Hi everyone! I don’t often send a letter out on a Thursday, but we’ve arrived at that point in the summer where my brain feels a bit like sludge—the muggier it is outside, the more muddled my thoughts are. Luckily, my friends and colleagues seem to be on the same page, at least judging by our email exchanges and texts. The fashion industry takes a collective vacation for the month of August, and the mental check-out is real. When this happens, the best thing to do is keep things light and chill, the conversational equivalent of an Erewhon Strawberry Glaze smoothie. This has been easy over the past week because all anyone wants to talk about is Hailey Bieber—specifically, her blockbuster Gap collaboration.

Last Thursday, Mrs. Bieber released two pairs of oversized jeans that she designed in partnership with the mall brand. The styles were inspired by the year she was born, 1996, a time when Gap dominated the cultural conversation with its aspirational minimalism and memorable ad campaigns—its musical commercials especially, something the retailer is betting big on again. The denim sold out online in minutes, to no one’s surprise.

I am not proud to admit that I planned my morning around the drop, making sure I was online a few minutes before the jeans hit the Gap site at noon so I could grab a pair before they were gone. I succeeded, but some of my friends did not; one hopped in her car and drove to The Grove in LA (shout-out, Maria!) to make a purchase IRL after logging on too late. She was able to score and gave us live, boots-on-the-ground updates from the frenetic shopping scene. Brick-and-mortar’s not dead, thanks to Hailey Bieber!

This is only semi-hyperbolic: Bieber has proven her ability to move units—she sold millions of pairs of $89 jeans in hours—and mobilize fans to line up for her wares. Her rhode pop-up shops in various markets are the prime example of this (periodic reminder that e.l.f. Beauty acquired rhode for a cool $1B last year). A recent one in Newport, Rhode Island, drew so many customers that wait times to enter stretched up to ten hours, according to TikTok reports. No matter what Hailey is selling, the girlies are queuing to buy. But why?

I’ve spent the last week (over)thinking about Bieber’s mass appeal across generations and price points, and how she’s managed to avoid oversaturation, as audiences on social media are famously fickle. Since the beginning of the year, Hailey has been the face of brands that include, but are not limited to: DKNY, SKIMS, Mango, Victoria’s Secret, Calzedonia, Alaïa, Saint Laurent (she attended the Met Gala with the French house as a guest of Anthony Vaccarello), and, of course, rhode. Just this morning, she was announced as one of the Fall/Winter 2026 faces of Miu Miu, returning four years after she fronted the brand’s Spring 2022 campaign, which featured the viral micro mini skirt—the same one that effectively ushered in a massively successful, zeitgeisty new era for Miu Miu. Coincidence?

A couple of months ago, I was reporting a freelance story (it still has not published, so apologies for the spoiler) that required me to interview a handful of fashion sourcers who conduct a lot of business via Instagram. I asked each of them whether there was an influencer or celebrity who regularly causes a direct uptick in requests for a certain item if she’s photographed wearing it. Without hesitation, every single one name-dropped Bieber. And we’re talking about expensive items here—Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel in particular!

As a follow-up, I asked why they thought this was the case. Answers were mixed, but they had a general underlying sentiment in common: Shoppers can see themselves in Mrs. Bieber. She’s real, despite the fact that she’s from a Hollywood family and married to the biggest pop star of her generation. She’s a working mom with a personal style that’s simple enough to feel accessible to her tens of millions of followers across Instagram and TikTok. The brand of ‘90s minimalism that’s been trending recently is tough to pull off without looking totally boring, unless you have the sauce—and Hailey is dripping with it.

I should state the obvious here, which is that Bieber is gorgeous. Face card never declines, body is tea, etc. She’s a former ballerina (like myself, game recognize game), and she carries herself with a graceful elegance that can only come from years of disciplined practice. Unlike a lot of her peers, especially those who got famous on Instagram, she still looks natural, and at 5’7”, her stature isn’t intimidating. Sure, she’s made some tweaks, but they’re not overdone; she’s not uncanny valley like many of her cohorts. This is surely one of rhode’s biggest secrets to success—a tight edit of products that promise glowing, hydrated skin, juicy lips, a sun-kissed, bronze complexion, and pretty, flushed cheeks without doing much at all. There’s a reason “clean girl” beauty defined the first half of the decade, and Bieber is patient zero.

Still curious about what it is about Bieber that’s cemented her as the billion-dollar baby, I posted the question on my Instagram Story: If you’re buying what HB is selling, why? The majority of respondents were satisfied rhode customers—not only is the product actually good, it’s also stylish and affordable. Another key point was authenticity; most, if not all, of the things she pushes seem like those she’d use or wear herself, and aren’t a major departure from what fans perceive to be her personal aesthetic.

There’s a restraint and specificity to her influencing strategy; she’s not out here shilling for random supplement companies or ultra-fast-fashion brands, giving more weight to the deals she chooses and the items she does release. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, HB is basic, which doesn’t have to be a bad thing! Being both palatable and desirable to a large swath of the population is a fashion marketer’s dream. She’s an everygirl with high-low appeal. One excellent comment I received read: “She’s like a perfectly painted beige wall—a high-end canvas for all kinds of decor.”

I’d be remiss not to touch on the nepo baby of it all, which could have theoretically been a detriment to the success of her business ventures (we’ve all seen what’s happening with Phia), but instead has had the opposite effect. The Biebers have emerged as the Zillennial royal couple, harkening back to a time when celebrities were genuinely cool and unafraid of being a little messy in public. Neither of them broadcasts the minutiae of their daily lives on social media, but every so often they’ll say something shady to satiate us, or give us a peek behind the curtain via well-considered pap walks or photo dumps, like the one they posted from the New York Skylrk pop-up ahead of the World Cup final. Mystery is chic! Luxurious, even! Another great DM I got from Shaad D'Souza put it thusly: “I just think the Biebers are the epitome of chic—they're openly trashy but in a way that feels really expensive and cool. It's like they're a couple that was reverse engineered from potential brand extensions, and not the other way around.”

My Gap jeans arrived yesterday afternoon, and as expected, I love them. They fit exactly like they’re intended to, and I ordered my usual size. I wore them to a dinner last night and was showered with sincere compliments. Yes, I might be a sheep, but I have yet to regret a purchase that Hailey has influenced me to make, even a $20+ smoothie at Erewhon; I wasn’t sure the rhode peptide lip treatment could top my Bieber product power rankings, but congrats to Gap for doing the impossible. If I haven’t sufficiently convinced you, I’ll leave you with this:

Go Hailey!

Hi everyone! Long time, no blog. I just got settled back in New York after what I’m calling the “Southmaxxing” portion of my summer. In June, I spent two lovely weeks at the beach in Virginia before heading down to New Orleans—one of my favorite cities in the world—for an upcoming magazine story. Then I hopped over to Nashville for a week, which was somehow even hotter and steamier than it’s been in New York. I’m tired, y’all!

I am very much looking forward to staying put in the city for a stretch. I’ve made the most of the limited time I’ve been here so far this summer, leaning into the same sort of activities that teenage me enjoyed: I saw Jimmy Eat World live, I got my bellybutton pierced (shout-out to Colby, the only person I’ve let pierce me for over a decade), I’ve had spontaneous daytime hangouts stretch long into the evening, I’ve eaten more soft-serve vanilla cones with rainbow sprinkles than I can count. Something else I’ve done, in a semi-shocking turn of events if you know me at all, is watch a lot of sports.

There’s been plenty written about the “Summer of Sports” already, but it’s been particularly interesting to see how fashion brands and publications have adjusted their strategies recently to go all-in on athletics. I’ll admit, sports are one of my biggest pop cultural blindspots, though I am trying to learn. I had of Impersonal Foul and The Sports Gossip Show come on the pod in late 2024 to dig into all of the ways fashion and sports are more intertwined than ever, and in the time since, they’ve become exponentially more entangled.

One of my favorite things about reporting on fashion is that it touches every spoke of culture, including sports, which are the last true monoculture we have. Over the past couple of months, I’ve ambiently absorbed more information about style from the sports angle than I have from the fashion weeks that just closed—specifically, Paris Men’s in late June and Couture last week. Between the Knicks winning the NBA Championship, the ongoing World Cup (the final is this Sunday), and Wimbledon that just ended in London, a steady stream of sartorial moments has made mainstream headlines—many of which were more memorable than anything presented on the runways or from the front rows.

Off the top of my head, we had Jordyn Woods’s lucky orange bag from the Knicks Finals run that ended up on display at the Guggenheim; Taylor Swift and the Haim sisters drew ire for their corny, punny DIY Knicks T-shirts at Game 4; Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner turned heads courtside wearing his and hers Chrome Hearts; First Lady of New York City Rama Duwaji wore a custom Miss Claire Sullivan piece made from bootleg Knicks merch to the championship parade; and Jennifer Lopez went viral for her massive, floppy Ralph Lauren straw hat at Wimbledon, as did Norwegian striker Erling Haaland for his collection of custom Hermès bags. Perhaps the biggest marriage (lol) between fashion and sports came from the Swift/Kelce nuptials at MSG over Fourth of July weekend, where both the bride and groom were outfitted in Dior Haute Couture by Jonathan Anderson; several wedding dress-like gowns walked the Dior Couture runway just three days later.

Even if you aren’t locked into what’s happening on the runways or red carpets, anyone paying attention can see that this team spirit has seeped into what people are wearing on the street. Though we’re a few years out from the peak of Blokette—shout-out for the coinage—soccer-adjacent clothing and collaborations have dominated style this summer. I can’t spend five minutes on Instagram or TikTok without seeing a look centered around a Cossa New York or Connor Ives jersey. I am not easily influenced, but the campaign for the Reformation x Umbro collaboration—featuring my dream girl Devon Lee Carlson shot by Daniel Arnold—drove me to impulse buy a pair of $148 soccer shorts. (Good thing I did, they sold out within days.) I also purchased a couple of World Cup-themed tanks from Los Angeles Apparel while wandering Soho one afternoon that have earned me a lot of compliments.

I have a soft spot for one of this summer’s trending sports in particular: I grew up in Virginia Beach where surfing is a massive part of the culture, despite famously having no waves. Since I was a kid, I’ve been infatuated with the aesthetics of surfing, and I’ve incorporated them in my own personal style for as long as I can remember. This season, fashion’s really leaned into surfing, too. Roxy, one the brands I shopped heavily in my youth, is enjoying something of a renaissance—a Roxissance, if you will—thanks in part to a pair of buzzy collaborations. Miaou’s collection with Roxy is mostly sold out, and includes a bikini, a miniskirt/tank top set, and some wedge flip-flops; the Roxy x Madhappy collab drops this week, and features logo tees and hoodies, printed cargo pants and swimsuits, beach towels, knits, and various accessories. I just set a calendar notification for the drop to make sure I can shop it before it’s all gone.

The surf vibes even made their way over to Paris for Men’s Fashion Week. At the Louis Vuitton show in June, noted Virginia Beach native Pharrell showed a Spring/Summer 2027 collection that was influenced by the coastal surf community. In addition to LV branded surfboards, boardshorts, wetsuits, and Vans-inspired sneakers on the runway, the set was a feat of engineering: a continuous wave that barrelled for the entirety of the show. When I was in Virginia Beach last month, I visited Atlantic Park, an impressive man-made wave that’s among the best in the country for pro surfers and enthusiasts. Atlantic Park is one of Pharrell’s lesser known projects within fashion circles, but seeing this nod to my hometown and its signature sport in Paris got me feeling sentimental.

That warm and fuzzy feeling is what’s made this sports-heavy summer really special. There’s nothing like team spirit to bring people together! I rarely suffer from FOMO anymore, but Knicks Game 5 coincided with the last weekend of my beach trip, and seeing all of my friends watching from the back of a pickup truck in Dimes Square without me is the stuff it’s made of. The brands have obviously tapped into this collective camaraderie, inviting influencers and editors to games—Adidas at the World Cup, and Ralph Lauren at Wimbledon, for example—and hosting viewing parties, like the one Nike held for the Knicks at Deans, the trendy British pub in Soho, and Burberry’s takeover of the West Village Corner Bistro for the World Cup.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If you want people to buy something, try making them feel something first. As I type this, my group chat is trying to figure out where to watch the World Cup final on Sunday—if you have any ideas, you know where to find me!

Til next time, sports fans.

One of the main reasons I started The New Garde a couple of years ago was to have a place to unpack my thoughts about the future of the fashion industry and its place within popular culture — something I’ve been writing about/reporting on for the better part of two decades. One of my favorite things to do is sit down with someone who’s just starting out in their career, hear about where they hope to go, what inspires them, and the impact they’d like to make.

Late this spring, I met model, stylist, and aspiring fashion multi-hyphenate Aydan Nix to do just that. Nix graduated from Parsons last year into a fashion industry that’s perhaps more unstable than ever, with an additional plot twist: As she was figuring out the best way to navigate the uncertainty of her post-grad period, her family became tabloid fodder, when the Daily Mail published a story revealing that she shares a biological father with Gigi, Bella, and Anwar Hadid.

With a year of perspective and work experience under her belt, she spoke about navigating a famously cutthroat industry without relying on the new ties she has to one of fashion’s most famous families. We also discuss the catch-22 that comes with being a young person who’s outspoken about politics online in the “brand-safe” era. Nix is aware that people and brands expect her to go all-in on social media — and that sitting it out altogether could put her at a disadvantage when it comes to landing jobs — but she’d prefer to focus her energy elsewhere. While this sort of authenticity is admirable, it can make getting a career off the ground much more complicated.

You can read the full profile, and see all of the lovely photos by Sophia Wilson, over at SSENSE.

Hi everyone and happy Sunday! I’m writing this week’s letter from the porch at my parents’ house in Virginia Beach — my favorite place to escape to for some sun and proximity to several large bodies of water. Last night I saw Dave Matthews Band with my dad, something we’ve done together most summers since I was a teenager. I’ve read a few places that boardshorts are “trending” this season, but here, they’ve never left; I have a collection of Y2K-era Roxy Quiksilver hang tags to prove it. I do a surf shop crawl every time I’m in town, so maybe I’ll stock up.

In a bit of professional news, a couple of months ago I signed on as managing editor over at Magasin, and I am super excited to help take her impressive fashion and lifestyle newsletter to the next level. I’m still going to be freelancing, blogging, and bringing the pod back — soon, I promise! — but it feels really good to be part of a (small but mighty) team again. I have a couple of fun stories in the works for other outlets, too, which I can’t wait to share once they’re out later this summer.

I’m also looking forward to writing/editing more about shopping and retail at Magasin, something I haven’t done in depth since my time at Fashionista. I know how rabid customers can get about the brands they love. We’re seeing it right now with Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel, which caused another frenzy this week when the Métiers d’art 2026 collection arrived in stores (the first was back in March when Blazy’s first offering hit shelves and my FYP was flooded with Chanel hauls). However, the most earth-shattering retail news this week came from Brandy Melville, when word spread like wildfire via TikTok that the controversial teen brand would be closing the fitting rooms in all of its stores.

While scrolling on my couch Wednesday night, I must have seen a dozen videos from panicked customers and annoyed employees alike. Brandy is (in)famously “one size fits all,” but sizing is inconsistent (yes, I am bravely coming out as a Brandy Melville shopper) so the frustration is warranted. I took screenshots of the TikToks I thought were the funniest and posted them on X. When I checked in the next day, it had exploded. I don’t think I’ve gotten as much engagement on that site since I tweeted through my divorce in 2020. At present, the post has almost 2M impressions.

No matter how you feel about Brandy and its questionable business practices, this is the sort of brand loyalty and interest retailers would kill for. People are deeply upset! The reasons why seem to be an even split: shoppers who are earnestly disappointed they can no longer try on clothing at a shop with a store credit only return policy, and those who are appalled that anyone would dare shop there at all. (For the uninitiated, the 2024 HBO documentary Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion is a good place to start.)

Perhaps the most concerning thing here is the reason why the fitting rooms were shuttered in the first place: TikTok suggests that young shoppers left them a disgusting mess, leaving gum stuck to the walls after using it to keep the curtains shut, for instance. Why are people acting this way? I don’t care how old you are; has decorum completely gone out the window? The brick-and-mortar retail landscape has been on a downward spiral for years, but this is why we can’t have nice things. Here we have a retailer where young customers are willing to wait in line to spend money, and they ruin it by acting like animals. Maybe there’s a bigger story here on the decline of social skills while shopping physical retail in the age of e-commerce, or just the overall vibe of the people who patronize Brandy Melville, but I’ll leave that for somebody else.

While I’m on the topic of brand loyalty, it seems that fashion is locked in something of a brand trip arms race so far this summer. It’s barely June, but I’ve already lost count of the big-budget vacations marketing teams have meticulously planned for influencers, tastemakers, and friends in high places. Off the top of my head: Staud landed in Ravello to celebrate “Summer of Staud” and the brand’s collaboration with Positano institution Da Adolfo (the collection is very cute, by the way). Reformation’s most recent “Reformation in Residence” was hosted by Courtney Grow, who invited her stylish friends to eat, drink, and be merry in Sicily while wearing her collab. Alo took over a mega yacht in Monaco for F1 where Alix Earle, Stas Karanikolau, and Jake Shane are holding court; Michael Kors flew some TikTok heavy hitters to St. Tropez to hang out on branded boats and party at a bougie beach club. It’s a lot!

Even Kylie Jenner got in on the action, hosting her besties and their kids (Stormi’s first brand trip?!) in Turks and Caicos for a Kylie Cosmetics summer getaway. I wrote about the brand collab-ification of life events back in April after influencer Brigette Pheloung turned her bachelorette party into a sponsored outing for all of her friends. I knew that this would likely become the norm, but I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. These trips have become so commonplace as a way to market product “in context” and “world build” that the content coming out of them really doesn’t hit like it once did (unless you’re Rhode). I’d love to hear what the payoff looks like, aside from a brand’s name being splashed across social media for a few days, before the next trip comes along to steal the market share of attention.

People can only see so many pretty, perfect Instagram dumps from the Amalfi Coast/south of France/Mallorca/Santorini/wherever before they turn from aspirational to forgettable. It’s also common knowledge that these lavish, all-expenses-paid holidays are a tax write-off; it’s another way for people of influence to project a lifestyle very few could afford without brand backing. The fact that I’m bored of this before summer has officially started isn’t a great sign, though I do realize I’m more locked in on this than most. I’m curious to see how brands pivot to set themselves apart as the season goes on. A few of my pals have been invited on a jaunt to Camp J.Crew that will coincide with its sweet, nostalgic summer campaign that stars the former Victoria’s Secret Angels — a smart 180 from the beach club takeover they did last year. Staying one step ahead and veering off the beaten path seems to be the key here. I think I’m good on branded Italian vistas for a while.

That being said, I’m off to the (non-branded) beach. See you next week!

Happy Sunday, y’all! I hope you enjoyed the short week and are looking forward to what summer has in store. In my brief absence from blogging I’ve had a life-affirming couple of weeks, as two separate girls’ trips serendipitously made it out of the group chat around the same time. Spring break forever! I started out in St. Martin for a heavenly retreat at Belmond La Samanna with Laura, Liana, Emily, and Brynn, graciously hosted by Substack — a jaunt I am lovingly calling Camp Magasin. (PSA: Laura’s very smart longevity and aesthetics newsletter High Touch launched on Monday, go subscribe!) After a few days back in New York and a full repack, I flew to Amsterdam to meet up with my former Fashionista colleagues and current besties Tyler, Maura, and Maria. We stayed in a sweet little canal house, sunbathed in the park, had insane pastries at Saint-Jean bakery every morning, and, most importantly, saw Robyn and Harry Styles.

At some point during my travels, The New Garde turned two, which is hard for me to believe. Despite running more than one publication over the course of my career, I never saw myself starting my own, but I am so happy (and proud!) that I did. It’s fitting that this anniversary hit just as things have started to feel like they’re falling into alignment for me. At the risk of sounding sappy, for the first time in years, I feel like I’m living again, rather than simply surviving. It’s taken a lot of patience and “trusting the process” or whatever; I still have frequent “what’s going on with my career” a la Cher moments, and get very in my head when I’m about to hit “publish” on here, but I’m working on that. Along the way, it’s been comforting to know that I’m not alone in occasionally feeling lost, and that everything is irrevocably fucked. A lot of us are going through it, but at least we have each other.

Earlier this month, released a single from her “rock music” era that explores this exact sentiment. “SS26” is a prime example of existential crisis pop, with lyrics that touch on the usual happenings of Charli’s charmed “It” girl life (fashion weeks, music festivals, red carpets, etc.) that go on as planned while everything around her devolves into chaos. She writes: “spring summer ‘26 / when the world is gonna end, no hope for any of it / we’re walking on a runway that goes straight to hell / nothing’s gonna save us, not music, fashion or film.” Charli’s impact on pop culture at large cannot be understated, and not even she is immune to the unrelenting pressure to churn out content or the bureaucratic bullshit that comes with being a young, creative person navigating the tech billionaire era and the attention economy. Putting blinders on to the hellscape that surrounds you — and making the best work you can under the circumstances you’re in — is the only way to succeed.

As far as celebrities go, Charli is very good at playing this game; she does what she needs to do in terms of brand deals in order to fund her art. The “SS26” video, for example, is peppered with product placement, from Poppi — you may recall that she and Rachel Sennott starred in a commercial together for the prebiotic soda during the Super Bowl this year — to YSL Beauty, where she was recently appointed as a US brand ambassador. To maximize synergy, Saint Laurent also provided the fashion for the video, with designer Anthony Vaccarello making a rare on-screen cameo. Music videos have doubled as ads for decades, so who wouldn’t take a check to keep on livin’ that life (Von Dutch) and doing what you love? Selling out is officially a thing of the past, but that doesn’t mean it feels any less icky.

I felt similarly when Gucci landed in New York for its “GucciCore” Cruise 2027 show staged in Times Square earlier this month. We all know that Demna is a stunt queen, and his takeover of the global epicenter of consumerism was extremely on the nose, even for him. In the time he’s been at the brand thus far, he’s made it clear that his collections are meant to hold a mirror to society and those who currently shop for luxury goods. With so much pressure to right the Gucci ship after years of declining sales, giving the people what they want to buy right now is crucial. Much like his Fall 2026 show in Milan, the casting was a clown car of cultural stereotypes — but this time, Demna paid special homage to the Italian house’s stateside customers.

Demna knew exactly how to command international attention for this runway outing, taking over every screen he could, from the huge ones in Times Square to the tiny smartphones around the world. He enlisted American icons like Paris Hilton, Cindy Crawford, Sophia Lamar, and ultimate Divorced Guy™ Tom Brady to walk, alongside the usual “It” girls with massive social media clout: Emily Ratajkowski, Alex Consani, Gabbriette, and Amelia Gray. The front row was filled with paparazzi favorites from across generations — Kim Kardashian, Lindsay Lohan, Mariah Carey — and Gen Z’s most powerful influencers, like Alix Earle, Stas Karanikolaou, and the Carlson sisters. It’s further proof that the health of the business is dependent on mainstream spectacle; not even the once elitist (and now struggling) luxury conglomerates can opt out. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Every day that goes by, the headlines somehow feel more dystopian — within our industry alone! One of the big stories this month was that Everlane, the “sustainable” fashion brand built on “radical transparency,” sold to fast-fashion giant Shein for $100 million. This week it was announced that British youth culture bible The Face — which shuttered in March, wiped the contents of its website, and laid off a number of talented people — has been acquired by a holdings company in Singapore and will relaunch in the near future, the sort of scenario that inspired the plot line of The Devil Wears Prada 2. It’s just all so bleak, but staying the course and true to yourself is the best (and bravest) way forward.

This is all to say: we’re in the same boat on the proverbial River Styx and we have to ride it out somehow. Over the last couple of years, I’ve put a lot of effort into trying to stay grounded, live in the moment, take one day at a time, put one foot in front of the other. It’s all we can do. The world goes on turning, and as the industry keeps evolving, I’ll be here blogging/podcasting about it — hopefully making positive changes in any small way that I can. I am here for you! As the ever-wise Carine Roitfeld says in the opening scene of the “SS26” video: “Fashion won’t save us, but let’s go on the runway and walk.”

Good morning, everyone! I am sending this from St. Martin, where I just landed with some ladies you know and love (more on that later). I’m very much looking forward to a couple of days working in the sun, and alternating between the pool and the beach for swim breaks.

Last week felt particularly long, probably because the first Monday in May was a doozy: The Met Gala came and went without much fanfare, but the overarching narrative this year is that the pop cultural tentpole has devolved into the “Tech Gala,” a party for billionaires like honorary co-chairs Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos to flex their wealth and (purchased) proximity to gatekeepers in the worlds of fashion and art. This level of social climbing does not come cheap; the Bezoses reportedly donated $10M to the Costume Institute in exchange for their participation in the elite event.

Mrs. Sánchez Besos, who sat front row at the Schiaparelli Couture show in Paris in January, walked the carpet alongside Nicole Kidman and Anna Wintour wearing an underwhelming navy gown by the French house — an objectively safe, boring showing for someone who paid eight figures to secure an invitation. Other tech titans in attendance include, but are not limited to: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan; CEO of Instagram and Threads, Adam Mosseri; Google co-founder Sergey Brin; TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew; and Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel and his wife, Miranda Kerr, who was dressed in Dior by Jonathan Anderson. OpenAI, Amazon, Snap, Meta, and ShopMy — the affiliate shopping platform that achieved a $1.5B valuation last year — all purchased tables, which cost a reported $100,000 each.

As expected, this vibe shift caused several notable names to skip the Met Gala altogether this year. Counterprogramming popped up in protest, including a runway show called the “Ball without Billionaires” featuring a cast of Amazon workers wearing looks by indie designers, co-hosted by . Though it is customary for the mayor to attend, Zohran Mamdani did not; instead, he used his platform to spotlight local fashion industry professionals in a series of portraits by Kara McCurdy.

We all know that the fashion industry — fashion media in particular — has fallen on hard times. Even storied luxury conglomerates can’t compete with their tech counterparts in terms of growth and earning potential. It’s not exactly shocking that the tech bros have swooped in to assert their dominance by writing some massive checks, especially because they’re so desperate to be cool (or at the very least, adjacent to it), one of the few things that can’t be bought. Now that this year’s Met Gala is behind us, and Big Tech’s infiltration of fashion appears to be the new normal, I’m curious to see how quickly we’ll see various companies attempt to make themselves more palatable to young audiences in an attempt to reach a trend conscious consumer base with good taste — and, in many cases, a good moral compass.

For starters, both Claude and ChatGPT have hosted dinners for creators at trendy, hard to get into establishments in both New York and Los Angeles over the past few weeks. From Instagram photos and TikTok videos, these were indistinguishable from the dinners that influencers regularly attend as part of their jobs, usually put on by fashion and beauty brands, produced with incredible, wedding-level attention to detail. The Claude supper club was held at Wild Cherry, the restaurant inside the A24-owned Cherry Lane Theater, while the ChatGPT dinner, hosted by content creator (and Jake Shane bestie) Brett Chody, was at the Little Beach House in Malibu — a Soho House location that’s notoriously exclusive and a home base for celebrities. Anyone quickly scrolling through their favorite influencer’s Stories might have not even clocked that the chic tablescapes at the clouty restaurants were brought to you by Anthropic and OpenAI.

Something similar happened this spring, when a blue chore coat made by Palantir went viral and subsequently sold out, even earning a story in The New York Times. This is just the latest in a long line of tech companies entering the merch game — a Korean streetwear label even licensed the Lockheed Martin brand name to slap on an on-trend gorpcore collection a couple of years ago — but the chore coat in particular is catnip for a certain type of menswear enthusiast. Though it’s likely that some people who purchased the jacket did so ironically, others surely just thought it looked cool. It’s a great example of what is calling “tasteslop,” or things that have signifiers of “good taste” or design, but are completely devoid of the human element, and the “socially validated relation between objects, people, histories, scenes, and timing. Tasteslop emerges when the visible signs of taste are extracted from those relations and redeployed generically.“

The chore coat selling out is just the first step in Palantir’s quest for cultural capital in the fashion space in particular. This is why a parody account on X called PalantirGirls stopped me in my tracks when it came across my timeline a couple of weeks ago. Their feed is a scroll of fake Palantir ads in the style of Los Angeles Apparel, featuring influential Gen Z “It” girls like Madelyn Cline, Olivia Rodrigo, Gracie Abrams, and Addison Rae with dystopian slogans like “make America great again,” “wealth is worth,” and “a whole civilization will die tonight” photoshopped on top of them. It’s only a matter of time before a campaign like this happens for real — even your faves have a hard time saying no when the check is large enough, as we’ve seen throughout history. The girls are already wading in to controversial brand deals: You may recall that Kendall Jenner starred in a mega viral sports betting commercial during the Super Bowl in February, because everything is gambling now!

During fashion month, I always see an uptick in TikToks and memes about the absurd collaborations and event sponsorships that flood the calendar — increasingly they include nonsensical partnerships between a fashion label and Lockheed Martin or Blackrock or some other company contributing to the war machine. Sure, we’re having some laughs now, but if the Bezos-sponsored Met Gala is a harbinger of things to come, next year’s party (and industry events in general) might be underwritten by an even more sinister figure. Someone’s gotta pay for this stuff, and with the “Tech Gala,” the floodgates have officially opened. We’re probably not too far away from a Loewe x Lockheed Martin pop-up no longer being a meme and becoming an actual reality, so keep a close eye on the sponsorship listings on your invitations this summer.

Good morning and happy Met Gala day everyone! The first Monday in May really snuck up on me. I’ve been covering the massive Costume Institute event for over a decade, and I cannot recall a year when I’ve heard less about it — or felt less excitement for it — in the lead-up. There’s a handful of probable reasons for this, but two stick out to me: The heavy involvement of honorary co-chairs Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, signaling that the once cool, culturally relevant party has fully jumped the shark, and the possibility that the marketing blitz for The Devil Wears Prada 2, in a real art-imitating-life scenario, stole its thunder.

I, too, succumbed to the hype and saw The Devil Wears Prada 2 on Saturday (I guess my press screening invite got lost in the mail…) in a completely full theater. The sequel to the seminal 2006 megahit starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway as Miranda Priestly and Andy Sachs, respectively, reportedly brought in a whopping $233.6 million worldwide on opening weekend. I’m sure much of this eagerness was nostalgia driven, as the original was an aspirational, high-fashion feast for the eyes, when magazines — Vogue and its editrix Anna Wintour, specifically — were still flush with cash and influence. (It’s worth noting here that Vogue chose to fully embrace TDWP2, going so far as to put Wintour and Streep on its May cover, while it largely ignored the original.) To say times have changed for the worse would be a gigantic understatement, and from where I sit, making a movie about fashion media twenty years later seemed like an exercise in depressing futility.

Subscribe now

I’ll admit, I haven’t revisited the first Devil Wears Prada in close to a decade. I’ve been living in the aftermath, and looking back only to be reminded of how far the industry has fallen doesn’t feel particularly good or encouraging. When the film was announced, many of my peers were rightfully curious how it could be true to the times while still being watchable/not a complete horror show. Would it address the constant layoffs at Elias-Clarke (the fictionalized Condé Nast)? How could it illustrate the extensive budget cuts at Runway and the hemorrhaging of ad pages? Where would the digital editors and social media team, who keep the content ship afloat, fit into the plot? Would the terms “traffic” and “viral” and “sponcon” be peppered throughout the script?

To my shock and, at times, delight, I was impressed to see that they covered every single base. Though it was not easy for someone like me, who’s been coldly laid off from an editorial job and had her career derailed, to watch that very thing happen within the first moments of the film, the writers were able to depict exactly what it’s like to exist within the media ecosystem in 2026. So much so that I think TDWP2 will be similarly revered as the original in decades time as the defining piece of pop culture to capture fashion media’s fall from grace.

Where the film succeeds most is that it’s wrapped a deeply fucked up reality in a pretty package to present it to the masses. The people deserve to know what’s happening to Big Media! For example, the fact that advertisers call the shots at magazines these days becomes a major plot line featuring Emily Blunt’s beloved character, Emily Charlton. Emily is now employed by Dior, telling Andy that luxury retail is the only sector of the fashion industry that has money (despite the well-documented luxury downturn). When Runway faces a journalism scandal — the sort of thing that happens when your budget for fact checkers and experienced editors is slashed — Dior threatens to pull ad dollars unless they are heavily featured in an upcoming issue, a move that should come as no surprise to any viewers who have heard of the “full look policy.”

I won’t go into a full plot summary and review here, but when the Miranda and Emily tension comes to a head, Miranda delivers a savage insult that captures the state of fashion media in a nutshell: “You’re not a visionary, you’re a vendor.” Editors are at the mercy of their advertisers and corporate overlords in a way that cannot be understated, and even still, the returns are diminishing. The movie illustrates Runway’s budget cuts in a mostly humorous manner: Miranda has to (gasp!) hang up her own coat, which leaves her frustrated and out of breath; she has to fly economy to Milan for fashion week and the magazine’s confusing Vogue World-esque event; she’s horrified to learn that private car service has been cut, and she’d be forced to take Ubers. After bemoaning that his colossal three-day cover shoots have been reduced to a few hours at Milk Studios, Stanley Tucci’s character Nigel Kipling tells Andy flat-out: Runway stopped being a magazine years ago, and it’s now just “content.”

Another dark truth the movie must contend with is that the fate of the industry lies in the hands of a very wealthy few. Early on, the CEO of Elias-Clarke, Irv Ravitz, suddenly dies, leaving his son, a swagless, dorky tech bro named Jay Ravitz, in charge. Jay immediately calls in Boston Consultants to strategize ways to cut costs, which would eliminate whole departments and dozens of jobs. I’ve seen this movie, I know how it ends, etc. Additionally, we meet billionaire Benji Barnes, a Jeff Bezos-like caricature who is freshly divorced and dating Emily. In the aftermath of his marriage, he’s lookmaxxing and hungry for clout, hoping to gain cultural capital by buying Runway, which we learn would be run by his girlfriend. (You might recall the swirling rumors that Jeff Bezos plans to eventually buy Vogue.) The audience is clued into the fact that Benji does not actually care about culture, art, or journalism, as he tells Miranda that the magazine will be run by AI in the near future, anyway.

This is where the movie starts to feel particularly bleak. Although there is a “happy ending,” where a benevolent billionaire — who just so happens to be Benji’s ex-wife — swoops in to save Elias-Clarke, it’s obvious that there isn’t another solution in this fictional world or otherwise. If the sentiment of the original movie was “a million girls would kill for this job,” the sequel proves how little there is to show for it once you have it. TDWP2 does a great job of illustrating the tentativeness of everyone’s role, and no matter how much you love your work, it will never love you back.

Viewers learn that Andy is apprehensive about renting an apartment that isn’t below her means or buying designer clothes that aren’t thrifted, and fights so hard to save Elias-Clarke because, if she doesn’t get laid off again, then maybe she can unfreeze one of her eggs and have a baby. Miranda also discusses the precarity of their employment situation, saying that all is well “for now,” and while they can do good work together today, tomorrow is not promised. She generously tells Andy to move forward with writing a tell-all book about her; Miranda knows a six-figure book deal will soften the blow when the media reaper eventually comes for her (or them both) again.

Audiences flocked to The Devil Wears Prada for aspiration, joy, and fantasy, but this time around, there was not much of that at all. I did not leave the theater feeling optimistic about the future of my chosen industry, despite having some laughs and being charmed by the characters who I feel like I’ve grown up with. Of course, I think there’s hope for fashion media, in ways that the movie didn’t really touch — TikTok, Substack, independent creators, etc. — but relying on a bailout from a billionaire who is a patron of the arts in earnest is the epitome of a happily ever after movie script ending. Chances are, you’ll get one of the more sinister sort.

The anti-billionaire sentiment around the Met Gala has hit fever pitch this year; there have been protest signs around New York, and there will surely be demonstrations throughout the day in the hours leading up to the event this evening. In many ways, the movie’s greatest strength is how accurately it depicts the decline of the world’s most outwardly glamorous industry over two decades, and how its future hangs in the balance, depending on who will essentially become the highest bidder. It’ll be interesting to see how this exact scenario plays out in real time as the Met Gala rolls on — tonight and in the years ahead. I will be on the edge of my seat.

Good morning and happy Tuesday! I realize I let the better part of April breeze by without posting on Substack, but life happens, OK? I’m glad to be back, and am thrilled that the next few weeks are jam-packed with blog fodder — in case you forgot, the Met Gala is six days away! Although I’ve been quiet, I’ve been locked in: I, too, tuned into Bieberchella from afar (I watched the livestream both weekends, and yes, I cried both times) as well as Salone in Milan, which has suddenly (or maybe not so suddenly?) turned into another week-long event for fashion people.

With so many industry folks already posting from Italy, I think it’s safe to say that Eurotrip Season 2026 is officially underway. Today is the Chanel Cruise show in Biarritz, which means our feeds will be inundated with images from the runway and the French seaside. It’s a small taste of what’s to come over the next few months, when brands of all sizes gather groups of editors, influencers, and the like for some fun in the sun — all on the brands’ dime, of course — in exchange for content. A fair trade, if you ask me. Last summer, Rhode hosted a beach club in Mallorca, Jimmy Choo took over one on the Amalfi Coast, and J.Crew held residence at a hotel in Puglia, setting a high bar for what a luxury trip looks like now, and what we might see this year.

Over the weekend, one brand trip in particular caused a stir online. I spent some of my rainy Saturday on TikTok following Brigette Pheloung’s bachelorette party, which was sponsored by a new brand called Swan Beauty. Pheloung, known to her followers as Acquired Style, brought a group of friends on an all-expenses-paid trip to St. Barths, including roundtrip flights on a private jet and a beachfront compound — all provided by Swan Beauty. As far as influencers go, Pheloung is among the top tier; I overheard four teenagers talking about her as if she was an A-list celebrity when I dared to visit one of the trendy frozen yogurt spots in Noho a couple of weeks ago. If there’s anyone who could help introduce a new-to-market gadget to millions of people in a matter of days, it’s her.

Swan Beauty’s founder is Colby Mitchell, whose healthcare entrepreneur husband Mark Mitchell’s family office funded the brand. The product Swan Beauty is pushing is a $795 smart mirror that provides users with personalized guidance on their skincare routines, provides access to expert makeup tutorials, and more (a monthly subscription is also required). This mirror played a minor role in the weekend festivities, but anyone following along at home didn’t go long without a Swan Beauty mention. Mrs. Mitchell made appearances in the influencers’ posts, and all of the bachelorette guests shouted the brand out with abandon. The partnership was apparently six months in the making, and every detail was fit for the FYP.

While a #sponsored life event such as a bachelorette party might sound soulless to some, it’s likely the way of the future.

Content creators have become accustomed to a certain lifestyle and level of service on account of their work with brands; they’re flown business class around the world and put up in luxury hotels with add-ons like spa treatments and meals included. This is what followers stick around for, and what makes their content aspirational. They obviously don’t want their bachelorette parties, weddings, etc. to pale in comparison to brand trips! If you can’t beat ‘em, partner with ‘em. Plus, it’s lovely that Pheloung was able to invite her friends along with zero cost to them. Bachelorette trips are expensive — sometimes prohibitively so, if the bride’s besties are in different income brackets — and having a brand pay is an incredible gift.

This is the second sponsored life event I’ve seen play out on my FYP this month: Influencer Eloise Dufka turned her birthday vacation to Turks and Caicos into a brand trip for six of her girlfriends. She was hooked up with a palatial villa #spon by Airbnb, gift bags filled with swag from beauty brands like Caudalie, Summer Fridays, and Laneige, matching Alo sets for the flights, and suitcases from Béis. We’ve seen this sort of influencer holiday evolve over the course of the last decade — I did a podcast episode on the topic last year — and while some alcohol-soaked branded blowouts have been deemed passé (think: Trippin’ with Tarte), more well curated trips like Pheloung’s and Dufka’s with people who are actual friends have become the new standard.

During my stints as an editor-in-chief, I was invited on press trips that were nicer than any vacation I could ever dream of paying for on a fashion media salary. No matter how big of a bag you’re earning from your day-to-day brand deals or affiliate revenue, booking the same level of trip on your own dime would be a rude awakening. Most influencers you see at five-star hotels are getting comped — or a deeply discounted rate — in exchange for content. If you can get a brand to collaborate with and cover you, why wouldn’t you?

I’m sure Pheloung got paid somewhere in the six figures for this trip in addition to getting the plane and house free of charge; the amount of content being created gives a sense of what her deliverables to Swan Beauty might have been. Clearly it’s working for both parties: @acquired.style hit the 1M follower mark on Instagram during this bachelorette trip, so not only are viewers invested in the short term, they’ve committed to following along once the girlies land back home. I’m positive that Pheloung would have had a top-tier bachelorette whether Swan Beauty stepped in or not, but having a billionaire-backed brand foot the bill is a surefire way to project the kind of luxury that even extremely high earners can’t easily achieve. On the flip side, I can’t imagine a marketing strategy that could have earned Swan Beauty more consumer curiosity and a way to fast track their brand name into the cultural conversation — even if only for a weekend. It’s the cash-for-clout exchange that’s become a sign of the times.

Semi-relatedly, something else I’ve been thinking about this month is the recent influx of high-low designer collaborations. I wrote about the John Galliano hire at Zara in March, and that news was quickly followed up by a Stella McCartney for H&M announcement, as well as one for a Victoria Beckham for GAP range. When I started working in fashion full-time in 2010, these designer partnerships were already par for the course and a major cause for excitement (McCartney’s first collection for H&M came out in 2005). I was in my early 20s and couldn’t buy any of the stuff I was writing about all day at retail price. The collabs were a fun way to wade in and experience some of the luxury designers I admired.

Well, nearly two decades have gone by and this is still the case for many when it comes to the high-end market. Luxury has gotten prohibitively expensive, and the whole contemporary category has pretty much been wiped out. Though brands at all price points are struggling, the luxury downturn has dominated headlines for years. Both McCartney and Beckham are wealthy, but their brands have seen better days, and neither have considerable cultural capital or a strong brand identity at present. Getting their names back on people’s radars is crucial, which is where the mall brand collabs come in.

In December 2025, Stella McCartney, the brand, reported falling sales and its directors warned it could run out of cash by 2028. McCartney also bought back the 49% minority stake that LVMH held in her label in January 2025, meaning she’s facing the tough market as an independently owned operation. Victoria Beckham’s namesake brand has seen its fair share of ups and downs in the nearly 20 years it's been in business. While the Beckhams have been able to stay in the spotlight — thanks in part to a duo of Netflix docuseries, one centering David and the other Victoria — most recently it’s due to an ongoing tabloid feud with their eldest son, Brooklyn Beckham, and his wife, Nicola Peltz-Beckham.

Having a famous last name is helpful, but celebrity doesn’t always translate to sales. When it comes to celeb-backed brands, McCartney and Beckham are up against a new generation of entrepreneurs like Justin and Hailey Bieber who are courting customers through world building and pushing pop culture forward. The Biebers were the big business story at Coachella this year: Justin’s brand SKYLRK smashed Coachella records by selling $15M of merch over two weekends, while Hailey’s Rhode (which was acquired by e.l.f. Beauty for $1B last year and is so prolific that I am able to name-drop it in almost every newsletter) hosted a “Rhode World” activation in the desert. Not only did Rhode introduce a new product category, acne patches called “Spotwear,” it also had people organically posting about it to the tune of over $10M worth of media impact value.

Billion-dollar brands like H&M and GAP have the capital required to make significant noise in a crowded market — and sell product at a price point that a larger consumer base can afford — while designers like McCartney and Beckham have the industry clout that can help grab customer attention. GAP has been throwing a lot at the wall recently, and much of it seems to be sticking — especially its focus on music and entertainment, where Beckham fits in neatly. As far as the VB x GAP product goes, it’s pretty unremarkable, but some of it is still sold out on GAP’s website. I’m curious to see how the Stella McCartney x H&M collection fares when it drops next week, and whether the frenzy will compare to what it was the first time around 20 years ago. But here I am, writing about Victoria Beckham and Stella McCartney, and isn’t that the objective?

Next week is the Met Gala, which is being co-chaired and sponsored by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos. One of the biggest conversations in the fashion industry this year has centered around billionaires buddying up to key fashion players — the Bezoses and Anna Wintour, specifically — as the latter’s power and capital wanes. I’ve posed this question several times here already, but what do we really expect? The money has to come from somewhere. Making friends in high places (and with deep pockets) is important. But where can we go when there’s nowhere higher on the ladder to climb? Are brands the only answer? As time goes on, and more and more attention is the ultimate goal aside from more and more money, it’s really starting to look that way.

This is getting long, so that’s all I have for now. Tune in next week for my first newsletter in May — I already have my ticket to The Devil Wears Prada 2 (obviously) and have RSVPed for the Met exhibition preview on Monday, so gird your loins!

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend. I spent as much of mine as I could outside before the weather turned, and the remainder locked into some culturally significant media about terrible relationships. I, too, tore through Belle Burden’s divorce memoir “Strangers,” which is just as scary as people say — especially for a person with lingering trust issues from her own previous marriage. You think you know someone! Whenever I needed a break from that horror story, I looked to the most reliable source of mindless entertainment I can think of: Bravo.

Unless you’ve been completely avoiding social media, you’re surely aware of the scandal that’s shaken “Summer House” over the past week. Rumors about a love triangle between three cast members started swirling early last month, and it’s messy even by Bravo standards. Last Tuesday, known fuckboy and Complex Media employee West Wilson and recent divorcée Amanda Batula released a joint statement about their budding relationship, sending shockwaves through the network’s extended universe and fandom. The couple blatantly betrayed their cast mate Ciara Miller, who was previously in a situationship with Wilson, and who considered Batula to be a dear friend.

Anyone who’s watched “Summer House” from the beginning (myself included) was not surprised to see proof that both Wilson and Batula are, in fact, shitty people. To fuel the flames on TikTok, viewers are going back to previous seasons, looking more closely at Wilson and Batula’s interactions — and their dealings with the rest of the housemates — that could hint at any secretive, insidious behavior. Obviously, there is plenty, though some is subtle. The reunion is reportedly set to film on April 15, which is when we can expect the drama to come to a head. In the interim, as is customary in the thriving attention economy, some “Summer House” stars are seizing branded opportunities — like formerly engaged couple Lindsay Hubbard and Carl Radke, who were in an Uber Eats ad together — while others are losing them.

Batula is an outspoken cannabis user, something that famously caused friction in her marriage to Kyle Cooke. In the spirit of 4/20, New York-based brand Edie Parker tapped Batula for a campaign to support its “Boobs on Drugs tee,” with a portion of the shirt’s proceeds benefitting the Last Prisoner Project. It was an objectively cool move and great casting on Edie Parker’s part. Batula was in a prime position to come out of this season on top, breaking free from a bad marriage and starting a new chapter on her own terms, all while looking smoking hot. The campaign also could have helped Batula ascend to “fashion girl” status — something that few Bravolebrities are able to achieve, as they generally partner with mass brands to maximize profits and mainstream visibility.

In an unfortunate turn of events, the Boobs on Drugs campaign dropped on the exact same day as Batula and Wilson’s joint statement — and just as the public swiftly turned against both of them. In order to prevent undue backlash, Edie Parker removed the images featuring Batula from Instagram and its website, aside from a headless shot that conceals the model’s identity. Putting my personal feelings about Batula aside, it’s a shame that her breakout fashion moment was spoiled. I was DMing with a friend about this over the weekend, who said: “She should not be losing brand deals for having a little sex!” Batula might be a backstabbing, low-vibrational opp, but the last time I checked, being insecure isn’t a crime, and shouldn’t necessarily affect someone’s livelihood. (Related: Wilson was apparently edited out of a Marriott campaign his podcast did for the NCAA championship.)

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but some of the people we’ve platformed online and on reality television are truly awful human beings! Because social media is a well-curated facade, people have become proficient in projecting exactly what they want other people to see, and hiding their flaws — both internal and external — extremely well. This is trickier when it comes to reality TV, when cameras are rolling 24/7, but it took 10 seasons for Batula’s mask to fully slip. I’m sure we’ll get the customary victimhood narrative and subsequent redemption arc in the months ahead, but more than anything, she’s become the latest cautionary tale about fumbling the bag.

In 2024, I wrote about whether the great influencer reckoning is upon us, as this sort of thing is happening in the fashion and beauty spaces with increased frequency: someone gets hired for a campaign or collaboration just days or weeks before they’re cancelled, and the brand is forced to pull it/pretend it never happened. (Think: Matilda Djerf’s ill-timed Rhode holiday ads.) Until there’s a proper vetting process for who we give our follows and our views, brands are going to be rolling the dice when it comes to hiring certain personalities for campaigns. They’re all one Deuxmoi or r/NYCinfluencersnark post away from a fall from grace, which feels unsustainable on both the brand and the talent side. Let this be a lesson for all parties trafficking in the ever-evolving attention economy: Sometimes chasing clout comes at a very steep cost.

Read more

Good evening! Last week’s dispatch is late because I felt an unusual aversion to my computer over the weekend. I’m a little rattled by how quickly Q1 came and went, and I am still working to find balance as a freelance person operating (and trying to succeed) within the attention economy. Despite the fact that I had some variation of a blogging job from 2009 to 2019, hitting the post/publish button now versus then can feel like a daunting — and terrifying! — task. The internet is different now, to say the absolute least.

I try to be kind to myself for needing some time offline — without a byline, or a take, or my name floating around in the conversation somehow. But it’s become increasingly clear to me that isn’t really a viable option if I want to achieve my professional goals. This newsletter and my pod have been great exposure therapy. I really appreciate all of the feedback I get here on Substack, and about the work I’m doing for other outlets. I’m energized going into April, and am looking forward to being out and about this spring. (If you’re reading this and would like to work together this quarter, hit me up!)

I know progress isn’t linear, but having a moment of feeling overexposed online really brought out my baser impulses to log off and hide. One of the most beautiful things about being an adult who’s experienced my fair share of challenges is that I can see when my unhealthy habits are kicking in and switch gears. It has also honed my ability to discern when this sort of backslide is happening on a larger scale; when strides we’ve made as a society or an industry start to come undone. Pattern recognition is a blessing and a curse.

Some disappointing news in this vein came from a Vogue Business report on runway size inclusivity last week. Before even clicking on the results, I knew they would be upsetting. Anyone who paid attention to the collections this season could sense a vibe shift when it came to the casting; models were noticeably thin in the vast majority of shows, in every city. Certain runways, like Gucci, did this for narrative effect, presenting skinniness as a status symbol; if the luxury customer’s sizes are shrinking in the era of GLP-1s, then designers are going to give them what they want, and what will fit. But seeing the actual numbers is jarring.

Read more

Happy Sunday, everyone! Spring is finally in the air, which means my will to live has been restored. Yesterday I clocked 18,457 steps, aimlessly walking around downtown and window shopping. I have a small wish list of things I hope to acquire this season, but I have entered the era of my retail journey where I think long and hard before buying anything — especially if it’s from a luxury brand. Sure, a lot of this has to do with budgetary constraints. But I also know what I like, and if I’m going to drop a significant chunk of cash, I want to make sure it’s on a piece I will love and wear for years. I don’t easily give into the industry hype machine, and every so often, it becomes clear that I am in the minority.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been served a shocking number of Chanel haul videos on TikTok — women of all ages posting the goods they were able to grab from Matthieu Blazy’s first collection for the house. I caught wind of the frenzy when my editor friends were in Paris for fashion week, sharing screenshots of their DMs and group chats on Instagram, where they were strategizing how to purchase the items they wanted before they sold out. When Matthieu mania moved stateside, publications like The Cut and Vogue chronicled the crowds outside of New York Chanel boutiques, much like Complex used to do on Thursdays outside of Supreme a decade ago.

The industry has been waiting for one of the rounds of designer musical chairs to yield a result like what’s happening with Blazy at Chanel right now. People are excited! And more importantly, in the midst of an ongoing luxury slowdown, they’re spending! Satisfied customers are flocking to TikTok to show off their new purchases; I’ve seen so many hauls that I could probably recite the entire Spring 2026 line sheet at this point. The shoes and bags were the most popular pieces by far, and certain styles sold out so quickly that many shoppers had to visit multiple stores to find what they were eyeing.

While it’s undoubtedly an exhilarating moment for an industry that’s felt stagnant, it’s also a bizarre phenomenon to witness Chanel being unboxed in such large quantities (and by so many people) that it might as well be fast fashion. This is amplified by the fact that these videos often feature the exact same items, like the mixed animal print ballet flats. A new category of content has emerged complaining about the hauls, like this one ranting about being sick of seeing the “fuckass pony hair shoes” all over her feed. It’s been, like, two weeks! You’d better get used to it, sister.

I can’t fault people for being stoked on their new Chanel. I would be, too! What I have a tough time wrapping my head around is the flattening of both the Chanel product and the Chanel shopping experience — two aspects of luxury fashion that I would never associate with haul culture. I know that real Matthieu Blazy heads took care in deciding what to buy, considering their purchases for several months after the runway show walked in October. But there’s also the hype-driven customer with ample cash to drop on hot ticket items and blast them all over social media for clout. Whenever that happens, no matter how expensive the pieces featured in the hauls, it’s difficult for them to feel anything but disposable. The cycle moves so quickly that there’s not much time to appreciate beauty and novelty before we’re onto the next thing. The content machine must keep on churning, and no one wants to be left behind.

I texted my friend Amanda Mull, an expert on all things retail, to see if she could help me make sense of my complicated feelings. “Things that used to be special/rare are now more like mass things in quality and visibility, and things that are mass have gotten better at mimicking the experience of specialness,” she said. “So it all just averages out into one long scroll through TikTok hauls.”

Of course, a plaguing question is: How is everyone affording this much Chanel? Luxury fashion has gotten so expensive that there’s almost no middle ground, and customers on the margins are getting fully priced out. Plus, while prices are going up, quality is not. The most recent Chanel price increase in January — a reported 8% to 12% rise in cost — has classic handbags like the medium flap bag ringing in at over $10,000. I don’t need any of you to explain to me that, yes, actually, there are plenty of wealthy people globally who can pay for this stuff. But there are many, many more who can’t. Where should they go? There’s ample opportunity to capture this enthusiastic customer in the middle, and one fast-fashion giant is seizing it.

The major news to come out of the fashion world this week was a legitimate shock: John Galliano was hired by Zara for a two-year design role. According to a press release, Galliano will “re-author the brand’s archives through a series of seasonal collections,” and will work “directly with garments from Zara’s past seasons, deconstructing and reconfiguring them into new seasonal expressions and creations.” There’s also a vague promise of a slower design philosophy, as well as one that doesn’t “borrow” so much from other brands: “Guided by a couture process and authorship, the collections will be released seasonally over the course of the partnership beginning in September 2026.” To go along with the announcement, Zara released new photos of Galliano shot by photographer of the moment Szilveszter Makó.

It’s been evident for a while that Zara is trying to distance itself from its fast-fashion reputation, despite its dubious sustainability, manufacturing, and labor practices. For its fiftieth anniversary last year, Zara released a campaign with credits that read like a murderers’ row of industry talent: Steven Meisel, Karl Templer, Pat McGrath, Guido Palau, and Piergiorgio Del Moro. The cast was similarly stacked, with 50 supermodels spanning several decades — Twiggy, Naomi Campbell, Carla Bruni, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Natasha Poly, Paloma Elsesser, Sasha Pivovarova, etc. — starring in the black and white ads.

Names like these bring meaningful prestige to Zara; they’re also people who know that prestige doesn’t pay the bills. Zara’s parent company Inditex posted a record-breaking year in 2025: Net profits rose a reported 6% to €6.2 billion, while total sales grew 3.2% to €39.9 billion. These gigs are where the money is; rumors are already circulating that Galliano’s contract for two years of work at Zara is in the eight figures. I’m curious to see how much freedom Galliano is granted, and what creative and procedural changes he might be able to make at such a massive brand; if his designs are less “inspired” by runway collections and more original, perhaps that can slow down certain production processes? Or he could opt for more sustainable fabrics? Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part, but bringing in someone of his artistic caliber could yield some positive results with regard to Zara’s business practices.

Zara is no longer the cheapest, most ubiquitous fast-fashion option by a long shot. They’ve been outpaced by the ultra-fast Amazons, Sheins, and Boohoos of the world, and they need to shake up their strategy. Gen Z and Gen Alpha have grown up on these, and most likely consider Zara to be mid-market, akin to popular contemporary labels like Reformation, Sézane, and Ganni, which are also big on collaborations to bring buzz and a new point-of-view to their product offerings. Getting millennials on board might not be as easy, but if anyone can do it, it’s John Galliano.

I started my fashion career in the heyday of Target and H&M designer collaborations, and the fervor around the limited-edition drops was very real. One of the most surreal experiences of my entire life happened at the Versace x H&M party in 2011, when I saw Prince perform less than 20 feet in front of me. I still use the tote I got from the Isabel Marant x H&M launch event in 2013. I can already imagine the first Galliano for Zara hauls that will take over our FYPs later this year — and I’m positive Zara has considered them, too. TikTok is the great equalizer; whether you’re posting a Matthieu Blazy for Chanel or John Galliano for Zara haul, to the algorithm, it’s all the same.

That’s all from me this week! I promise the pod will return soon, but it’s on the back burner for the time being as my plate is pretty full. I’d LOVE to do another live pod this spring or summer… slide into my inbox if you’d like to partner with me on that. Before I go, a bit of self-promotion:

I had a fun story in the NYT Styles section on Thursday. My algorithm knows I love a mother-daughter fashion duo! Kara Mendelsohn worked at Calvin Klein in the late ‘90s — a couple of years after Carolyn Bessette in the same sales role she held before moving into the PR department — and she’s been going viral for her videos pegged to “Love Story” talking about her experience working at the brand. At the same time, she’s been styling her daughter Ella, who is an influencer with 2.7M TikTok followers, in her archival pieces from Calvin Klein Collection for a double dose of virality and some fun fashion education. You can give it a read over at The New York Times.

Greetings from Virginia, where I’ve been spending time with family but also glued to my phone trying to absorb all of the Paris Fashion Week happenings through a screen. I’ll admit I have a touch of FOMO this season — mostly because there are lots of things going on that I want to talk to my peers about IRL in real time, and group chats/IG DMs/long-winded voice notes don’t hit the same as pre-show gab sessions and gossiping over Café Charlot drinks.

There have been some very high highs on the Paris runways! It’s been lovely to see such spirited online discussion about the actual clothing — the Dior, Alaïa, Celine, Dries, Tom Ford, Loewe, and Givenchy collections have been particularly popular on my feeds — as opposed to runway gimmicks, which in our attention economy is a feat.

That’s not to say that a stunt can’t add value to a show. Earlier this week, Matières Fécales presented its Fall 2026 collection entitled “The One Percent,” which explored themes of money, power, and corruption. The looks riffed on typical rich person garb — business suits, ball gowns, furs, tuxedos, Chanel-esque tweeds — but were twisted in the clever, critical way the brand is known for. In addition to pieces made from dollar bills, there was a finance bro quarter-zip with the word “CULT” embroidered on it, and models with blood on their gloved hands, for starters.

Designers Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran also looked to the world of venture capital when it came to their casting. Bryan Johnson, the multimillionaire tech entrepreneur who’s known for his “don’t die” philosophy and obsession with longevity and biohacking, made his modeling debut, just weeks after Elena Velez had prominent Gen Z looksmaxxer Clavicular walk in her New York Fashion Week show. (Velez allegedly tried to cast Johnson as well, but it didn’t work out.)

Johnson was the latest in a growing list of swagless rich guys taking the spotlight this fashion month. Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan caused a stir when they sat front row at Prada in Milan, while much of the Couture Week discussion in January centered around Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Besos’s attendance at the shows. Last week I wrote about Demna’s first runway collection for Gucci, which presented a wide array of options for this current crop of billionaires grasping for cultural clout; the sorts of looks that Bezos and his cohort will probably wear when they park their yachts in Ibiza this summer. Fashion has always been for the ruling class, and the Patrick Bateman-as-muse thing has been happening on the runways for a while now — the “boom boom” aesthetic dominated the discourse at this time last year, and for his latest outing for Tom Ford, Haider Ackermann showed tailored suits layered under clear rain jackets straight out of American Psycho — but this season, it feels like we’ve gone full mask off.

The eagle-eyed team at Interview also got in on the discussion this week, when their fun, cheeky photo spread with “the finest boys in finance” went mega viral. The associates and analysts shot by Matt Weinberger were styled in fancy pieces from Celine, Loro Piana, Rolex, Hermès, and Armani by Marcus Allen of the Society Archive. Wall Street types lost their goddamn minds over this, to the point where the young men featured might lose their jobs for breaking the “unwritten rule” of never dressing better than your boss. This is a fashion editorial with loaned clothing, alongside some light, low-stakes interviews with a few 20-somethings who have mediocre taste and minimal perspective. When did everyone lose their sense of humor?

These boys clearly didn’t get approval from their banks, and Goldman Sachs even released a statement to the Post to distance itself from the shoot. But why has this drawn such ire when pop culture at large is so obsessed with the uber-wealthy and the inner workings of the finance world? Industry just wrapped to more acclaim than ever; “corpcore” and “office siren” dominated womenswear trends for the better part of two years; Kendall Jenner starred in a sports betting commercial during the Super Bowl last month; the Bezoses are sponsoring the upcoming Met Gala; and luxury fashion has become so expensive that customers at the margins are getting priced out completely. It makes sense that this fascination has spawned its own content ecosystem, and that it’s bled onto the runways.

As life continues to get more unaffordable and wealth inequality continues to grow, we’ll surely be seeing more of this. Maybe one of the things to come out of it will lead to something changing before we lose fashion month to the finance bros and the billionaire class — the only people who can afford the stuff coming down the runways — for good.

And now, some thoughts on the week’s news:

Read more

Happy first day of March, everyone! I am writing this from the sky somewhere between New York and Nashville, where I’m off to meet my new baby niece. I spent this week working on a few things that will hopefully come out soon, and I’m excited to share them. I’ve been following Milan Fashion Week as closely as I can from afar; I watched the Prada livestream while having coffee and toast on Thursday morning, and it was a real emotional roller coaster. As much as I loved the music, the layered, lived-in looks, and Bella Hadid’s debut that included four (!) turns on the runway, I also got very bummed out about my income bracket. A Prada coat, always something to strive towards!

I tried to play catch-up on the rest of the shows yesterday after packing for this trip, but I got sucked into the Gucci discourse. It’s all anyone’s been talking about on X, TikTok, Substack Notes, and Instagram Stories since the collection walked, and everyone is racing to be the quickest with their take. In the days leading up to it, people were (rightfully) disturbed by the AI promo that the Italian house was posting on socials to build buzz. Demna is a divisive character, so I’m not surprised that folks are fired up — nor am I shocked that we got another satirical showing from the industry’s number one purveyor of irony. He’s always been in on the joke, and more importantly, he’s figured out how to sell it.

Trolling successfully is a skill; it takes savvy. Demna’s work at Vetements, Yeezy, and Balenciaga was viral and highly memeable from the jump, which is what Kering’s largest brand is banking on here. In the full year of 2025, Gucci’s revenue decreased by a reported 22 percent; Cathy Horyn noted that Gucci sold about $7 billion in clothing and accessories last year, down from $12.4 billion in 2022. Demna is a Hail Mary hire. If the discussion surrounding this show is any indication, Gucci will be firmly back in the cultural conversation in no time, which is what matters now.

Read more

You may have heard that today kicks off the Year of the Fire Horse, it’s Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and that Lana Del Rey just dropped a brand new single, “White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter,” which she wrote with her husband, Louisiana airboat tour guide Jeremy Dufrene. These things are unrelated to each other, but all play nicely into this week’s pod theme. I am joined by Amanda Mull, senior reporter at Bloomberg Businessweek, to discuss why Southern aesthetics have become so pervasive in fashion and culture over the last several years, from pop music to TV to TikTok. Tune in for Amanda’s expert contextualization from growing up in Georgia (Go Dawgs!), as well as her thoughts on Bass Pro Shops gear and Realtree camo making their way to the runways a decade ago; the explosion of cowboy-inspired looks in the wake of the Eras Tour and Cowboy Carter; Southern sorority girl style spreading to a worldwide audience via #RushTok, and Alix Earle starting her career doing GRWM videos from the University of Miami campus; the influx of influencers (Brianna LaPaglia, Paige Lorenze, Campbell Puckett, etc.) using regional aesthetics in their content; Lana Del Rey, Ethel Cain, and why white Southern femininity is a rich text for the fashion industry to pull inspiration from; microdosing MAGA culture via popular series like “Landman,” “Hunting Wives,” and “Southern Charm;” why fashion is so obsessed with horse girls, and much more. Yee-haw!

This episode was recorded in the podcast studio at The SQ @ 205 Hudson.

Happy Sunday! I hope you’re winding down from your various New York Fashion Week and Valentine’s Day festivities. Today is my birthday, and later I’ll be celebrating with my friends and some ice cream sundaes. The last year was a challenge — just when I thought the universe was surely fresh out of lessons to send me, it laughed in my face! But I’m feeling optimistic about this one, and as I get older, I’ve gotten a lot better about laser-focusing on the future instead of dwelling on the past.

This is easier said than done, and of course, I slip up on occasion. But it’s not a constructive use of time or energy; if I had a dollar for every hour I’ve wasted being angry about a shitty thing that’s happened to me, I could walk to the Saint Laurent store right now and go on a birthday shopping spree. One of the most interesting conversations to happen this week played on this tension: The New York Times got the first joint interview with Vogue’s new Head of Editorial Content Chloe Malle and outgoing Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, which was a fascinating showdown between the magazine’s new and old guard.

Read more

Happy Sunday everyone, I hope you all are staying warm (the current real feel on my weather app is -7°) and are looking forward to the Super Bowl. I haven’t watched a single football game this entire season, but I will be tuning in tonight — mostly for Bad Bunny and so that I’ll be able to contribute to the inevitable commercials discourse over the next few days.

This week was a particularly tough one to be online, at least for me. I realize you can say this pretty much every week now, but between the Epstein files drop, the bloodbath at The Washington Post, the continued ICE atrocities, etcetera, I had to be mindful about knowing when it was time to log off for sanity purposes. Of course, not every corner of the internet was a complete hellscape. Social media has a way of providing en escapist parallel universe if you know where to look. And more often than not these days, your best option is to look to the brands.

Read more

If there’s one person you can count on to predict which trends, designers, and historically notable pieces are about to bubble up on the secondhand market before anyone else, it’s . Through her research, closet clean outs for industry heavy hitters, and live sales for Neverworns, she’s honed an uncanny ability to forecast the Next Big Thing on the vintage scene — plus, she boasts an encyclopedic knowledge of the lore behind some of fashion’s most iconic items. This week, I chat with Liana about some of her recent spot-on predictions — she was the first to cover the vintage sportswear boom and the YSL Mombasa bag resurgence — as well as her thoughts on the red carpet vintage movement among young Hollywood, the oversaturated secondhand retail space and whether the bubble will burst, why so many brands are reissuing classic items and what makes a “good” reissue, why storytelling is crucial for any brand or seller dipping into vintage, why secondhand furs are having a huge moment this winter, and much more.

This episode was recorded in the podcast studio at The SQ @ 205 Hudson.

Happy Sunday everyone! I am breaking my “no working in bed” rule to write this, since it’s too cold to be anywhere but bundled inside my down comforter.

My week started on a high note: Jesus took the wheel at ’s computer on Monday, when she was able to secure pit tickets for one of Harry Styles’s Amsterdam shows (the trip is making it out of the group chat!) this spring. After seeing the three- and four-digit prices for Harry’s 30-night residency at Madison Square Garden, we opted to try for abroad, while others expressed their frustration — how else? — through memes. Humor is famously an excellent coping mechanism, but people were pissed.

Some of my favorite posts about “the type of greed they talk about in the Bible” have been deleted, but most were directed at Harry and his manager, whose father’s company advises MSG on projects and programming. “Selling tickets that price for a venue that your management team owns sounds like a RICO case but what do I know,” had me cackling. It really is a shame that so many people want to see Harry — 11.5 million people reportedly registered for pre-sale — and how few can easily afford it. But this is just how things are now, in matters of Ticketmaster and in life.

The greed conversation carried on during Couture Week in Paris, where Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos were prominent guests at top shows, including Jonathan Anderson’s Dior Couture debut and Schiaparelli. Lauren was photographed tagging along with Anna Wintour, as well as with aspiring billionaire Law Roach, who styled her for the occasion — and surely charged an exorbitant rate to do so. Again, people were pissed. But really, how can anyone be surprised?

Read more

Aside from beloved department stores shutting down one by one (RIP Barneys, Bendels, and Lord & Taylor), online multibrand juggernauts like SSENSE (filed for bankruptcy protection in 2025) and Matches (filed for bankruptcy in 2024, but will return under new ownership in 2026) are seriously struggling. Some of the industry’s most influential places for discovery, like Colette, Totokaelo, and Opening Ceremony, have closed for good. Meanwhile, suburban American mainstays that defined our childhoods are disappearing by the day, like Joann Fabrics and Party City. What’s a shopping lover to do?

Join us for a winding, candid conversation about the state of retail, including why vintage and secondhand stores stand out in a crowded landscape, which brands are actually getting it right when it comes to in-store shopping, how retailers can successfully build and nurture a real community, whether every store also has to be a cafe, library, or third place now, the perks that come with being a VIC, why the modern department store IRL shopping experience is disappointing, the magic of curation, and much more.

Happy blizzardy Sunday, everyone! I hope you’re staying warm and making the most of being snowed in. I usually feel too guilty to stay indoors for an entire day on a weekend, but it’s nice to have an excuse sometimes. I left my apartment exactly once yesterday morning to exercise and grab some last minute supplies. Since then, I’ve been working my way through “Lost Lambs” by Madeline Cash (hilarious), my “emergency” storm snacks (Cheez-Its, Trader Joe's sour strawberry candy belts), and the box of Doctor Stolberg tea that kindly sent me (to counteract the Cheez-Its and sour strawberry candy belts).

Getting stuck inside is also ideal for parking in front of the TV, especially if you, like me, are overwhelmed by your current watch list. In the lead-up to the storm, I caught up on “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” which predominately featured new housewife Rachel Zoe this week, to my delight. I tuned into every episode of “The Rachel Zoe Project” live when it aired on Bravo in the late 2000s; watching her walk into What Goes Around Comes Around and drop $10,500 within minutes like money isn’t real still hits as hard as it used to. I pray the Bravo powers that be give her the spinoff she deserves!

Another series I started this week is the latest deranged Ryan Murphy joint, “The Beauty.” The first three episodes hit Hulu on Wednesday night, and not only are they bleak, they’re extremely bad — but in that signature, campy “I can’t look away” style that Murphy has mastered over the course of his career. As you may have gathered from the promos, the plot and body horrors mirror that of “The Substance” (2024), but are somehow even more twisted. Users of “The Beauty” experience the same ”rebirth” as in the film — shedding their flesh to reveal a younger, more attractive version of themselves — but instead of having to regenerate for a week, patients have two full years in their improved form before they expire in a spectacularly violent fashion.

I won’t even get into the “plot lines” here, because they’re just so silly. The dialog-free opening scene does some heavy foreshadowing: It stars Bella Hadid as model Ruby Rossdale, an end-stage user of “The Beauty” going on a murderous rampage at a Balenciaga runway show, before escaping on a motorcycle, beating some civilians to a pulp, and finally exploding in the middle of a Parisian street. Amelia Gray Hamlin, who plays a magazine assistant named Harper Rose, meets the same fate in episode three after coming into the office with a fever. Her coworkers tell her to go home because “Anna can’t stomach human weakness,” but before she can leave, she explodes all over the glass walls of the Condé Nast cafeteria.

Elsewhere in the first episode, we get introduced to the product’s target customer base: incels who waste their days away in chatrooms, gooning in their mothers’ basements, wishing they could turn into Chads. We also learn that the active virus in “The Beauty” can be transmitted through bodily fluids — specifically, through sexual contact — and we meet the two FBI agents on the case, who are entangled in a messy situationship. It’s all extremely unserious, and I will be watching the entire season.

Of course, this series is meant to examine society’s ever-increasing obsession with agelessness and physical perfection. Ryan Murphy’s been here before: “Nip/Tuck,” which ran from 2003-2010 and centered around the lives of two plastic surgeons, explored this same theme over six seasons, achieving cult classic status thanks to its objectively insane storylines and memorable characters. “The Beauty,” on the other hand, feels a little too on the nose in our current climate, and is borrowing very heavily from the pop culture that came before it. There’s a sequence almost directly ripped from American Psycho, for example, and the cafeteria scene romanticizes the same bygone era of Condé Nast as The Devil Wears Prada did two full decades ago, complete with cutthroat colleagues commenting on each others’ weight and need for cosmetic tweaks.

There wasn’t even respite from the dystopia during the commercial breaks; I was served ad after ad for DraftKings sports betting and generic GLP-1s from companies like Ro and Hers, which couldn’t have been a coincidence. The show’s tagline, after all, is “One shot makes you hot.” Satire or not, the overall messaging here is clear: Get rich quick, get hot quick, or some combination of the two, is the only way to stay afloat in America as the systems we built continue to fail us. It doesn’t get much darker than that! (Unless, of course, you turn on the actual news. Fuck ICE.)

And now, some thoughts on this week’s fashion news:

Read more