Before Westwood, Vivienne was born into a working-class family in London, lived a life quite far from the fashion world. The fact that she moved into the fashion while she was a teacher really affects me. Because the simple life she lived before entering this universe where she became a legend, and then her journey into the universe where she found her own potential, gives me both inspiration and the feeling of how changeable life is and that it will take us to where we are supposed to be.

Once she had arrived at the right place within herself, she found herself more through the people who entered her life, her romantic relationships also brought creative partnerships, and on King’s Road they opened that store that would stay in the mind of everyone who passed by: SEX.

The store was a very important beginning for her career. Because as time went on, she always moved forward by adding one more step to her identity. SEX was a store with a very different culture for London at that time. Latex, fetishwear, pornographic graphics and Vivienne’s iconic slogan T-shirts. At that time, this provocation had a very shocking effect.

With this world she entered, Westwood actually created punk and also created its uniform. She reflected its visual language so well that they created an image-building with the Sex Pistols. She invented the punk again.

Her relationship with McLaren gave her more than a different point of view, she created a new version of herself inside it, and for her, the period after punk began. Her interest in aristocracy, history and tailoring, and the way she ironically blended all of these into her own point of view, actually influenced the period all the way up to today.

And with her first collection in the 80s, Pirate, she moved into a more romantic and theatrical world. I think she found herself with this show because we continued to see those theatrical shows inside her world. And this was how she entered her new world.

Vivienne, who practically “made fun” of the patriotic side of England, turned the Harris Tweed logo into Saturn, and actually combined tradition with the future. This became one of the most accurate ways of understanding her philosophy and reflecting her identity.

Actually, the fact that she made fun of British institutions and the monarchy also fed and elevated British craftsmanship at the time. And when she released the Harris Tweed collection, people thought she was experiencing this contradiction: while criticizing the establishment, she fell in love with the aesthetic of the establishment.

I never thought about it this way.

Because it was her way of taking that aesthetic down and saying, look, the same fabric, but in a completely different silhouette.

Corsets were historically something that degraded the female body, but Vivienne made them visible on the outside and emphasized the corset. By creating the Mini-Crini and turning the Victorian crinoline into a mini skirt, she already made it clear that she was not in love with the aesthetic of the establishment.

On the contrary, bringing tartan to the level of haute fashion also always made us feel her ironic point of view by mixing these two aesthetics.

Actually, all of these were works that showed how she clashed opposites with each other and how much she made fun of the side she was against.I think her point of view reflected itself in every work she did. Even without holding a slogan in her hand, she criticized the patriarchy in England with every work she did. Even when she went to see the Queen, she showed with what she did that she was making fun of the situation, and even in moments when she did not speak about the things she was against, she always found a way to show it.

The subject that interests me the most is how she completely changed the aesthetic among Japanese women in the 90s.

A major change overtook Japanese girls’ fashion in the early 1990s. Influenced by the fashion magazine CUTiE, a version of the young girl-oriented subculture publication Takarajima, girls began to aggressively express themselves with individualistic clothing that did not go out of its way to pander to the opposite sex. Girls’ fashions up until then tended to be imbued with a very Japanese childlike girlishness, but the “new” cute look added boyish elements. This early 1990s trend in Japanese fashion was related to the popularity among Japanese youth at that time of the Seditionaries clothing line created by British designer Vivienne Westwood in the late 1970s.

And with the anime NANA, for the first time a brand turned into a visual show where it was referenced this much. With NANA repeating:

“Vivienne Westwood, Seven Stars, coffee with milk, strawberry cake… and the Sex Pistols.”

in every episode and displaying her iconic jewelry and clothes, she became even more visible.

Especially with the iconic pearl necklace, we saw it turn into a mainstream product that has continued until today.From the smallest thing she made to her biggest work, even down to the pearls in the necklace she designed, being against aristocracy, she designed the pearl, which had been associated with status, in a way that was not proper at all, and with NANA, seeing it around the neck of the lead singer of a punk band made this association even stronger.

During the period when Vivienne entered the fashion canon of the 90s, she entered a period where her rise climbed with models who left their mark on that era, like Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. Even though her shows were very different from the shows of her time, and she had years where she continued the theatricality and left her mark on the nineties, being different made her a target of narrow-minded people, and there were even times when people made fun of her designs on TV shows. But they remained far below the impact she had created, and she continued to create even more eccentric and popular work.

And with the iconic wedding dress moment she created in Sex and the City, her anti-establishment designs started becoming even more mainstream. Alongside Vivienne’s conflict with the establishment, I have always found it ironic that her own design appeared in one of the most iconic pop culture moments of such a traditional institution as marriage. But the dress was still not a classic wedding dress; just like the other traditional things Vivienne touched, it took on her own identity. Maybe at this point, instead of the mainstream changing Vivienne, Vivienne had started making mainstream things look more like her.

At this point, Vivienne did not get caught up in the magic of the mainstream, she did not experience an identity crisis. As she got older, she became even more radical.

Her orange hair, makeup, clothes and her point of view toward fashion turned her into that character that she herself was constantly designing. Getting older did not make her withdraw and lock herself away in a farmhouse at the end of a radical life. She was braver, she was always at the center, and she continued to defend her thoughts.

As an ongoing discussion, there is the contradiction of someone who is so anti-capitalist having a global brand.

I interpreted it this way.

Vivienne was in love with fashion, she was creative. From the shows she created to her jewelry, everything she did made this success inevitable. For a woman to be successful and for her brand to become global was impossible in the environment she lived in. But she did it and she never changed her identity, she opened her identity to a bigger audience. I don’t think her success came before her thoughts, and I think people should turn their perspective in this direction.

While the fashion industry is obsessed with youth, instead of becoming invisible as Westwood got older, she became more political, more eccentric and more “Vivienne.”

She entered our lives as a legend, she was the opposite of everything, of every environment she was in.

And she left us as a legend.

Vivienne’s story reminded me even more of why I love her so much.

With her point of view, her thoughts and her radicalism, she taught us to be ourselves.

To Vivienne, the legend, with respect.

One day, I would become someone important.

First, I believed it myself. Then the people around me reinforced it. They made me feel special, capable, intelligent; someone destined for more. Even writing those words now feels uncomfortable.

For a long time, that belief felt like a gift.

Eventually, it became a trap.

During the years when I was still trying to figure out who I was long before I had the self-awareness to question my own mind; I became a victim of that belief. I was so convinced that I would eventually “make it” that I unknowingly neglected the one thing that could actually get me there:

the slow, often boring process of becoming better.

I convinced myself that I could do anything. That if I decided to learn something, I’d naturally become good at it. Confidence slowly turned into entitlement.

It was subtle.

Dangerously subtle.

I changed universities three times because every time I found myself somewhere, I convinced myself there had to be something better waiting for me. I kept chasing a future version of my life instead of building the one I was already standing in.

Looking back, I wasn’t moving forward.

I was running in circles.

As the years passed, the fantasy that I would simply wake up one day as “someone” slowly started to fall apart. Not overnight, but during what I now think of as my awakening, when I finally became honest with myself.

I realized that this feeling isn’t unique to me.

It’s profoundly human.

Our brains are remarkably good at telling us stories that keep us alive, motivated, and moving forward. Believing that we’ll someday do something extraordinary is one of those stories. It’s comforting. It gives us hope.

And maybe that’s why so many of us secretly believe we’ll be the one to change something, build something, leave a mark.

Not because we’re narcissists.

Because believing in a meaningful future helps us survive the uncertainty of the present.

The problem begins when that belief grows bigger than we do.

When the idea of becoming extraordinary replaces the work required to become competent.

When potential becomes an identity instead of a possibility.

I managed to pull myself out of that loop.

And what I found wasn’t pleasant.

I realized that, despite all the stories I had told myself, I hadn’t actually developed myself as much as I thought I had. I wasn’t as skilled as I imagined. I wasn’t as prepared as I believed.

Admitting that to myself was one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had.

It’s easier to tell the world you’re ambitious than to quietly admit to yourself:

“I’m not there yet.”

Somehow we’ve learned to see those words as weakness.

But I think the real weakness is believing you’ve already arrived.

Growth ends the moment you convince yourself there’s nothing left to learn.

The climb never ends.

And honestly, I hope it doesn’t.

Maybe one day I’ll become someone important.

Maybe I won’t.

But if that day never comes, would my life really be a failure?

I don’t think so anymore.

I’d rather spend my life becoming genuinely good at the things I care about than waste it waiting for greatness to arrive.

If greatness comes, let it come as a consequence.

Not as an expectation.

So read.

Write.

Draw.

Learn.

Build something.

Become deeply competent at at least one thing.

Don’t make yourself smaller than you are.

But more importantly

don’t make yourself bigger than you are.

There’s a quiet freedom in seeing yourself clearly.

And I think that’s where real growth finally begins.

By then, I had become someone distant from herself, someone who no longer really knew what she wanted to do with her life. I finished university in Italy after three relatively good years. But somewhere along the way, being far from home had also taken me far from myself.

I had almost completely worn down the creative parts of me. I didn’t write a single page in my journal. I barely drew. I still don’t fully understand why I let myself drift so far away from who I was. But three years had passed, and somehow, it felt like all I had left to show for them was a not-particularly-impressive university degree.

Then I came home.

At first, home didn’t feel like the place where I belonged. I felt like a child again. Moving back in with my family felt like stepping a few rungs down the ladder of my own life. And I still had no idea what I was going to do next.

Then one day, in my room, I found the paints I had packed away into boxes.

Something clicked.

Because it felt as though I had packed away the version of myself I had lost in those boxes too.

I saw her again. The girl who documented her memories, who wrote, who drew. I opened one of my old journals and started reading.

Strangely, my twenty-year-old self became my therapist.

Buried between the pages of journals I hadn’t opened in years, I found the exact thing I needed to hear:

Don’t give up the things you love.

So I took everything back out of the boxes.

My paints. My notebooks.

And, I think, a little bit of myself too.

I’ve been living with my family for the past six months. The place that initially felt like a step backwards somehow reminded me who I was.

For a long time, I had been searching for the kind of job I actually wanted. Then, one night, a job that felt right for me found me instead. For the first time, I felt like someone had actually seen me. A brand from Paris reached out.

Maybe it was just a small message to the person who sent it. But it wasn’t small to me. Because only the day before, I had almost given up. I had started preparing myself to settle for one of those boring jobs I never wanted. I had lost my motivation.

That tiny message, arriving that night, reminded me of hope.

And finding my way back to myself brought me face-to-face with something else I had been avoiding for a long time:

Drawing.

I had been running from it.

Because what if I was bad now? What if the time away had set me back? What if I wasn’t who I used to be?

Then I started drawing again.

And I discovered the exact opposite of what I had feared.

It came more easily.

Soon after, I started writing an illustrated book series. It became one of the most radical and beautiful things I had ever done.

At the same time, there was an app I had been trying to build for the past year. While continuing to work on it, I found another idea along the way.

Now I’m building that too.

While planning to join a different agency, I also started creating again so I could continue as a content creator.

At some point, I began doing so many things that I turned into one of those productivity people on the internet I used to think were ruining everyone’s mental health.

And then, one day, I questioned myself again.

What am I doing?

In trying to have it all, am I actually letting an entire basket of figs rot?

Because I know Sylvia Plath’s fig tree.

We all do, in one way or another.

On every branch, there is another life.

In one, you become a writer. In another, an artist. In one, you live in a city you love. In another, you build a career. In one, you travel the world. In another, you fall in love. In another, you become someone else entirely.

And while you sit beneath the tree, unable to decide which one to choose, the figs begin to shrivel, darken, and fall at your feet one by one.

The first time I read that metaphor, I loved it.

Now, I think I’m a little angry with it.

Because why do we have to imagine our lives as separate fruits growing on separate branches? Why do we believe that the moment we choose one thing, every other possibility has to die?

Who told us that a serious person and a creative person cannot exist in the same body?

Who decided that someone cannot build an app and draw, work at an agency and write a book, think analytically and still spend her life chasing beautiful things?

Maybe my problem was never that I couldn’t decide which fig to choose.

Maybe the problem was that I had been told I could only choose one.

For three years, I packed parts of myself away into boxes. I thought I had to give up my creativity to be taken seriously, my dreams to be rational, the things I loved in order to get somewhere.

Then I came home and opened the boxes again.

Now I draw. I write books. I build apps. I work. I create. I change my mind. I start new things.

Sometimes I get tired.

Sometimes I think I’m not doing any of them well enough.

Sometimes I really do worry that I’m about to let an entire basket of figs rot.

But I no longer let fear make my decisions for me.

Don’t let anyone take away the things you can do, or the things you believe you might be capable of doing. You do not have to fit yourself into a single identity.

We are all the things we are capable of becoming.

Maybe I expect too much from life.

Maybe I want too much.

Maybe Sylvia Plath was right, and one day all the figs in front of me will rot.

But when I meet the older version of myself, I know what I want her to say:

I’m glad you tried.

I’m glad you were afraid and did it anyway.

I’m glad you didn’t give up on yourself.

Sylvia Plath sat beneath the fig tree, wondering which life to choose.

I didn’t choose.

I ate the tree.

There is something very interesting about fashion. Every once in a while, it takes something completely ordinary and somehow turns it into something everyone wants to talk about.

A plastic bag becoming a fashion statement sounds almost impossible. But maybe that is exactly why it works.

The Birkin has always existed in a world of exclusivity. It is not just a handbag, it is an idea. A symbol of craftsmanship, status and access. The kind of piece that people recognize before they even know who is carrying it.

For years, the Birkin represented the ultimate luxury fantasy. The waiting lists, the rarity, the price. Everything around the bag made it feel almost untouchable.

Then came the Jelly Firkin.

A transparent, colorful plastic version inspired by one of the most iconic bags in fashion history.

At first, it feels almost wrong. Luxury is usually associated with perfect leather, heritage and timelessness. Plastic feels like the opposite of all of those things.

And maybe that is why everyone paid attention.

The Jelly Firkin was never really trying to be the next Birkin. It was playing with the idea of the Birkin. It took something extremely serious and made it playful.

Fashion has always been obsessed with this kind of transformation.

Things change meaning over time. Sneakers became luxury. Denim moved from everyday clothing to designer collections. Pieces that were once considered ordinary became symbols of taste.

The Jelly Firkin does the same thing. It makes us question whether luxury actually comes from the object itself or from the story we create around it.

Because in today’s fashion world, the most interesting pieces are not always the most expensive ones.

Sometimes they are the ones that create a reaction.

The Jelly Firkin became a conversation. People loved it, hated it, laughed at it and wanted to understand it.

And maybe that is the most modern form of luxury.

Not just owning something rare, but owning something that has a story.

Because fashion has never only been about what we wear.

It has always been about what those choices say about us.

It started with a thesis.

Not mine, but a friend’s.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent countless hours helping her research the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Simone de Beauvoir. What began as an attempt to understand two philosophers quickly turned into something else. Somewhere between highlighted paragraphs, academic articles, and endless notes about womanhood, I found myself thinking less about philosophy and more about fashion.

Because the question at the center of their debate felt strangely familiar.

Who gets to define a woman?

For centuries, philosophers, politicians, religious institutions, and entire societies have attempted to answer that question. Fashion, whether consciously or not, has always been part of the conversation.

The history of women’s fashion is often presented as a history of trends. Hemlines rise and fall. Silhouettes change. Colors come in and out of favor. But beneath every aesthetic shift lies something much deeper: an evolving idea of what women should be.

In the eighteenth century, Rousseau imagined an ideal woman whose purpose revolved around pleasing and supporting men. She was modest, nurturing, obedient, and domestic. Her role was not to participate in public life but to complement it from the private sphere.

Looking at portraits from the same era, it’s difficult not to notice how perfectly fashion mirrored these expectations. Restrictive corsets, elaborate gowns, and silhouettes that prioritized appearance over movement reflected a society that valued women as symbols rather than individuals.

Clothing was never just clothing.

It was a social instruction manual.

As centuries passed, women began challenging the roles assigned to them. Unsurprisingly, fashion changed alongside them. Corsets loosened. Skirts shortened. Trousers entered women’s wardrobes. Every garment that seems ordinary today was once controversial because it represented something larger than fabric.

Freedom.

When Coco Chanel introduced more practical clothing for women, she wasn’t simply changing aesthetics. She was changing mobility. When Yves Saint Laurent presented Le Smoking, he wasn’t merely designing a tuxedo. He was questioning who had the right to occupy power.

Fashion’s most revolutionary moments have rarely been about clothes themselves. They have been about access, independence, and identity.

This is where Simone de Beauvoir enters the story.

Her famous statement, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” remains one of the most powerful observations ever made about gender. Womanhood, according to Beauvoir, is not a fixed biological destiny but a social construction shaped by expectations, norms, and cultural narratives.

Fashion exists at the center of that construction.

Every morning, getting dressed becomes a negotiation between personal identity and social expectation. We choose outfits that communicate who we are or who we want to be. Sometimes those choices feel empowering. Sometimes they feel performative. Often they are both.

Today, the conversation looks different, but it hasn’t disappeared.

The ideal woman is no longer represented by a single image. Instead, social media offers us countless versions of femininity: the clean girl, the trad wife, the corporate girl boss, the old-money aesthetic, the hyper-feminine coquette.

Each trend arrives with its own visual language and its own definition of what womanhood should look like.

The pressure hasn’t vanished.

It has simply become more aesthetic.

Perhaps that is why I couldn’t stop thinking about my friend’s thesis.

Centuries apart, Rousseau and Beauvoir were asking fundamentally different questions about women. One attempted to define them. The other challenged the very idea that anyone should.

Fashion has spent generations moving between those two positions.

Sometimes it has reinforced expectations.

Sometimes it has rebelled against them.

And perhaps that is why fashion remains so fascinating. It is never only about what women wear. It is about who women are allowed to become.

The next time someone dismisses fashion as superficial, I hope they remember this:

A hemline can be a trend.

A silhouette can be an aesthetic.

But the history of women’s clothing has always been about something much bigger than clothes.

It has been about power.

For a painter, the hardest thing is never technique.
Not anatomy, not color theory, not perspective.

The hardest thing is looking at a canvas and realizing you still paint with someone else’s hands.

Because art school teaches imitation before identity.
You become a little Pablo Picasso, a little Egon Schiele, a little Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Your Pinterest boards fill up with other people’s souls.
Even the way you hold a brush can start to feel borrowed.

And eventually, the terrifying question arrives:

What if I have nothing original to say?

I think that’s what destroys most artists.
Not failure, but creating for years without recognizing themselves in the work.

Because a style is rarely an aesthetic choice.
It’s repeated wounds, obsessions, colors you cannot stop returning to, faces you paint over and over again without understanding why.

Some painters always return to windows.
Some to women’s hands.
Some to empty chairs.
Some let darkness leak into every canvas because it never really leaves their mind either.

And the ironic part is this:
the more desperately you try to “find your style,” the further away it moves.

Because real style doesn’t look constructed.
It looks accidental.
Like a fingerprint left behind without noticing.

Maybe that’s why so many great artists look similar in the beginning.
Everyone starts in the shadow of the people they admire.
And only after enough solitude does something personal begin to emerge.

A painter’s style is not always in the colors they choose.
Sometimes it’s hidden in what they refuse to paint.

Some paintings are beautiful but emotionally empty.
Others are technically imperfect, yet impossible to forget.
Because someone finally allowed themselves to be seen.

Maybe that’s the cruelest part of painting.
Nobody tells you when you’ve finally found your style.

One day, someone simply looks at a canvas and says:

“You painted this, didn’t you? I could tell.”

And maybe, for a painter, that is what success actually feels like.

As someone who has been drawing for as long as I can remember, I want to use my next articles to talk about my own journey of trying to find a style that truly feels like mine.

There was a time when fashion shows happened inside quiet salons, hidden from the world. Then there was Gucci Cruise 2027: a show staged in the middle of Times Square, where tourists, taxi lights and giant LED screens became part of the set design.

And watching it all unfold, I couldn’t help but wonder: when did luxury stop asking for intimacy and start demanding spectacle?

Because Gucci didn’t just present a collection in New York. For one night, it tried to become New York itself.

The billboards glowed with fake Gucci campaigns, oversized logos and AI-generated visuals that blurred the line between advertising and performance art. Somewhere between the flashing screens and the endless crowd noise, the show felt less like a runway and more like a luxury hallucination. Chaotic, cinematic, slightly ironic and very, very online.

Demna’s first Cruise collection for Gucci arrived with the kind of pressure only fashion truly understands. Not just the pressure of designing clothes, but the pressure of reviving emotion. Rebuilding desire. Creating a fantasy strong enough to make people believe again.

And perhaps that’s why the collection felt intentionally contradictory.

There were sharp corporate coats worn with enormous sunglasses, pencil skirts styled like paparazzi uniforms, low-rise denim paired with old Hollywood fur details, and gowns dramatic enough for a woman who definitely leaves a party before midnight without explaining where she’s going.

At times, it felt deeply glamorous. At others, almost emotionally detached. Like a woman checking her reflection in the window of a black SUV before disappearing into Manhattan traffic.

Somewhere between 90s supermodel energy and commuter exhaustion, Demna introduced the new Gucci woman.

And honestly? She doesn’t seem interested in being relatable.

What made the show interesting wasn’t perfection, it was tension. You could still see traces of Balenciaga’s shadow in the oversized tailoring and dark styling, but layered underneath were unmistakable Gucci references: horsebit details, rich burgundy tones, sleek Italian sensuality and flashes of Tom Ford-era seduction.

It was as if Gucci was trying to remember itself while simultaneously becoming someone new.

The celebrity casting only amplified the surrealism. Cindy Crawford closing the show at 60 felt less like nostalgia and more like a statement about permanence — true glamour surviving trend cycles. Paris Hilton walking through Times Square in Gucci somehow made complete sense. Of course she belongs here. This version of Gucci thrives on women who feel both iconic and slightly untouchable.

A lifestyle suspended somewhere between paparazzi culture, Italian cinema, corporate burnout and internet-age performance.

Maybe that’s why the collection was called GucciCore. Not a trend, but a universe. A uniform for women who want their lives to look slightly cinematic, even when they’re emotionally unavailable.

And maybe that’s the real genius of Gucci Cruise 2027.
It understood that fashion today is no longer consumed quietly. It has to compete with TikTok clips, celebrity culture, algorithmic attention spans and the visual overload of modern life.

So instead of escaping the chaos, Gucci dressed for it.

And standing there in the middle of Times Square surrounded by screens, noise and endless motion the collection seemed to ask a strangely modern question:

In a world where everyone is constantly performing, is personal style the last real form of identity we have left.

Maybe the reason the Fendi Baguette became one of fashion’s most iconic pieces was never about the bag itself. Maybe it was about what it allowed women to become while carrying it.

In a decade dominated by minimalism, clean lines, and quiet luxury before “quiet luxury” even had a name, the Baguette arrived almost rebelliously. Small, playful, impossible to ignore a bag designed to sit effortlessly under the arm like a French loaf of bread. It wasn’t practical enough for real life, and maybe that was exactly the point.

Because the Baguette wasn’t created to carry things.
It was created to carry identity.

And then came Carrie Bradshaw.

Not as a celebrity endorsement or a campaign face, but as a character who transformed fashion into storytelling. When Carrie walked through New York with a sequined Baguette tucked under her arm, the bag stopped being an accessory and became part of a personality. It represented a certain kind of woman: romantic, chaotic, glamorous, emotionally attached to beautiful things even when they made absolutely no sense.

And suddenly, fashion wasn’t just about dressing well anymore. It became about references, aspirations, and belonging to a world that existed somewhere between fantasy and reality.

“It’s not a bag, it’s a Baguette.”

A single line that somehow changed the way fashion objects were perceived forever. Because for the first time, a luxury item defended itself almost like a person would. Emotional. Defensive. Personal.

The Baguette became what we now recognize as the blueprint for the modern “It-bag.” Before social media algorithms and TikTok trends told us what to obsess over, the Baguette already understood the power of visibility. It was recognizable from across the street. It came in endless versions, fabrics, colors, sequins, and prints designed not for uniformity, but individuality. Owning one felt less like purchasing a product and more like entering a cultural conversation.

And maybe that’s why people still care about it decades later.

Not because it’s practical. Not because it’s timeless in the traditional sense. But because it captures a very specific fantasy the idea that fashion can make ordinary life feel cinematic.

Today, in an era obsessed with vintage archives, Y2K nostalgia, and hyper-recognizable fashion pieces, the Baguette feels more relevant than ever. While trends continue moving faster and faster, iconic pieces survive because they hold emotional memory. People don’t just remember the bag. They remember who they wanted to be while carrying it.

Because the Fendi Baguette was never really about luxury.

It was about desire.

And perhaps that’s what fashion does best: turning objects into emotions, and emotions into identity.

I expected strong looks, but I didn’t expect to be surprised. Still, a few of them caught me off guard in the best way. Not just visually, but in how they made me look twice.

Some looks you like and move on. Others stay with you a little longer.

These are the ones I couldn’t ignore.

Kylie Jenner in Schiaparelli

I want to start with Kylie Jenner. She wore Schiaparelli and honestly, this was the most surprising look for me. It felt like the most considered and intentional thing I’ve seen from her in years.

She looked almost like a modern version of Venus de Milo, as if the statue had been reimagined and brought to life. There was something sculptural about it, like she wasn’t just dressed, she was shaped into a form. It felt like a moving statue, a piece of art you usually see behind glass, suddenly existing in real life.

Madonna in custom Saint Laurent

Then came Madonna. The moment she entered, I could literally hear Frozen in my head. There was something cinematic about her presence, like time slowed down for a second. Her Saint Laurent dress was inspired by The Temptation of Saint Anthony, and you could feel that reference in the structure and tension of it. It wasn’t just a dress, it felt like a fragment of a painting translated into fabric. Like we were watching a piece of art step out of its frame and onto the red carpet.

Sabine Getty in Ashi Studio

Sabine Getty was one of my favorite looks of the night. Her outfit was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci sketches and it created this incredible, almost historical silhouette that felt like it belonged in another era but still completely worked on the red carpet.

What really impressed me was how consistent the concept was. Even her makeup carried that same da Vinci influence. It didn’t feel like an outfit with styling added on top, it felt like the idea was fully carried through from head to toe. Like the reference wasn’t just interpreted, it was built into every detail.

Anok Yai in Balenciaga

And then Anok Yai. She was one of the looks I was most excited to see, and she didn’t disappoint at all. She had this almost “Our Lady of Sorrows” presence, like a living statue you would expect to see in a cathedral. There was something deeply sculptural and almost sacred about her look, like she wasn’t just attending the night, she was embodying a character that already existed in art history.

These references were what I loved most about the night. Four looks I genuinely admired not just for how they looked, but for what they were referencing and how deeply those references were carried through.

Welcome to this week’s Sunday Service, where I basically sit down and obsess over something that has been sitting in the back of my mind for way too long, and this week, unsurprisingly, that thing is The Devil Wears Prada, a film that I’ve personally considered a childhood favorite for reasons that go far beyond nostalgia or aesthetics, and while I’m not going to spend time repeating how iconic it is or how it shaped an entire generation’s perception of fashion, what I actually want to do here is step away from the surface-level admiration and instead look at what exists underneath it, the structure, the intention, the invisible systems that made it what it is.

Because if we strip away the obvious things, the casting, the wardrobe, the dialogue that everyone quotes on repeat, what we’re left with is something much more interesting, which is the background machinery of how the film positions itself culturally, how it manages to stay completely intact as an iconic object while simultaneously giving us something that feels deeper every time we revisit it, almost like it was designed to age into relevance rather than out of it.

And that brings me to something I’ve personally called the Blue Sweater Theory, although the name is a bit misleading if you take it literally, because it has nothing to do with the color itself, it’s not about cerulean, or fashion, or even that specific monologue in a direct sense, it’s something I use to describe the way PR, perception, and cultural influence quietly travel through systems that feel invisible while they’re happening, but completely obvious once you zoom out.

Because even after more than 20 years, that moment and the film as a whole hasn’t just stayed memorable for fashion girlies or people interested in style, but has actually become one of those references that explains how influence works, how taste is constructed, and how meaning is manufactured long before it ever reaches the consumer.

So the question I keep coming back to is this: what exactly made it so unforgettable?

Was it just the cast, the writing, the delivery?

Or was it something far more deliberate, something structural, something rooted in how marketing and PR operate not as visible tools, but as cultural engines that decide what becomes iconic in the first place?

And that is exactly what I want to unpack here.

The Miranda Priestly–Anna Wintour connection is one of those fashion world “open secrets” that sits somewhere between rumor and reality, and honestly, the more you look at it, the less it feels like a coincidence and the more it feels like intentional myth-making.

Because yes, we all know the story. Miranda is widely believed to be inspired by Anna Wintour, and whether that is officially confirmed or carefully never fully denied almost doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is how naturally that idea has lived inside pop culture for years, like it was always meant to be there.

But what I find more interesting is not the resemblance itself, but what Anna Wintour did with it.

In a world where most public figures would either reject the comparison or quietly distance themselves from a character portrayed as cold, intimidating, almost mythically difficult, she did something completely different. She didn’t fight the narrative, she absorbed it. She let it exist, she let it circulate, and in a way, she allowed it to become part of her own mythology. Turning criticism into character energy is not just PR, it is strategy at its highest level.

And now, years later, that same narrative loop has been reopened in a way that feels almost too perfect to be accidental.

With her stepping down from Vogue, and the second Devil Wears Prada moment entering cultural conversation again, we are suddenly watching this entire story come full circle, not as nostalgia, but as a live cultural event. And then comes the most surreal part: Anna Wintour herself appearing in a Vogue cover moment alongside Meryl Streep.

That image alone does something strange. It collapses the distance between fiction and reality. It doesn’t say “this is based on a true story”, it says something more unsettling and more powerful: this story is still happening.

Because this is not biography, and it is not promotion in the traditional sense either. It is something more fluid, almost like a controlled overlap between character and creator, where the line between Miranda Priestly and Anna Wintour is no longer meant to be clarified, but deliberately left blurred.

And maybe that is the real genius of it.

Not that a character was inspired by a real person, but that a real person learned how to live inside the cultural echo of that character, and then, years later, used that same echo to turn fiction into a living, breathing pop culture moment once again.

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What The Devil Wears Prada did was blur the line between reality and fiction in a way most films don’t even attempt.

Runway magazine wasn’t just a prop inside the film, it was actually created, printed, and distributed in a way that made it feel like something that could sit next to Vogue on a real newsstand. That alone changed the entire experience of watching it.

A limited-edition physical version of Runway

Because suddenly you were no longer just watching Miranda Priestly run a magazine, you were holding something that felt like she could have actually edited it. The film stopped being only a story and started becoming something you could physically interact with.

And that is where the impact really lies.

Once fiction is given that kind of physical form, it stops behaving like fiction in your mind. It starts existing in a space that feels real enough to belong to your world, even if you know it technically does not.

Even now, it still feels like if I opened that Runway issue, Miranda would be behind it, making every decision, controlling every page.

And I don’t think I am the only one who feels that.

That is the real power of it. It did not just promote a film, it extended its universe into reality just enough for us to never fully separate the two again.

And this idea of collapsing fiction into everyday reality does not stop there.

Andy’s Starbucks order might seem like a small, almost throwaway detail, but it is actually doing something very intentional inside the film, because The Devil Wears Prada constantly collides the luxury fashion world with very real, everyday consumption habits in a way that makes the universe feel strangely accessible.

That contrast is the point.

One moment you are inside a world of haute couture, front rows, and editorial power, and the next you are watching Andy order a very normal Starbucks coffee, something completely ordinary, something you could order yourself without thinking twice. And that shift is not accidental, because it quietly anchors the entire fantasy in reality.

It creates a bridge between two worlds that are usually kept separate: the elite fashion system and everyday consumer life. By placing both inside the same frame, the film removes distance and makes the world feel reachable.

And it also becomes even more interesting when you factor in that Starbucks itself had a real-world collaboration and presence around the film, which reinforces the idea that this was not just storytelling, but also a carefully layered marketing environment where brands and narrative quietly feed into each other.

Suddenly, the message is not “this is a world you can only observe,” but instead “this is a world you could step into.”

And that is where the marketing layer becomes undeniable, because this kind of realism is not just aesthetic, it is emotional positioning.

And this is where the boundary between fiction and reality starts to blur in a way that feels almost intentional, because at some point the character does not remain fully inside the film anymore, but begins to exist in real spaces in a way that makes you question what you are actually looking at.

When you see Meryl Streep appearing at actual fashion shows in character as Miranda Priestly, it stops feeling like a promotional moment and starts feeling like a continuation of the film’s universe, as if the fictional world has been allowed to extend itself into real fashion spaces without fully announcing that transition.

It is not presented as a gimmick or a simple press appearance either, but more like the character herself has been given access to the same system she once only controlled from within fiction, which makes the entire experience feel slightly unstable in the best way possible.

Because suddenly you are not just watching a character being referenced in real life, you are watching that character physically occupy the same environments that inspired her in the first place, and that creates a loop where fiction and reality start feeding into each other.

All of this shows one thing:

The film is not just telling us about the fashion world. It is translating the already existing PR mechanisms of that world into a fictional narrative.

What we are actually watching is not just a film, but a beautifully packaged version of a real system, presented with better lighting, sharper dialogue, and a storytelling language that makes it feel effortless.

And maybe the most striking part is this: the packaging is so seamless that at some point you stop seeing it as packaging at all, and you start accepting it as reality itself.

Because the film has been telling us from the very beginning:

But we know it is never just “that’s all.”

This is my first Substack post, and I thought I’d start by sharing a few thoughts on what’s been catching my attention lately.

I’ve been spending a lot of time observing digital spaces: what I would call “marketing genius” moments, and also the ones that make me pause a little. Some things inspire me, some things confuse me, and some I just can’t stop thinking about.

So this is me trying to make sense of all of that, in my own way.

Is separating fashion from the digital space actually a good positioning strategy? I keep thinking about this, especially through what Bottega Veneta has been doing. It definitely creates this sense of exclusivity, almost like a deliberate silence in a very noisy world.

But I can’t help asking myself: what happens in three years if this starts to feel less like a bold strategy and more like something outdated? For a luxury brand that already holds a strong position, such a major shift feels a bit risky to me, almost like closing a door too firmly.

I feel like positioning in the digital space shouldn’t be about drawing such sharp lines. It should come from a real strategy, something more thoughtful than just visuals or a few metrics. Reducing it to that feels quite shallow, or maybe it just shows we’re still not fully there yet in understanding it.

I’ve been sitting with these thoughts over the past months, and I wanted to share and maybe unpack them a bit together.

I actually think digital is a temporary trend but not in a shallow way.

It’s not going anywhere, it will most likely always be with us. It’s just that its current shape is extremely momentary. Something this fast-moving can’t really be expected to stay stable anyway.

And I feel like when something is that in motion, you either move with it or you get carried by it. Unless you are the center yourself, you inevitably drift.

A brand without identity, or a brand that builds its identity purely around trends, can never really move beyond being seasonal. And then the real question becomes: will it succeed in the next season as well? Because building strategy on that kind of uncertainty feels less like positioning and more like a lack of direction.

At the same time, yes: building a brand identity entirely out of trends makes it seasonal, I think we can all agree on that. But does completely stepping away from it make it cult? Or does it create something else entirely?

I guess time will show us through Bottega Veneta.

Coming back to today, I’ve been thinking about recent viral moments online, the ones that actually make me pause and think, “this is something a brand should be watching closely.”

TikTok, in its own overwhelming way, has created yet another viral moment with “how to dress like a nepo baby?” And what’s interesting is not just the concept itself, but how people are interacting with it. There’s this sound in the background, people styling themselves to it, and then ending the video with a reference to one of the strongest visual symbols of that world: the Balenciaga City bag.

In moments like this, I feel like the role of a creative team becomes very clear. It’s that instant “aha” moment, followed by a quick step back to understand what just happened, but not too much time to overthink it, because another moment is already on its way.

This is where I think opportunity lives now. In recognizing these cultural signals early and translating them into something intentional.

“Nepo baby” as a keyword, the Balenciaga City bag as a visual anchor; it already feels like the foundation of a new viral narrative waiting to be shaped. Sometimes it really is that simple: the culture gives you the material, and it’s up to brands to decide whether they just watch it or build from it.

And then there’s Isabel Marant: quietly existing, almost like it never really cared whether it was part of the conversation or not.

Lately, I keep noticing it again. The silhouettes, the undone feeling, that very specific “I didn’t try too hard” energy that somehow feels more current than ever. And it makes me wonder… did Isabel Marant become relevant again, or did we just catch up with it?

Because while everything around it keeps shifting: faster, louder, more intentional; it seems to stay exactly where it has always been. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe not chasing the moment is, in itself, a kind of strategy.

There’s something very interesting about a brand that doesn’t force its way into virality, yet still finds itself there. Not because it created the moment, but because the moment circled back to it.

And in a digital world where everyone is trying to be seen, I can’t help but think maybe there’s still power in being the one who doesn’t try too hard.

And maybe that’s where I keep landing with all of this.

Digital feels closer to us than reality sometimes: faster, louder, impossible to ignore. So completely stepping away from it doesn’t feel like the answer anymore. Not really.

But at the same time, it doesn’t feel right to let it define everything either.

Because what makes a brand last isn’t how well it follows the moment, but how clearly it knows itself within it. Trends move, aesthetics shift, attention drifts but identity, when it’s real, tends to stay.

And maybe that’s the balance we’re all trying to figure out now. Not how to escape the digital world, and not how to fully belong to it but how to exist in it without losing what makes something feel like itself.

just a fashion girl, taking notes