultural cache.

• On the other hand, Emilee Russell’s “the louis vuitton show that made me lose faith in humanity” for It’s Critical is an overview of recent resort shows including a polemic against Nicolas Ghesquière’s latest offerings with the storied house. Russell compares the clothes, ostensibly “inspired” by the late, great Keith Haring, to “Planter’s wart but with a spicy fedora” and “If Michael Jackson was Michael Jordan.” Enough said.

• Sam Bodrojan of cc: helmet girl argues that “You Should Care What Gay Teenagers Like,” a concept that can be stretched to apply to fashion but is applied here, in Bodrojan’s clever perspective, to several pieces of media I’ve never even heard of. Consider this Unc Education.

• “The Beauty Products Hudson Williams’s Hairstylist Aika Flores Uses to the Last Drop” by Carol Lee for The Cut is a comprehensive shopping list for people of all genders who crave the Heated Rivalry breakout star’s glassy skin texture or admire Flores’ work on many, MANY a runway since the beginning of 2026. Warning: being a glazed donut will cost you, with products costing as much as hundreds of dollars, though a few affably-priced options like $13 specialty sunscreen are just as intriguing.

What to keep in mind — and look forward to — in the past and coming weeks.

• Snif’s milky new fragrance, 2%, is a good excuse for the brand to trot out beloved reality antihero Rob Rausch for a NYC meet and greet this Friday the 26th. If you’re interested in attending, RSVP and gird your loins for the horde of horny, lactonic-scented 20-somethings who are sure to storm Chelsea like it’s the Bastille.

• “Brain Dead x Adidas x Disney” sounds like the result of a random collab generator, especially considering the capsule itself is World Cup themed, but I’m sure the chaotic kits, scarves, and trainers will proliferate across the west coast Disney set after they’re released on the 29th.

• Military-style caps have been everywhere recently, but the new Lou Equipment summer drop cements their place in the pantheon of SS26 fashion, alongside new colorways of the brand’s signature raglan, contrast-stitched T-shirts, waxed canvas totes, and more gorgeous, utilitarian gear.

Less about impulse buys — and more about tracking discounts on the pieces already on your wishlist.

• The Damson Madder summer sale takes up to 40% off some of the brand’s best warm-weather offerings, including ruffly cropped trench coats, raffia pom-pom berets, harlequin swimsuits, and more items that toe the line of twee with a contemporary savvy.

• Use HOTCARNESUMMER40 for 40% off a robust selection of hypersexual Carne Bollente togs (typical for the brand), including a tee printed simply with “SEX” in a varsity font and a button-up covered in smooch marks.

• Take 50% off a wide array of dressed-up shoes, from raffia sandals to suede pumps, in the Larroudé summer flash sale.

• The Story mfg. summer sale offers up to 40% off flannel shirts patchworked with doves, intentionally-wonky workwear, puffy abstract vests, and more of the brand’s typically off-kilter fare.

• From cow-print shag coats to sophisticated baby onesies, the Shrimps summer sale offers discounts on a ton of cruelty-free luxury garments.

• I have personally road-tested Justine Clenquet sale jewelry, and for a typically-sub-$100 price point, you can’t beat the brand’s twisty subversions of the classic chains and metal baubles. 🌀

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By Lauren Lexa Brown

When you see the phrase “coming of age,” your imagination might drift towards themes of purity or rebellion: Lady Bird or “1979” by Smashing Pumpkins. For decades, conceptualizations of teenage experience have been squeezed like a natural wine bar on Galentine’s — the well is dry. In an attempt to reconcile with the spiritually-beaten dead horse birthed by media, depicting alabaster young virgins learning tough life lessons via mentally ill men, a new phenomenon is now being wrung out by fashion designers, stylists, and artists at large. This coming of age is not the run-of-the-mill Lolita story we all know and (mostly) love, but rather stems from the specific, awkward process of identity formation and the construction of a personal worldview that occurs from early adulthood to middle age. Instead of feeling longing for our childhood, our nostalgia has only naturally shifted towards our early twenties. Our love for childhood whimsy is taking the form of a more mature fantasy story — one that suggests scarcity and a primal drive for survival, à la Moonrise Kingdom.

This pertinent cultural shift is being embraced by an aging Gen Z, as it trickles down from trend-setting fashion houses like Prada and Loewe. Whimiscraft is huge on the runway this season, with ephemera all pointing to a bric-a-brac, Boy Scout feel. This harkening to wistful crafting stands in the way of the clean girl, reminding them it’s okay to get a little mud on your dress. Lately, the Miu Miu show has ushered in mossy tones, muted stone grays, and hints of fur that suggest Dr. Zhivago. Most notably, actress supreme Gillian Anderson walked the show in what one might call a bejeweled paper-bag princess dress. Calvin Klein also featured a canvas dress that looks like it could be made of paper, further cementing our desire for analog materials rather than chrome and plastic. It still involves repurposing old industrial materials, but the materials we consider “old” and “industrial” look very different because history shapes our perception of the meanings behind words.

In speaking about materials, the tangible is key here — what we experience with our five senses: how linen feels in our fingers, the noise of industrial projects, how our eyeballs absorb visual culture, the sets, the sound stages, the costumes, the physicality of actors interacting with their surroundings. It’s a post-literate world, where there is no reading between the lines, because there are no lines. As visuals of dystopia wherein we hand our agency over to computers seem to be almost mass-produced at this rate (from Hollywood, but also other cultural engines like universities and other institutions), a collective paranoia seems to have our desires defaulting to organic matter; deep down, we know that what waits in our “future” is essentially steampunk, minus the satirical digs at capitalism. This is because we will have swallowed the toughest pill of them all: that we would be nothing without the capitalist machine. Perhaps there is no way out but through — we are somewhere in the process of mourning the privilege we once had to question the ethics of AI, as depicted in Blade Runner and other classic sci-fi productions. Sheet metals, plastics, glass, and rubber are now our old materials. In garment production, natural materials like wool, cotton, bamboo, and silk are a luxury. They are the new.

The first bouts of this phenomenon were seen in a sudden influx of paper crowns, the kind one would pull out of a Christmas cracker. Historically, they were first worn by peasants during Saturnalia, an ancient holiday when the lower class essentially cosplayed as the bourgeoisie, and vice versa. The servants were fed delectable grand feasts by their lords, just for one day. The paper crown craze borrows from that mythology, appropriating it in a personal style as a means of subverting power. I’m not saying that Adela on the cover of NYLON wearing a crown and nude tights is a profound act of protest, but it is a significant part of setting this trend. Enya Umanzor, a trend-setting elder and co-host of Emergency Intercom, also posted a selfie not too long ago in an adorable crown hat. More crowns are being created by artists like Maddy Dudu, who was the unfortunate victim of an all-too-common large-scale copycat production by corporations, via the distribution of her work on Pinterest.

Key elements of runway Whimsicraft for 2026 include satchels, smocks, scarves, capes, jumpsuits, princess dresses, pajamas, and a general breadth of inspiration drawn from young adult fiction like Le Petit Prince and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, to name a few. The Valentino Resort 2026 collection was presented with the models all lying on a salmon-pink, silk-sheet-clad bed. I must stress that this shoot is completely non-sexual — the models are seen lying in natural sleeping positions, and they look like they’re having the best nap of their lives. One image shows the model hugging a large pillow on her side for back support, while another shows her clutching her keys, still in hand. The whole production feels like a tranquil respite from the three H’s of entering your thirties: heartburn, high blood pressure, and hemorrhoids. The visuals also borrow cues from what the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute (CARI) terms “soft colonial wanderlust.” This is a boilerplate millennial art style — think the album cover of In The Airplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel; compasses atop yellowing, decaying maps; and monarch butterflies landing on grandfather clocks with Roman numeral faces. Shinyakozuka’s recent Spring 2026 collection showcased many pajama silhouettes and cozy socks that barely clung to models’ feet. Simone Rocha also embraced bedtime, with models in princess dresses clutching fluffy pillows.

The large fashion houses aren’t the only players in this game — in fact, they are just catching up. Castenada, a Paris-based house, has recently rolled out its crafty, analog collection of garments that point to illustrations in short novels for teens. The plaid balaclava with petite horns would have Max from Where the Wild Things Are salivating. The company aims to encapsulate self-expression and to encourage playful imagination to thrive through clothing. I think it’s only a matter of time before they come out with a paper crown.

In an interesting turn, Whimsicraft is all about fashioning androgyny in a practical, utilitarian way instead of performatively. It calls to mind the people’s American Olympic princess Alyssa Liu removing her they/them pronouns from her Instagram bio. We’re optimistic towards the future; we’re grasping at meaningless determination; we’re taking elements of fantasy fairytales and grounding them in a more natural reality, like we’re Boy Scouts rebuilding millennia after the world has ended. It’s a survival challenge, but there is no imminent threat. There are no giant robots and flying cars; there are tents made of old landfill Shein clothes fastened by jute-woven rope. Looking back at this 2020 Vogue article on embracing technology in fashion feels like warping through a time machine — the once-novel practice of designers bringing tech to the runway now feels like such well-trodden news.

Though I am fatigued — many are — of dissecting Gen Z’s proclivity for whimsy, it’s hard to ignore when it’s incessantly reflected back to us on our iPhones. The whimsy in this iteration of Whimsicraft takes the shape of something more harrowing: we won’t be gluing paper stars onto recycled plastic bag tunics to signal counter-culture or incendiary values; we’ll be doing it because the opossum-fur loincloth we’ve been donning for three months is falling apart. There are simply fewer and fewer things to look at, not only in terms of widespread environmental destruction, but also in traditional ephemera we use daily, going to our 9-5’s, like printers, paper cutters, fax machines, pencils (pens, even), all becoming part of the singularity. While technology helps us solve countless problems, an underlying sense of worthlessness ensues — the whole world being “solved” fundamentally erodes the formation of identity and the potential for agency. Putting questions of class and labor aside, Gen Z is living in a time when we are challenged to balance our use of personal style to signal maturity and authenticity with individuality.

Just recently, Maison Margiela showcased its Fall 2026 collection in a shipping container yard in Shanghai — models in extravagant organza gowns wove between towering Temu containers. The stark contrast between waste and recycling certainly served its purpose here, with outfits made of ceramics, cashmere, paper, leather, and other upcycled novelties. A 90-kilo porcelain dress was the showstopper, with onlookers reporting the sound of the glass chiming and clunking down the runway was both eerie and inspiring. The model struggling to walk (and breathe, probably) emphasized the haunting, Silent Hill nurse-esque spirit of the show. What’s really fascinating is the reception — on social media, commenters express how it feels apocalyptic, like the dresses are intergalactic, essentially a horrifying reflection of the “times we’re in.” The garments are certainly aligned with paper-bag chicness. One comment states, “It’s giving futuristic royalty / anime / horror movie.” I would love to know what about it specifically feels futuristic, and why horror. If the models weren’t anonymous, would these sentiments change?

Though it may not appear so, paper bag princess chic stands apart from any notion of “trad”. When we think of “natural” materials and minimal frills, cottagecore or its various offshoots might come to mind. Tradwife style upholds a subservient form of femininity, while the femininity we see here is reminiscent of playing dress-up as a child — it’s pretend, unassigned. The power hierarchies signaled by the costumes are muddled; the garments call back to cultural scripts like gender and class, but it’s more like we’re cosplaying as a society that upholds those norms. Just like the festival of Saturnalia, the mythology behind clothing pieces is deceiving.

So ladies, get out your burlap sacks and strap yourself in. Part of maturing in this era is biting the bullet and accepting that a lot of things suck and that there is not much we can do about them, so we should focus on taking care of ourselves. Chin up, princess, your paper crown is falling. 🌀

Lauren is a writer and archivist based in Canada. She is the editor-in-chief of Heart Note Press, the perfume magazine.

By Hannah Black

Nothing gets between you and your knits. Well, maybe a few underpinnings and layers, but for knitwear designers, what’s more personal than building a wardrobe with their own two hands? Knitting allows one to construct a textile and, in turn, a garment that allows one to become the body in their “body of work.”

Speaking with four knitwear designers, ranging from professionals to hobbyists, writer Hannah Black aims to untangle the threads among self-expression, self-care, the body, the domestic, creativity, craft, hobby, and perfectionism in the age of AI.

This interview was conducted via e-mail in March 2026 and has been edited for grammar and clarity.

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Hannah Black: How did you learn to knit? How long have you been knitting?

Amelia Gillis: I had a roommate when I was 21 or 22 who taught me how to cast on and knit (just the knit stitch, I wasn’t ready to purl yet). After we moved out of our house, I didn’t have any materials of my own, so I pretty much lost that knowledge. I taught myself to crochet at 29 after getting a WFH job. I’m a physical person; I like to move. Working from home is great in a lot of ways, but it does make me restless, so keeping my hands busy helped. After about a year of crocheting, I felt up to the challenge of reintroducing myself to knitting; this time with more focus. It’s been three expansive years, I’m obsessed.

Ciara Joy: I learned [by] watching a lot of YouTube videos in slow motion and on repeat. I have memories of my grandmother trying to teach me when I was a kid and not having the patience... I learned to sew in first grade and always knew I loved making clothes, but knitting never really factored into my imagination as a real way to make anything other than sweaters. So much has changed!

Michelle Nia: I learned to knit in school and also by going to a knitting club with my mom as a child. I was instantly in love. The first thing I made was this fuzzy white scarf that had rainbow pompoms intertwined with the yarn. I remember it so well, but it’s long gone now. I’ve been knitting on and off ever since.

Hannah Siegfried: I taught myself how to crochet in spring 2022 after my friend Amelia took it up. [I] mostly [taught] myself by watching YouTube videos. After I got the hang of crochet, I wanted to expand to knitting, so I got one of those circular Sentro knitting machines in winter 2023-2024. I don’t know how to knit properly yet, as I’ve been able to do everything I want to do with the Sentro so far, but I will probably learn how to actually knit at some point!

HB: What does your practice look like? Do you use a machine or any form of technology to create garments? Do you go into a studio/work in a specific area of your home?

AG: I tried getting a hand-crank knitting machine, but it felt like more hassle than it was worth. I love a good tinker, but I felt awkward and disconnected from the work. I like the gradual, tactile nature of hand-knitting. I like to learn that way. I’m a double earth sign, and I think that manifests through my hands. When I bake, I’m usually using my hands to form a dough or a crust. When I shop for clothes, I shop largely by touch. In terms of tools, I use a notebook to keep measurements, plans, rough sketches, and math I do by hand. Solving for x is tea! It looks cute on the page and keeps me sharp.

I’m a writer, [and] I’ve kept a diary since middle school. Now that I’m older, I have a planner, a to-do list notebook, a diary, and a knitting notebook. Physically writing things and seeing [them] on the page is essential to me; otherwise it’ll float away with all the other balloons of things I can’t remember.

CJ: I like to knit by hand and with a machine. I find working with the machine more fun, engaging, and challenging, but hand-knitting is very grounding and restorative. Most of my time on the machine the last couple [of] years has been in production for other people, but I try to keep a hand project going in the meantime. That will usually live in a little silk lingerie pouch bouncing from purse to purse for months on end, letting myself have something to pick up without much expectation on the result or timeline. When I’m working by hand, I almost exclusively use the straight bamboo needles (I’m so bad at working in the round), usually in a larger gauge because I’m still a bit impatient, and freehand it in pieces, leaning on my sewing background to build it out. These steps keep the process as simple as possible in my mind, so I stay unbothered in the long process before a final result. The machine I have at home is a chunky domestic flatbed (SR150) that is much older than [I am] and has certainly seen better days... It lives on my desk in my tiny bedroom, surrounded by an irrational amount of yarn. When I need a crisper, more reliable experience for a project, I am lucky to have access to other machines in community studio space [or] friends’ studios when they’re not in use.

MN: I prefer to knit by hand, but I also love playing with my knitting machine. I like to combine different mediums when making something. Sometimes, starting a project on the machine and switching to needles or vice versa.

HS: Yes, I use the Sentro machine when I want to knit something! I usually crochet or knit in my living room so I can sit at a table for the knitting machine, but sometimes I will crochet or sew my knit pieces together on my bed if I want to switch it up and be in my bedroom.

HB: What does the perfect time to knit look like? Would you wear a specific outfit or fragrance when getting into the kitty gritty? How does the fantasy of the “perfect time to knit” differ from the reality?

AG: The perfect time to knit is when I feel like knitting! My favorite place to knit was in public when I lived in New York, usually on the train. Like most train activity, no one usually cares or pays much attention, and you can get a lot of progress done on your morning commute. The best was when someone would take an interest in my project and I could have a nice little moment with a stranger. Once I was knitting outside a cafe and a girl walked by and said, “Exactly,” in her stride. Like, exactly!!! It’s so inspiring to have those interactions with people, even in passing. A guy actually gave me his business card once because he wanted me to give him knitting lessons!

I loved watching other people knit in public, even if I didn’t have my project on me. It’s mesmerizing. Everyone has their own way; I love seeing different hand placements and techniques and color choices.

CJ: I have very different answers between [using my] machine [versus] hands. My perfect hand-knitting scenario is as cozy as possible, with a nice beverage, some music or Housewives, and a good yarn that I can look forward to touching for a long period of time. I’m imagining my mom’s old painting hoodie, no pants, leopard print blanket, “stress” incense, and a bit of my jasmine essential oil room spray. [A] perfect machine-knitting scenario is lots of free time ahead, a sturdy chair with a good back, lots of caffeine, and a loudspeaker. Sometimes it’s meditative, and sometimes it feels like a high-speed chase... I’m usually working with others when I have machine access these days — so pants on, but comfy — and a top that won’t get me stuck in the machine... The best time to knit is whenever I get the chance, in reality, but there’s definitely a perfect cocktail of motivation, inspiration, attention span, and easy access somewhere in between.

MN: I knit whenever I can. At home, I turned a portion of my living room into my studio, and it works nicely. Normally, I like to knit in the morning if I have time, but often it will be at night. I’ll light some candles, put a show or movie on, and just chill. But in reality, most of the time I’m knitting, I’m surrounded by a mess of yarn and tools.

HS: Anytime I’m feeling really inspired to work on a piece! Whenever I’m excited about something I’m making, I naturally gravitate towards spending my free time working on it. Bringing to life a garment that I imagined in my head helps me bring my fantasy world to fruition in reality, so I see it more as a bridging of both worlds. I definitely like wearing cozy clothes so I can be as comfortable as possible, especially when working with the knitting machine, as the movements for that can be really repetitive and hunched over.

HB: How does the process for a garment begin? What guides your choice of material? Does the textile/tactile feel inform your design process, or does design beget the material type? Are there any particular techniques you enjoy employing?

AG: The planning has always been fun for me - making gauge swatches, measuring, math, etc. It helps me visualize the finished product (though I do accept that nothing I plan will ever look exactly like I envisioned). After that, I mainly feel out a color or texture scheme that seems cute or appropriate for the project. The weight has little to do with my choices unless I’m following a pattern. I usually do this as I go, especially with scrap projects, which are my favorite!

CJ: I almost always decide what I want to make based on the materials I have on hand, and then if there’s a technique I want to practice or something I’ve been feeling is missing from my wardrobe, I’ll shape the results from there. I only use either repurposed materials or natural fibers, and depending on the texture of the yarn and the knitting methods I have access to, I’ll decide if it’s best for something wearable or more decorative. I definitely feel very inspired by textures and excited by the variety you can play with when making your own textile; there’s so much room to experiment. I’m also very interested in transformation and repetition when I’m feeling inspired, so drawing from things I see in my everyday, shapes and spaces and textures, and imagining them translated into something knit.

MN: When I get an idea for a knitting project, I immediately start thinking about what yarn I’m going to use. To me, the material is the most important and is what really makes something special. I love finding vintage or discontinued yarn online, and I’ve also been experimenting with dyeing my own... It’s so fun.

HS: The process usually starts with the colors and textures of the yarn I pick out. I decide if I want to use certain colors together or use just one color of yarn, and [letting] the thickness of the color(s) I’ve picked help guide the shape or style of garment I want to make. I’m also really lucky to get all my yarn now from the thrift store where I work, but it can be hard to know the exact make of the yarn I pick. As for the designs of garments, if I don’t immediately envision something in my head, I’ll look through my likes on Poshmark or Instagram for silhouette inspiration. I also love combining both knitting and crochet in one garment. I make all my garments freehand to fit my body and don’t follow patterns, which makes the process kind of like a fun puzzle.

HB: Do you usually go into a new knitwear project with a goal of progress to accomplish? How much of creation is relaxation and repetition, and how much feels like a product is the end result? Is it unwinding or is it work?

AG: I was a competitive figure skater growing up, and one of the biggest things I took away from that time was learning how to have fun doing the same thing over and over. Performing at a competition was nerve-racking and scary. But the months, sometimes years, developing that program repeatedly in preparation for hours a day, changing little things here and there, and having fun exploring was what brought me the most joy.

The product is the end result, but that is just one aspect of it. That’s the conclusion, which to me is far from the point. The act of creation is more valuable and satisfying than the finished result. It’s work, there’s no denying that. But the goal is to find the play in that work, to find difference and opposition in repetition. All of that is there to appreciate. The fact that it is work and you make time for it and show up is the fun part.

CJ: I try to learn something new or practice a skill with every new project, even if it’s something really small. I rarely set big goals for myself in knitting unless it seems entirely feasible because I like to be as free with knitting as I can. I put a lot of pressure on myself in so many other parts of life, so in order to have this be a part of my life for as long as possible, I’ve been trying to keep the practice a bit protected. I like learning new techniques, but because I’m self-taught, there’s always lots of catching up to do. I mostly find knitting relaxing and restorative, letting myself enjoy the process and taking my time, knowing that so many moments and so much work [go] into anything knit. What I love about knitting is also how it’s so forgiving. A lot can go wrong, but also a lot can be recovered between the time you start and having a finished garment.

HS: I like trying new silhouettes or putting garments together in a new way with everything I make. That doesn’t mean I won’t make the same silhouette twice; I just think it’s more fun for myself to continue to try new things and test my limits of what I can do. It also makes every piece super one of a kind, which is fun. Because I’m always kind of switching it up in that way, and again because I generally gravitate toward making things when I’m inspired. Making garments hardly ever feels like “work.” There’s some kind of unknown force (probably just creative energy) that gets me through making each piece. It doesn’t necessarily feel like unwinding, either, though. I definitely have to take a break from making things sometimes to truly rest and recharge.

HB: How does knitting intersect with your occupation or other creative outputs?

AG: I work in luxury retail, so I’ve been able to research fabrics and garment construction as part of my job. It’s made me a more exacting knitter, a better planner, and a know-it-all when shopping, lol. Knowing how certain fabric behaves solves a lot of issues I would have otherwise had to learn through trial and error.

HS: As I mentioned before, I work at a thrift store. It’s a nonprofit creative reuse thrift store focusing on arts/craft supplies and bringing materials back to the community. Everything in the store is donations-based, so all the yarn I get is second-hand, which I love. Sometimes we get really nice quality, unique vintage yarn that you can’t find anywhere else, which is super interesting and inspiring! It’s also fun to meet people who come in to donate or shop wearing stuff that they’ve made and chat with them about that process. I’m also a photographer, so I love documenting myself in the stuff I make and finding different ways of doing [self-portraits].

HB: How does knitting factor into your self-care practice? Do you see knitting as a healing, meditative practice? Is there a layer of perfectionism to combat in the process?

AG: It’s therapeutic. It lets my mind wander while keeping me focused and sitting still, something I have a hard time doing. It does heal me, even in those perfectionist moments. It’s all in the pursuit of beauty. The activity while resting. The repetition, the counting, the recounting. The doing and undoing. If you knit, you purl. You’re showing up at every angle, and somehow it calms you down. Sensational!

CJ: I used to be better about dedicating in-between moments to hand-knitting. It was always very grounding and helpful for me. Knitting is such [an] amazing exercise for your brain, and I definitely feel a difference when I am more in the groove of things... Again, I love how forgiving the process is because it helps remove that layer of perfectionism to some degree... I spent ten years only making clothes with the cut-and-sew process, which is its own incredibly complex and interesting world of crafting, but it required a level of precision and structure that I noticed turned me off from creating a lot of the time. I am very grateful to be able to try things out for the sake of trying them, making sure that I’m putting care into what I’m doing and avoiding pressures [of prioritizing] producing [over] creating for as long as I can.

HS: Getting to make something that I want to wear is definitely a form of self-care. I’ve always been very sure of my style, so being able to create things from my imagination that no one else is going to have is very healing and fun for me. I definitely have perfectionist tendencies, but because knitting is tactile, and I’ve never felt super gifted in making things with my hands, I’ve found [a bit] of acceptance that each piece isn’t going to be perfectly made. [Imperfection] adds a little magic and uniqueness to each piece anyway. I feel like my perfectionism lies more in how the garment ends up fitting over if it’s perfectly constructed. Since [most of my projects] are for myself, I’m pretty forgiving if there’s a hole somewhere or something. That’s mainly why I don’t really like making pieces for other people. I would go crazy trying to make the garment perfect and get anxious about it not being well-made enough.

HB: What does creating slow garments and tactile experiences mean to you in the digital age? Does crafting feel particularly poignant alongside the era of AI? Do you think knitting as a trend is indicative of our culture’s swing towards physical media? Is it a way to move forward/fix attention spans/create community?

AG: Working with your hands is a skill everyone should learn, regardless of technological advances. I believe that it’s a positive step forward... Those who take the time to learn a skill will always be able to pick it back up in some capacity; it will always be there.

Start a club! Talk to people! Hang out! This is how to shift our attention toward community. Learning something as complicated as knitting or crochet means you may need help. AI is not going to help you correct your dropped stitch five rows back.

CJ: I think it’s incredibly important. Having a way to slow down and be with your mind and body while also doing something that brings you joy is invaluable and something everybody should have access to! All creative outlets are important for connection, stimulation, exploration, learning, feeling... Being able to snap in and out of the big picture and really understand what goes into making something happen, stitch by stitch or however it may be, is essential when we’re so flooded with constant consumption / instant gratification / same day delivery / short form media, etc. [It’s important to] remember the fact that everything around us requires energy, water, labor, materials, time, preparation, and thought instead of acting like things just appear out of thin air and onto a shelf... Crafting is, of course, an incredible resource for the mind and a way to connect with others, and has been for thousands of years! Whether it be out of necessity, for survival, or for leisure or pleasure or both, the creation of textiles and other crafts and handiwork [has] been and always will be a part of our lives, our homes, our communities.

MN: Creating in these times means a rejection of the fast-paced and hollow consumer culture we live in. It means creating your own world instead of letting someone else create it for you. I always think about the Lana Del Rey lyric, “No one’s gonna take my soul away...”

HS: I love being able to make stuff for myself and being self-sustainable in that way for sure. I also love using second-hand and thrifted materials for my garments. I’m someone who is strictly anti-AI, so being sustainable and pushing for autonomous creativity is really important to me. I also have experience working in the fashion industry… work[ing] for an independent brand in NYC for 2 years. Even though they were making smaller batches of products and it wasn’t fast fashion, I really saw the waste and lack of care that goes into the fashion industry. It pushed me to want more independence in the sources of the clothes I wear. As someone who thrifted for most of my life and still has many clothes that I thrifted 10+ years ago, I’ve always made sure to be as sustainable as possible in that way, and creating my own garments sustainably is just another facet of that. I definitely think the popularity of knitwear and crocheting on the internet is an indication of culture’s swing towards physical media and nostalgia for something tactile and unique, and I hope it continues to move in that direction! The community that people create around knitting and fiber arts is super inspiring and encouraging to see, and I love feeling supported by other knitwear designers!

HB: How do you feel about sharing your work online/feeding the algorithms vs. protecting your peace/creating for creation’s sake?

AG: I don’t think about algorithms while in pursuit of my creative projects, and I don’t have much in common with people who do.

CJ: I think crafting and social media have become intertwined in so many ways [over] the last few years, but I feel the pressures particularly around using social media as a framework for starting a small business. It’s clearly been an incredible tool for some people to be able to support themselves and share their work with the world, but I’m not sure it’s the path for me, yet at least. I’m still trying to learn and play as a way to develop a skill and learn more about a technique that intrigues me, and I am indebted to social media for the community it has brought me in terms of learning. I wouldn’t know how to knit or use a machine or do any part of this without social media! The machine-knitting community has grown so much in recent years, and social media played a huge part in reviving people’s understanding of and interest in the craft. Domestic knitting machines weren’t being produced or used much in the twenty-first century, but now there’s such treasure troves of passing on knowledge and tips and tricks for such a finicky practice all over socials, and it’s really sweet how much knitters can lean on each other in that world. I’m so lucky to have learned from so many amazing people and to be able to pass on what I’ve learned with friends new and old! I think it’s a great way to connect with others and to connect with yourself, and I’m so glad I’ve found people and spaces to share that with.

MN: Sharing my work... I try not to put so much pressure on it now and look at it more like a visual diary. Letting go of expectations makes it easier. I’ve given up on the algorithm. I take my breaks and disappear for a while. I think that’s important.

HS: As far as posting it online goes, I really just like posting what I like and what I make, and if other people see it and like it, that’s awesome; if not, that’s cool too. I’ve definitely had times where I’ve felt down, feeling like the algorithm isn’t working the way I’d like it to, but at the end of the day, my friends and people [who] support what I make see what I post and are supportive, and that’s all I care about! If more people discover me and my work, that’s cool, but I don’t necessarily need a huge audience or other people to like what I make. I’ve already decided that I like it. The reception or lack thereof from people around me doesn’t really have an effect on how I feel about a garment. But again, if my intention was to create garments for other people to buy, that’s when stuff like this would become a problem for me, because then I would be translating [engagement] as “Oh, this post didn’t get much attention so I guess people don’t like this design,” and would start feeling bad about myself or put more pressure on posting. So I guess the point is I’ve freed myself from that pressure by just creating and posting for myself. It’s my life!

HB: What pieces (of yours) do you wear most often? How does your personal style reflect in your creations? What elements of yourself and your wardrobe do you see reflected in your work? How has knitting changed your style?

AG: I love my accessories! I’m an accessories girl. My scarves, leg warmers, hats, etc. I love my crazy tops and scrap sweaters as well. I feel like each one of my pieces is uniquely mine based on the color scheme or pattern choice. They all seem to fit into this little world which, strangely enough, matches my apartment perfectly!

Knitting has changed my style by teaching me how things should fit! It’s made me appreciate craftsmanship and sharpened my eye [for] quality garments. It’s a blessing and a curse. I miss the days when I could get a crochet shirt from Target and not feel weird about it!

CJ: I wear a lot of tank tops, so I make a lot of tank tops. I used to work in [product development] for a small lingerie brand that focused on colors and materials that are meant to be shown off, not covered up, but built into an outfit. My spoils from that job really come in handy when styling all the sheer and hole-y things I seem to end up making... I only make things I’d want to wear, and a lot of times take things apart and [re-make] them into something else if they turn out as something I can’t see myself reaching for. I don’t think knitting has changed my style much other than strengthening my layering muscles a bit, but it’s definitely representative of one of my top wardrobe priorities, which is comfort! My favorites right now are a hand-knit gray cotton top from a couple [of] summers ago. It was a random one day experiment that ended up being one of the best things in my closet; a white cotton tank in two-ply thread that you can tell is my first machine piece because it unravels a little every time I wear it from all the dropped stitches; and this super delicate tank, the first thing I ever properly produced for myself, fully fashioned on a standard-gauge machine. I swear I use color in other places. Crisp, cool neutrals are just what I really lean towards in my everyday.

MN: I wear my knit socks a lot in the winter and an oversized mohair sweater that’s speckled pink and grey, [which] might be one of my favorite color combos.

I think for most of my work, my personal style is very much reflected. I’m drawn to the past, and you can bring glimpses of it back through fashion. I think that’s soooo beautiful.

There’s an emotional layer to the things I make, too, which reflects my own life. The clothing has a secret story.

HS: I wear the pieces I make pretty often! I really love incorporating stuff I’ve made into my everyday style. My personal style is definitely reflected, probably mostly in the silhouette of the garments, but obviously through being playful with color. Finding clothes that are flattering is a big part of my personal style, and luckily, knitwear garments [tend to] stretch, forming to the body nicely. I’m not sure if knitting has changed my overall style, but I definitely love exploring all different kinds of knitwear and gravitate towards more wearing knits now that I know how to make [them]. It’s fun expanding the ideas of what knitwear can do and be, like trying more flirty silhouettes in contrast with the more traditional practice of fiber arts. 🌀

Hannah Black is a fragrance specialist and creative director living in Chicago, IL. Find her at the library, in North Side cinemas, or on Instagram @pinkvariegated.

Welcome back to The HALO Report. With HALOSCOPE venturing onto Substack, your weekly dose of news, sales, and long reads spanning the fashion world and beyond will now be delivered directly to your inbox!

With the advent of summer comes such cultural gems as Love Island, with both its UK and US versions depicting visions of youthful lustiness that, unfortunately, come clad in SHEIN bikinis—each contestant must pack dozens of outfits to sustain themselves throughout the season, so most (understandably) resort to inexpensive dupes of more coveted brands. However, as these figures become objects of our fixation for the next month or so, expect Trinity’s TRIANGL-style, 2016-reminiscent bikinis to make a resurgence, Ariana Madix’s controversial invocation of John Paul Gaultier to make waves among the former SSENSE crowd, and garters see a boost in sales after a particularly lascivious challenge—this is all par for the course of a summer-oriented societal event. This week, reality stars become fashion icons, you don’t have to be afraid of capris, the dress of the summer is a straight-up pillowcase, a more affordable Paloma Wool-esque brand is on sale, and more.

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The latest long-ish reads from the brightest minds in fashion and beyond.

• Bustle’s “How Reality Stars Became The Fashion World’s New Muse” by Alyssa Lapid explains the trajectory of figures such as, most notably, the Kardashians from being persona non grata to becoming some of the most coveted guests at high-fashion events, exploring the “rules” of transitioning from reality star to fashion icon using the examples of cultural monoliths like Olandria Carthen and Ariana Madix. With Love Island heating up (apparently, part of the Casa Amor saga will be screening at movie theaters next week), we are sure to see the cast members’ largely SHEIN-based wardrobes helping define summer trends–instead of contributing to the fast-fashion craze, consider their cutout gowns and halter bikinis as jumping off points to inspire your next thrift trip!

• For those of us interested in luxury fashion but feeling excluded from the paradigm by race, class, or other marginalizing factors, Fit Happens’ “Get your two marshmallows” is a primer that explains how to approach VIP shopping with the perfect admixture of audacity and maturity.

• “Quiet in the Peanut Gallery” is pure artistic inspiration stemming from writer Paloma Jimenez’s disparate and unique visual references, ranging from cigarette butts to 8 balls, that have made their way into Jimenez’s ceramic art. Though not technically a fashion piece, this post is a compelling guide to breaking down one’s aesthetic proclivities and translating them into creative impulses, which is an invaluable technique for all art forms, including outfit-building.

• When everyone else is flopping on the runway, there is one person we can count on to slay, as per Viv Chen’s latest for The Molehill, “greta lee is reaching new levels of it girl previously thought to be impossible.” Even on the difficult-to-navigate red carpets of the Toy Story to the Nth Degree premieres, Lee’s Danielle Goldberg and Nina Park-attended stylings include everything from cheeky Auralee sweaters to abstract Dior togas, each look paying homage to the movie’s kiddie sensibilities in the classiest, most creative way possible.

• The Cut’s “You Don’t Have to Be Afraid of Capris” by Brooke LaMantia is a convenient primer on one of the most controversial, yet inescapable, styles defining summer 2026. With options ranging from $10 to $229 and modeled by Cut writers of varying body types, if you’ve been wanting to try the look, this is a simple starting point.

What to keep in mind — and look forward to — in the past and coming weeks.

• Charm-lovers, check out the Collina Strada x Converse collab for classic lace-up sneakers in different Collina signature patterns and top-heights, heavily laden with custom charms that reference the Collina visual landscape: think stars, animals, and beautiful abstractions.

• More shoe news, in a completely different font: Salomon x The Broken Arm offers lace-ups with a key quirk: these shoes have no tongue, affording more room to display a sock of choice and creating a sense of elegance and daintiness that provides a pleasing contrast with the shoes’ thick, technical soles.

• Hodakova’s SS26 is out and features the brand’s typical sense of subversive whimsy, not least of all in its new pillowcase dresses, which are exactly what they sound like: an ode to pillow dressings slit and worn like gowns at slumber parties past, sure to be snapped up by those who want a still-wearable but truly compelling conversation piece to rock this summer, available in both midi and mini lengths.

• Veronica Beard collaborates with illustrator Pauline Roussy de Sales on a summer-defining collection including beaded bags, bikinis, and bustiers decorated with Roussy de Sales’ nostalgic, joy-inducing summer scenes.

Less about impulse buys — and more about tracking discounts on the pieces already on your wishlist.

• Tory Burch’s semi-annual sale takes an extra 25% off the accessories (monogram sandals, quilted bags, etc.) and ready-to-wear options that fit in perfectly on tennis courts or poolside, rendering Burch the unimpeachable fashion queen of the summer season.

• Use EOFY for 20% off sitewide at With Jéan, a great option for Paloma Wool/Hayley Williams fans who want to spend a bit less money on slinky, easy-to-wear casuals with flirty details.

• The Camper private sale offers 40% off a host of both year-round and summer-ready footwear styles in the brand’s always quirked-up fashion with PRIVATESALESS26USCA–some extremely good sandals are available this year.

• Get up to 50% off gem and metal-encrusted baubles until Thursday in the Monica Vinader flash sale, replete with simple but statement-making jewelry that slots in seamlessly to any summer wardrobe.

• Organic fibers and easy shapes dominate the Studio Nicholson summer sale, offering hundreds of dollars off past season styles that can fill out your speculative fall wardrobe (if you’re thinking ahead: good for you!). Think denim jackets, fuzzy cardigans, and plenty of linens that could work for summer as well.

• Up to 40% off AW and SS26 is currently available at Issey Miyake, with plenty o’ pleats at the ready for simple but exciting summer semiformals alongside more athletic options and the usual lineup of unusual knits. 🌀

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By Savannah Eden Bradley

Burnt caramel, green banana, white oud. The notes of Miami Split read more like ersatz fragrance pitches from the depths of Fragrantica than the architecture of a luxury scent. The newest release from Abel Fragrance — the Amsterdam-based natural perfumery founded by former winemaker Frances Shoemack — opens with almost absurdly bright, creamy fruit before collapsing into darker territory: smoke, resin, leather, heat. It is, fittingly, inspired in part by Maurizio Cattelan’s 2024 piece Comedian, the infamous Art Basel banana duct-taped to a wall, sold for six figures, then eaten by another artist shortly thereafter. Like Comedian, Miami Split seems interested in asking if good taste comes from the sticky feelings we rebuff, like sincerity, irony, and provocation, or the lacunae between all three.

It’s not for nothing that the most compelling perfumes are not the clean, algorithmically pleasant skin scents dominating FragranceTok, but stranger, more specific compositions — fragrances with texture, contradiction, and even (shockingly!) a sense of humor. For over a decade, Abel Fragrance has challenged the idea that natural perfumery must feel austere, crunchy, or overly precious. And with Miami Split, the brand doubles down on something riskier instead: the proposition that sophistication and playfulness can be dance partners, banana split and cigarette waiting at the table.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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SAVANNAH EDEN BRADLEY: Miami Split carries a winking tension. Sweetness and smoke, that pop of brightness with all the darker depth. Was contradiction the starting point for this fragrance, or did it emerge during development?

FRANCES SHOEMACK: Contradiction was always the premise, not the accident. I’m drawn to things that don’t fully resolve, that sit in the gap between opposing ideas and just live there. Miami itself does that. It’s this place of total maximalism and strange sophistication, real heat and a kind of performative cool. The sweetness in Miami Split isn’t decorative, it earns its place against the smoke, the leather, the weight underneath. I wanted something that smelled like a good time with a dark sense of humour.

SEB: The reference point of “Warhol-esque banana” is fabulous. What drew you to pop art as a scent-language, and how do you translate something visual and cultural into perfume?

FS: Pop art interests me because it took the vernacular, the soup can, the banana, the tabloid image, and asked you to look at it differently. Not to elevate it into something it wasn’t, but to hold it up to the light until you saw its inherent strangeness. That felt like exactly the right lens for this. A banana in perfumery is almost a dare. The Warhol reference wasn’t self-conscious, it was instinctive. There’s something in that flat, almost graphic quality of the note, the way it reads as image before it reads as scent, that felt genuinely pop. The cultural shorthand becomes the material.

SEB: Banana is a note many people associate with novelty or nostalgia. What interested you in reclaiming it as something sophisticated, sensual, or even subversive?

FS: Banana has this incredibly loaded history in fragrance, mostly in the context of things you wore as a child, or novelty items, or things that smell of something rather than simply being something. Which is exactly what made it interesting. There’s real subversion in taking a note with that kind of baggage and placing it somewhere unexpected, somewhere with depth, with edge, with intention. The sophistication isn’t in sanitising it, it’s in trusting it. Letting it be a little strange, a little funny even, and finding that the darkness underneath actually makes the sweetness more interesting, not less.

SEB: Abel has long challenged the idea that natural fragrance must feel somber rather than luxurious or playful. Twelve years in, how do you think the conversation around natural perfumery has changed?

FS: When we started, natural perfumery was largely positioned as wellness-adjacent, virtuous, gentle, a little apologetic. The conversation has genuinely shifted. There’s now a generation of wearers and creators who understand that natural materials are not a constraint, they’re a starting point with extraordinary range. What’s changed is confidence, I think. The best natural perfumery today isn’t hedging. It’s not saying For a natural fragrance, this is quite good, it’s just saying This is good. Miami Split exists in that space. The upcycled banana note we work with is green, sharp, and pithy. More evocative than its fossil fuel counterparts. There’s nothing compromised about it.

SEB: There’s a growing appetite for fragrances with personality; maybe they feel strange, or hyperspecific, or a little mischievous rather than broadly pleasing. Why do you think that is?

FS: I think people are exhausted by the algorithm. The inoffensive option, the thing that was risk-managed into acceptability, people can smell that lack of conviction, quite literally. What’s happening now feels like a correction. Fragrance as actual self-expression rather than background noise. When something is hyperspecific, when it smells like a very particular memory or a very specific idea, it creates this strange intimacy. You either recognise it or you don’t, and both responses are interesting. The people who get it, really get it. That’s more valuable than broad appeal.

SEB: Fragrance is invisible yet intensely tied to identity and style. What do you hope someone communicates, consciously or not, when they choose to wear Miami Split?

FS: That they understand a joke can also be serious. The reference point for this fragrance is Maurizio Cattelan’s The Comedian, the banana duct-taped to a wall at Art Basel Miami, sold for a remarkable sum and then eaten by another artist. What that work does so brilliantly is ask where the value actually lives. Is it the object? The idea? The provocation itself? Someone wearing Miami Split is asking a version of that same question. The banana is the first thing you encounter, bold and almost absurdly present. But it’s a facade. Underneath is something much darker, more resinous, more complex. Choosing to wear it signals a comfort with that kind of layering. You’re in on it. You find the contradiction interesting rather than unsettling.

SEB: Looking ahead, what feels most exciting to you right now in the natural fragrance space? And what’s up next for you?

FS: Dave, my husband and long-time collaborator, has just stepped into the CEO role, and that shift has been clarifying in the best possible way. Having him lead the business means I can move closer to the creative again. We’re also back in Amsterdam, where Abel started, and returning here has felt like coming home to the original idea. It’s a city that takes design seriously [and] values substance over spectacle. As for what’s next, the ingredient conversation is only getting more interesting — upcycled materials, biotech-derived molecules, a level of precision that simply didn’t exist when we launched. We’re not done. 🌀

Savannah Eden Bradley is a writer and fashion editor born in 1999. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the fashion magazine HALOSCOPE. Her first book, Ladies of the Canyon: Fashion and Fear in Los Angeles, is forthcoming from University of Texas Press. You can stalk her everywhere online @savbrads.

Welcome back to The HALO Report. With HALOSCOPE venturing onto Substack, your weekly dose of news, sales, and long reads spanning the fashion world and beyond will now be delivered directly to your inbox!

So much about the fashion world relates back to possession—closet tours and hauls define the clothing-centric side of TikTok and even before that cultural monolith arose, Cher Horowitz’s closet sparked covetous envy among Clueless viewers for decades and Hoarders was a phenomenon no one wanted to look at but couldn’t look away from. What does it mean to possess something as ephemeral as a piece of clothing, so easy to destroy, lose, or outgrow? Is a garment simply a sum of all the things experienced within it, or does it have intrinsic value as a an object, same as a beloved stuffed animal or a wedding ring? This week, we mourn Everlane’s acquisition by Shein, get excited for I Love Boosters and its fashion, figure out what pants to wear this summer, witness some cool collabs, and encounter the most sales we’ve ever included in a THR send, plus more!

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The latest long-ish reads from the brightest minds in fashion and beyond.

• Addressing this week’s biggest news in fashion, “Everlane, Shein, and the Limits of the Ethical Consumer” by Elizabeth Cline for The Atlantic explores what led to the acquisition of greenwashed, startup-y Everlane by the bastion of landfill-bound fast fashion and what it means for the direct to consumer world going forward (hint: it’s bleak).

• The Cut’s Cat Zhang has gotten me even more excited for the forthcoming Keke Palmer-led film I Love Boosters with the article “Fashion for the Revolution,” a look at how famed costume designer Shirley Kurata outfitted the film, a dizzying, dazzling screed on shoplifting that promises to reveal itself as beautifully unhinged as the rest of Boots Riley’s directorial efforts.

• “Rich people dress so boring now,” begins Avery Trufelman’s “Taxes and Tariffs” for Articles of Interest. An addendum to an excellent podcast episode, this piece explains how taxes affect the ways we all dress, how billionaires evade paying them with impunity, how tariffs are overtly sexist (shocker!), and more.

• As temperatures creep skyward, MacKinley Jade’s latest Yeehawt missive, “40+ Easy Pants That Aren’t Jeans,” provides a veritable catalog of bottoms to stay covered up without unnecessarily weighing yourself down this summer, from track pants to cotton trousers and beyond.

• From cool moms in cowboy boots to several people rocking Docs, Viv Chen goes boots on the ground for The Molehill’s “what 20 people wore to the hayley williams concert,” a great resource for real-life (not influencer) inspiration for summer-y concert looks. I, for one, will be following Hayley’s lead and not yet giving up see-through skirts with bright underwear—screw the people who obsessively track microtrends, I still like them.

What to keep in mind — and look forward to — in the past and coming weeks.

• Brain Dead hits the runway via its collaboration with Coach, due to come out May 29th—expect androgynized iterations of classic bags and other accessories with compelling details inflected with Brain Dead’s stoner-skater aesthetics but grounded by Coach’s usually-prim femininity.

• Enjoy early access to Gil Rodriguez’s second summertime drop, full of crisp cotton tunics, new variations on the beloved Lou side-tie pant, bralettes that can double as going-out tops, and more warm-weather fare.

• French brand Socque collaborates with Native American-led accessories brand Harpo on a loafer and a scarf holder that combine the simple, easy Pariaian sensibilities of the former with the gorgeous turquoise and silver baubles of the latter.

• The new Mais x Frida collection drops today—be ready for glamorous hook and eye closures, put-together cotton sets, statement jewelry for a new era of club kids, and more.

Less about impulse buys — and more about tracking discounts on the pieces already on your wishlist.

• The first ever Vaquera online archive sale opens tomorrow, May 21st at 9:30 AM EST with everything from the brand’s Nike collab lipstick-kissed sneakers to its famous twisted hoodies heavily discounted. Make sure you’re signed up for the Vaquera newsletter to grab the link when it’s released!

• Fans of the Paloma Wool-esque (at a more relaxed price point!) brand Geel who live in LA are in luck: the brand is holding an in-person studio sale this weekend, May 23rd and 24th, 11 AM - 5 PM both days.

• The Pamela Love memorial day sale takes up to 40% off jewelry that balances edginess with elegance—think sculptural spikes, cleverly-carved insects, and serpentine chains hewn from high-quality materials for prices mostly around the $100-300 mark.

• Sea NY’s summer sale contains plenty of fodder for a glamorous, Gothic-style summer fit: layers of lace with raw edges, crisp eyelet sets, romantic, quirky knits, and more, all up to 60% off.

• Babaà offers a rare sale, 20% off with BABAALOVE—a great way to pick up some knits so you can feel prepared when autumn inevitably knocks at our doors again.

• Carne Bollente’s archive sale offers up to half off sexy, surreal casual clothes that range from deeply NSFW to so cheeky it’ll land you at least a few numbers at the club—I’m seriously tempted to buy an old partner the “I <3 My Ex” T-shirt.

• From simplified trench-dress hybrids to wide-collared sweaters, the CO summer sale offers up to 40% off a slew of understated, but potent, pieces from last season.

• Anna Sui’s Madonna-esque stylings are hundreds of dollars off in the brand’s seasonal sale—tons of incredible wedding guest dresses for the alt among us are waiting to be found!

• Sandals both flat and heeled, perfectly shapely purses, and more leather accessories are up to 40% off in the Mansur Gavriel Memorial Day sale.

• Tons of mesh and dark florals define last season’s vampy Altuzarra collection, now up to 50% off for the week.

• At checkout, you’ll get 30% off a selection of Lou Equipment T-shirts made in California and finished with details that recall Angelina Jolie’s rash guard top in Hackers. 🌀

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Welcome back to The HALO Report. With HALOSCOPE venturing onto Substack, your weekly dose of news, sales, and long reads spanning the fashion world and beyond will now be delivered directly to your inbox!

‘Tis the season where wedding bells begin to chime so frequently they might become a bit grating, even to the most romantic of us, but the idea of uniting two people so in love they’d risk a The Drama-esque reckoning (or simply shell out thousands of dollars) for an event signifying their partnership is undeniably sweet, if a bit wearisome in the big year 2026. Following the cringe-inducing flop that was the 2026 Met Gala, it’s up to the 98% to show the Bezos-backed fashion elite how it’s done, so this week’s report includes both takedowns and pump-ups of the Gala itself alongside the DEFINITIVE solution to wedding guest outfit burnout, some weirdo ready-to-wear bridal pieces that subvert the traditional virginity-signifying gown to beautiful ends, traditional talismans remade for contemporary deployment (something old AND something new?), and more.

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The latest long-ish reads from the brightest minds in fashion and beyond.

• If there was ever a time to subscribe to a paid Substack, it’s now, in order to read Emily Kirkpatrick’s “The 2026 Mess Gala!!!!!,” a yearly staple for her publication I <3 Mess that boasted a banner year due to… the absolute mess that last week’s event entailed. Detailed takedowns of the worst of the worst looks ensue in Kirkpatrick’s trademark tone: incisive but fair, effusive but measured. This is everything a fashion publication should be.

• “No, Bhavitha Mandava Didn’t Wear Jeans to the Met Gala” by Chantal Fernandez for The Cut might serve to assuage some of your confusion and concern about why the gorgeous model arrived to the Met Steps clad in what appeared to be denim via Matthieu Blazy’s latest collection for Chanel–there was a story, and a rationale, behind the showing (though it did still fully look more like a fit you’d see by the water cooler than alongside the likes of Hudson Williams and Janelle Monae).

• Cosmopolitan’s Samantha Olson reports on “María Zardoya Shares the Sentimental Meaning Behind Her—and Her Doll’s—First-Ever Met Gala Look,” featuring one of last week’s most underrated looks courtesy of The Marías’ frontwoman, a fashion icon who deserves much more attention than she’s typically afforded.

• Rabbit Fur Coat’s Eleanor has found “the solution to wedding guest outfit burnout” (spoiler alert: it’s matching sets), and shares dozens of brilliant, shoppable ideas as to how you might buff up your formalwear for the season.

What to keep in mind — and look forward to — in the past and coming weeks.

• Duran Lantink’s latest for John Paul Gaultier, SS26: “Junior,” is perhaps his most wearable endeavor to date, filled with bright, trippy-patterned but wearable “playsuits” and cartoonishly-proportioned leather jackets. Lantink’s fixation on the human body is evident in fleshy-colored high-low shorts and bomber jackets, then penetrates past the encasing tissue in tops printed with pop art-style depictions of internal organs. It’s surprising that it seems no one took advantage of Lantink’s bawdy version of the body on the Met Gala red carpet last week!

• For the Sporty Spices out there, Y-3 by Wales Bonner is an absolute dream, replete with brimmed, snowboarder-style knit beanies, shiny leather bowler bags, signature tracksuits, and more, marrying the street style of Y-3 with Bonner’s more organic-leaning colors and textures.

• 100% Silk’s new bridal shop includes pieces by under-the-radar brands like Yoshita 1967 and Naya Rea, with everything from deconstructed Aphroditic gowns to crocheted headpieces primed for only the most daring and fashion-savvy brides of the season.

• From quartz amulets to essential oil holders on chains, Sophie Buhai’s FW26 is open for pre-order and inspired, it seems, by longstanding traditions of talismans and anointment, interpreted anew for a thoroughly contemporary crowd.

• Edward Cuming’s bizarro stylings are tempered by Adam Signature’s artisanal expertise in a capsule of shockingly-wearable footwear for all genders.

Less about impulse buys — and more about tracking discounts on the pieces already on your wishlist.

• With knits ranging from thin, powder-pink crew necks to chunky oatmeal cardigans, the &Daughter summer sale takes up to 40% off the sweaters that have spawned a thousand dupes and defined the 2020s knitwear landscape.

• The gender-agnostic offerings in the Wales Bonner private sale, 25% off with BLESSINGS25, include the brand’s signature sportiness infused into bowler-style shoes, sporty Mary Janes, scale-embellished sheer shirts, forward-thinking leather jackets, and many more summer-ready options (that also make incredible thrifting/DIY inspiration).

• Everything in the Shaina Mote archive sale rings up at under $300, from easy knits to workwear-inspired denim sets and other hardy staples designed to be worn for at least a lifetime.

• The LN-CC private sale offers up to 50% off huge-collared Chloé blouses, Balenciaga flats, Toteme trousers, and more covetable finds.

• Saks takes up to 40% off a selection of new arrivals in its spring sale with SAKSSALE–this is the spot to search for wedding guest outfits by big names like Alaia and Altuzarra, from the dresses to the accessories and beyond.

• Putnam Design’s new Fig candle is 30% off with PUTNAM30–for fans of the waspy (meaning the bug, not the categorization of wealthy person) fruit, the brand’s balance of realism and abstraction in its interpretation of the scent is a delight. 🌀

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Welcome back to The HALO Report. With HALOSCOPE venturing onto Substack, your weekly dose of news, sales, and long reads spanning the fashion world and beyond will now be delivered directly to your inbox!

It’s all too easy to forget, maybe even preferable in our weaker moments, that every garment we wear is a product of the real, irredeemable hours of someone’s life. Whether that person makes $200 an hour profit for their hard work or two cents for the same amount of labor, it is not possible to ethically enjoy fashion without reckoning with the fact that what you’re wearing is the physical representation of a part of a human’s life, alienated from its creator. This week, following May Day, our thoughts will be occupied by the people who truly facilitate fashion while we interrogate the dark sides of labor exposed by the Bezos-backed flop of a Met Gala, what former Vogue tastemakers wore to see the Devil Wears Prada sequel, a huge Nicklas Skovgaard win, Mother’s Day sales, and more.

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The latest long-ish reads from the brightest minds in fashion and beyond.

• “The Best Dressed Stars at the 2026 Met Gala” by Christian Allaire for Vogue essentially functions to expose how slim the pickings were at this year’s Bezos-backed ball—Rihanna and Rocky worked as always, as did an errant Emma Chamberlain (and Bad Bunny’s old age cosplay at least had a sense of levity), but on the whole, the night’s showings were as tacky and dreadful as its sponsors. Even fashion fan favorites like Hudson Williams and Gwendoline Christie looked overwrought and uninspired. For a theme as expansive as “Costume Art” that centralized the “dressed body,” the event was a major disappointment, especially when incredible corporeal artists such as Michaela Stark and Renata Buzzo featured in the exhibition itself. It seems the guests of an elite event thrown by the rich and depraved for the rich and ultra-skinny simply couldn’t handle all that body.

• HALOSCOPE’s “The L.A. Writer at Home” by Becca Hochman explores the interior/exterior worlds of contemporary literary figures like Lore V. Olivera and Brittany Menjivar, noting how the city itself has impacted the taste and style of each interviewee.

• Comedians Jacqueline Novak and Kate Berlant have reclaimed the cheeky title of their off-kilter, pseudo “wellness” podcast, POOG, after legal troubles one can only assume were of the Paltrow variety. Expect more hilarity, brutally honest reviews of bawdy, bodily treatments/processes/ideas, and genuinely thought-provoking (and wallet-threatening) product recommendations.

• Alyse Burnside’s “Food Pyramid” for Dirt speaks to the moralization of federal nutrition guidelines, an increasingly confusing and labyrinthine concept to navigate given the most recent administration’s apparent devotion to joylessness in the name of a twisted sense of “health.”

• “What Ex-Vogue Editors Wore To See Devil Wears Prada 2” by NEVERWORNS’ Liana Satenstein is exactly what it says on the tin, though the most interesting attendee among a swarm of svelte, luxury-clad yuppie-types featured is the iconic Lynn Yaeger, whose interview was redacted for some reason. I’ll bet it was far superior to the others!

• HALOSCOPE regular and fragrance genius Audrey Robinovitz of Eat Your Lipstick published a lecture she gave at her church last weekend, “‘All thy garments smell of myrrh:’ a biblical exegesis on the scents of anointing and resurrection,” and it’s genuinely the first piece of its kind I’ve ever read. Here’s to more readings of religion in terms of its most sensual, and most compelling, aspects.

What to keep in mind — and look forward to — in the past and coming weeks.

• Nicklas Skovgaard’s SS26 serves up some of the by-far best pieces to come out as ready to wear this season: voluminous frocks with alienlike proportions tempered by chintzy floral patterns somehow make perfect sense as anything from wedding guest attire to editorial bait, while more casual options like dramatically drapey trousers and layered trompe l’oeil tops are guaranteed to take over the sidewalks as gladly as they did last year’s runway.

• If you log in to the site, you’ll gain early access to Toteme’s Pre Fall ‘26—the brand hasn’t progressed or innovated much during its tenure, but sometimes that’s the point. Its consistency and neutrality offer a stalwart standby in the age of rapid-cycling microtrends.

• May the 4th [be with you] brought with it Star Wars capsules at Brain Dead and Uniqlo, offering up (especially the former) some genuinely cool designs for those whose nerd-dom extends from sci-fi to style.

• Xero and J. Crew collaborate on Genesis sandals that bring the latter’s preppy style to the former’s barefoot, skeleton-friendly design.

• New Camper x Sunnei Pelotissima sneakers tell compelling color stories with the freaked-out sensibilities that connect the two brands.

Less about impulse buys — and more about tracking discounts on the pieces already on your wishlist.

• Celebrate the romance of femininity with the elegant pieces at Lonely Lingerie, 20% off sitewide with MOTHERSDAY and only made better by how each garment balances beauty with practicality, ready for daily wear.

• Get 25% off a selection of bags and accessories at Madewell with SUNNY—a great source for last-minute Mother’s day gifts.

• Farfetch offers 25% off a selection of new arrivals including summer-ready Jacquemus bags, Aeyde sandals, and more in its latest seasonal sale.

• Another season, another extraordinary RUS private sale featuring tons of quirked-up knits at 30% off with RUSESSENTIALS30.

• Take 25% off sitewide in the DoubleSoul Mother’s Day sock sale with the cutesy code BESTMOM. 🌀

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Welcome back to The HALO Report. With HALOSCOPE venturing onto Substack, your weekly dose of news, sales, and long reads spanning the fashion world and beyond will now be delivered directly to your inbox!

Every year, Pantone releases a (typically ill-considered at best, totally tone-deaf at worst) “Color of the Year,” but where is the glory for texture? From crunchy tulle to pelt-like crushed velvet, texture is one of the most enlivening and compelling factors of a garment, yet it’s rarely considered unless one is actively shopping. Like you’d smell a litany of perfume samples, why not go to one of the ever-rarer in-person shops (preferably one stocking indie designers) and let your hands test out the textures that catch your fingertips? Even better, compare them to the textures of the natural world as it launches us into summer: the simultaneous roughness and smoothness of sand, the spiky softness of shorn grass, the pockmarked grit of pavement. This week, we’re fixated upon creators who know how to use texture, like Emily Doyle’s Paris Fashion Week photos, Nol Collective’s hand-embroidered summer togs, a shocking upcoming Uniqlo collab, Bode-as-inspiration, and more.

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The latest long-ish reads from the brightest minds in fashion and beyond.

• In this week’s HALOSCOPE STAR⟡MAIL, curated by Ella Gray Hickman, Emily Doyle shares dynamic, delicious black-and-white snaps from her time at Paris Fashion week. Stick around after for some Geocities nostalgia that feels more forward-thinking than regressive.

• Brooke LaMantia’s “Ranking All the Looks From Cassie and Nate’s Wedding” for The Cut delves into the ridiculousness and glory of the near-naked dresses worn by some key characters, the slovenly sneakers worn by... Rue, and more. Even if you’re not keeping up with the trainwreck that is Euphoria Season Three (ed. note: I’m not), the fashion is more than worth a peek.

• For Flesh World, Jessica DeFino reports on the phenomenon of “office air” in “Is Employment Making You Ugly?” alongside reports of a traumatic, heavy metal-soundtracked sauna experience and more unbelievable (but incisive) beauty insights.

• Going “Inside the Collection: Jensen McRae,” Christina Loff of The Dry Down Diaries reports on the singer-songwriter’s scent cabinet, featuring both affordable options by brands like Phlur and Glossier and lesser-known labels like Akro and Sorce.

• In “leavin’ me here on my own,” Rabbit Fur Coat’s Eleanor takes inspiration from Bananarama’s 1983 ‘Cruel Summer’ video, preaching the supremacy of a summer wardrobe defined by stripes, overalls, and the quintessential red lip (hint: it’s from Nars!).

What to keep in mind — and look forward to — in the past and coming weeks.

• Blossoming Palestinian brand Nol Collective’s SS26 is a master class on texture: traditionally hand-embroidered linen midi dresses and unexpected wrap vests, striped and cinched peplum tops, Ottoman coin chain belts and more are exactly the pieces you need to add dimension to your summer style (and at prices that, for the quality of each piece, are truly worthy).

• Mark your calendars for May 21st, when Uniqlo will batten down the hatches and release its first collaboration with Cecilie Bahnsen, a small but sure to be coveted capsule borrowing from the visual language of the Danish designer: think frills that somehow read as sporty, super-shirred and shapely tops, and matching sets that barely skim the $100 mark. Expect this to be sold out within minutes.

• Though this publication does not endorse shopping vintage-style pieces brand new for thousands of dollars, Bode SS26 provides endless thrifting inspiration with its novelty knits, western-style shirts, and showgirl sequined bras, the likes of which can be found on Etsy for hundreds of dollars less than their brand-name counterparts.

• The ‘30s Summer Riviera-inspired stylings of Filippa K’s SS26 mean relaxed-cut but frenetically striped trousers, halter swimsuits, and monogrammed beach towels—perfect for living out your Hercule Poirot summer fantasies.

• Sacai’s small but mighty SS26 capsule contains pleated button-ups, self-belting denim pants, and more pieces that marry the office cubicle with the schoolyard, all completely androgynous and primed for sharing between partners of any gender.

• Sacai also collaborates with Smythson on a very random-feeling but fresh set of three things fashioned to look like leather briefcases: a notebook, a passport case, and a small pouch.

• Carel dips into the garden with its collaboration with Méduse on the Nectar clog, a bright tangerine lug-soled thing made of 100% recyclable plastics and adorned with a plastic daisy. Think of these as the ultimate Croc update.

Less about impulse buys — and more about tracking discounts on the pieces already on your wishlist.

• With CBACCESS, get an early start to the Cecilie Bahnsen seasonal sale, taking 30% off everything from the label’s famed freaky shoes to the platonic ideal summer dresses to utility jackets and beyond.

• In the Altuzarra Mother’s Day sale, take 25% off select styles including huge-collared knits, chunky link chokers, and spring-into-summer day dresses with MOTHERSDAY.

• Bring back Challengers summer with the sweet tennis sets and drop-waist dresses available at the Carbon38 archive sale for up to 70% off.

• If your summer vibe is more American Girl Doll than threesome Zendaya, Grenson’s 20% off sale on its new season with NEWSEASON20 offers up plenty of high-quality saddle shoes in addition to sculptural loafers and sleek tennis shoes.

• This News Editor personally recommends the underwear from Jockey, now 20% off sitewide with SHOWERS, especially its string bikini style: 100% cotton, the perfect balance between full-coverage and not frumpy, and a great bang for your buck.

• Our Legacy’s archive sale takes up to 70% off the brand’s punk-inflected gear like corsets that can pass for everyday wear, denim dresses, wild knee-high boots, and more.

• Argentine-founded brand Dubie serves up 15% off sitewide with DUBIEDUBIE, a rare discount on the brand’s quirked-up footwear featuring innovative toe and heel constructions. 🌀

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