TRADITIONAL MEDIA

Why The Ariana Grande Body Discourse Isn’t Helping - Refinery29

Disclaimer I’m pretty indifferent to Ariana Grande as a general rule and have been trying to steer clear of the discourse around her body as it makes me feel a bit icky when a woman’s body becomes such a cultural topic however this piece felt quite balanced and I generally agreed with the point it was trying to make. It gets to a point where ignoring someone’s blatantly unhealthy body becomes dangerous as it creates a sense of normality around it. I certainly won’t be wading in on the Grande controversy anytime soon but I desperately hope anyone who is triggered by anything to do with the topic reaches out and gets help.

Sherman’s March: How Fashion Learned to Fear a Newsletter - Vanity Fair

I love Lauren Sherman’s podcast Fashion People so I immediately clicked when I saw this article. I absolutely adore reading profiles where the writer really deep dives into the subject, I read ‘Frank Sinatra Has a Cold’ a few months ago, which was seen as one of the original celebrity profiles and I’ve made it a goal of mine to try read more which is why I clicked on this one in the first place. It really opened my eyes up to how influential Lauren is and I feel it will make me listen to the podcast and read her writing with a new eye of appreciation.

Let’s Face It: Influencers Aren’t Really the Problem - Vogue

To be honest, I can never fully decide how I feel about influencers. Part of me hates the culture they create online, one of over consumption and comparison, but there are some influencers I love to follow who I think are genuinely just really creative women that I love seeing succeed. I do mostly agree that a lot of influencer hate is misogyny but then I do agree with a lot of the valid criticism too (my back and forthness on this is reminding me of this piece lol) but I really enjoyed this piece in defence of influencers. I found it pretty balanced and it made some really valid points about how we treat male vs female influencers. Share your thoughts with me pls!!

Your Afternoon Chat: What’s Your Hobby? - Go Fug Yourself

You already know I love a hobby so I loved reading through everyone’s hobbies on this one. Humans are SO cute sometimes, we all just really want to fill our time doing our cute lil hobbies :’)

What If Moviegoers Want Johnny Depp Back? - Puck

It’s scary to watch how a man can be found guilty of at the very least, severe misogyny and some truly vile quotes, and still enjoy a thriving career. I don’t think any of us will ever know the true truth of the whole Depp vs Heard case, but I do know Johnny Depp is not someone I would want associated with my film if I was a producer, apparently though a lot of Hollywood does not feel the same.

SUBSTACK

• I hosted a Parisian dinner party. Here’s what I noticed. -

• How to dress like a Chloé girl (when you’re not on a Chloé budget) -

• Why has the world gone nuts for horny fiction? -

• You’ll Never Find Love if You Don’t Reach For It -

• Chloe Sevigny Was Always That Girl -

• the issue(s) with vogue’s september issue -

• We can’t stop talking about Justin and Johnny until we’ve learned our lesson. -

• they want you to hate me -

• I Refuse to Take Love for a Fool -

• I fell in love with a firefighter, was rescued from my dorm, and can you die from a 104° fever? -

• The Lives You Didn’t Live Are None of Your Business -

• What Happened to the September Issue? -

• The Stack: Meanings and Memories of Your Most Worn Jewellery -

• Ranking a bunch of TV/movie wedding dresses-

• Why Everyone Loved Dolly Parton -

• Girl bedrooms in the era of surveillance culture -

• Dolly Parton, Forever 🤍🕊️ -

• younger me would fucking hate me -

• Graduation -

• Ghosts of Fashion's Past -

• My Boyfriend Didn’t Propose, And I’m Happy About That -

• preference round -

• The fashion show that got Kate Moss and Rihanna naked together -

• Law Roach and Zendaya and what they built together -

BOOKS

The Woman Destroyed - Simone de Beauvoir

This was an incredible read but my god did it make me sad. Three stories of three older women suddenly thrown into some form of unexpected upheaval in their lives, usually brought about by men. I found this one a really heartbreaking read, it gave me so much anger for all the struggles women have and continue to face at all ages, but I would highly recommend. It was my first book by de Beauvoir and I’m dying to read more of her work. I also read started this one while in Les Deux Magots in Paris which truly set the scene and made me love it that little bit more.

Lost Lambs - Madeline Cash

Bonkers but I loved it? I had no clue what I was going into when I read this book, it was a book club pick that I genuinely started completely blind but I ended up adoring it. A story about a complex and dysfunctional family that you can’t help but root for, a dodgy billionaire involved in some trafficking and lots of gnats, I genuinely can’t explain the plot of this book but I laughed so many times while reading it. Highly recommend.

Things I Told My Notes App - Milly Goldsmith

Not the best book I’ve ever read, not the worst book I’ve ever read! This was recommended to me by a friend and I read it in a day so it was a nice quick respite from The Odyssey (spoiler alert for what’s coming next). I found a lot of what Goldsmith wrote really relatable and I admire her honesty and vulnerability throughout. At 30 I’m probably slightly above the target audience for this one but definitely give it a read if you’re in your early twenties and feeling a bit lost!

Grief Is The Thing With Feathers - Max Porter

Honestly, really unsure how I feel about this one. I like books that tackle grief in an unexpected way but this one just didn’t really resonate with me. It was however a quick read, it took me maybe an hour to finish the whole thing, and I still rated it three stars on Goodreads so?? I recommend I guess?

The Odyssey - Homer

This beast is the reason I barely read anything else this month. Like the rest of the world I took a trip to the cinema to watch Christopher Nolan’s adaptation and immediately decided I needed to reread Homer’s epic (I had read it in college for one of my classes but it was in conjunction with Ulysses so trust when I say my brain was fried and I retained nothing). This is obviously an epic, a classic - THE epic, THE classic - but honestly it was a slog to get through. I absolutely appreciate the art that this book is, but to be completely candid, I didn’t love reading it. Glad I’ve ticked it off the list (again) but probably won’t ever pick up again for a reread.

Small Boat - Vincent Delecroix

This one was a struggle to get through purely because of how disturbing I found the narrator. Based on a true story of an operator who ignored distress calls from migrants crossing from France to England, leading to the death of 27 out of the 29 of them, this book was small but packed an almighty punch. I gasped at some parts as the narrator was so distressing in the way they were so flippant about the migrants dying and the dehumanising language used throughout, but it was a very clever way for Delecroix to get us all to think about the part we play in society and how we would handle a situation like this. A must read I would say.

Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage - Belle Burden

Starting the month with The Woman Destroyed and ending it with Strangers felt almost poetic in a way. This one has been on my TBR list for months and I feel like one of the last people to read it. I had a long-ish bus journey to take this past weekend so I downloaded this on to my kindle to keep me entertained and I flew through it. A frightening insight into how quickly life can change and a reminder to always protect yourself first as even those closest to you can wake up one day and be completely different people.

I usually keep these round ups to purely reading content but I HAVE to shout out the film Project Hail Mary. I watched this with my little brother at the start of the month and spent every single remaining day thinking about Rocky. Amaze, amaze, amaze!

When I was a child I genuinely could not go anywhere without a book, I wish Goodreads had been around then because I’d love to know how many books I read before I reached my teens - it had to have been in the hundreds if not higher. Not only did I love it, I genuinely didn’t have many other options. I grew up in a pretty isolated house in the mountains, as an only child in a pre-social media, pre-Internet world (the Internet was of course around, but we didn’t even have a computer in the house until I was about 11). It was books or TV, and books were usually my default. I feel like kids now have so much other options - tablets, YouTube, phones, TikTok - that books are probably pretty low down the entertainment list.

When things are going badly, I find I tend to read more - when my grandmother died, I hungrily devoured books on grief, desperate in the hope they may erase the pain I was feeling. They didn’t of course, but they did make me feel less alone and I love when I read a substack that makes me go ‘yes, that’s exactly how I feel!’ or a book that makes me laugh out loud or an article that sparks a thought in my brain that I had never considered before. Reading, clearly, is a huge part of my life and who I am but it seems like it’s never been more important culturally, especially if you’re a Hot Girl.

It seems we have never seen more hot girls reading than we have lately. All the It Girls have a book club - Belletrist by Emma Roberts, Kaia Gerber with Library Science and of course, Service95 by Dua Lipa (did you really think I wouldn’t mention my queen in this article?!) and it’s more common to see models papped with a book in their hand than a Starbucks these days. In Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik, an example of how Babitz had made it back into the cultural lexicon, was Kendall Jenner being photographed reading Black Swans. Jenner reading Babitz was one of the things that thrust her into the online literary canon of cool, more than any other accolade she had earned over the years.

The fashion world, of course, is never one to be left behind on a trend. Joan Didion shot a campaign for Celine, Coach has Elle Fanning sporting bag charms inspired by popular books all over their SS26 campaign imagery, Dior has their famous book totes (still campaigning for one please Mr Anderson!) and Miu Miu has followed in the footsteps of it’s models with a book club. Books are used to decorate high end boutiques and throughout editorials as an accessory. Reading and books are the epitome of chic lately, something that you would think would be seen as a positive in an increasingly dystopian world, but for some reason, the thought of girls, or should I say pretty girls, reading seems to spark scandal online.

In 2019 after Kendall Jenner was spotted reading Darcie Wilder’s literally show me a healthy person, the book sold out within 24 hours. It happened again when she was photographed reading Tonight I’m Someone Else by Chelsea Hodson, with Hodson publicly saying she was ‘grateful’ to Jenner and stating that her influence has the ‘power to change people’s lives.’ Jenner was pulled apart online for her ‘preformative’ reading habits but honestly, regardless of whether it is preformative or not, why do we care? I personally don’t care if it’s preformative -when I was young, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie were in, as was being dumb and skinny and doing drugs and partying. Losers read, hot girls didn’t. Boys only liked the fun girls, the girls who went to parties and were a bit badly behaved and had no clue who the hell Charles Dickens was. The early 2000’s wanted our women a very specific way - skinny and dumb. Healthy women with brains and opinions were seen as boring, the ones no one wanted, when in reality, I suspect it was more they were the dangerous option. Can’t have a woman who knows her own mind after all! So if the option is the hot girls of the day encouraging girls to be skinny and do drugs, or reading, I’d rather reading be the hobby du jour! Social media has influenced so many dangerous trends, can we not just appreciate it glamourising something positive for once?

There has been multiple studies done on declining reading rates, each one scarier than the last. Reading for pleasure has dropped 40% amongst Americans over the last decade. The Walton Family Foundation and Gallup 2025 Voices of Gen Z study found that 35% of Gen Z say they dislike reading, with 43% rarely or never reading for fun. According to the National Literacy Trust, the number of 8-18 year olds who read something daily has halved in the last two decades, falling from 38% to 19%. The State of the Nation’s Adult Reading 2025 Report found that 55% of people rank watching TV and movies as a top three activity, compared to a mere 28% who would consider reading amongst their top 3. Trump’s hell hole fascist regime is leading to more and more book banning everyday, with books from To Kill a Mockingbird to The Handmaid’s Tale facing banning from his administration. Not to bring up my queen Dua Lipa again, but for what it’s worth, Dua is the one of the only celebrities I have seen actively working against this. Service95 launched The Manifesto Library in Porto, celebrating banned books and helping readers access them. A hot girl putting her money where her mouth is.

Vogue did a survey in which it revealed that 93% of BookTok users are women. At a time when women’s rights are being stripped and the world descends into a dystopian, misogynistic hellscape, all I can say is thank god women are reading! Thank god women are continuing to educate themselves and give themselves power. A lot of the discourse around the hot girls reading trend feels like misogyny - hot girls can’t possibly be reading these books because we’ve spent years building the narrative that hot girls have to be dumb. Only ugly girls can read of course! Because women can’t be a multitude don’t you know? Surely a hot, smart girl would be too powerful? She could, god forbid, get in a position of power in the world. Far better to only let dowdy women be smart. No threat then.

I remember pictures popping up online of Olivia Jade reading A Little Life in Italy and all the comments were about how she couldn’t possibly be reading this book, she was just reading it to be photographed reading it. Olivia was the influencer embroiled in the famous college admission scandal, where her parents were jailed for paying Olivia and her sisters way into USC. Olivia was quite open on her YouTube channel at the time about her feelings on college, that she was there more so for the social side and wasn’t overly interested in the education aspect. Online commentary used this to lay into Olivia when she was papped reading on the beach - she was a self-professed bimbo who doesn’t read! Let’s not consider the fact that she was young (around 18) when she made the comments about college and could have grown by the time these pictures came out around 4 or 5 years later, or that someone valuing the social side of college does not mean that they don’t also enjoy reading, better to assume she’s just a fake poser!

But it’s not just Olivia Jade that faces this criticism, there seems to be a condescending tone anytime a conventionally attractive girl speaks about reading. Emily Ratajkowski regularly has hate comments when she posts anything about a book (despite the fact she has made books a key part of her public persona for years and is by all accounts a total bookworm) and I once read an article about the Hadid sisters and their reading habits, implying they’re not intelligent despite both sisters actually displaying a lot of intelligence on their social media. Bella in particular is known for speaking up on Palestine, being extremely educated and outspoken on the complex history of the genocide taking place there. Sarah Jessica Parker was ridiculed online as a liar when she claimed she read two books a day when she was prepping to judge the Booker prize. A furore was sparked online by this comment, with people claiming it was impossible….until literary critics and librarians came out to say this was actually standard for someone working as a judge for a panel like this. I remember being so confused by the whole conversation because to me it was clear that SJP meant she read two books a day specifically for this job, because it was her job it meant she could devote the full working day to reading. If a man had said this, I don’t think it would have created as much of an outrage online - he never would have been accused of being a liar. Matt Damon for example was photographed reading The Odyssey on set of The Talented Mr Ripley and no one claimed he was pretending to read it to look good, it’s just when a woman does it. This misogyny goes as far back as 1955, when Marilyn Monroe caused shock by reading James Joyce’s Ulysses - in 1955 people couldn’t believe that beautiful women can read too, but in seems in 2026, society still seems to struggle with the concept. I think a large part of it too is that people are so chronically online, a space which is full of performance let’s be real, that it’s hard for them to remember that not everything is a performance. As a woman in particular, if your brand identity is not directly tied to reading, it’s hard for some people to connect this hobby with the version of you they have created in their head, which is insane but unfortunately true.

Of course I’m sure some celebrities use books as props for photos - the infamous photo of Addison Rae walking while reading Britney Spears’ biography pops to mind for example. Rae used the Princess of Pop’s book to signify that she was stepping into a new role of pop stardom, that she was doing the research and the work so that she could be seen in the same vein as Britney. I have no doubt that Rae purposefully posed with the book, but I also have no doubt she did actually read the book. I posted a picture of The Bell Jar from my sun lounger in Ibiza because the cover was pretty and matched the beach towel it was on, but I still read it and loved it. So is that preformative or not? To play devil’s advocate, it also is worth mentioning that celebrities are rarely posting photos with kindles, it is usually a physical book that clearly lets the viewer see what they’re reading as opposed to a kindle which keeps the contents secret except to the reader. This could be seen as preformative reading - the celebrity wants us to know that they’re reading Hemingway or Didion, they want the book as the prop for the photo - and I do find it unusual that no Hot Girl Readers seem to use kindles but maybe these girls simply like a physical book and having some time away from a screen. Rina Lipa was quoted in Vogue as saying she’s a physical book only girl for this exact reason and I have to admit as much as I love my kindle, I’m a physical book only kind of girl when I’m on holiday. I find I’m more relaxed and switched off on holiday, so can focus on reading a physical book instead of a kindle when I’m at the beach or pool in particular which is coincidentally where most Hot Girls are photographed reading. Maybe they’re also taking advantage of down time to get through a book that’s been on their list for a while - see celebrities, they’re just like us!

As so succinctly put it - we are desperate to prove we are educated in a society that increasingly isn’t and I would rather that than a return to the ‘bimbo’ era of the early aughts. Kaia Gerber recently admitted on the Therapuss podcast that she started reading because she was insecure about not having a college education and she wanted to educated herself in her own way. What a world it would be if more women followed in Kaia’s lead. It suits the patriarchy for women to act dumb and subservient, when we are docile and do what we’re told. What we need to enact real, desperately needed change in the world is educated women. Literate women. Women who aren’t afraid to speak up and demand equality. Kendall Jenner reading an Eve Babitz book may not seem like it has a direct correlation to feminism but it really does. The more women read, the more they expand their worldview, the more inspired they may be, the more articulate they will be. I know I’m preaching to the choir here, Substack is full of educated, smart, politically active, beautiful women, but I do think we’re in danger of forgetting we’re in a bubble here - that not everyone thinks the way we do.

In Didion & Babitz, the author discussed when Joan Didion died and how tributes poured in from celebs on social media. Anolik wrote that ‘you might almost be fooled into thinking that the world cared about books or the people who made them,’ as if to suggest that people only posted about Didion to make it seem like they read, that they didn’t actually care. But I do. I posted about Didion’s passing on my insta story and I care deeply about books and the people who write them. I’m aware I can 100% come across as a preformative reader - I like to get nice covers of my favourite books and take aesthetic pictures and use them as decorations in my house when I’m done reading them. My insta dumps usually feature at least one picture of a book I’m reading peppered in amongst outfit pictures, an aesthetic aperol spritz and a picture of my friend at dinner. I’ll ask my little brother to take a picture of me reading in the garden, but that’s because I actually am reading in the garden, and isn’t social media supposed to show who you are as a person? I’ll often hop on a ‘trend’ of a hot girl book - Yesteryear, Just Kids, The Bell Jar - but that’s because I want to read everything. I genuinely have fomo of the books I won’t get to read. I love reading and discovering new writers. Reading is a part of me, it always has been and I can’t help that sometimes it might look preformative. Life is far too short, and the world is far too serious to gatekeep reading and books. Judge the cover if you must, but I for one will always be grateful to see people opening the pages.

Her hands are soft on my hair.

Crackle,

Crackle,

Crackle.

The pyjamas are fresh from the dryer,

Her hands are soft on my hair.

Crackle,

Crackle,

Crackle.

The tv is quiet in the background,

Her hands are soft on my hair.

Crackle,

Crackle,

Crackle.

The voices are chattering in the room,

Her hands are soft on my hair.

Crackle,

Crackle,

Crackle.

The big room feels safe and warm,

Her hands are soft on my hair.

Crackle,

Crackle,

Crackle.

The fire no longer crackles behind me,

The pyjamas no longer fit,

The voices are quieter than they used be,

The big room now feels small.

Her hands are no longer there.

Bit of a different post from me this week! This poem was originally published by me in an online literary journal, I wouldn’t usually be a poetry kind of gal at all but something about this one just came to me and I thought it deserved a home here too. Back to regularly scheduled musings next week!

Celebrity culture can blur the line between fantasy and reality, making it hard to know what is real or not real and often creating celebrities from people who don’t follow the traditional route of being recognised as a celebrity, through the entertainment industry, resulting in people who are ‘famous for being famous.’ One of the most intriguing cases of this, is The Bling Ring.

If you have ever seen the incredible meme ‘Nancy Jo, this is Alexis Neiers calling’ where a teenage girl exclaims, through floods of tears, ‘she said I was wearing 6 inch Louboutins for court with my tweed outfit! I was wearing little brown kitten heels. Fucking bitch’ then you have already encountered the Bling Ring. The Bling Ring were a group of mostly teenagers, Rachel Lee, 19; Diana Tamayo, 19; Courtney Ames, 18; Alexis Neiers, 18; Nicholas Prugo, 18; and Roy Lopez, 27, who staged a number of robberies of celebrities’ homes between the years of 2008 and 2009, during which they managed to steal nearly $3 million in designer clothing, jewellery, luggage and art from a variety of celebs ranging from Paris Hilton to Orlando Bloom. The reason generally given for these robberies by the media and further backed up by the members themselves, is that they were so obsessed with these celebrities that they wanted to have the exact same clothes and accessories as their idols. According to members of the Bling Ring, they were able to carry out the robberies through monitoring the celebrities’ whereabouts and home addresses on social media and gossip sites. Once the case went to trial the teenagers began to enjoy a level of celebrity themselves, taking part in interviews and television appearances, as the media took interest in the case. It is also interesting to note that these teenagers, many of whom were rich themselves and more than able to afford the same clothes as the celebrities, were so obsessed by them that only their actual clothes would do. Members of the Bling Ring lived in a celebrity-filled area and when Alexis Neiers was jailed for her crimes, she was placed in the same cell that Bling Ring target Paris Hilton had once occupied, next door to another target of the criminal ring, Lindsay Lohan.

Hey, I Want to be Famous

In order to fully understand the events of the Bling Ring, the context of the culture must first be explored and understood. In understanding the context of the celebrity culture, we can also understand how the teenagers became celebrities themselves and faced very little repercussions from the media for their crimes. The members of the Bling Ring are constantly referred to as celebrity-obsessed teenagers, an example of when fandom becomes fanaticism. Anytime a reason is given for their burglaries, the media construct it as the teenagers wanting to emulate the celebrity lifestyle and their infatuation leading them to taking celebrity worship to the extreme. Those involved in the Bling Ring have themselves played into the narrative that being a fan of celebrities was their motivator, with Nick Prugo stating that “she [Rachel Lee] wanted to be part of the lifestyle, the lifestyle that we all sort of want” when attempting to explain how their crimes started.

However, the actions of the Bling Ring were not a natural development in celebrity obsession, they were a product of a wider cultural problem regarding celebrity. In her book on the Bling Ring1, Nancy Jo Sales quotes figures from a 2007 survey which found that “51 percent of 18-to-25-year-olds said their most or second most important life goal - after becoming rich - was becoming famous. In a 2005 survey of American high school students, 31% said they ‘expect’ to be famous one day.” The events of the Bling Ring took place between 2008 and 2009 so this can give some context for the type of society in which they were living and how large a role celebrity culture played in it, particularly for teenagers. But what exactly is celebrity culture and what makes it so alluring to young people?

Graeme Turner writes that “the brutal reality of the modern age is that all famous people are treated like celebrities by the mass media, whether they be a great political figure, a worthy campaigner, an artist ‘touched by genius’, a serial killer.” This statement can be applied to the members of the Bling Ring yet it also highlights how what constitutes a celebrity has changed over time. The term ‘celebrity’ originated around the early twentieth century, with Richard Schickel quoted as saying “there was no such thing as celebrity prior to the beginning of the twentieth century.” Before that, there were “people who were successful and therefore famous. That changed [...] on 24 June 1916 when Mary Pickford signed the first million dollar film contract with Adolph Zukor.” Pickford had become known just as much for her name as her acting and thus the idea of celebrity began to spread. Though this was the birth of the era of ‘celebrity,’ the term was generally only applied to those who worked in the entertainment industry. There were other well-known public figures such as members of the monarchy, aristocracy and those in government however they were not referred to or treated as celebrities. Around this time, the idea of a ‘star’ and a ‘celebrity,’ and the difference between them, also started to emerge. A ‘star’ could be the term used for someone who was famous because of their achievements within the industry whilst a celebrity is often used for someone known more for their fame itself than any talent they may have. In today’s society however, there seems to be more celebrities than stars and the modern celebrity is often well known just for being….well….well known! Anyone who is in any way well-known, no matter what the reason, is treated as a celebrity. And as what defines a celebrity becomes more vague, it seems the worship of celebrity becomes more widespread and commonplace.

This celebrity obsession can be linked to Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory. In this theory, Bourdieu stated that there were “four forms of capital: economic (e.g. money and assets); cultural (e.g. forms of knowledge; taste, aesthetic and cultural preferences; language, narrative and voice); social (e.g. affiliations and networks; family, religious and cultural heritage) and symbolic (things which stand for all of the other forms of capital and can be ‘exchanged’ in other fields, e.g. credentials).” Celebrities can be seen to have an almost perfect combination of all four types of capital. They have the money and assets for the economic capital; those of certain professions, such as actors or musicians, have the cultural capital; those who come from well-known families, such as the royal family, have social capital, but also most celebrities are affiliated with a network of other celebrities or people high up in society, enabling them to gain high social capital; and finally, they achieve the symbolic capital through the level of class and status that they earn thanks to their celebrity. “In other words, celebrity can be ​attained ​through family relationships (royals), ​achieved ​through talent and accomplishments (e.g., musicians, sports stars, or apparently criminals), and predominantly ​attributed v​ia the media (reality TV-participants or so-called socialites),” suggesting that celebrity status is relatively easy to achieve as there are many different ways to do so. This high level of capital leads to them being seen as aspirational by those with less capital, such as members of the Bling Ring, as it is implied “that being in the media lends a person perceived importance compared with those outside the media.” Celebrity becomes an object which is to be consumed and a status to be achieved, the Bling Ring did both. They consumed celebrity through the media and it was ultimately their over-consumption of it, through their robberies that led to them achieving the status, or capital, associated with celebrity.

The members of the Bling Ring stealing the clothes of celebrities could be seen as them attempting to steal some of their capital and thus raise their own levels of capital. By wearing the exact same clothes as the celebrities and being in the same places as them, the teens arguably raised their own levels of capital purely by appearing to have the capital enjoyed by their targets such as Hilton. The kids of the Bling Ring are often presented as ‘rich kids’ by the media, however, “they weren’t as rich as other people in Calabasas, or their victims either” meaning, in a twisted way, it makes sense that they would want to raise their levels of capital, even if they were not consciously aware that this was what they were in fact doing. Did they see these famous people as ‘ideal’ people, people they wanted to be and thus felt the only way to authentically feel like them, was to have their exact items? The fact that they saw no problems with stealing their exact items can perhaps be attributed to the media.

The media and, consequently, the public seem to feel that celebrities are almost another type of beings, ones which do not deserve respect and privacy, as evidenced by the fact the members of the Bling Ring felt entitled to simply walk into their homes and take whatever they wanted. Perhaps because we are so exposed to the lives of these celebrities, we feel we have a level of intimacy with them, they feel close to us. Turner writes that “we can map the precise moment a public figure becomes a celebrity. It occurs at the point at which media interest in their activities is transferred from reporting on their public role [...] to investigating the details of their private lives.” It would make sense that as our culture becomes more open and exposed, so would our famous people, evidenced by the fact that this coincides with the timeline of the birth of ‘celebrity.’ The closed, private world of Victorian times has given way to an exhibitionist culture of the twentieth and twenty first centuries, where everything must be on show for the world. For celebrities this means in order to stay on top you must be more talked about than others. Celebrities often use their private lives to boost their professional ones, in the form of elaborate publicity stunts, or transforming their private lives into their professional ones, as seen by reality shows such as ​Keeping Up With The Kardashians, documenting the ‘private’ lives of the Kardashian family. Reality shows, tell-all interviews and even paparazzi shots of famous people doing ‘normal’ things, such as shopping, means that “we have normalized putting the famous under the microscope to such a degree that their private lives are open to the public.” We feel almost entitled to these celebrities, which is perhaps at the root of the problem with the behaviour of the Bling Ring.

Access All Areas

Indeed, it is easy to view famous people as a spectacle rather than as celebrities. Almost any information you could want about them is online, as evidenced by the websites dedicated to publishing celebrity addresses, such as “Celebrity Address Aerial” which members of the Bling Ring have admitted they used in carrying out their crimes. When examining contemporary celebrity culture, it is hard not to take into account the importance of technology. Turner writes that “the growth of celebrity is historically linked to the spread of the mass media (particularly the visual media)” and indeed the spread of the mass media is inextricably linked to the constant development of technology. Advancements in technology seem to allow advancements in celebrity culture. Technology has allowed us to get ‘closer’ to celebrities with social media sites such as Twitter/X and Instagram, even YouTube vlogs, allowing you an ‘inside look’ at the celebrity’s ‘private’ life. These type of social media sites allow you to know intimate details about a celebrity from where they are, to who they are with, even down to what they are eating. With such a plethora of information on celebrities available online, it is no surprise that one begins to feel as if they have a connection with famous people or instead that they are not real, as if they are a character just like they play in films.

The actor Cary Grant expresses this in his famous quote “everyone wants to be Cary Grant, even I want to be Cary Grant.” When we examine how society dehumanises celebrities like this, it is perhaps slightly easier to begin to understand the actions of the Bling Ring. A potential consequence of contemporary views on celebrity could be the deconstruction of the boundaries between what is real and what is imaginary. This could mean that it was easy for the Bling Ring to forget that they were entering real people’s homes and taking real people’s things, not on a bizarre form of tour, such as the bus tour that goes around Los Angeles, pointing out celebrity homes. Sales wrote that “the Bling Ring had crossed a final Rubicon, entering famous people’s homes, and their boldness felt both disturbing and somehow inevitable,” an inevitability which seems almost certain when one examines how the boundaries between celebrity privacy and public entitlement have become more and more blurred. It could be summarised that the members of the Bling Ring felt entitled to enter the homes of these celebrities as they were not ‘real’ people, just figments of mass media’s, and thus the public’s, imagination. This blurring of boundaries between fantasy and reality within celebrity culture often comes back to the desire to become a celebrity and the ways in which one can achieve this.

Big Brother House, This is Davina…

A key aspect of current celebrity culture and how it came about, is Big Brother, the show that arguably changed everything. The premise of the show revolves around a group of strangers who are isolated from the outside world together in a house for a number of weeks during which they are given tasks in order to win money for food, face weekly public eliminations and eventually the winner walks away with a cash prize. They are also subjected to knowing that their every move is being watched by the public who can view nightly hour long recaps or tune in to the 24-hour live feed of the house. Though there are now celebrity versions of the show, the original format involved non-famous people taking part in a social experiment. ​Big Brother became known as one of the easiest ways to become famous quickly. An example of this is the 2006 celebrity series of the show which featured a non-celebrity, Chantelle Houghton, entering the house as part of a task where she successfully convinced the other celebrities that she was a member of a famous band. Houghton went on to win the show and feature prominently in tabloids in the years following the show, including a marriage and eventual divorce to a musician who had been on the series with her. Houghton’s rise to fame is an example of what status a show like ​Big Brother​ can give ‘ordinary’ people, allowing them to become famous for nothing other than living in a house for a few weeks.

This links in with what Sales wrote in her book on the Bling Ring, that “it occurred to [her], while looking over the careers of the Bling Ring victims, that not only were they rich and famous, but nearly all of them had been in movies or on popular TV shows about people who were rich and famous or ​wanted​ to be rich and famous.” This helps give an insight into the saturation of society with celebrity culture - that some of the most popular stars of the day were nearly all famous for being on shows about being famous, be it a reality show or in an acting role. Hilton achieved her fame initially due to her lineage as part of the Hilton family, known for their luxury hotels worldwide. However, the main thing she was known for was not her family background but her various appearances falling out of nightclubs and sex tape scandals. There was no real reason, such as an acting or musical career, for her fame and thus she became known as ‘famous for being famous.’ Similarly for Lohan, she became more known for her tabloid appearances involving alcohol, drugs or court appearances than her acting career. Sales attempted to sum this up when she wrote that “they were famous mainly for being famous, defined by a new kind of celebrity that was all about Facebooking and tweeting and the flashing of thongs.”

The actions of the Bling Ring are often blamed on their desire to achieve a level of fame yet, in another example of reality and fantasy overlapping, several of the targets of the Bling Ring were also often involved in alleged publicity stunts, usually involving bad behaviour outside of a nightclub, to try and elevate their position in celebrity society. These stunts usually worked, if one looks at how two of the biggest stars of the day were Lohan and Hilton, two celebrities notorious for bad behaviour resulting in multiple arrests. Celebrities today can possibly be made out of anyone, even criminals arguably seeking fame, such as the Bling Ring. We are living in a culture where fame is the most important thing, regardless of how you achieve it.

Imitation is The Sincerest Form of Flattery

The French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard, when discussing his ideas surrounding the simulacrum, writes that it is “no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real,” which can be applied to the Bling Ring. Their actions go beyond the idea of imitation, the members were not simply imitating or parodying the celebrity lifestyle, they were entering into the reality, or hyper reality of it, quite literally by entering into their homes. Baudrillard writes that “simulation threatens the difference between the ‘true’ and the ‘false,’ the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary.’” The idea that the teenagers looked like celebrities and appeared to be celebrities is a reoccurring motif throughout the media coverage of the case. There is a picture of Neiers existing jail after her arrest where she had all the components of the classic celebrity paparazzi shot - Juicy tracksuit, large scarf covering her face and her sister protectively leading her through the crowd. But it didn’t just look like a pap shot, it was a pap shot - there was a group of paparazzi waiting outside the jail for Neiers just as they would wait for ‘real’ celebrities. Paparazzi do not wait outside jails for people who just look like celebrities, yet they did wait for Neiers, so that leaves the question what exactly is she? Is she a normal girl or is she a celebrity? Neires and the other members of the Bling Ring had become a perfect simulacra of celebrities, they had both the appearance of being famous but also had entered into the reality of it too. When the public see the photos of Alexis Neiers existing a Los Angeles jail, in the noughties celebrity ‘uniform’ of a designer velour tracksuit, covering her face with a large scarf while being hounded by paparazzi, they are so reminiscent of similar photos of celebrity arrests, that they simply recognise Neiers as being a celebrity, she has become a pure simulation of one and in doing so her supposed fantasy of being a celebrity has become a reality.

The members of the Bling Ring displayed all the ‘symptoms’ of being famous; they were being followed by paparazzi, talked about and interviewed by the media and Neiers even had her own reality show. They had also achieved a status of notoriety, a level of fame, from the media attention on their crimes. These are all classic components of fame so it can thus be summarised that the Bling Ring had become famous. By feigning what they didn’t have to such an extreme, they had, in fact, entered into the celebrity world that they once admired from the outside. This idea of feigning and simulation can be applied to the general current, post-​Big Brother ​era of celebrity culture in which we live in. This is a culture where there are so many people who act like celebrities and have all the necessary requirements to qualify as one, apart from the talents which traditional celebrities earned their fame from, therefore they become a simulation of a celebrity. In becoming a simulation however, they arguably become real celebrities. If a person is known and talked about in the press, is photographed going about their daily life and has fans, then they are, to all extents and purposes, a celebrity. This is where the blurring of boundaries and the problems surrounding a definitive ‘reality’ are most apparent. Bran Nicol summarises this by saying that “simulation does not just eliminate the real, it creates it,” the teenagers in the Bling Ring, to all extents and purposes, created their own reality, or hyperreality, in which they were ‘real’ celebrities.

The idea of simulation and the dissolution of the boundaries between fantasy and reality can also be studied using Guy Debord’s writings on the spectacle. According to the theory of the spectacle, appearance has become more important than reality, the spectacle is the affirmation of appearance and affirmation of all human social life as mere appearance. The spectacle places the importance on appearance rather than reality, something which can be applied to the idea of simulacrum and the Bling Ring itself as, to the media and their coverage of the event, the appearance of having fame was more important than the reality of their fame, which was as criminals. They appeared to be the typical young Hollywood celebrity, such as Hilton or Lohan, so the media treated them as such rather than criminals who were only known for a burglary ring. This prioritising of appearance over reality is evident in nearly every aspect of our society, particularly since the birth of social media. The current phase of healthy eating and exercising which is apparent on social media, for example, has led to the appearance of being fit and healthy as almost more important than actually physically being fit and healthy, hence the constant stream of pictures of healthy green juices and people exercising in the gym being uploaded to social media daily. Whether or not those people actually eat healthily and exercise does not seem to be as important as appearing to do so online. We use spectacle to mask reality and this is particularly evident in celebrity culture. We become obsessed with celebrity and the spectacle surrounding them, resulting in the celebrity themselves becoming the spectacle, they become something which many aim to achieve. ​They are seen as extremely desirable, leading to a desire to emulate them and replicate the ‘success’ that they have. This desire has resulted, particularly in the last decade, in ‘ordinary’ people going to any lengths to become a celebrity, either through the path of a reality show such as ​Big Brother ​or ​Love Island, o​r, in extreme cases, through a path of notoriety, for instance, the kids involved in the Bling Ring. It is debatable whether or not fame was the end goal for those involved in the Bling Ring but it was ultimately what they achieved.

Blurring the Lines Between Real & The Fake

The Bling Ring is a contemporary example of the blurring of lines between reality and fantasy. This blurring of lines is arguably due to the combination of external factors, such as the fact that Neiers had a reality show on the same channel which produced many celebrity reality shows, and internal factors such as the fact that the teens featured in multiple interviews and media appearances. This combination resulted in the hyperreality occupied by the teenagers. The general explanation given by the media for the robberies the Bling Ring carried out was that they were so obsessed with these celebrities that they wanted to have the exact same clothes as their idols. This is a construct backed up by the Bling Ring themselves with Prugo claiming that the reason they initially targeted Hilton was “because Rachel wanted Paris’s clothes.” They were able to carry out the robberies through monitoring the celebrities’ whereabouts on social media and gossip sites with Prugo admitting that for their first robbery of Hilton, he had “scoped out the property on Google Earth, having found Hilton’s address on Celebrity Address Aerial.” The celebrity gossip sites dedicate themselves to detailing celebrities every whereabouts, something as simple as a picture of a celebrity at the airport allowed the Bling Ring to know that they would be out of town and leaving behind an empty house. This can also be seen in Sofia Coppola’s film adaptation2 of the event where the character based on Prugo announces that Hilton will be hosting a party in Las Vegas that night. This is followed by a quick google search of ‘Paris Hilton address,’ the results of which come up instantly, which is then typed into Google Earth to give them a street view of Hilton’s home. This dramatisation is repeatedly quoted by the media and the members themselves as the key to how they found out the information regarding celebrities homes and whereabouts, with Prugo stating that “it was information anyone in America could get.”

Most of the first-hand information about the Bling Ring comes from Nick Prugo who gave multiple in-depth interviews about the events to the media, this could be seen as Prugo trying out the celebrity lifestyle he so admired. His testimony can not be fully accepted as fact, as Prugo is a part of the construction of the spectacle surrounding the Bling Ring. He does however, give a lot of information for analysis, along with the media coverage of the case. Prugo and Alexis Neiers are arguably the two most ‘famous’ members of the Bling Ring, with Prugo gaining the reputation as the ‘rat’ of the group, the one who told the police everything, while Neiers is known as the ‘reality star,’ thanks to her 2010 reality show ​Pretty Wild. Pretty Wild​ aired on ​E! Entertainment,3 t​he channel which launched reality shows such as Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The fact that Neiers’ show aired on the channel known for airing reality shows about celebrities is another interesting crossover between reality and fantasy in the case of the Bling Ring and an example of the extra-textuality at play within the case. The show featured Neiers and her sisters living their life in Hollywood, shopping, partying and going on dates with musicians yet it also showed her getting arrested and attending court appearances for her involvement in the Bling Ring. Sales writes that Neiers “wasn’t even a celebrity yet, and yet she was being treated like one,” in reference to the photographers outside Neiers’ home while she was filming her show. Emphasis on the ‘yet.’ Sales also writes in her ​Vanity Fair ​article on the topic that “on November 16 [2010], Neiers arrived at Los Angeles Superior Court for her arraignment with an E! reality crew in tow. Her show, originally intended to be about her life as a party girl on the Hollywood scene, had now become a chronicle of her effort to stay out of jail.”

Another example of extratextuality in the case of the Bling Ring is the fact that when Neiers was eventually jailed for her crimes in June 2010, she ended up in the Century Regional Detention Facility in Los Angeles, a jail which had held several celebrities including Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Khloe Kardashian. Kardashian is arguably one of the biggest celebrities in today’s society and not only did Neiers live in the same area, Calabasas, she also went to the same jail and had a reality show centering around her and her sisters, the same premise as ​Keeping Up with the Kardashians, ​on the same channel. The crossover between Neiers and Kardashian is more evidence to prove how Neiers had crossed the boundaries between reality and fantasy to become a simulacra of celebrity. Hilton had been placed in the jail in 2007 for probation violation in relation to a DUI in the same cell that Neiers would end up in. Lohan was placed in the same jail in 2010 for probation violence after failing to attend alcohol education classes and was placed in the cell next to Neiers. Neiers ended up being in a ‘celebrity jail’ for her attempts to enter into the celebrity world. She eventually admitted to a string of drug problems, attending “a celebrity rehab center” in 2010 and now shares her “tips for staying sober with her ‘fans.’” The girl who became famous for being a fan of celebrities and taking this to an extreme, had now become someone with her own fans. This can serve as a critique for the state of celebrity culture in today’s society, that someone is glamorised in the media and portrayed as a celebrity when she is in fact a criminal, however this is not a new phenomenon, exclusive to the twenty-first century.

Mama I’m in Love with a Criminal

For almost as long as the idea of celebrity has been around, there has been a certain glamorising of criminals, such as in the case of Bonnie and Clyde, or giving them the same status as famous people, such as Charles Manson, Ted Bundy or Jack the Ripper. Though none of these criminals were treated as celebrities, or accepted as such by the media as the members of the Bling Ring, they have all become ‘icons’ of popular culture. They are not necessarily respected or admired, but they are treated as spectacles and remembered more as an image than as criminals, such as Bonnie and Clyde who are remembered more for the movies and songs that they inspired rather than their vicious crimes. This is similar to the Bling Ring who are not really seen as criminals, but as an phenomenon in celebrity worship. It is seen as comical or ironic that Neiers ended up in the same jail as the victims of her crimes rather than as frightening evidence that celebrity culture has reached the point where criminals and celebrities are interchangeable. Neiers, and to an extent Hilton and Lohan, are all, in ‘reality,’ criminals who were arrested for crimes surrounding burglaries, alcohol and reckless driving yet they are presented in the media as celebrity criminals. There is apparently a difference between the two, with the lines between them often being vague and a certain amount of glamorising at play, just as there was many years ago with criminals such as Bonnie and Clyde.

This glamorising leads to almost an aspirational aspect in celebrity criminality, as evidenced in a case of an online community of shoplifters, which have been referred to as “Tumblr’s Bling Ring,” another case of the Bling Ring crossing the line between reality and fantasy - they were now the ones that others attempted to emulate. This online ‘Bling Ring’ was composed of teens who shoplifted and bragged about it on Tumblr as a form of protest against capitalism. The teens interviewed in the piece on the online community of shoplifters also alluded to their desire for fame, with one stating that media attention has made them “famous, for free,” supporting the argument that certain crimes are ‘acceptable’ and can make you famous. They also reinforced how important clothing is in achieving a certain status, arguing that “in today’s society dressing like you’re poor and a bum will get you nowhere.” To reach the level of capital one earns from being a celebrity, the teenagers in the Bling Ring had to first partake in the spectacle of doing so, starting with their clothing. In the article on the online community of shoplifters, the author writes that “they don’t look like criminals. But they are,” highlighting how important looks are to portraying who a person is. This statement about criminals can also be reworded and applied to the teenagers of the Bling Ring, ‘they look like celebrities, so they are,’ they were, in fact, perfect simulacra. The Bling Ring are portrayed in this case as something that is admired and copied. They are even referred to as the ‘original’ Bling Ring, suggesting they are something which has copies, something famous which inspires others, despite the questionable reasons behind this inspiration. They are categorised the same as celebrity criminals such as Hilton and Lohan, or even Bonnie and Clyde, and just as in the case of their famous counterparts, the importance is placed on their fame, not their crimes.

In her book, Sales writes that “by the time I met Nick [...] he was already famous; or infamous, sort of [...] [he was] on the cover of the ‘Sunday Styles’ section of New York Times,​” a position one would assume was reserved for celebrities. Prugo had gone from admiring celebrities on the front of magazines, to being on the covers himself. Prugo was the first of the Bling Ring to ‘break’ and confess everything to the police, with officer Brett Goodkin, the lead investigator in the case, stating that “he confessed to crimes we didn’t even know he committed.” According to Prugo, “he could never remember the exact moment he and Rachel decided to start burglarizing the homes of celebrities; but once they did, they knew right away that Paris would be first,” with their reasoning being that “she was dumb” and that “Rachel wanted Paris’s clothes.” There was no real thinking behind their crimes, according to Prugo and the media, other than what celebrity they admired at the time. Prugo’s lawyer stated that “‘the kids, looking in, [saw] a lifestyle that they wanted to emulate,’” however they took this desire to ‘emulate’ to a whole new level. The kids ‘emulated’ the lifestyle that they admired so much that they did in fact enter into it. The inter-textual and extra-textual aspects of the case, such as the film, multiple media appearances and Neiers being placed in a ‘celebrity’ jail, combined to create a fabricated and hyper-real world for the teenagers. They had blurred the distinction between reality and fantasy, it would be easy to dismiss them as ‘wannabes’ who weren’t actually famous, as they hadn’t achieved their fame in a conventional way but people worldwide knew who they were, with huge media corporations reporting about them - it was ​The LA Times​ who dubbed them ‘the Bling Ring’ in the first place, therefore it is hard to definitively say that the teens are not famous. It is this blurring of boundaries between the concept of ‘fame’ and the concept of ‘celebrity’ that make cases such as the Bling Ring and other famous people who are arguably not ‘celebrities’ so interesting and complex.

The fact that the kids in the Bling Ring were all from a “affluent suburb [Calabasas] in the Valley” which was full of celebrities is also an interesting example of the crossover between reality and fantasy and extra-textuality in this case. Calabasas is known in popular culture as almost a haven for celebrities, if one googles ‘Calabasas and celebrities,’ a number of articles pop up detailing which celebrities live in the area and it is described in one article as “the gated community protecting America’s most watched,” an interesting statement when one considers the surveillance culture of today’s society which was what enabled the Bling Ring to access the celebrity homes in the first place. Interestingly, it is also a common ‘set’ for celebrity reality shows. ​Keeping Up with the Kardashians, is of course filmed there, as was a reality show centring around Britney Spears and “one of the first big reality shows” featuring a famous person, ​Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, ​starring actors/singers Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey. Sales writes that there had “never been a successful burglary ring in Hollywood before, and somehow it made sense that it would be a bunch of Valley kids.” Perhaps this is because these ‘Valley kids’ already had a foot in the world of celebrity. In a world where appearance is so important, the teenagers in the Bling Ring were already on their way to entering into a hyperreal celebrity world. They lived in the right place, partied and shopped in the right places, and wore the right clothes, the fact that the latter was through theft was insignificant. The members of the Bling Ring appeared to be celebrities therefore they were treated as such by the media. The teens were seen as both ordinary, celebrity-obsessed kids, yet they were also seen as celebrities. They were living in a hyperreality where a distinction between reality and fantasy could not be made.

Walk, Walk, Fashion Baby

As mentioned previously, fashion is often cited as the ultimate motivator behind the crimes of the Bling Ring, and it is interesting to examine how large a role fashion played in the process of choosing their targets. Prugo’s explanations behind their crimes suggest that they targeted people because Lee liked how they dressed, for example his explanation behind their robbery of actor Orlando Bloom’s home was that “Rachel wanted Victoria’s Secret model clothes” and Bloom was in a relationship with Victoria’s Secret model Miranda Kerr at the time. Perhaps then it is no surprise that when Prugo stated that “Rachel’s, like, biggest conquest was Lindsay Lohan.” his reasoning was that “it was her ultimate fashion icon.” According to Prugo, the members of the Bling Ring never discussed why they did what they did, they “just did it. I know it sounds dumb, but Rachel just wanted the clothes. She wanted to look pretty.”” Sales also writes in her book that Neiers remembered watching the girls in her school getting Louis Vuitton bags because the celebrities had them yet claimed her family could never afford them, Prugo later said that during the Orlando Bloom burglary Alexis “grabbed a Louis Vuitton bag,” perhaps living out her childhood fantasy. Jeffrey Rubenstein, Neiers’ lawyer, is quoted as saying “they’d say, instead of [...] getting a bag like that, I want ​that ​bag that Lindsay [Lohan] is carrying - I want ​Lindsay’s M​arc Jacobs bag,” and it is perhaps this quote which allows one of the best insights into the Bling Ring. The clothes were not just clothes, they were these certain celebrity’s clothes and it is that which made the difference. Did having ‘Lindsay’s Marc Jacobs bag’ allow Neiers and Lee get one step further to feeling like they were leading the celebrity lifestyle they so admired and wanted to be a part of, that they were one step closer to being the celebrities they loved? If this is indeed how the kids felt, then they were proven right, it was their dressing like celebrities, having their things, even if it was through robbery, that led to their notoriety, resulting in their fame.

Tell Her Everything’s Gonna Be OK

Despite the fact that, according to classmates of Lee and Prugo, “everybody knew what they were doing [...] they bragged about it,” it took almost a year before the teenagers were caught by the police and arrested for their crimes. The arrest allegedly came from an “unidentified tipster,” with the police claiming this tip came from someone who overheard them bragging about their crimes. Several members, including Lee and Prugo, had also been caught on surveillance cameras at both Patridge and Lohan’s homes, making it easy to identify them. Several days before they were arrested, Lee decided to move to her father’s home in another state, Prugo accompanied her to the airport and remarked that “she was, like, rolling Lindsay’s suitcase, wearing Lindsay Lohan’s purse and Lindsay Lohan’s clothes - she was just, like, fully Lindsay Lohan.” To use Baudrillard’s theory, Lee had become a pure simulacrum of those who she idolised. Celebrity culture in contemporary times has reached a point where anyone can be a celebrity and it is hard to decipher what is real and what is not. Even in the case of the Bling Ring it is hard to establish facts as most of the information comes from the members themselves, mainly Prugo and Neiers, much of which comes from interviews with Sales, meaning it is hard to know what is the truth. Many celebrities now achieve fame through reality shows, however the majority of these shows are scripted. This includes Neiers’ ​Pretty Wild, w​ith Sales observing that;

“on the afternoon of [Neiers’] arraignment, the ​E!​ reality crew was filming a scene in which Neiers’ parents recount for their younger daughter, Gabrielle, what happened in court that day. Neiers’ mother [...] and father [...] stood in the living room, taking direction from [an] ​E!​ supervising producer [...], who was feeding them lines: “Tell her, ‘Everything’s going to be O.K., Gabby.’”

The show was meant to be what was really happening in the Neiers’ household yet here was producers telling parents how to interact with their distraught child. Scripted reality shows have now become a recognised genre of television with shows such as ​The Only Way is Essex h​aving an announcement at the start of each episode to let viewers know that certain situations have been created for the sake of the show and reality talent shows such as ​Love Island c​onstantly facing scrutiny for being fixed for the sake of entertainment and to boost views. In the world of celebrity, even reality is not real, making it even harder to establish a boundary between real and imaginary. At the time of the Bling Ring burglaries, celebrities were now acting like real people [...] and real people were acting like celebrities and if they were acting like them, there is nothing to stop the ‘real people’ becoming celebrities themselves.

The events of the Bling Ring took place in a celebrity-obsessed, social media saturated world. When asked where the obsession with celebrities came from, Prugo replied “the media. The Internet.” Through sites such as TikTok and Instagram, fans are now able to feel closer than ever to celebrities, they see them in their homes, with their friends and family and in their day to day lives. This constant surveillance of celebrities can make them seem more ‘real’ whilst at the same time making them more distant to us. We see so much of them that they almost become a figment of our imagination, something that only exists on our phone or computer screens. Sofia Coppola refers to this “whole idea of narcissism and the reality TV and the social media obsession of kids of this generation” when discussing her film ​The Bling Ring, suggesting that perhaps it lead to “the entitlement that [the Bling Ring kids] thought it was O.K. to just go into these homes and take whatever they wanted.” Sales makes interesting observations about the celebrities that the Bling Ring targeted, writing that “not only were they rich and famous, but nearly all of them had been in movies or on popular TV shows about people who were rich and famous or ​wanted​ to be rich and famous.” Audrina Patridge for example, became famous after she appeared on ​The Hills,​ a reality show about ‘ordinary’ girls in their early twenties living in Hollywood, a similar premise to ​Pretty Wild. ​The final episode of ​The Hills e​nded with a suggestion that the entire thing was scripted and filmed on a film set, meaning that Patridge was a ‘fake’ reality star who became a ‘real’ celebrity, idolised by a group of young teenagers who fantasised about being famous and in carrying out their fantasies to extreme levels, achieved ‘real’ fame. This suggests to us that the division between fame and obscurity is an easy one to cross. Both the teenagers and some of their targets, such as Patridge, epitomise the idea of being more known for fame itself than what lead to achievement of this fame. Sales asserts that the majority of the Bling Ring targets were “a new kind of celebrity” who were “famous mainly for being famous.” It is this ‘new kind of celebrity’ that is largely to blame for the blurring of lines between reality and fantasy, resulting in a hyper-reality where the spectacle becomes the simulacrum and ‘ordinary’ people, such as Alexis Neiers, Rachel Lee and Nick Prugo, become the celebrities they so admire.

The members of the Bling Ring crossed a line between fantasy and reality through their crimes. The actions of the Bling Ring started out as an extreme form of celebrity worship but quickly became not only a criminal enterprise, but an example of simulacrum. The teenagers dressed like celebrities, lived in the same place as celebrities and appeared in the media, just as celebrities do, therefore they ultimately became celebrities themselves through a process of spectacle and simulation. The events took place in a society where anyone well-known, despite the reasons, was treated by the media as a celebrity, where their crimes are almost admired for being brazen and looked at almost comically. Contemporary culture celebrates bad behaviour, as can be seen in the previously mentioned examples of Hilton and Lohan. The multiple arrests of the two women served no hindrance on their careers, instead their stints in jail only raised their profile further, leading them to achieve the type of fame where they were idolised by young people, such as Neiers and Lee. In the eyes of the media, bad behaviour is good if it is something which can be discussed by them, something which can be either ridiculed or celebrated. The members of the Bling Ring experienced a combination of both but it can not be denied that whether it was in a positive or negative way, they were treated as celebrities. Celebrities within our current culture are seen as products to be examined and consumed, they have undergone a process of simulation which results in them being reduced to images, something which they then rely on to maintain their fame. They are viewed within the media as something to be looked at, not as real people therefore the crimes of the Bling Ring are treated by the media not as crimes, but as a cultural phenomenon instead. Within our current media saturated society, full of scripted reality shows and celebrities who are famous for nothing other than being famous, it can be hard to determine what is real and what is imaginary or created by the media and events such as the Bling Ring only serve to reinforce this blurring of boundaries between fantasy and reality. This blurring was made possible by the wider celebrity culture which it was a product of, a culture where a jail sentence can raise a celebrity’s profile or make someone famous, a culture where stealing from and breaking into celebrity homes can result in actually entering into the ‘real’ celebrity world.

Welcome back to this month’s round up of some of my fave bits and bobs I’ve read over the month of July. As always, this list isn’t exhaustive and instead just gives a glimpse of some of the stand outs. This month I didn’t do too great with my traditional media reading so pls holla at me if you have any suggestions of traditional media you think I’d enjoy (or books or substacks tbh, always open to suggestions!) Enjoy my recs below and please share what you loved reading this month!

TRADITIONAL MEDIA

“Dua’s The Planner, I’m The Vibe Curator”: How To Holiday Like A Lipa Sister - British Vogue

I mean, obviously? I will consume every bit of media by the Lipa sisters I can in the hopes of manifesting a life like theirs please. I’m really trying to hold back on mentioning my queen Dua here because haters gonna hate (my friend reading this will know this is aimed at her xoxo) but her sister in my mind is fair game!

As A Recovering Addict, Low Self-Esteem Is The Drug I Need To Quit Now - British Vogue

A desperately sad but eye opening read. Not the type of writing I expect to see from Vogue but a really good one.

“Who Should I Vote For?” Voters Turn to AI Before Casting Their Ballots - The New York Times

Help.

I’ve Been “Chronically Single” & I Feel Deep Grief - Refinery29

This feeling is such a hard one to articulate, being chronically single has to be one of the most misunderstood and isolating feelings out there. This read actually made me feel a bit emotional in parts as I could relate to it so much.

Who Gets To Decide What We Read? - Service95

Spoiler alert I read Free by Lea Ypi this month and it really got me thinking so much about censorship and control, especially as the right wing continues to insidiously restrict what people can and can’t read around the world. Big props to the Service95 team for all the work they’re doing to fight for everyone’s right to read whatever they want.

The History To Know Before You Read Lea Ypi’s ‘Free’ - Service95

I wish I had read this before I read Free as it would have given me great context for the book as I shamefully didn’t know a huge amount about Albania’s past before reading the book but I would still recommend giving this a read even if you don’t plan to read the book (although PLEASE read it as it’s really stuck with me).

When Is The Best Time To Talk Money With Your Partner? - Refinery29

This article sparked a lot of thoughts in my mind and I think I might do a full Substack essay fleshing them out. I’ve never asked someone I’m dating how much money they make and I’ve never really thought about asking either to be honest, but it actually is something that realistically we should know about someone we’re potentially spending our life with and it’s also something that’s probably better to know sooner rather than later. More thoughts coming on this soon I think.

Two Hundred and Fifty - The Paris Review

I’m not American and actually have never been to America to clarify but it was hard not to think of the land of the free this month thanks to its 250th birthday. I, like most of the world I imagine, have complex feelings about the US and can never fully decide how I feel about it over last ten years in particular (how has it been TEN years of his hell as a sidenote?!) but I really enjoyed this piece by the Paris Review delving into an American road trip. You know one of those pieces you really love but can’t put your finger on why? That’s me with this piece.

SUBSTACK

• The Guest List No. 3: Amelia Ward -

• Fashion or Surveillance? -

• does the publishing industry have a coolness problem? -

• How Lana Del Rey Redefined Patriotism -

• Why Harry Styles can wear a dress, why everyone thinks Mormon men are gay and why male actors are so needy. -

• Everything is Permanent -

• When God Was a Woman -

• “Glowing down”, beauty industry woes & the expense of… everything -

• we should be embarrassed actually -

• We’re getting older but we’re not allowed to grow up -

• The Lie We Bought From Carrie Bradshaw -

• why can’t we let women be friends... -

• Maybe They’re Not Performative and Maybe You Need to Challenge Yourself -

• Spreading Your Wings -

• The Uniform of the New York Columnist -

• how do you want to be loved? -

• dua lipa maxxing -

• I’m the villain in a Jacqueline Wilson book. -

• I’m So Full of Figs I Might Puke -

• Collected not Decorated -

• I Think We Might be Living in a Post Trust Society -

• you don’t need to be a “cool girl” -

• the savoir-faire behind Chanel and Charvet -

• This Week in Fashion Data #20/07 -

• Things AI could never do -

• karl lagerfeld was behind everything -

• Why It’s Ok To Mourn The Past -

• the paintings Jonathan Anderson commissioned before anyone had seen the clothes -

• Wait... Is the early 2010s considered vintage now? -

• Pop star moments I still think about -

• Andrew Tate never read the myth of Persephone, and it shows. -

• Everything the Women of Sex and the City Did After 30 -

• The Bagazine™ Issue No.9: London Edition! What Women Carry In Their Bags (And What It Says About Them) -

• Everyone said Chanel Couture was about Fairy Tales. Well, it was not. -

• 10 Summery Bits I’d Buy Again in a Heartbeat -

• 40 intellectual rabbit holes to fall into -

(Substack is doing a weird thing where it only lets me tag some people by the username and others by their publication name so forgive the disjointed mentioning above)

BOOKS

Widow Basquiat - Jennifer Clement

A memoir recounting the art scene in 1980’s NYC, recounting the life of Basquiat’s ‘widow’ (they were never married) Suzanne Mallouk. I really did not expect to love this as much as I did but I actually gobbled it up in a day! Loved the way it was written, flipping between first and third person narration, along with an almost poetic prose. I’ve never read a book with this style and I expected to struggle to follow along to be honest but I ended up adoring it. The part detailing the murder of young Black man Michael Stewart due to racist police brutality was especially heart wrenching to read, particularly as it’s something we just seem to have not moved on from as a society the way you would hope 40 years later. Would highly recommend this one and I’m dying to read the prequel, The Promised Party.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong

This book really affected me in a way I didn’t expect it to. I loved reading an account of life through such a different lens to my own and getting to see a glimpse into the immigrant experience. This book felt so honest and vulnerable, especially thanks to it’s structure as a letter the receiver will never read. Not my favourite book of the month but one I would definitely suggest you add to your list.

Trust - Hernan Diaz

One of my favourite books of the month and I think one of new all time favourites. Told through four individual books (a fiction, a half finished memoir, a completed memoir and a diary), the stories come together to form an intriguing narrative that really had me gripped and felt very original. I feel like this is going to be one of those books I tell everyone to read and I’m already dying to chat about it with someone so if you have read this please DM me!

Free - Lea Ypi

This book absolutely gripped me right from the start. A tale of a girl growing up in Albania in the 80’s during the fall of communism, it almost felt like reading a dystopian novel at first, it’s truly crazy to see how easy it is to indoctrinate children and even turn them against their family. It really made me think about what it is to be free and what freedom even means to me, and has really stuck with me since reading. Would highly highly recommend adding this one to your list and once you’ve read it listen to Ypi interviewed on the Service95 podcast - an incredible listen.

Tom Lake - Ann Patchett

I’ve heard so many good things about this book and was dying to give it a read myself. It took me a while to get into it but once I did I enjoyed it, even if it did take me a bit of time to make the final push to finish it. Not a perfect book, I found some of the flashback/present time flip flopping slightly jarring but a very sweet, easy summer read.

Summer of 69 - Elin Hilderbrand

I used to love an Elin Hilderbrand read during the summer and towards the end of the month I really just wanted something quick and easy to read while sunbathing in my parents garden so I downloaded this on my kindle purely because it was one of the few Hilderbrand books I haven’t already read. Honestly, I didn’t expect to enjoy this much because I had read such incredible writing this month, I thought this would fall a little flat in comparison but I actually hugely enjoyed it.

Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin

I read this book whilst in Paris this month and omg it absolutely destroyed me. It’s been on my TBR for so long so I picked it up last minute right before my trip as I love reading something that’s set in the place I’m travelling to and I thought it would just be a nice quick read, which it was, but it was so much more than that. A devastating story about queer love in a time which just couldn’t accept it and the fall out of a choice that impacts so many people. This book is one of those that sits deep in your soul for a long time after reading, beautiful yet heartbreaking, it’s an absolute must read.

Paris: A Literary Anthology - Zachary Seager

I won’t lie, I skipped some of the stories within this as they bored me lol. I got this last year in Shakespeare & Co but never read it so I brought it along with me on my Paris trip to get me in the mood. Maybe it’s because I also started Giovanni’s Room on this trip that made me completely lose interest in this one but it definitely felt like something I had to read rather than wanted to read.

Hour of the Star - Clarice Lispector

Honestly I’m not sure how I feel about this one I’ve been dying to read Lispector’s writing for so long so I picked this one up when I spotted it in a bookshop in Paris this month and was so excited to read it. I don’t know if it was the best intro to her writing, I honestly didn’t really know what was happening for a lot of the book but at the same time I really enjoyed it? It definitely made me intrigued to read more of Lispector’s work anyway, recommendations welcome!

• If I was rich, I would have the best collection of vintage.

• God her outfit is cool.

• Wait I need this croissant candle (Ed note: I did put this back in a show of real restraint).

• I could really do with a macaron right now.

• Oh I love her outfit.

• That building is stunning.

• Ugh I need to take a picture of this.

• If I lived here I’d be so happy.

• I wonder have any of these people featured in ’s posts?

• How are even the door handles beautiful here?!

• I don’t care how cliche it is, walking through La Marais with La Vie en Rose playing is pure happiness to me.

• God 18th century Parisians knew how to decorate a room.

• I love that everyone tries to sneakily take selfies in the ornate mirrors in museums.

• I would eat macarons all day every day if I could (Ed note: for my 21st birthday, my mam got me a huge tower of macarons instead of a cake and it was the best thing ever).

• That TikTok about Americans being loud in Europe really is so accurate.

• I wonder will I buy a vintage white blouse every time I’m in Paris? (Ed note: yes)

• Should I start queuing up outside Early June 15 mins before it opens? (Ed note: also yes)

• Why do all French girls look so CHIC?!

• Jesus this food is good.

• Jesus this wine is good.

• Should I walk to get some frozen yogurt for desert? (Ed note: yes x)

• So many people read physical books out and about here I love it.

• WTF do they put in their almond croissants here?

• That girls outfit is incredible/

• Is it a thing that in order to serve your food here men have to be hot???

• I think the Jardin des Tuileries is my favourite place in the world.

• Is that a huge crowd of hot fireman running towards me? I love Paris.

• Cafe Kitsune matcha is worth the hype.

• Wow the skincare really is cheaper here.

• Dalmatian!

• Maybe Parc Monceau is my favourite park in Paris?

• People having picnics in parks always makes me want to cry for some reason, maybe I should write about that.

• Twin mini poodles!

• Why is it that traffic lights seem to be just a suggestion here??

• That outfit! I need to try recreate.

• Actually I think the Jardin du Luxembourg is my favourite park in Paris.

• No one walks around this city with a coffee?

• I deserve one of these well dressed Parisian men.

• No wonder can get so much content out of people’s outfits here.

• Why are these babies crying? Kid don’t you know you’re in PARIS?! Time to practice gratitude x

• Hot man.

• Hot girl.

• Should I get a crepe?

• Wait have I never had a crepe in Paris that feels so wrong?

• The vintage shops in this place are my kryptonite.

• This city needs more corner shops.

• Walking through Paris listening to my ‘strolling the Seine’ playlist truly makes me feel high.

• I think the bikes here are scarier than in Amsterdam.

• How do I have signal underground on the metro?

• These fucking stairs at Montmartre kill me every time. Think you’re fit? Try climb the stairs at Montmartre.

• Crepe time!

• This crepe has the energy of food poisoning about it.

• Worth it to sit at the Sacre Coeur and watch sunset while I eat it!

• I love living in a world where there’s sunsets!!

• I wish people understood personal space!!!

• Is that someone singing the Emily in Paris song?

• Yes, yes it is. Slay diva I love that for you.

• What is in the lighting in this place why is it so beautiful!

• I could cry with how much I love this city.

• This is the best matcha I’ve ever had (Ed note: Cafe Nuances if you’re wondering).

• Need to remember to STOP getting up so early here because nothing opens early!

• People walking around Paris with a sausage dog - HOW DOES IT FEEL TO LIVE MY DREAM?

• I desperately want a mini green chair from Tuileries like they got as a Dior invite that one time.

• The queue at Notre Dame moves very fast for one of the most famous buildings in the world?

• The little shawl they give you to cover your shoulders at Notre Dame is low-key kinda chic.

• Paris has a very good matcha scene!

• I get so angry when people say Paris is overrated - beautiful buildings, great shopping, delectable food, incredible museums WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?

• I wish I was an American on Eurosummer.

• Do I regret not buying the Reppettos?

• Do I want a pair of Tabis?

• God my feet hurt.

• That outfit is so cute.

• It’s the summer of polka dots truly.

• Help why does this city love steps so much?

• Eating macaroons and listening to Champs Elysee are two basic af things that I will never apologise for in Paris.

• This whole city smells of Santal 33.

• I’d happily spend a whole day in Le Grand Epicerie if I could.

• Aw this waiter seems so sweet.

• Oh nope never mind he’s just a creep.

• Suppose not all of Paris can be perfect.

• Place des Vosges could be up there as one of my fave Parisian parks.

• Do I have time for one more matcha in Sevenly Heart?

• WHY has no one ever told me about Bobby before??

• That YSL jacket is coming home with me. Obviously.

• God I love Paris.

FIN!

I love the laughs I’ve had with friends sat at them, as the sun sets and rises all over again on summer nights. Stories told over and over as we spill far-too-strong homemade Sex on the Beach cocktails while leaning across each other to shriek with laughter.

I love the bbqs with family, the ketchup spilled all over the leg of those plastic chairs as my little brother had his first big boy burger and ended up with more of it on the outside of his stomach than inside it. The core memories that were formed out in that garden, when every chair was full, no empty seats at the table yet.

I love the DMC’s I’ve had tucked together on those chairs as dawn creeps in. In a random garden at a random after party with a random person who I swore was my new best friend, as we excitedly planned brunch for the next morning. I love that I never saw her again after that night, but we always have that moment together, on those chairs.

I love the sticky smell of coconut from suncream, with the tanning oil dripping slowly down the side of the chair as I drag it to the hottest corner of the garden to take advantage of a sunny day, determined to get those rare UV rays penetrating my skin, to take away the milky glow of my limbs and replace it with golden shimmer.

I love the shy kisses shared on those chairs on sweltering summer days. Hot, tipsy bodies milling around as we lose ourselves in our own world. For a few minutes, the garden only consisted of the two of us on those two chairs, nobody else, and what a gorgeous few moments they were.

I love the blades of grass stuck to the chair, after falling off my skin, damp from the paddling pool. Droplets of water, squeezed from my saturated t-shirt, soak the seat of it. The garden full of laughter and screams as the water gun war rages on.

Over the years the plastic chairs have been slowly replaced by fancier ones, suites of furniture with plush, weather proof cushions, egg chairs that float on the patio but for me, nothing will ever beat the cheap plastic chairs that were a mainstay throughout my childhood. Sitting on those chairs the memories were formed, the laughs shared, the tears shed, the secrets whispered, the hearts broken, the hope renewed, and for all of them, I will always love those plastic white chairs.

It feels important to clarify that I know the fashion industry and couture itself is laden with problems, I wrote about it in this post and this quote feels relevant to pull out again;

Sometimes, I just want to look at pretty clothes and escape into a fantasy world full of sequins and shoes with butterflies on them and luckily for me, that’s exactly what Matthieu Blazy and Jonathan Anderson have given us this couture season.

Like the rest of the fashion world, I am a massive fan of Matthieu Blazy and think what he has done for Chanel is outstanding. He has taken a house that has spent the last few decades being, dare I say it, boring, and transformed it into one of the most exciting brands on the calendar while also still feeling commercial- a hard balance to strike. Since he took over the house, I find myself living for their shows whereas over the last few years of Karl Lagerfeld’s tenure, by the time Chanel would come around as the closer of fashion month, I’d have been exhausted from a month of shows and bored by his offerings. Blazy is someone who so easily marries together excitement, beauty and function, seamlessly blending them into a gorgeous offering season after season.

His AW26 Haute Couture show was no different. Titled ‘Gaby and the Beanstalk,’ Blazy’s inspiration came from a fairy tale book he found in Coco Chanel’s apartment and the magic started right with the invitations - a mini book charm on a silver necklace, titled Once Upon a Time. The Grand Palais, scene of memorable extravaganza’s during the Lagerfeld years such as the supermarket of AW14, the rocket launch of AW17 and the SS19 beach, was re-imagined as a mystical fairy garden, straight out of a children’s book, as the guests stepped into Blazy’s Wonderland.

Blazy used classic house codes such as tweed to weave a magical story of fashion and fantasy - rows of buttons that turned from an ugly duckling to a swan, buttons with Puss in Boots, fabrics that evoked images of scarecrows from Oz and details such as charms and butterflies that looked as if they had been placed there by little singing bluebirds. Flowers climb up dresses like a beanstalk and hidden details appeared as if by magic. Blazy said while creating the collection he thought about his house founder and whether Gabrielle Chanel’s life had been a fairy tale - to go from an orphanage to one of the most iconic women of all time is no small feat, but to also show his refreshingly modern outlook, he twisted the most prominent fairy tale trope on it’s head. Instead of the traditional bridal look as a closer for the show, Blazy instead sent down a black off the shoulder dress (evoking images of a very real life princess) stating that ‘to close with that ‘revenge dress’ was the perfect summary of Chanel’s fairy tale. She never got married.’ With the state of modern dating, that sounds like a happy ending to me!

The other show from Couture week that I waited with bated breath to see was, of course, my beloved Jonathan Anderson’s Dior. I’ve spoke incessantly about Anderson on here and how much I adore him but suffice to say he simply can not do any wrong in my eyes and once again, he delivered yet another stunning couture show. Inspired by the work of sculptor Lynda Benglis, Anderson reminded us of the magic within art in all it’s forms with his latest couture offering. Like a wave of a magic wand, Benglis’s work transforms flat materials into 3D sculptures and Anderson does the same with his creations.

Rather than the fairy garden of Chanel, Anderson’s show felt a bit like a land far far away, drawing inspiration from Benglis’s long time relationship with India, bringing in rich fabrics and ornate detailing. He created a magical story of what the artisans behind haute couture can create with fabric. The way these incredible workers can transform sheets of organza, lace and leather into the mystical creations we see on the runway, is truly unbelievable and feels like a real life sprinkle of sorcery into the mundane of the everyday.

There’s probably no bigger cliche in the fashion industry right now than to say you’re a fan of Anderson or Blazy but I truly could not care less - they’re making beautiful, fun, inspiring clothes and really what more could we ask for from designers? Blazy and Anderson are two designers who consistently remind me of the beauty that’s out there in the world, that make me feel inspired again by the industry that has honestly worn me down after over 10 years working in it, an industry which can often feel like the root of so many of society’s problems, but one that we can’t help but love anyway. If fashion is a fairy tale, then perhaps Blazy and Anderson are our fairy godmothers and I for one can’t wait to see what wish they grant next.

A friend of mine is a personal trainer and she recently told me to stop taking creatine, that it was useless and she’d never recommend to her clients, but a few days earlier, another friend who’s married to a personal trainer told me I should be taking it, that her husband swears by it and tells all his clients that it’s a really useful addition to training. This was two personal trainers, both educated about the topic, both opinions I trust, both saying opposing things. In 2026, with all the different opinions you hear everywhere, both online and in the real world, how are you meant to know what you should be doing to be your best self?

It’s no longer enough to just eat healthy and move your body, we have to take the right supplements but not too much supplements, do enough exercise but not the wrong kind exercise, eat a balanced diet but it has to be specific food. We wear rings to tell us if we slept well, watches to let us know if our heart is beating faster than usual, apps on our phone to monitor if we walked enough. We track our macros, count our calories, weigh out our food to hit a protein goal. We’re adding supplements to our diet to hit the nutrients that are in the food we avoid out of fear it might up our cortisol or cholesterol or whatever it is we’re worried about this week. Even sleeping has to be optimised - sleep sprays, sleep gummies, sleep hygiene routines that take so long we end up missing out on an hour of sleep in order to complete them.

There’s also so many contrasting opinions - do low impact because high impact will raise your cortisol but if you don’t lift and do cardio you won’t see progress but this girl on TikTok got in the best shape of her life through solely doing pilates - so what exactly am I meant to do? Health these days can feel all about optics - we want to seem like we’re the healthiest we can be so we make vlogs of our routines that are exhausting us, show our supplement hauls that we’ve never even done blood tests to see if we need - but we’re forgetting to focus on if we actually feel the healthiest we can be. We’re spending hundreds on conditions we didn’t even know we had until the algorithm told us so. Tish Weinstock summed it up pretty well in this article from earlier this year (a long quote but bare with, it’s worth it);

Back in the 2000’s everything was fat free and sugar free, it was very clear we wanted to be skinny, not healthy and I don’t think anyone was pretending otherwise. You don’t need me to tell you skinny was the goal in the 2000’s, you’ve either seen the pictures of emaciated celebrities with their hip bones poking out the top of their low waisted jeans, or you lived through it and still have the scars to remind you. A box of Special K still makes me think of the ad on tv telling us to eat nothing but the cereal for two weeks before our holidays in order to get a beach body like wtf was that all about?!

Then came the 2010’s and the focus shifted from skinny to ‘real’ bodies (a whole other problematic way of thinking but let’s not even get into that right now). All of a sudden curves were in, we wanted big bums and it became a crime to admit you wanted to be skinny online. Our focus has shifted from sugar free, fat free, calorie free but don’t be fooled, we’re still under a spell of what we’re allowed eat - it’s just now shifted to protein and fibre instead of zero calorie yogurts. If anorexia was the biggest eating disorder women faced in the 2000’s, is orthorexia the defining disorder of the 2020’s? We pretend we’re focused on health and wellness, optimisation is the buzzword, but let’s be real - it’s still all about looks.

Not to bring everything back to Covid as it’s a whole rabbit hole I’d rather not go down, but I really do think that 2020 shifted something in us as a collective. We had never seen a mass health crisis on such a global scale before and I think it made people very aware of their health in a way we had never been, while also becoming very mistrusting of the health industry so of course we turned to trying to keep ourselves in the best health of our lives and where better to turn than all the thousands of friends we had made online while locked up at home?

It can often feel like wellness is an integral part of being a girl - just look at the clean girl aesthetic that dominates social media. So many influencers are linked to health brands - Mari Llwellyn with Bloom (a wellness brand that sells the likes of protein powder, greens powder and energy drinks), Grace Beverley with Shreddy (a fitness app and wellness brand selling wellness powders) and of course Kourtney Kardashian with Lemme, arguably the supplement brand for any self respecting wellness girlie. The It brand of the wellness industry if you will. Every day in a life video I watch from influencers is peppered with supplements, powders, workout classes, specific routines - it can feel like every minute of a girls day is supposed to be optimised.

And of course, us girlies can’t be expected to just use what the boys use! The pink tax is very much in effect throughout the wellness industry. The pink tax, for anyone who doesn’t know, is a well documented phenomenon where products being marketed specifically towards women are priced noticeably higher than the exact same product being marketed towards men. I was recently in a health shop trying to buy a protein powder (see I am guilty of falling into the wellness trap too!!). The shelves were full of black and white packets of protein powders, all relatively in line with each other price-wise, then I saw one that caught my eye - ‘peach mango’ flavour with a cute illustration of fruit and some flowers on it in a cute pink pouch. This one was nearly double the price of the plain black vanilla flavour beside it, despite both being the same serving size and having the same nutritional value.

The health industry is after all, an industry and industries have to make money, whether or not they’re marketing to men or women. Samantha Gavi wrote about the wellness industry here and made a great point that I haven’t stopped thinking about since;

there is zero incentive to make us well. there is every incentive to keep us almost-well.

There is no miracle supplement or gadget or food that can make you fully well, mostly because wellness is far to complex for quick fixes but also because it’s simply not in these companies interests to make you fully well - if you were then who would buy their products?! I’m not saying the health industry is a scam (fuck RFK JR and his MAHA ilk just as a reminder x) but sometimes we do need to take a step back and remember that the prime objective of these businesses and influencers is to make money and their focus is sell not well.

After years of being fine we now can’t get by without our expensive, multi step routines. And of course every solution to every problem costs money. Don’t get me wrong, I love a bit of wellness myself - I have a morning routine, I drink matcha, I wear eye patches, I try eat a balanced, healthy diet, I already admitted to falling victim to the odd wellness powder drink, I love getting outside for a walk. But something I have learned over the years is that simple really is best. When I was overthinking my routine, nothing was working for me because I was so overwhelmed by metrics and rules. Now I focus on simple, achievable goals that make me feel good - eating mostly whole foods, following the 80/20 diet, movement that I enjoy (ballet, pilates, walking) rather than what is optically the best for a hormone I’ve never even heard of before. Sometimes I’ll take some magnesium before bed if I really feel like I could do with a good sleep but I’m also just as likely to just go outside for a quick walk before bed to tire me out. I’ll take something like creatine if I’m doing strength work but I don’t freak out if I miss a day. I refuse to count calories or worry about macros - I focus on whole foods and just try to make sure I have a protein, a fat and a carb in each meal as much as possible.

I’m all for people focusing on their health and I love following certain health influencers but I think it’s so important for us to remember we’re humans. We are not a recipe to be followed with exact quantities that need to be measured out for us to function properly. Social media has made us all far too reliant on our phones and we have been made feel like we need an algorithm to tell us if we feel well or not. The best measure of your health is yourself (and your doctor of course if there’s something you really are worried about). A good rule of thumb is were you aware of the ‘problem’ before you watched the video telling you about the hundred quid supplement you need? Or the 50 quid workout class? If not, you probably don’t actually need it. How are we meant to be our best selves in 2026? Simple, by just being yourself.

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It’s been three years today since my grandmother died and even typing those words I can’t believe it’s been that long. It feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago all at the same time. I still feel the stabbing pain of grief the same way I did when I stood at her bedside in the hospital, holding her hand as she left us, but it feels like years and years since I have heard her voice, felt her hug. Grief is something every human will experience yet also somehow the most isolating experience I have ever gone through. Everyone I know has experienced grief in some way, but it felt like no one could relate to my exact experience. Losing a grandmother is not as devastating as losing a parent or a child or a sibling I know, but I was much closer to my grandmother than an average person would be. At times I feel like I was raised by two mothers - my mother and my grandmother - instead of a mother and father. She was more a parental figure to me than grandparent. Losing her felt like losing part of myself, and I still feel like I haven’t quite put myself back together, no longer am I whole, never again will I not be missing something integral to my being. Little did I know within the next four months I would lose both my grandfathers too. My parent’s parents, gone. My link to that part of the past, gone. My hopes for the future we would live together, gone. A part of me, gone.

I wrote the below piece when I was in the deepest depths of grief. I honestly don’t even remember writing it, those first few months were a complete haze. I’ve held on to it for three years, never really knowing what to do with it. Publish it or bin it? Re-read it or pretend it never existed? But recently I decided I want these words out there. They may not be the most succinct, the most beautiful, the most well-written, but they are probably the most raw and honest words I have ever wrote, and that feels like reason enough for them to live here.

‘Sorry for your loss’ the faceless relative sympathised as they shook my hand. I was numb, not taking in who the person was or what they said. I had gone through this process too often over the last few months. It felt like routine at this point - going to the funeral home, accepting hugs and handshakes and sympathy, all while trying not to look at the coffin in the corner, but of course, that was all I could do. Like poking at a wound, I couldn’t help but look at that corner, and feel the same words hit me over and over again, ‘dead, gone, dead, gone.’

I never understood the phrase ‘heartbroken’ until I lived through three of my grandparents passing away within five months of each other. Then, all of a sudden, I understood it too clearly. In my mind, my heart really did physically break, I could feel the fissure smack bang in the centre of my chest, could point out exactly where the crack was. The pain took my breath away and continues to do so almost daily, even though months have now passed.

Grief feels like being stuck in mud, unable to move, feelings of rage, fear and discomfort taking over your whole body. When you first get stuck in the mud, everyone rallies around to help pull you out, to offer words of encouragement, to bring tools to support. But after a while, when you’re still stuck and nothing they do is helping, they start to move on. Everyone goes forward but you’re paralysed. After a while it feels like life has gone back to normal, you have been forgotten but you are still very much stuck in that mud.

My maternal grandmother was the first real loss I experienced. I had lost other family members over the years - great grandparents, aunts - but none were as earth-shattering as this one. My mother and I lived with my grandmother until I was 11 years old and she continued to be a second mother to me until the day we lost her. She would look after me while my mother worked and we lived up the mountains with no other children nearby so for most of my childhood, she was my daily companion, my best friend. The bond I had with her is indescribable, as is the pain of losing her. She felt like part of me and the day I lost her, I felt that loss of part of myself too.

Since I was young I had feared the death of my grandmother, she was healthy for most of my life but in moments of anxiety I would spiral thinking about the day I would eventually have to say goodbye to her. But this felt far away, I felt she was safe. Until one day, with one dreaded diagnosis, she wasn’t. This fear I had always had buried inside me, suddenly came to the surface but nothing could have prepared me for what it would feel like when it happened. The future I had taken for granted - her helping me pick my wedding dress, seeing her hold my children, celebrating when I bought my first house - was gone and I could never get it back. When she died I compiled all my pictures of her into an album on my phone. 282 images. That’s all I had left of the person who raised me, shaped me, loved me into the person I am today.

In the first few weeks of grief, I read every book on the topic I could get my hands on, I was almost manic about it. I thought if I could understand it, see words that described my feelings, it would help. I don’t know if it did. I remember reading a lot that people eventually came to see grief as a companion in their life, someone who came unexpectedly into it and ended up staying with them forever. I do not see grief as my friend. I see grief as a dark shadow that follows me, penetrating into every happy moment, flourishing in every sad one. A friend is someone I’m happy to have be a part of my life, grief is someone I wish everyday was not.

So many different emotions passed through me during those first few weeks; disbelief, anger, pain, but there was an overarching sense of numbness, a lack of comprehension that this was my reality. A numbness that intensified when I lost my paternal grandfather three months later. My parents separated when I was young and I split my time between them. My father also lived with my grandfather until I was 11, coincidentally, so when I was with my father, I spent a lot of time with my grandfather too. My grandparents on both sides were just as big a part of my life as my parents so when he died, it was another deep blow. Two months after this, my final living biological grandparent, my maternal grandfather, beloved husband of my grandmother, gave up a long fight and said goodbye to us to go back to be with his wife. He had been sick for several years, so it felt like this one should have been expected, but it wasn’t. You’re never totally ready for the pain of a loss, no matter how long you’ve had to prepare, how much experience you’ve had with saying goodbye. A total space of five months between the three deaths. Five months to completely upend and transform mine and my family’s lives. Five months for a part of my childhood gone forever. Five months of relentless pain. The continuous knock of another stomach churning call to break the news, another funeral to attend, more hands to shake and condolences to accept. This shifted something in my psyche and I think my body went into protection mode, blocking out the trauma so that I could function day to day.

Because you do have to function and that’s one of the hardest parts about dealing with death. Your world has stopped, but the earth keeps on spinning. I remember being in a shopping centre the day after my grandmother died to find a funeral outfit. I felt like I was in a haze looking at all the people shopping, smiling, going on as normal. I wanted to scream at them, rage at them for the easy laughs. How could they not know about this cataclysmic event that had just rocked the world? Something terrible had shifted in the universe, surely a loss this momentous had affected everyone, the planets must be imbalanced? But it didn’t, it hadn’t, no one knew.

I was alone in my grief that day surrounded by strangers and grief has continued to be a lonely place for me. In my experience, kindness is abundant when experiencing death. People try to help, they tell anecdotes of their own experiences with grief, of how it gets better, but no one truly understands because no one has ever lived your life, lived your connection with the person who’s passed. Grief is something that every person on this planet will unfortunately experience at some point, the most universal human experience, but also the loneliest.

I now have two concepts of self. One before grief, one after. The before feels so naive to me when I look back. She had no clue of the visceral pain a human being could feel, the true depth it could hit. The after is all too aware of it. She sees the world through a different lens now, she truly knows the importance of appreciating your loved ones. Every time I see a child out with their grandparents or hear my friends talk about spending time with theirs, I get that familiar pang of pain, the reminder that I’ll never get to do that again. Silly things can set me off - Natasha Richardson has always reminded me of my grandmother so I can no longer watch the Parent Trap, without feeling my eyes burn with the heaviness of the grief begging to spill out of them.

I think this time of my life is when it hit me that everyone I loved would one day be gone. I had known this for years of course, it’s a fact of life we all learn early on, but it’s not until it happens to you that you truly understand it. I experienced waves of panic at the fact that I would have to go through this again, multiple times. This grief for my grandparents was so all consuming, so breathtakingly painful, so what would it be like when I lost my own mother? My father? My stepfather? My siblings? In the weeks after my grandmother’s death, I experienced regular panic attacks about this, only intensified as my two grandfathers also passed away. The constant death became almost a joke in my social circle, a way for my friends to try lighten the mood, a way for me to try make them feel less awkward around me, flippant jokes such as ‘I can write it, I’ve had enough practice writing eulogies’ - but none of it was funny. It was pain, pure searing pain that I think will last me until my own dying days. The only positive that came out of this, was it intensified my love for my family and friends. I realised that death can take a lot, but it cannot take love. The love I had for my grandparents has continued to grow every single day since they have been gone. Grief is love, I know this deep down, even though on hard days it does not feel like it. I have read many poems in which grief is revealed to be love at the end, saw all the Pinterest quotes claiming grief is love in another form. It does not make it easier to suffer through the ache of grief, but it helps me contain it and get on with my day.

Grief is still here with me every day, that unwanted companion I cannot shift. I’m still learning how to get through it, just like my family is around me, just like millions of people around the world. Everyone’s experience with grief is unique to them, no two people will go through the grieving process the same. I grieve for my grandparents differently from others in my family which can feel like going on a solitary journey at times, even though we are all going through it together and are all extremely close knit and supportive. My family is a constant source of comfort to each other but just as all of our connections with my grandparents were different, so too are our connections with grief. I cannot truly understand my mothers grief as she tries to navigate the loss of two parents just as she cannot understand how it feels for me to try to be strong for her while also trying to heal my own heart. Grief has strengthened our bond immeasurably as we try to fill the new empty spaces in our lives by knitting ourselves even closer and for that, I am grateful. Sometimes it can feel like it’s us against the world, us stuck in our mud pit while everyone else moves on, but once we have each other, I know one day we’ll make it to the grass again.

In loving memory, as always, of Maura, Tom & Frank. Until we meet again <3

Where Are All The Bellies? - Service95

A very timely piece if we take a look at the bodies currently being served to us on social media. Thin is very much ‘in’ it seems and it scares me to think of the damage this will do to young girls in particular. Adored the line ‘I think about who it actually serves to keep obsessing over my soft belly, and I realise it isn’t me’ in particular - something I’m going to try remember in future spirals!

The Emancipation of Morgan Riddle - Elle USA

Leaving aside the very questionable title, I really enjoyed this piece. I’m a big Morgan Riddle fan, I found her on Tik Tok pretty early on in her career and I loved watching her grow her platform to the huge success it is now. Her Youtube videos in particular are always well edited and engaging, and I find Morgan extremely articulate and witty. Growing up in the early 2000’s, I saw WAGs be absolutely derided and ridiculed as stupid gold-diggers and I loved watching Morgan turn that narrative on it’s head. Excited to see what she does next.

Alexa Demie, ‘Euphoria’s Most Elusive It Girl, Is Ready to Talk - The Hollywood Reporter

I would say I really like Alexa Demie but I actually know literally nothing about her which is why I loved reading this so much. A good glimpse into one of the most mysterious stars of Hollywood. Also, OBSESSED with her bringing an energy healer to the shoot? Huge me energy.

Constant Headphone Use Was Numbing My Mind - Refinery 29

I’m trying SO hard to get better about not constantly being plugged into my headphones, it’s such a bad habit and one I really want to kick. I need to brave going on a walk without them and just listening to the world instead of a podcast but that genuinely feels scary to me? Which is terrifying!?

AI executives make rare collective warning on bioweapons threat - Semafor

I truly just can’t with AI anymore. TERRIFYING.

Dua Lipa and Callum Turner Spotted in Italy - People

Honestly, I didn’t even read this. I just wanted an excuse to drop in something about Dua Lipa’s wedding here as it is ALL I THOUGHT ABOUT (as evidenced by my multiple notes on the topic). Please message me if you would also like to talk about it AT LENGTH because I am READY.

NASA to wear Prada as luxury group pushes into space industry - Reuters

Wild?! How am I just learning this now? I honestly feel like space tourism is going to be one of those things that our grandchildren can’t believe we didn’t experience at their age - like when you’re trying to explain Instagram stories to your granny. Now I have visions of me sitting in a rocking chair, telling my grandkids ‘I remember when the first Prada space suit came out!’ as they roll their eyes and go back to whatever robot friend they’re playing with that day.

The Terror Of Living With Immigration Anxiety - Refinery29

‘Can you imagine your cortisol levels rising while living as prey for animals everywhere you go’ - heartbreaking. A really upsetting insight into life as an immigrant in America. It truly disgusts me the way human beings are being treated worldwide simply for trying to build themselves a better life and I really don’t have any intelligent/coherent thoughts on the matter other than fuck ICE and fuck everyone who has contributed to the world turning out this way for innocent people.

What 6 Women Carried As They Were Displaced Across Lebanon - Service95

Sometimes there are truly no words. Harrowing, poignant, necessary - please give this a read.

A Week In Portland, OR On A $108,000 Salary - Refinery29

I LOVE a money diary and have been a fan of them for years. I love having a nose into peoples lives and spending habits, it so fascinating and they always make me think more deeply about my own spending habits. I’m forever threatening to write and submit my own money diary but truly I don’t think I can face that right now lol.

“It’s An Energy Thing”: Zoë Kravitz On Her Next Film, Having A Family – And Hating The Word Cool - British Vogue

I know she would hate me for saying this but Zoe Kravitz is just so cool. I’ve been a fan of hers for a few years now (along with her dad - his Paris house tour on AD lives rent free in my mind) so I loved this piece on her. Tish Weinstock (also known as on here) is another person I love to follow so I love that she wrote this piece. The concept of walking into a cafe and seeing these two sat having a chat is mind-boggling to me - jealous of anyone who was there that day!

The Sex Pistols Concerts That Changed British Music Forever, Fifty Years On - Air Mail

The Seventies is something that’s really inspiring me right now, especially band and groupie culture (more on this potentially coming soon) so I devoured this piece on Air Mail about the Sex Pistols 1976 concert. Recently a promoter on the Dublin nightclub scene passed away, someone who was integral to many of my favourite nights out of my late teens/early twenties and it really had me thinking about music and how important gigs and music are to who we become as an adult. Some of my favourite memories, the ones I’ll look back on when I’m eighty, have been in grotty basements of small clubs with small indie bands playing to a slightly uninterested but still dancing crowd. It’s wild to think that fifty years ago someone just like me was in that same position but that band happened to be the Sex Pistols.

That ‘70s Show - British Vogue

No link because this one was in the actual magazine sorry guys but your reminder to buy print media!! Like I said I’ve been on a major 70s kick recently so I loved this piece all about the watches of the 70s - dying to do a bit of a vintage jewellery shopping spree (hopefully in Paris next month?).

Squad Goals - British Vogue

Another one from the actual magazine but so worth reading this one online (link here). I was OBSESSED with the WAGs at the 2006 World Cup, I was only 10 and thought these women were the most glamorous, cool women I had ever seen in my life (the 2006 World Cup was also what started a lifelong love affair with Coleen Rooney for me - she’s still my girl shout out Coleen1) so I naturally adored reading Abbey’s first hand account of the whole saga. Sidenote but please listen to Abbey’s podcast Therapy Crouch with her husband if you haven’t already - they’re hysterical.

How Did Gilmore Girls Become About The Gilmore Boys? - Refinery29

I FINALLY finished Gilmore Girls this month (spurred on by the horror news that it’s leaving Netflix), after watching the show for years but never quite finishing that last season (mostly because I can’t stand any decision any character makes in the last two or so seasons so I just kept rewatching the first three instead). This piece by Refinery29 highlights how wild it is that on a show about the Gilmore Girls which centres around female relationships, we’re still hyper focused on the male romantic leads. Our society would never pass the Bechdel test.2

An Interview With Designer Dries Van Noten On His Next Move - The Gloss Magazine

Maybe I’m very behind with my fashion news but I had no clue Dries Van Noten was now working in curation! This piece gave a gorgeous insight into behind the scenes of the exhibition, along with a few interesting quips from the designer such as his thoughts on AI - ‘When I have a[n idea], I start with it and maybe then make my own changes because I get bored with it – and that is typical of human beings.’ I also now desperately want to go to the exhibition featured in the piece, The Only True Protest Is Beauty.’ Anyone up for a trip to Venice?

Over 20 Years Later, The Original British It-Bag Is Having A Moment - British Vogue

I may be biased because I finally got my dream Bayswater bag as a 30th birthday present this year, but I’m living for Mulberry getting its dues. When I got my first article published, it coincided with receiving a bonus in work, so I treated myself to a Mulberry Alexa and my 21st birthday present was a Mulberry Lily so I am a longtime fan of the brand and truly think it’s one of the most underrated designer brands out there. Their leather is timeless and beautiful and their bags are impeccably well made. So here for a Mulberry moment.

The Tumblr Girl (& Her Aesthetic) Never Really Left - Refinery29

I was a hardcore Tumblr girl back in the day (RIP toxic-mode you will always be a part of me xoxo) and it’s still so wild to me that people are now romanticising an era I actually lived through?! Surely I’m not that old yet?! My 16 year old sister will often say to me how lucky I am to have been a teen/early 20’s for the Tumblr era and to that I say… really?! My trauma says otherwise.

How The 'Book Boyfriend' Went From Cringe To Cool - Refinery29

I’m working on a piece about books being cool again (what an original concept!!) and loved this piece from Refinery29. I remember when it would have been seen as absolute freak of the week behaviour to wear a t-shirt with ‘I prefer my book boyfriend’ on it, but now I often hear the coolest girls in my fashion job chat about whether they’re a Rhysand or a Xaden kinda gal. Spoiler alert for the piece I’m writing but I’m so here for it!

Have I been influenced, or is this actually me?’ How personal taste fell out of fashion - The Guardian

I wrote here about how I sometimes feel like I don’t even know what I like anymore because of The Algorithm influencing me and here about TikTok influencing my personality so I really enjoyed this piece that delves a bit deeper into that line of thinking. It really makes me sad to think how homogenised we’ve all become and how rare real uniqueness is - BRING BACK THE QUIRKY GIRLS PLEASE! It can sometimes feel a bit doom and gloom reading about how no one has a personality anymore but I do actually think it’s important for us to have an awareness of this - as this article points out, 90% of what you see on the internet is advertising in disguise and the more awareness we have of tactics like clipping3, the less susceptible we’ll be to falling prey to the sales pitch. The parts around AI really depressed me, as does anything to do with AI tbh, but overall I did enjoy this one.

A Diary From the Psychic Capital of the World - The Paris Review

I was genuinely captivated by this piece. There was something very haunting about it, in a good way, but maybe that’s because I’m also going through a grief journey and would love to attend something like this to get a chance to speak to my loved ones again.

Inside Eileen Kelly’s Whimsical, Pattern-Happy Los Angeles Home - Vogue

I want to live in this house please!! I love when rich people rich correctly and have fun houses instead of something that looks like a stone maze. The floral wallpapered ceiling in that bedroom and the kitchen PLEASE give it to me!

Like last month, I won’t delve too deeply into each Substack as I know there’s a lot but please do give them all a read as they’re all really incredible writing!

• the intimacy of bringing your book everywhere -

• My Greatest Fantasy is Owning My Own Home -

• Your Life Feels Boring Because You’re Not Dramatic Enough -

• All The Cool Girls Are Reading Books Again -

• I Miss The Magazine Era -

• Q: why is the older half of Gen Z so obsessed with infantilizing itself? -

• grief is alive and breathing because the person i lost isn’t -

• june, july and august are meant to be your most pleasant, lush and delicious months -

• Je ne sais quoi (and you don’t either) -

• summer as ritual + my summer ins and outs -

• Is American Psycho Satire Anymore ? -

• I watched Paris get ready on a Friday evening. Here’s what I saw. -

• why do we all want to do life like dua lipa? -

• why liberal feminists can’t make sense of bonnie blue -

• befriending children, overindulging on rhubarb pastries, and I am a terrible bouncer -

• A Small Exhibition of Summer -

• All of the ways my friends encourage me to be a better friend -

• The kids can’t read, but it’s OK because Dua Lipa winked at Patti Smith -

• Peptide chaos, influencers, and the rise of uncanny wellness -

• Love Island’s Jasmine Muller and the Problem With Outspoken Women -

• I want my finger callus back -

• If You Feel Lost in the Modern World, Read an Old Book -

• a love letter to women everywhere: on the alchemy of female friendships -

• Wonderful Wednesday #126 -

• The Year I Stopped Moving Forward -

• We all judge other people’s shopping trolleys -

• Careful babe, your misogyny is showing on national television -

• Where There’s Smoke... There’s Fyre Festival.-

• Every Single Girl I’ve Ever Thought Was Cool Pt. II -

• Ever heard of normal-maxxing? -

• Beautiful dead girls & their digital ghosts -

• The Upper East Side At 4:35 PM -

• 8 facts that stuck with me after seeing the Frick’s tiny show about big bows 🎀 -

• I’m Glad I didn’t Marry My Mr. Big -

• i spent a year at the college that inspired “the secret history” -

• in my solitude -

• Three years later the backlash to the Barbie movie is just as relevant as ever -

• How to have the BEST summer !!! -

• dua lipa’s wedding dress mystery is finally solved -

• I yearn to be in a relationship. There, I said it. -

• Are We Renting Our Reputations? -

• Notes From a Heatwave: Systems that Don’t Work, The Death of Spring, and Everything is Sticky -

• How to harness that seductive feeling of nostalgia for good -

• Hol Harland: Maybe we’re giving taste too much credit -

• Fendi’s Greatest Strength Is Also Its Biggest Risk -

• Keeping Fashion Human -

• The Thinning of the American Mind -

• Is being hot the key to success? -

• The Rise of the Post-Breakup Woman -

• your younger self survived many small ends of the world so that your present self could exist -

• The Cultural Rebrand of Sunglasses -

• confessions of a chronic people pleaser -

• Alex Cooper Hasn’t Interviewed One More Black Girl, But That’s Not the Point -

• Stop running; queer people aren’t chasing you -

• why do people hate readers? -

• A Year And A Half On Substack. This Is What I have learned. -

• the politics of unattainablility -

• Up to Date: The June Issue -

• A Guide to Dumped Girl Summer -

• My Great-Grandmothers Would Think I’m Fabulous -

• Why does writing on substack feels like sending a risky text -

Call Me By Your Name - André Aciman

I truly do not have words for how much I adored this book. I read it while in Italy which seriously impacted the magicalness of it all, but oh my god I haven’t had a book strike me quite like this one in a long time. Perfectly encapsulates that feeling of falling for someone and being absolutely infatuated by everything they do, I feel like we’ve all been Elio at one point or another and the beautiful prose of this book really draws you in to his world. Please please read this one, especially if you’re a fan of the movie!

Didion & Babitz - Lili Anolik

I really don’t know how I feel about this one. I did enjoy reading it but it was SO heavily biased towards Babitz that it genuinely made me slightly uncomfortable? I felt like I couldn’t fully believe anything the author was saying because she was so blinded by Babitz love. I would recommend if you’re a fan of either writer (maybe more of Babitz than Didion) but would also recommend taking it with a pinch of salt. I did however adore the below quote from Babitz and couldn’t stop thinking about it afterwards;

Preach Eve!

The Rich Boy - F Scott Fitzgerald

I’m a big Fitzgerald gal, always have been, always will be, and I love his short stories in particular. The Rich Boy was a super quick read, I read it in a day while I was recovering from being knocked down by a bike (lol) and it’s truly classic Fitzgerald - glitz, glamour, rich people behaving immorally, all narrated to us by an outsider. Definitely worth a read for anyone looking for a quick, fun read.

May Day - F Scott Fitzgerald

I actually read this one the same day (told you they were short) and unfortunately I definitely didn’t enjoy this one as much. Don’t get me wrong - it’s still a great story and well written (obviously) but it just didn’t grip me as much as some of his other writing. In saying that, it’s probably Fitzgerald’s most overtly political writing and so much of it can still be applied today. You’d think as a society we’d have moved on from WWI times but apparently, it seems not.

A Certain Smile - Francoise Sagan

I read Bonjour Tristesse by Sagan last summer and absolutely loved it so I was excited to read A Certain Smile. When reading BT I found the main character both completely unlikable and thoroughly endearing and Dominique in A Certain Smile is the same. I wanted to shake her when she’s being ridiculous but I also found myself rooting for her. You can both tell the author is young because she writes thing so purely from a young persons point of view, yet also her writing talent seems to be from someone much older. I really want to read more of her work - it’s so perfect for hot, hazy summer days.

How Do We Know We’re Doing This Right? - Pandora Sykes

I’m a huge fan of Pandora since The High Low podcast days (RIP to the High Low, I would sell my soul for them to bring this back). I like that she always acknowledges her privilege, it makes it easier to enjoy this book which is coming from quite a privileged place. The chapter on wellness I particularly loved, especially when it theorised that wellness has replaced religion in young people’s lives - I definitely see that for myself - I write manifestation lists while holding crystals and lighting incense under a full moon as a form of prayer and feel comforted by the universe like some would by God. I found all the essays in this one well written and enjoyable, a nice, easy read by a gorgeous writer. You can also read Substack if you want more from her - I would highly recommend!

Just Kids - Patti Smith

I haven’t technically finished this book but I do think I’ll finish it tonight AND I have read it before (twice lol) so I’m including it anyway. I re-read this one because I’ve decided I want to read every book on Dua Lipa’s Service95 book club list and then listen to the corresponding podcast episode and I started with Just Kids because I already own a copy so it seemed easiest. I adored the podcast episode with Smith, it was gorgeous to hear her talk about this book and how much it means to her. If you haven’t already read this I really have nothing to say except go read it immediately - one of the all time greatest in my opinion. A stunning love letter to New York, the 70s, Robert Mapplethorpe, friendship and art itself. A must read.

I really hope you enjoyed this month’s reading round up - please let me know in the comments below if you’ve read any of the above or if you have any recs for me! <3

PS: Take a shot every time I mention Dua Lipa either in this post or in a note this month! Dua pls don’t get a restraining order I beg x

Hustle culture is not exactly an under discussed topic. Personally I’ve read hundreds, if not thousands, of hot takes and discourse pieces about hustle culture - from the girl boss She-EO era (vom) to the anti-hustle, worry about your cortisol thinking starting to become the mainstream, it feels like everyone has thoughts on working and hustle culture. But sometimes I can’t help but wonder, why do we put SO much focus on working?

It feels like work has always been a prominent aspect of popular culture. The 2000’s rom-com movies always glamorised the career girl - Devil Wears Prada, How to Loose a Guy in 10 Days, 13 Going on 30 - and were responsible for a whole generation of girls growing up dreaming of becoming women who strutted around the office in a pencil skirt, takeaway cup of coffee in hand, ready to tap away at their computer while flirting with the guy across the cubicle and laughing with their chaotic yet loveable bestie at the water fountain.

I remember growing up seeing tabloids absolutely berate Kate Middleton for not working. She was lambasted in the press for being Waity Katie - the implication being that she just sat around waiting for Prince William to propose for her, instead of doing something worthy of a future Queen like getting a job (I don’t remember seeing reports of the hours William himself spent slogging away in an office but that’s a point for a different day). The ridicule around Kate Middleton for not working really stuck with me, and as I grew up I thought the worst thing someone could be was lazy, someone not willing to slog away at work and climb the career ladder.

I see a similar attitude now towards influencers - rage pieces about how influencers do no work yet live a life of luxury and look, to a certain extent, I get it. I’ve often sat at home with friends, exhausted from a particularly draining day at the office and been in a rage after opening my phone to see yet another influencer on a private jet (paid for) to a tropical destination in an outfit worth hundreds that they’re being paid to wear, all in exchange for a few Instagram pictures and a Tik Tok miming along to a sound from a 90’s tv show, something I do unpaid in my spare time anyway. I get it, it’s so unfair and there’s a lot with influencer culture that I really don’t agree with but something I do think is quite unfair, is the assumption they don’t work. I’m not saying they have the hardest job in the world (and I really do roll my eyes at the ones who act like they do) but they do work, just in a very different way to most of us and is that such a bad thing? Not to sound very Marxist old man shouting at cloud, but don’t hate the influencer with the easy job - hate the system that made it so not everyone can afford to live that way.

Dua Lipa is someone that I always think of as living the ideal life. I know it’s become a joke to say her job is to be on holiday, but from Instagram at least, she really does seem to be living the dream. Successful career as a pop star, but also perpetually in glamorous locations, working on her newsletter or book club, surrounded by friends. Yet I would never say Dua Lipa doesn’t work. I don’t know the reality of the situation of course, but I can’t imagine you get to Grammy nominations without a bit of hard work and grit. It just doesn’t seem like her work consumes her like it does so many other artists (and people with normal jobs too!) where you see so many end up hospitalised for exhaustion. (For a way more articulate and thought out take on Dua and her dream life, please go read Madison’s piece from last year - SUCH a good read that I still think about all the time!)

I’ve been quite lucky with work, I’ve always worked within the fashion/beauty industry which was the industry I wanted to be in, and I’ve always had a relatively good salary, have a decent pension, had pretty good luck with managers and have had some incredible experiences through my job. I’ve travelled from Paris to Barcelona to Thailand to China with work, often getting to travel business class, and have a job that I know many would regard as a dream job. But I still feel like my job is in no way part of who I am. The only compliment I have ever received in work that has stuck with me is that I am a good manager. Colleagues that I have managed have said I made their days easier, that they don’t dread coming to work anymore and that is what resonates with me. Nothing to do with my actual job, just who I am as a person.

I don’t want to sound ungrateful or spoiled or a privileged brat, I know I am so unbelievably lucky to be in the position that I am, but I truly just do not enjoy working, have no desire to spend years climbing the corporate ladder and really do not align my job with who I am as a person at all. I hate when people ask ‘what do you do’ and I have to answer with ‘beauty buyer.’ That’s not what I do. What I do is spend time with my family and friends, I write, I do ballet, I read books and substack articles, I try new restaraunts, I facetime my friends that live abroad, I watch old fashion shows on Youtube,I go to pilates, I try to strength train, I walk in the park, I swim in the sea, I live my life but no one is asking that. They are asking what I do between the hours of 8-5, Monday to Friday, and the answer to that is, I am a beauty buyer. So that’s what I become.

Hustle culture is my genuine worst nightmare. I truly feel it’s such a con that we have all been made feel like it’s aspirational to be burning ourselves out, working overtime, working hours we’re not paid for, missing out on time with friends and family all to climb a non-existent career ladder, to make money for a life we’re too busy working to live.

Recently I had a small jaw surgery and had to take a few days off work. When I went back, a colleague asked if I was well enough to be back, as I was still in quite a bit of pain. ‘Oh it’s better to be in here than sitting at home!’ that age old adage we all churn out when we go back to work when we really shouldn’t be in there but why has it got to that stage? Why do I only have a certain amount of days in a year we’re allowed to be sick? I can’t plan my sick days the same way I can plan my holidays, I can’t tell my immune system that it’s time to get it’s shit together because I have no more paid sick days, or that I’ve been away from my desk for too long. It’s so insane to me that this has become normalised to us, that we don’t see an issue with pushing ourselves when we’re sick just for the sake of a job that sees us a number and nothing else.

A group of friends and I were recently talking about what we’d do if we won the lotto. I immediately had a full plan laid out (pop off Virgo rising!) - I’d buy a house near my parents so I had a home base but would immediately move to Paris and set up a ballet studio while writing freelance and maybe doing a Pilates teaching course. Basically, I’d dedicate my time to my hobbies. Everyone else had similar answers, no one’s was related to an actual job that they’d feel forced into just to earn a living, but no one wanted to laze around doing nothing all day. All of us had ideas on how we would fill our days with activities or passion projects, things that fulfilled us rather than drained us, but it was clear that working isn’t anyone’s dream life, so why do we get offended when someone is open about not wanting to work?

When I think of my dream life or where I want to be in ten years, I never think about work. I want a family, a happy home, to feel safe and loved, I want to sit in my garden in the sun and watch the flowers I planted grow. I want to read books written by the greats and see the seven wonders of the world. I want to laugh with my friends and spend time with my parents as they grow old. I want to be a part of my siblings adolescence and adulthood, watching them grow from teenagers to adults. I want to get up early and get outside for a walk, to swim in the sea at sunset, to take ballet classes and let my mind pretend I’m a principle on stage at the NYC Ballet as I struggle to land my pirouette.

I don’t really get jealous when people talk about loving their jobs, but I do get jealous when people talk about loving their life. I’m sure it’s lovely to feel fulfilled by your 9-5, but for me it’s the hours outside of work that I focus on, and it increasingly feels like there’s not enough of them. I’m not saying I want everything handed to me, but I don’t see work as a big part of my personality. Maybe it’s because I don’t feel super passionate about my current job, if my job was something I’m passionate about - writing or ballet for example - maybe I’d feel different. But maybe not. I’ve read stories of people who went self employed to pursue their dream and ended up crippled with debt or stress, returning to the corporate grind in order to afford to survive. Or people who ended up losing their passion once it became their source of income. I recently read a substack by Ria where she spoke about going freelance and she wrote the below;

The cost of living was what drew me back from reaching that euphoric state

It really stuck with me long after I read the piece. That money was what stopped her feeling happy when she was ‘living her dream’ and the unfairness of it all just struck me. That we have to choose between happiness or stability. All of a sudden I feel like that Karl Marx guy may have had a point.1

If you were to ask me my dream life, I’d say happily married with children, living in a nice house with a garden, and spending lots of time with my family, hosting Christmas in my house, running errands with my mam, watching my siblings with my children, having time for my hobbies. A job is simply not something that occurs to me when I think of my dreams. If you instead asked me what would be my dream job, I would probably say a freelance writer, because I love writing and I want to be my own boss, in charge of my own schedule. But I know the reality of being freelance and self employed is far from a dream. The truth is, none of my dreams surround work and this makes me feel guilty, less of a feminist. I know women before me fought so hard for the right to work, that there are still women out there fighting for that right, and here I am lazily dismissing it as something I’m not bothered by. I know 99% of us have to work. I know it’s not realistic to expect otherwise, a Utopian dream to say I just want us all to be able to do what we want all do and somehow still have enough money to live. I’m fully aware of all of this, that I sound a bit like a petulant child whining about not wanting to go to school.

But I think my point is more about reframing how we think about work and the culture surrounding work. The thinking that you can only be driven and ambitious if it’s related to what pays your bills. Ambition is not a word I often associate with myself but in actuality, I am ambitious. I want all of the dreams I spoke about above and I am ambitious enough to make it happen, I just don’t have ambitions when it comes to my job. I want my job to pay my bills and not consume my life, I’d like to be content going into work every day, but I don’t want to be consumed by my job. I’ve often felt like this lack of drive in my career is lack of purpose, but I do have a purpose in life, my purpose just isn’t related to my career and I’m starting to think that’s ok.

For context, I am a big vintage girly. I worked for a vintage fashion company for my first big girl job straight out of college and I absolutely adored it. I loved learning about how to identify ‘good’ vintage and my years there really helped me refine my vintage shopping tactics and how to spot good pieces (top tip - it’s all about the fabric, let this be the first thing you check!!). Nothing thrills me more than vintage shopping and the thrill of scoring a good find. Every time I snag something particularly incredible, I think how excited I am to pass this down to my future daughter one day (if they make it that far - my sister has her eye firmly on half my wardrobe) and to tell her about the stories behind each piece. I think that’s why Eugenia’s Tik Tok resonated with me so much - it’s exactly the future I imagine myself sharing with my daughter (or my sister!) one day.

It’s also so much more fun to have a story to tell when someone asks you where something is from, for example, which of the below intrigues you more?

Oh my god I love your coat! Where is it from?

Zara!

or;

Oh my god I love your coat! Where is it from?

I got it from a vintage store in Paris on a trip with my sister back in my twenties!

If you’re anything like me, you immediately want to hear more about the dress from the vintage store in Paris - what store, how much was it, what was the story behind the dress, do you know what era it’s from? Leaving aside the environmental impact of fast fashion as that would be a whole different post, I truly just think vintage is so much more interesting and my ever growing collection of vintage pieces is truly something I’m so proud of and the first thing I would grab in a fire. Below are some of my favourite vintage finds from over the years to hopefully inspire you to go out on your vintage journey and just to share the love of beautiful clothes.

21st Birthday Dress

I think this was one of my first vintage finds and 9 years later it is still one of my ultimate favourites. I found this in the vintage section of an Urban Outfitters and I was obsessed the minute I laid eyes on it. I think it was around 80 euro which at the time was a huge investment for me but I couldn’t say no to this. I wore it for my 21st birthday and to this day it’s my favourite outfit I’ve ever worn.

Burberry Trench Coat

A Burberry trench coat had been top of my wish list for years and I found this one in the most random place ever - a small village in England. My mam and I were on a trip to Brighton in England and we took a day trip to a small village called Lewes - sleepy, gorgeous, quintessentially English, but not where you would expect to do incredible shopping. We were walking past a charity shop and one thing about me and my mam is we cannot pass a charity shop without going in so of course we had to make a stop in and waiting there for me, freshly put out on the rail, was this beautiful Burberry trench for an absolute steal of a price. Your sign to always have a look in a charity shop, you never know what gems lie within.

Silk Scarves

I have been a silk scarf girly since I started working in vintage and they’re my favourite accessory come the summer months. Wear it as a top, dress, sarong, headscarf, necktie, around your bag, as a belt - the options are literally endless with these guys and they’re always SO cheap in vintage shops. I have a trunk of them in my room and I don’t think I’ve ever gone on holiday without at least one in my case. When I have my Big Girl House I’d love to frame some of the particularly beautiful ones, they just look so cool.

Burberry Blazer

This was actually a present from my incredible boss at the vintage company. I had worked a weekend helping her get ready for an event and as a thank you she gave me this blazer that we had just gotten in a stock delivery. I cannot explain to you how often I have worn this guy, it’s the best night out jacket and looks so cool with a dress and boots. This one is actually a mens suit jacket but the fit and quality is just unmatched. I’ve debated a Frankie Shop blazer over the years but I really don’t feel I need it when I have this one in my wardrobe. Charity shops always have similar blazers for great prices so definitely have a look there if you’re in the market for something similar.

White Blouses from Paris

Something about me is I am simply not coming home from Paris without a white silk blouse. The vintage shopping in Paris is truly incredible whether it’s high end designer vintage in Le Marais (my faves are The Room and Fancy Vintage Paris) or bargains from Guerrisol (they’re all over the city, go into all of them that you see!) or Free P’Star (the Rue de la Verrerie location is my fave) it is, in my opinion, the best place for finding gorgeous pieces. There’s something about these little white blouses though that just catch my eye and I cannot leave without one. They’re usually around a fiver too which means it really would be rude not to. My favourite thing to wear with some light denim in the spring and so cute over a bikini in summer too.

Versace Blazer & YSL Shirt

These two were Christmas presents from my mam, she found them online which is a good reminder that vintage shopping doesn’t have to be in person! It was actually a brick and mortar vintage store’s online site so always check to see if the store you’re in has an online presence too. Lots of vintage sellers sell via Instagram too and of course Vinted, so that can be a great resource if in person trawling through rails isn’t your thing.

Gold Brooch

A bit of a rogue one but I found this in a little vintage shop in Paris and I love it so much. Vintage accessories are the best way to bring some fun and interest to your outfit. Brooches, jewellery, hats and bags - there’s so much options with vintage accessories and you can get them for so cheap too, I think this brooch was about 20 euro but the joy it brings me every time I put on my coat is priceless.

YSL Coat

One of my ultimate finds that I don’t think I will ever get over. This January I took my sister to Paris for her sixteenth birthday, a dream come true for us two Paris fanatics. It was our first trip just the two of us and we just had the most incredible time ever - we went to Versailles and fangirled over Marie Antoinette’s bedroom (we’re HUGE Sofia Coppola girlies), ate baguettes under the Eiffel Tower and drooled at the Dior museum. On our last day we went to Le Marais to have a mosey around the shops and it was in The Room that I found this YSL coat. I had no intention of buying anything but then I tried it on, fell in love then heard the words ‘2007 Runway’ and I was a goner. Technically this one isn’t actually vintage yet (anything 20 years old counts as vintage if you didn’t know that already!) but it’s close enough and it’s my prized possesion so I’m counting it. Being in Paris with my sister will forever be one of my core memories and I love that this coat will always make me think of that time (Alex, this coat is yours one day - promise!)

Baseball Jacket

This isn’t something that I necessarily wear that much (although I do get multiple compliments every. single. time. I wear it so maybe I should whip it out more) but I love this one more so for the memories that it evokes. I got this jacket on a trip to Amsterdam with my mam, her best friend and her best friends daughters. On our last day I dragged everyone around the vintage stores (incredible btw) and I bought so much that we all had to wear multiple layers of my vintage finds on the plane home as it wouldn’t fit in our carry on luggage. We laughed so much this trip and every time I wear this one it brings me back to those days - the real magic of vintage clothing.

Dior Blazer & YSL 3 Piece Set

My newest acquisitions and the reasons I’ve imposed a spending ban on myself for the foreseeable future, these babies are the result of a newfound love affair with Vinted. I hadn’t really spent a lot of time on Vinted but recently I was recovering from a jaw surgery and found myself with a lot of spare time so, after running out of scrolling options, I moved on to Vinted. I spent some time searching specific terms to try curate my algorithm on there and it’s worked so well that I’ve since had to silence notifications from the app in an effort to stop buying things I don’t need (I absolutely do need them xoxo). Vinted takes a bit of effort to get into but once you've nailed your algorithm, you’re flying. I searched the word ‘vintage’ followed by specific items or designers I was interested in and favourited anything I liked so the app could understand what I was looking for and boy did it deliver. I clicked buy on the Dior blazer before I even had time to think because I just fell so in love so fast but the YSL set I was a little bit more sensible with. I saw it, hearted it, thought about it for days on end, saw the seller lowered the price, offered an even lower price, got that accepted and then bought it. A good reminder that if you cannot stop thinking about something, it’s probably right for you and that sometimes good things (or discounts) come to those who wait.

Vintage Kimono

This is one of those pieces that I honestly don’t get enough wear out of but I love owning it purely because it’s so insanely beautiful. It looks so cool with a jeans and t-shirt but I also love it as a light cover up on summer evenings. Styling suggestions welcome on this one please!!

Max Mara Blazer

This blazer is actually linen which means I wear it SO much for the transitional months. Whenever the weather is a bit iffy - not quite cold, not quite warm - I love pulling this one on. A dream purchase for me would be a big Max Mara coat so this feels like a step in the right direction!

The below pics are all full vintage outfits, every single piece in these outfits (down to belts and accessories) is from a vintage or charity shop and the majority of them were under 100 euro. Festival season is coming up and it it truly one of the worst culprits for impulse, fast fashion purchases that are worn once before ending up in a landfill - please consider shopping vintage this festival season - it’s so much easier AND cheaper!

I really hope you enjoyed this peek into my vintage collection and that it inspires you to go out and search for some second hand jewels. Please leave any incredible finds you have in the comments while I try to avoid Vinted and eBay to save my bank balance!

xx

As I grew up it felt like the Olsens were the only childhood love to grow with me. They’re ten years older than me (they actually turn 40 today - June 13^th, their birthday is one of those dates that will forever stick in my mind) so they felt like the perfect mix of old enough to aspire to, but not too old that there felt a huge gap. Their clothes just got cooler and cooler, I loved their older films (Holiday in the Sun?? The Challenge??) and as the internet got more and more advanced, I got to see more of their personalities through interviews. There was an MTV documentary called Secret Lives of the Olsen Twins and I LIVED for when MTV would show re-runs of it (this was when we had to actually watch things as they were on tv - no on demand, what a time). I just thought Mary-Kate and Ashley were the coolest people ever and I wanted to emulate them as much as I could.

A big part of being a Mary-Kate and Ashley fan in the early 2000’s was the question are you a Mary-Kate or an Ashley? Mary-Kate was sporty, wore blues and greens, didn’t care about school and just wanted to have fun. Ashley was girly, wore pinks and purples, studied hard and wanted to talk to boys. This formula was repeated over and over in their films and photo shoots of the twins and I firmly believed as a child that this was their real personalities. But was it? Was Mary-Kate actually the rebellious twin, or did the powers that be just want one twin to be the ‘good’ one and one the ‘bad.’ Another interesting aspect to consider is that Ashley’s character was usually seen as boring or frivolous, the butt of the joke made by the much cooler Mary-Kate – particularly in the show Two of a Kind. How much of this seeped into our minds as pre-teens, leading us to view girliness as something silly, to be laughed at? Leaving us wanting to be ‘one of the boys’ like Mary-Kate was, clearly much cooler and admirable than silly Ashley painting her nails and reading a fashion magazine? For what it’s worth, I was always an Ashley.

In 2007 the twins launched their fashion brand Elizabeth and James, named after their brother and sister. I was 11 and just starting to dip my toes into the world of fashion, I loved looking through my mam and grandmother’s magazines and looking at what the celebrities were wearing. Elizabeth and James became THE goal for pre-teen me, I wanted to own something from the brand so bad and I spent hours scouring the internet to find pictures of the collection. Looking back, Mary-Kate and Ashley were stepping more firmly into the fashion world at the exact same time I was starting to get interested in it, which just further solidified my interest in them.

As a teenager, I was all about the indie boho look – Sienna Miller, Kate Moss, Nicole Richie were all people I looked to for style inspiration but of course the queens of the looks were the Olsen twins. Oversized sunglasses, oversized handbags, oversized scarves – all Olsen boho-era essentials that still stand the test of time in my opinion. They perfected the boho vibe and they were a huge influence on how much I now love vintage. I always remember Mary-Kate wearing vintage to the Met Gala in 2011 and just thinking it was so cool that she had chosen vintage instead of a flashy designer (I know now her vintage outfit probably actually cost more than the new designers worn by others but the point still stands!) Their Met Gala looks in general live rent free in my head – I really don’t think anyone has ever done it better and I dream of the day they come back on the carpet (PLEASE save us from the boring bodycon forced upon us every year).

Elizabeth and James filtered out of my consciousness to be replaced by The Row and oh my god does The Row occupy a lot of my brain space. Extortionately expensive but extortionately well made, I long to have even just one piece in my wardrobe from the elevated essentials brand. It’s cool, it’s understated, it gives off CBK vibes (another style icon that I have wrote about here). It’s so different from the boho vintage style the Olsens had in their late teens/early twenties that I first fell in love with, yet somehow still makes total sense for them? I know the brand gets a lot of criticism for being ‘too exclusive’ and too expensive and maybe I’m clouded by my Olsen devotion, but part of the circus of it all just makes me love it even more for the twins. For their whole lives, the whole world had complete access to Mary-Kate and Ashley, so I kind of think good for them for making one aspect of their work harder to acquire. (Same point stands with their films which are near impossible to find online but please god can some streaming service give them a massive pay out so I can watch Billboard Dad whenever my heart desires?!)

I also think it makes total sense that the Olsens would start a brand like The Row as they stepped away from the spotlight. The Row is all about blending in to the background, there’s nothing flashy about it, nothing that makes you stand out. The clothes are designed to fly under the radar, just like the twins themselves. I love that The Row isn’t necessarily associated with the Olsens, it’s become it’s own thing outside of their star power, a testament to their work. Just like they inspired us to collect CDs (Brother for Sale anyone?) and books and dolls in the early aughts, they now inspire us to collect coats and t-shirts and bags. (Full disclosure I have never and probably will never own something from The Row, let alone a collection but a girl can dream!) To some – myself included – a Margaux bag from The Row would be a better acquisition than a Birkin (cheaper too!). It’s also easier as The Row doesn’t play the game Hermes does with it’s bags – if you can afford a Margaux and it’s in stock, it’s yours! No invitations and games of cat and mouse with sales assistants, it feels like the Olsens are above that, like they don’t care about their status, they just want to make nice clothes.

Even after 40 years in the spotlight, it still feels like we know nothing of the Olsen twins personalities. They’re mysterious, an enigma and aren’t even spotted in public that much anymore (except for the iconic cigarette breaks outside The Row offices). Online forums are full of speculation about what the twins are really like – are they rude? Polite? Who knows?! I have so much respect for the way Mary-Kate and Ashley handled their adult life and the step back from the spotlight. Unlike many other child stars, they rose above the power and pull of fame, instead choosing to focus on their craft and live (relatively) normal lives as far as we know. So many of my own fashion memories over the years are linked to the twins – cutting pictures of them out of magazines and sticking them on my walls, dreaming of being able to wear the polka dot halter neck dress Mary-Kate wore or the silver scarf wrapped around Ashley’s head, to now as an adult drooling over The Row cashmere knits that cost more than my monthly rent, - the one thing that has remained is the twins behind it all, the influencers before there were influencers. Recently I took my younger sister to Paris for her first trip there. The night before our flight, we lay in my bed and watched Passport to Paris on an old dvd player and while we were there, we recreated some scenes from the film on an old vhs camera I had bought. So silly but one of my most special memories with my own sister, based on the sisters that felt like family as I grew up an only child. From Two of a Kind to The Row, the Olsens have worked hard to forge their own path, long since evoking a cult-like following among women of all ages and you know what, I am proud to be one of their most loyal followers.

One look at pop culture shows you there is something about a group of four girls that instantly draws us in - Sex & The City, Girls, Desperate Housewives, Pretty Little Liars, The Golden Girls, The Cheetah Girls, Bratz (does this count?!) the list goes on. It’s reminiscent of the Hype House type content that we saw at the start of Tik Tok and of course the OG YouTube groups of the 2010’s such as O2L, The Sidemen etc. Groups of content creators that would come together, often living together, to create content across their individual social media accounts along with a joint channel, drawing in huge audiences. The draw to group content is even seen with solo influencers like Alix Earle - people tend to love her content with her friends, with her friends and sisters now amassing huge followings of their own. There’s something about groups of friends that draws us in so much, maybe it’s a way of feeling included - like being in a group chat.

As online content starts to replace traditional television shows (according to Ofcom, less than half of 16-24 year olds now watch tv weekly, spending just 20 minutes daily watching live tv versus 1 hour and 33 minutes watching online content such as Youtube or Tik Tok), it makes sense that it starts to replicate the tv format of the past. We crave the familiarity of a tv show , but we simply no longer have the attention span (or the time) to watch a 60 minute show at a certain time - we want it accessible at our fingertips, at a time that suits us. The 4 in the 5 content is even accompanied by the iconic SATC theme tune, immediately drawing us in with the familiarity and the signifier that this will be about girls living life in The City - we know what to expect and we know it will be something we like, purely based on that music alone. Comments on the group’s videos are also full of comparisons TV shows - followers saying they’re happy they found them in season one, saying their favourite show is on, calling for Netflix to pick them up as a show - it’s clear this is where modern audiences are now focusing their attentions.

The 4 in the 5 also tap into a key aspect of attracting a young, predominantly female audience - four distinct personalities. We want to feel like we belong, we want to be able to identify ourselves (hence why you immediately identify yourself as a Carrie, or a Marnie, or an Aria, or now an Yvanna) and with four different personalities, you’re more likely to find one you click with. Four people also equals four different potential audiences which leads to a huge opportunity for growth. Every video on the 4 in the 5 account is flooded with comments saying who is who - Yvanna is such a Charlotte! Drew giving major Miranda vibes! - and with people identifying themselves with one of the girls, who have now become characters in our lives just like Carrie Bradshaw.

The general narrative around the 4 in the 5 seems to be that it’s something fresh and new. We’re bored of seeing privileged white girls going to pilates and doing Chanel hauls - it’s exciting seeing four young ambitious women working and the fact there’s four of them sets them apart from other ‘day in my life working in an office’ content. As a white woman, I don’t feel I can speak on this particular aspect but I have also seen countless comments exclaiming how incredible it is to see Black women succeeding so well on social media, with many saying the girls are inspiring them to believe that it’s something that may be possible for them too. As we are all more than aware, representation matters and I don’t think we can underestimate how important it is for young Black girls to see women like the 4 in the 5 absolutely smashing it in what has traditionally been a very white dominated influencer space.

The 4 in the 5 feels very strategic and planned (I mean that as a compliment to be clear), you can tell these girls are good at making content and are thinking about what they post while still keeping it very authentic and refreshing. Not only do they have the hook of the group, the polished editing, recognisable voice over, they’re simply just the type of girls that inherently draw you in. I see myself in each one of them like I see myself in each one of the SATC girls. I want to watch more of them because within them I see a potential version of myself (if I lived a muuuuuch cooler life) but also because when I watch them I see four girls who genuinely seem to like each other. In such a false online world (at times) it feels novel to watch a group of best friends who haven’t been manufactured for content (a la the Hype House) or who only met through content creation, these are four girls who are friends first and content creators second. The world, both online and offline, can feel bleak at times and sometimes you really do need that boost of inspiration, a reminder that things can be ok and that’s what I felt when I binge watched all the 4 in the 5 videos. A reminder that we can work hard, have fun and build the lives we dream of, all with a little help from (3!) friends.

Romy was born in Sydney, Australia where she grew up before moving to the UK in 2010. In 2016 she started training in Ballet West Scotland (she’s gone in depth on this on her podcast episode here if you would like to hear more about that experience) before embarking on her professional dance career. On her social media accounts, she details her experience as a freelance dancer and I adore her honesty. She never sugarcoats anything, showing the hard times but also constantly reminding herself (and her audience) the magic of dance and what an incredible world it is to be part of. In 2020 Romy started The Hard Corps Podcast, where she has interviewed the likes of Luna Montana, ballet content creator and Chloe Misseldine, professional dancer with American Ballet Theatre. With The Hard Corps Podcast, Romy has created a gorgeous community of dancers who have candid and eye opening conversations about everything they experience in professional dance - from the struggles to the successes, without feeling exclusionary to those of us who don’t live within the dance world, the conversations are inspiring and motivating with lots of take aways even for someone who can’t tell their plie from their pirouette.

Romy was kind enough to let me ask her a few questions about her journey to date and I really think there’s something for everyone in our chat below. Whether or not you’re interested in ballet, Romy has some great advice for anyone interested in freelancing, social media or just generally trying to figure out your path in life. I hope you enjoy it and please show Romy some love on social media!

What drew you to ballet originally?

ROMY: I genuinely think it was something like Angelina Ballerina!

I know you’ve said in the past you didn’t always plan to be a professional dancer - when do you think that shifted and is there anything in particular that made you change your mind?

ROMY: I think it shifted at 13/14. I started to get more attention and validation and I’m sure I’ve chased that. But also having someone believe in you goes a long way and gave me the momentum to try!

You’ve mentioned previously you didn’t take ballet very seriously until around the time you went to ballet school, do you ever regret not living that very intense ballet childhood that a lot of dancers experience? I ask because I did ballet as a child, quit at age 12 then took it back up at 29 and I have a lot of regrets about quitting and not taking it more seriously, so I’m interested to hear your perspective on this as someone who did end up going professional and living my dream as such!

ROMY: Ooh I mean, I often think and hope that if I did it intensely, I’d actually be where I want to be and dancing in a company by now. But on the flip side, I could have quit because it may have been too much! I don’t really know but definitely some stronger foundations in technique, pointe work and being pushed in my flexibility would have probably been a good thing. I spent so much of my years at ballet school catching up and still feel like it to this day. But then again, ballet is a pursuit of excellence and the bar continues to be raised the better you get. There were so many moments in my teens where I wanted to quit because it felt so hard and I felt so behind, but I’m so grateful that I didn’t and that I continued to challenge myself and expect more from myself because it’s given me so many incredible experiences and friendships!

How did you end up in London for work?

ROMY: I moved to London in 2022 because I knew my base had to be in a city that allowed me to continue training and be part of the industry! I had just got off a plane from visiting family and Australia and rang my mum to say I wasn’t getting the train back up to Leicester and stayed in London with a friend until I found my footing.

What was the process for deciding to go freelance as a dancer?

ROMY: Funnily enough I never decided to go freelance, I just haven’t been able to break into a ballet company yet. And I guess I’ve just tried to make the most of life and dancing while I still chase that goal. The freelance life found me I suppose.

In an ideal world, leaving aside ‘real life’ aspects such as money and stability, would you prefer to be in a company or freelance?

ROMY: Right now I’d say a company, because it gives me everything I want artistically. Freelance life can be a mix of jobs and that challenging in a different way to performing different rep. But maybe I’ll change my mind once in a company for longer than a couple of months.

How do you balance all your jobs and how do you stay motivated as a freelancer?

ROMY: It’s changed over the years! Now that I’m fully self employed I have a lot of flexibility, but setting boundaries and being strict with my time is important. Motivation is tricky, it goes up and down but I think having in mind the greater goal and being kind to yourself is so important. I’ve tried to just focus on being consistent rather than perfect.

How do you keep a work life balance when your work is such an intrinsic part of who you are?

ROMY: That’s really hard for me. I think balance is one of my biggest challenges, and I try to think that it comes in seasons. Some months ballet and training is everything, and I kind of shut off from social things, but I’ve tried to train my brain that that thought process isn’t always productive. I definitely tie my worth with my productivity and how good ballet feels at that time, however having a strong support network to talk about these things with is vital.

What is your favourite part of your current job?

ROMY: I think the full flexibility, trying to enjoy the fact I have full autonomy over my working week. Being able to see my friends on a random Tuesday is amazing.

Is there anyone out there that you would look to as a role model - either in a career way or just life in general?

ROMY: I feel extremely grateful to have such an incredible support system in my life - my mum, my boss (Helen at Imperfect Pointes) and the incredible friends within the industry who push me to be better every day. I love Patricia Zhou and Emma Grede and hope one day to be a mix of the two haha!

In a job like yours, you have to be very self motivated - how do you keep up that motivation?

ROMY: Focusing on the bigger goal, staying consistent, remembering my why are all the things I remind myself. Also allowing my brain and body to rest so I feel like I can show up as my best self. Validation in the studio is also a huge motivator and I love to prove people wrong lol.

Thank you so much to Romy for chatting to me <3 You can follow Romy on Youtube, Tik Tok, Instagram and listen to The Hard Corps Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

TRADITIONAL MEDIA

I really need to get better at reading traditional media sources (if you have any good ones you like to go to PLEASE share with me) but the below is a round up of some of my fave articles I read this month from the bonkers (a celebrity impersonator cruise?!) to the beautiful (looooots of gorgeous Met content).

‘Do I Put Sleeping Beauty on My CV?’ Ballet dancers on their next steps, from midwifery to the House of Lords - The Guardian

Loved this peek into ballet dancers who moved on to new careers - a nice reminder that our paths can change and evolve as we grow. In particular this line really struck me - ‘it’s as if my body used to have 10,000 words in it, and I feel like I’ve only got 1,500 now.’ - how sad to lose your way to communicate, a language you can no longer speak.

I Tried to Go to Every Single 2026 Met Gala After-Party - Vogue

A fun glimpse into the Met Gala after party world and a reminder that everything is not as glitzy and fun as it seems.

With ‘Costume Art’, the Met makes a case for making fashion diverse again - Wallpaper

Sorry for more Met content but it definitely consumed the first half of my May. I loved this look inside the exhibit as someone who doesn’t live in NYC and unfortunately won’t be able to see it in person. Reminder that the Met Gala is actually about the exhibition and preserving the art and stories the fashion industry has to tell!!

Mayo Clinic AI helps specialists detect pancreatic cancer up to 3 years before diagnosis in landmark validation study - Mayo Clinic

Nice to see some positive outcomes from AI, although I really hate to say anything in support of it as I am literally the world’s biggest AI hater (post on this coming soon I think).

How Jeff Bezos Broke Into Fashion’s Inner Circle - The Wall Street Journal

Ew. That’s all.

The Devil Wears Prada Inflation Index - The Cut

Absolutely insane to see how much costs have gone up in 20 years - will I ever own Chanel boots?

The Story Behind Emma Chamberlain’s Hand-Painted Gown For The Met Gala - British Vogue

Still going with Met Gala content I fear but this was one of my fave looks of the night so I enjoyed getting to see the little behind the scenes look at it.

I Go to Latin America for Healthcare Because I Can’t Afford It in the US (& So Do A Lot of Americans) - Refinery 29

The American healthcare system is so insane to me as an Irish person. So so scary and highly ironic that a country that loves to demonise Latin America is now running there for healthcare.

Book publishers sue Meta over AI’s ‘word-for-word’ copying - The Verge

Fuck AI.

The enduring chicness of the ‘too many books’ aesthetic - House & Garden

‘Books and more books make a home’ YES!

Hobbies May Be the Key to a Satisfying Life. Here’s How to Find One - Time

You already know how I feel about a hobby.

Wish You Were Her - N+1

Bonkers. I want to go on a celebrity impersonator cruise please. (Sidenote the mention of a Guinness spiked with a Monster Energy literally destroyed a part of my Irish soul. WTF is that abomination?! Is that a thing?!)

“I Have So Much To Say”: Model Of The Year Anok Yai Gets Real On The Fashion Industry, Fame And Facing Her Own Mortality - British Vogue

I watched Anok Yai’s day in the life video with Vogue on YouTube and thought not only was she insanely beautiful and captivating, she just seemed so cool and I wanted to know more about her so I was eager to give this a read. I didn’t know about her health struggles and found it very inspiring to read her attitude towards this. The line ‘I remember thinking, ‘If I die right now, everyone’s going to just wake up tomorrow morning. The sun is still going to go up and life is going to continue’ genuinely gave me chills, it’s a feeling anyone who has experienced grief knows well, the shock that life is continuing as normal, but I never thought about from the perspective of the person who’s dying. I love a model who’s not afraid to speak up against the toxic aspects of the fashion industry and think she seems like an incredible role model for young girls.

Celebrity Podcasts Were Never Meant To Be Journalism - British Vogue

I really loathe seeing influencers being given positions that should be going to hard working journalists like hosting on a red carpet. Journalistic opportunities are getting fewer and far in between - it’s simply not fair to give this out to influencers who haven’t put the work in. Journalism is a skilled job that you have to study and/or put a lot of graft in for a reason - hosting a podcast isn’t as simple as asking questions, that’s just having a chat. If you’re interviewing someone you should be researching, asking interesting questions, creating a conversation of substance, something a lot (not all!) of these influencer podcasts are lacking. Ironically, I would have liked this article to go more in depth and be a bit more researched about celebrity/influencer podcasts. The writer had an interesting hook but didn’t really go deep enough for me.

The Use and Abuse of Joan Didion - The Hedgehog Review

Shockingly enough for someone on this app, I am a huge fan of Joan Didion’s writing and did indeed devour The Year of Magical Thinking when I was deep in the depths of grief - how original! I have a lot of thoughts on how people mythologise Didion and the likes of Eve Babitz that I can’t really succinctly put them into words yet but this article does seem to be along the lines of what I’m feeling. The line ‘the only use that the image of Joan Didion serves is that of nostalgia, and perhaps an indeterminate yearning for some other kind of life’ struck me as Didion really has become an aesthetic rather than an author in a sense, it almost feels like you don’t have to read her books to be a Didion Girly online. I have Didion & Babitz packed in my beach bag ready for my upcoming holiday to Italy and this article made me slightly wary to read it with it’s disdain for the book - I’ll report back next month with my thoughts!

SUBSTACK

This portion of the list is hefty as Substack is admittedly where I do most of my reading these days. It feels more personable than traditional media, I can see a lot more of myself in the writing and then often I find something so un-myself that it inspires me. I’m aware I’m linking a lot of articles here (there’s a lot of good writing on this app!) so I’m not going to go into depth on them but rest assured I really adored every piece on this list and they all really deserve a read!

• The Devil Doesn’t Actually Wear Any Prada -

• Worrying About Being Cringe Is Cringe -

• sidewalk cardboard, my acting debut, and mama needs her sparkle back -

• wtf is a thought daughter -

• carrot juice and never-ending capitalism -

• Met gala metrics -

• marriage material: the cool girl wedding and the politics of stability -

• Can’t talk, I’m busy lying to men I’ve just met -

• the ballerina farm of it all -

• the dumbification of girls, vol, 2 -

• 2 Girls 1 Book: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke -

• After the Bezos-Sponsored “Tech Gala,” What’s Next? -

• Confessional art, arty couture, and many martinis - my 21 hours in London. PLUS! An exclusive interview with Daniel Roseberry -

• Why does no one read Vogue anymore? -

• The Met Gala’s Identity Crisis -

• why you shouldn’t peak before thirty -

• Paris Street Report 08: What Parisian moms are wearing for spring -

• Is Hedonism having it’s comeback? -

• beauty & the beastification of women -

• “I’m just a girl”is weaponised incompetence” -

• Romantacism in the digital age -

• Can the Andrew File Get Any Worse? -

• pro-choice but never a choice? the romantacism of pregnancy in gilmore girls. -

• Stop Bothering Mediterranean Grandmas -

• on de-centering men without shaming women -

• Where Are the Rock Bands? -

• A Journal of Ghosts -

• The cool girls are angry, btw -

• Guy’s Guys Can’t Be Hearthrobs -

• Why has the high street become so high fashion? -

• but what if the audience is stupid? -

• Everyone Hates Fangirls (Until They’re Right) - (I tried to keep this solely to substacks actually published in May but this was SO good that I had to sneak it in)

• We Were Never Meant to Know This Much About Each Other -

BOOKS

It was a bit of a slow book month for me this month. I’m in a serious reading rut and I thought some lighthearted reads would lift me out of it but nothing is hitting quite right. This isn’t an exhaustive list of the books I read in May but just the ones that stood out for better or for worse.

The Devil Wears Prada - Lauren Weisberger

I’ve definitely read this book before but for the life of me I couldn’t remember it at all. Disappointingly, I really didn’t love this, which I hate to say as such a die hard fan of the film (I wrote about the sequel here if you missed it). I found Andy very unlikable, to be honest I found most characters very unlikable, there were some very dated parts which really didn’t age well, many parts dragged and I found myself skim reading just to get through. Overall one of those rare cases where the film is actually better than the book.

Black Swans - Eve Babitz

I’m a big fan of Eve Babitz (duh) but I’m also going through a bit of an obsession with cool LA girlies at the minute (think Hadley Greene vibes) and I knew one of Babitz’s books would scratch that itch. I absolutely loooooved Black Swans, like I love any of Babitz’s writing that I’ve come across, and it definitely gave me that casual, cool, Chateau Marmont, listening to old Lana del Rey vibe (do you see the vibe? the vision?).

Slow Days, Fast Company - Eve Babitz

I hadn’t got enough Babitz after Black Swans so I pulled out my copy of Slow Days, Fast Company to do a re-read. Again, I just love Babitz’s writing and the short story format which makes this book so easy to fly through. It just makes me think of summer and lazy days in vintage lace. My fave story of the lot is Bad Day in Palm Springs if you were wondering.

Yesteryear - Caro Claire Burke

Like the rest of the world, I devoured Yesteryear this month - the night I started it I ended up reading the first 15 chapters in one go because I was so hooked and had finished the book by the next night. I truly hated the main character but I couldn’t stop reading - unusual for me as I normally don’t love the trope of an unlikable main character (one of the reasons I couldn’t fully get into My Year of Rest and Relaxation!). The twist at the end was great too, really unexpected which I loved as usually I can guess a plot twist a mile away. One of those books that I think will stay with me for a long time.

A very different post from me this week but I hope you enjoyed this little reading round up and it inspired you to pick up a book, kindle, iPad, magazine, phone - any way you’re reading is good enough in my book!

All through school I was consistently top of class in English, one of my English teacher’s absolute pets (she got emotional on my last day of school) and I just simply found the subject so easy. Writing and reading comprehension just came naturally to me and I felt I could always easily understand Shakespeare’s plays while my friends all seemed to struggle. Then I went to college where I studied English, Media & Cultural Studies for my degree and everything changed. I was young as it was, only just gone 17, and my course was full of mature students ranging from their late twenties right up to eighties. They were all also extremely intelligent and I felt I was way in over my head. I no longer answered questions or felt confident in my abilities. I didn’t enjoy writing as much because I would compare myself to the other students, feeling my work was nowhere near as good as theirs, that they understood the reading material so much more deeply than I ever could, feeling inferior when they’d discuss their sophisticated ideas while I could barely keep up. Now as someone hitting 30, I feel so sorry for 17 year old me. Of course these students were better than me – they had more reading experience, life experience, writing practice. They had lived life outside a classroom, formed their own ideas and had time to digest the theories that I was just being introduced to. But at the time I couldn’t see this. I just thought I had grown bad at writing and decided to move away from it. I gave up my journalism dream to work within fashion buying instead and it felt like writing was something from the past, a small little talent whipped out every so often to write a particularly heartfelt Christmas card, or the odd blog post for one of my old jobs when they needed help with copy writing. Then all of a sudden my world was shifted on it’s axis when I had my first real experience with grief.

I truly think grief is what turned me back to writing. My grandmother died, my favourite person in the world was gone and I had so, so many feelings. Powerful feelings that completely consumed me and I didn’t know how to process them other than to write them down. I wrote about my grief, let it all out in journals, let the words that had been built up for so long spill out of me. I searched out articles on grief to see how other people dealt with these tsunamis of pain, then I then found Substack and started to slowly dip my toe back into the world of writing again. I found I had all these ideas in my head again that I wanted to write about. No one was reading but I was still writing. I then got inspired to pitch a piece to a magazine and despite the fact I wasn’t a writer, I didn’t have contacts, I wasn’t in the industry - I got published! By one of the biggest magazines in Ireland and have since gone on to publish a few other pieces for them.

I was out for dinner a few months after my grandmother passed and overheard a table next to us that was full of big publishers, they were talking about Conde Nast, Anna Wintour, Edward Enniful - all names that inspired me so much and sounded like a dream world for someone who dreamed of being a fashion journalist. Something came over me, maybe it was the spirit of my grandmother pushing me, maybe it was the Aperol Spritz I had drank, but either way I got up and walked over to them, said I was sorry for interrupting their dinner but that I couldn’t help overhear their conversation, I was an aspiring writer myself and asked did they have any tips. One of them gave me his email and we exchanged a few emails back and forth, nothing really came of it but I was so proud of myself for taking that brave step and it showed me that writing was something I was really willing to do the work for, to put myself out there if it might result in something.

Anthony Bourdain once said ‘writing is a privilege and a luxury. Anybody who whines about writers block should be forced to clean squid all day.’ This quote really struck me because I often say I have writers block, but that’s actually not true. I always have something to say, the block is whether what I’m writing is good. I’m sure a lot of other writers feel the same, it’s the fear of the work not being good rather than not having an idea of what the work is that stops us writing (Even writing ‘us’ fills me with fear, as if I’m lumping myself in with a club I’m not yet accepted in to).

As I write this I’m sitting at a cafe window, looking out the window at the leaves slowly blowing in the breeze, a steaming matcha beside me. This should be the perfect writing environment, but I’m blanking. I have so much to say, so many thoughts in my head but I don’t know how to formulate them. I tried to take a break and read some Substack articles to reinspire me, but I feel like it’s spiralled me if anything. I read so much amazing writing on Substack, it’s one of my favourite pastimes, but it makes me feel so inferior. It feels like my brain just can not put words together in the beautiful way I read other writers do on here. Yet I keep going, because I just love to write.

I’m nowhere near where I want to be with writing – I want it to be my full time job, my main source of income, I want to feel confident that my writing is really good, something I can proudly stand over – but I’m a lot further than I used to be and most of all, I’m getting so much joy from it. My head is always whirring with new ideas, my notes app is full of little reminders to self for future pieces and my confidence is slowly starting to build. I don’t really know a lot about how to write ‘properly’ or ‘well’ in that, I don’t know how to write like a professional writer or what gets the most clicks or what’s the best way to lay out an article for the reader. How to have a beginning, middle and an end, to have a point. To be honest, I don’t even really know what the point of this piece is, but I’m trying to embrace that. Sometimes I just want to write to get my thoughts out. There’s no structure to them, no beginning, middle and end, no neat little conclusion that’s quotable. But it’s just my thoughts and I’m writing them and for now, that’s enough for me. I write for the joy of it and maybe that’s the most beautiful writing of all.

I didn’t have a very typical teenage experience. Nothing wildly out of the ordinary, but I had a small group of friends and we weren’t the type to be out in a park underage drinking like most of our peers in school. We were quiet, would go shopping after school, have sleepovers on the weekend, but we were really very innocent for our age. We didn’t kiss boys at teenage discos, or sneak vodka into water bottles, we didn’t even have many male friends as we went to an all girls school. We missed out on a lot of the teenage experiences that everyone loves to reminisce on. Looking back I can see now I was an extremely anxious teenager, I never wanted to take risks or do anything ‘bad.’

In Ireland our fourth year of secondary school, around age 15/16, is sometimes optional. The year is named Transition Year and is designed as an ease between third year where you do your Junior Cert (equivalent of the UK’s GCSE’s) and sixth year where you do your Leaving Cert (equivalent of A Levels but not optional and I think a bit more integral to getting a job but don’t quote me on that). It’s a year for teenagers to mature a bit essentially, students will do work experience, school trips, musicals and vocational/fun subjects as opposed to the standard Geography, Science, Business etc. For most Irish people, it’s referred to as a ‘doss year’ - a year to fool around and not take school seriously. In theory, a dream for any teenager but not me. I decided to skip it and go straight into exam prep in fifth year. I said at the time it was because I wanted to just get the exams and school over and done with, that I was ready to be done and move on to college, but looking back I can see it’s because I was too anxious for the fun of fourth year, as ridiculous as that sounds. I was too anxious at the thought of a musical, even though I know I would have loved it, I was worried at the thought of leaving home for a school trip, in short I was full of anxiety at the thought of too much fun.

In college again I didn’t feel like I had the most normal experience. I lived at home firstly (more common in Ireland than in places like the UK or USA but it still definitely impacted my experience) and my brother was only a toddler so I prioritised time with my family over socialising with friends, even giving up a chance to spend a summer in NYC on a J1 visa because it would have meant leaving him. Don’t get me wrong, I still went out twice a week on average in college and I had a fun group of friends that I loved to spend time with, but when I think of those years I mostly think of time spent with my mam and my little brother (to be clear, I in no way regret this and I am so grateful to have had all that time with them). Again I think I almost had a bit of fear of too much fun. I didn’t skip class a lot like a lot of my peers, I never went too wild on nights out, always knowing my limits and being afraid of passing them.

Your twenties, so I’ve been told, are a time for dating and partying, girls trips and making mistakes. And while I do feel like I did all of that, I still feel slightly disconnected from it all. Like I didn’t experience ‘the twenties’ the way other people seem to - not properly, always something missing from the experience. I didn’t do a lot of dating, kept my friend group small and found a big girl job at 24 that I’ve stayed in ever since. I didn’t go travelling and it was only in my late twenties that I think I finally started putting myself out there and actually living my life a bit more. There was a point in my early/mid twenties that I definitely went through a party girl phase, encouraged no doubt by wilder friends, and had a lot of fun, but it still didn’t feel like the twenties experience I had seen on tv and social media.

It’s worth saying that I was single for most of these years and I definitely think that had some impact. The majority of my friends got in serious, long term relationships really young, leaving me pretty much the only single friend, while also not having a wild single experience full of first dates and crazy stories. Not being able to relate to the same experiences that are supposed to define these years - first dates, break ups, make ups, moving in with a boy, couples holidays - was definitely very isolating and made me feel even more different, especially as a teenager. I think I will forever regret the fact that I have never experienced teenage love, something that feels like such an integral part of life and growing up.

Watching my sister on stage in her musical, I felt so proud of her. Firstly because she was one of the few kids who actually had stage presence (putting 16 year old boys in a printed shirt and making them awkwardly sing Abba feels like some sort of humiliation ritual) but also I could see how much she was living her life and having fun. She sent me pictures and videos from backstage of her joking around with her friends, voice notes breaking down The Tea between everyone and outfit options for what to wear to the wrap party that weekend. She keeps me filled in on her life, the parties she’s going to, the friends she’s fighting with, the boys she’s talking to, and all I can think is how much more fun and carefree she is compared to me at her age, how much more full her life is.

Sometimes when I’m lying awake at night, spiralling over every decision I’ve ever made (you know those kind of sleepless nights?) I think back on how I’ve lived my life so far, and I’m filled with so much regret. I regret not having more fun in school. I regret not applying myself more throughout my degree and working harder to get the job within journalism that I always dreamed of. I regret quitting ballet when I was young and then waiting until I was nearly 30 to start it back up again. I regret not starting saving earlier. I regret mistakes I’ve made with boys and friends. I regret not living my teens and twenties to the fullest when I still had them to live.

I wish I had put myself out there more, I wish I had had more fun and been more of a stupid kid. I know you should never have regrets, and I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason, but sometimes I feel as though I lived the first half of my life as though I could have a do-over, like we don’t only get one chance. Maybe this is all just existential panic as I enter my thirties, but I’d love to know if any of you have ever felt the same? Do you wish you could have a do-over, or do you think our lives are lived perfectly just as they are?

I remember buying my first issue of Vogue and feeling so grown up and important. It was the July 2011 issue of American Vogue so I would have been about 15. It had Emma Watson on the cover and I must have read it cover to cover hundreds of times. I even loved the ads in Vogue, they seemed so elegant and exciting, something from a totally different world to the one I inhabited. I once was gifted a Vogue subscription for my birthday and it was one of the best presents I ever received. I lived for the day each month it would slip through my letterbox and I’d spend the next four weeks devouring every page and article until the next issue arrived when I’d start the process all over again. Growing up, it seemed to me that the fashion industry was the most magical place in the world that I desperately wanted to be a part of and my only way in was magazines. I never cared for the trashy tabloids my mam and friends bought, I just wanted to read about all things fashion.

When I sat down in the dark theatre to watch the sequel to the Devil Wears Prada, one of my all time favourite movies, I expected to laugh at the jokes and swoon at the clothes but I definitely didn’t expect to feel emotional. If The Devil Wears Prada was a love letter to fashion, the sequel was a love letter to journalism and a slowly dying industry. Runway’s move from monthly print magazine to online with a sporadic book which ‘hardly anyone buys’ according to Nigel (shout out Stanley Tucci ilysm) is realistic but so heartbreaking, the focus on advertisers and getting clicks instead of meaningful writing, the budget cuts that make the gorgeous editorial spreads feel like a thing of the past, all of it felt like a harsh look at the state of the fashion industry at the minute, done in a really authentic way.

Like so many girls, I watched the first Devil Wears Prada and was captivated by the life at Runway magazine. I was already interested in being a journalist by the time I saw the first film, but seeing the glamour of the industry on screen really cemented the dream. I was 100% an Emily, one of the million of girls who would kill for that job. To be honest, I always thought Andy was ungrateful and undeserving of the role, the honour she had of running around after one of the greatest voices in the fashion world (NB: My opinion on this has changed since I started actually working in the fashion industry and encountered a few wannabe Miranda’s myself but I digress). The Devil Wears Prada sold us the dream of the journalism industry, but the sequel exposes the true reality.

Every rom-com in the 2000’s seemed to centre around a journalist (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Bridget Jones’s Diary, 13 Going on 30, Sex & The City of course The Devil Wears Prada) and all I ever wanted as a kid, was to grow up and become a writer. Now however, it’s a career move I couldn’t afford to make, even if the opportunity arose and it makes me so sad to think of the journalists facing salary cuts and redundancies. In the film a billionaire bought the magazine and tried to suck the soul of it, how many times has that happened in real life and the magazine hasn’t had a team of designer clad angels to save it? We can see it happening in real time with the likes of the bozo Bezos co-chairing the Met Gala. The link between Vogue and the Gala is well established and it’s highly unlikely that the billionaire isn’t throwing some money at the magazine along with the Gala, particularly as his wife has been featured on the cover. No doubt then he has some say on what’s featured in the mag as a trade off for his money - we see something similar in DWP2 when Dior gets a 6 page feature on a store opening after they dangle their money over Miranda’s head.

Another thing the film touches on is AI and how it’s rapidly infiltrating the industry and taking real life jobs (PSA to the world - stop worrying about imaginary ‘foreigners’ potentially taking your jobs and instead focus on the very real robots that ARE taking your job!) Truly I can’t go fully into AI in this article because I just know it will spiral into a mammoth rant and it’s really an argument for another piece but just know if there’s one thing I really fucking hate in this world, it’s AI. In my own fashion job, we’re constantly encouraged to utilise AI and I simply refuse to. What’s so wrong with using our brains?! It scares me to think of journalists being ousted for the sake of saving a few quid and using AI instead - the voices we could lose to be replaced by generated slop.

The move to online content is also reflected in the film, with Andy lamenting how she has to focus on clicks instead of writing decent pieces. This online shift is something that is really conflicting for me. In one way, it’s good that journalism moving online has opened doors for people that wouldn’t otherwise have had a way in to the industry. It’s democratised a previously very closed off industry and has evened the playing field for those of us who don’t have contacts at publications or parents to fund us while we slog away at unpaid (or at least severely underpaid) internships that are unfortunately still rife within journalism. Even platforms like Substack - how lucky am I that this exists and I have a place to write these exact words?

When I got my first article published, it was for an Irish magazine that had ceased printing hard copies a few years prior and had moved solely online. My name was finally in print, but I had to physically print it myself. There was no magazine to buy and frame on my own wall like I had always dreamed of doing, instead I had to print the article out myself from a screen grab of the website.

There’s also the cost of print. The price of magazines seems to be continuously rising, along with everything else we need to live apparently, and they just feel like a luxury not everyone can afford. I still try and buy print magazines as often as I can and nothing compares to the magic of rifling through an issue but sometimes when the purse strings are a bit tighter, I just can’t justify almost a tenner on something I technically could read online for free. I’m fully aware of how hypocritical I’m being but unfortunately it’s the truth.

The move online has also shifted the voices of the industry. Throughout my teens and early twenties, I had favourite journalists I’d go to to learn about fashion - Suzy Menkes, Vanessa Friedman, Hamish Bowles, Tim Blanks, Carine Roitfeld, the list goes on. I’d inhale their writings, learning so much about not only the fashion industry, but art, culture, politics and history from their articles. They helped improve my vocabulary and I adopted their vernacular into my own writings. They had such deep knowledge that it felt like a privilege to learn from them - they weren’t just talking about whether or not they liked clothes, they were analysing them, dissecting them, demonstrating their impact on culture. Never once did I not regard them as ‘real’ journalists. With the move to an online world focused on clicks and algorithms, it feels like now it feels like people have favourite influencers on Tik Tok instead of journalists and articles to go to for fashion criticism. It’s not that this is necessarily bad (again we have the argument of democratising who gets to speak in the industry), but it’s just different.

Fashion journalism (in fact the whole fashion industry) is always dismissed as frivolous and not important, of course it is - it is after all, predominantly a woman’s world. It’s a qualm I always had with the first DWP - how much Andy insists she wants to write real journalism. Not to sound like Miranda talking about belts and cerulean blue sweater, but fashion is an important industry and fashion journalism is real journalism. I’ve read fashion journalists dissect the history of certain looks and the political undertones of shows; fashion can be a political tool like the royals making statements without a single word, purely through their clothing choices. For God’s sake, Marie Antoinette’s diamond necklace was one of the catalysts for the French Revolution! Fashion being dismissed to simply clothes, is undermining a centuries old industry full of talented, intelligent, outspoken people who have shaped history and how we live today.

When I paused writing this article to watch the coverage of the 2026 Met Gala I couldn’t help but think how it’s all connected - fashion is art, art is an industry being overtaken by AI and cost issues, just like Runway magazine. Fashion is often dismissed as not art because it serves a function, it’s a commodity but paintings are sold as decorations for homes, sculptures are used to convey messages in royal homes, what’s the difference with fashion? And that’s not even touching on the craft and talent that goes into something like haute couture - I defy anyone to watch haute couturiers at work and say it’s not watching an extremely talented artist.

Some fashion designers are vehemently opposed to being called an artist (see Derek Blasberg’s piece interviewing designers on this very thought here - a really interesting article!) but I really don’t agree. I veritably don’t know how you can look at some fashion and not see it as art. The designers know their art history and their references so deeply (Elsa Schiaparelli, Yves Saint Laurent, Moschino, Vivienne Westwood, Rick Owens, I could list so many more and that’s just off the top of my head) and some of the pieces, particularly in haute couture, are so sculptural, so detailed, so beautiful that it’s just ignorance to not refer to them as art.

When I watch a fashion show or see a beautiful editorial, I get a fizzy feeling in my stomach, that magic that I felt as a kid, but it feels like it’s slowly going away as the industry is taken over by metrics, clicks, ad revenue. Of course there’s also the toxic part of the industry and that undoubtedly needs to be addressed, I’m well aware that the fashion industry is not all sunshine and rainbows (I’ve worked in it for 13 years after all) but it just makes me sad to see the fashion industry continue to be suppressed and dismissed. To me it will always be one of the most magical industries in the world and it saddens me to see it losing its sparkle. My favourite souvenir from a different country will always be to buy an issue of Vogue, I will forever follow and support journalists and I will always dream of click clacking into an office with my coffee in one hand, laptop in the other ready to write about the AW shows I just attended in Paris. I do enjoy seeing the industry grow and evolve, but I just hope my daughter or son also get to experience the joy of flicking through a magazine and not having to scroll everything on their phone.

There seems to be a perception in the current zeitgeist that fashion and art are too frivolous to care about in these dark times. But the truth is we have never needed art more. We need creativity and humanity and a reminder that humans can create beautiful things just as much as they destroy them. We need to inspire magic in children, just like those magazines did for me. We need fashion, we need art, we need humanity, we need some magic. Long live the artists - be they painters, designers, writers, sculptors, couturiers - who gift it to us.