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Five Los Angeles writers — Lore V. Olivera, Shy Watson, Brittany Menjivar, Belinda Cai, and Maryze — and the bedrooms that have shaped them. In Los Angeles, the literary scene is currently thriving, with readings, book launches, and endless Partiful invitations. These events are always dedicated to showcasing work, sharing finished pieces that take time, dedication, and inspiration to complete. The writing itself is done in cafés or behind closed doors — in the bedrooms of the Los Angeles Writer. The interior decor of the writer is, by necessity, multifunctional; a writer’s room must be aesthetically pleasing and functional, but it also has to inspire. To understand what is inspiring these writers at home, we spoke to five writers living in Los Angeles and working across mediums. Lore V. Olivera Lore is a screenwriter and director who’s written for Netflix (WEDNESDAY), MGM/Amazon (VIGIL.A.NTE), and collaborated across film and television with companies including Blumhouse, Atomic Monster, and 21 Laps. BH: How long have you been in L.A. for? And how long have you lived in this particular space? LO: So I just moved to this house [three weeks ago]. Like, I just wrapped decorating. But I’ve been in Los Angeles since 2022, on and off. BH: What are you drawn to when you’re looking at pieces for decor, or overall, how would you describe your aesthetic or interior design sensibilities? LO: It’s a lot of retro style or things that have a story… I have a photo of nuns [smoking], because I went to Catholic school, and it feels a little transgressive religiously. Anything transgressive I’m always drawn towards because I’m like, “Oh, this would make [the nuns] so mad.” BH: It seems like you’re drawn to pieces that speak to cultural ideals flipped on their head? LO: Yeah, exactly. I think storytelling-wise, that's definitely something I gravitate towards. Like, I love looking at something that's normal and common and that you've seen a hundred times and [now] there's something odd about it. There's a twist. BH: Are there any items in your room with a strong sentiment or meaning attached to them? LO: I [also] have to mention my altar. [It has] my mom playing the guitar… My grandma gave me two saints because she thinks I need the Bible… I got a Talavera [bowl] in Puebla that I use for candles... My friend gave me The Witch’s Spell Book, which I thought was really cute. I got this [figure] in India…It's like literally all the religions that you conjure up to balance the energies. Again, I think that this is something that would freak out the nuns from high school. Shy Watson Shy Watson runs Triptych readings at Stories Books & Cafe, has authored two full-length poetry collections (Horror Vacui, Cheap Yellow), and is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing & Literature at the University of Southern California. She has recently completed a novel and is represented by Mina Hamedi at Janklow & Nesbit. BH: How long have you lived in L.A. for, and how long have you lived in this space? SW: I moved to L.A. in May 2025, and I moved into this apartment on August 31st, 2025… I really love this little alcove area between Echo Park and Chinatown. There's Alpine Court down the way, which has little bungalow businesses… and there's a really good view of downtown, too. BH: The view is amazing. I'm wondering, since you've moved to L.A., have you noticed your style shifting at all? SW: Actually, it has changed. When I lived in Virginia, we had a collage style of paintings, an array in the living room. There were all these paintings everywhere, very “cottage-core.” And since I moved here… well, I work at Night Gallery and just being surrounded by a contemporary art environment has made me want something more clean and adult… So I've kept my decor more sparse. and minimalistic and simple since I've moved [to Los Angeles]. BH: Are there any particular pieces that have significant meaning to you in your home? SW: I bought a painting from an artist who was having a show at Night Gallery recently. It was my favorite show that we've had at the gallery. Her name's Kayla Witt and she's based in Los Angeles…. She did a psychic shop poster series as part of the show, and I purchased one of those [paintings]. It's my first piece of fine art, and it means a lot to me because I think that the West Coast and California in particular [have] this lineage of “magical thinking.” There [are] celebrities who hire psychics and people who want to keep their body temple clean… It feels, like, specifically California to me. And it's something that I lean into whenever I'm at a turning point in my life, even though it's consistently failed me. Horoscopes and spells and magic… It's never worked out, but still, there's some childlike part of me that wants to have faith that I have some kind of control over outcomes. Brittany Menjivar Brittany Menjivar is the author of the poetry and prose collection Parasocialite, the co-founder of literary reading series Car Crash Collective, and the Co-Writer of the New Millennium Boyz film adaptation currently in pre-production at Muse. BH: Have you noticed a shift in your interior design motifs since you've been living in Los Angeles? BM: I used to have a very maximalist decor style when I was a teenager and in college. My dorm would be decked out with posters and all of that. I think since moving to L.A., I've been out and about to an entirely new degree and have relocated apartments fairly frequently … so I haven't had the time to settle into a place and make it look exactly the way I would want it to be quite yet. We [just moved] into this apartment and signed a 16-month lease, so I'm hoping that I will get to deck it out to my heart's content. . BH: Are there any particular items in your room that have significant meaning to you, like a favorite piece of furniture or trinket? BM: Yes... I have this scimitar-horned oryx figurine. Scimitar-horned oryx have been my favorite animal ever since I was three years old, since it was a prominent fixture at both the National Zoo and also the Natural History Museum. I literally wrote my college admissions essay about how much I love these guys. I think they're just so majestic. I call them the “unicorns of the Savannah.” And one of my best friends from college got me this as a Christmas present, and it's one of those little things that I keep on my desk to remind me of the little Brit that I'm always trying to… I don't know, impress? It reminds me of childhood whimsy. BH: Do you notice any motifs that pop up in how you curate your space and your writing? BM: Well, going back to the scimitar-horned oryx, I feel like strange animals are featured in a lot of my work. When I was a kid, I had an obsessive fascination with wildlife and zoology – and I feel like that has translated into a lot of my stories. In Parasocialite, there's one story called “Elephant Crossing” where the protagonist's neighborhood is overrun by wild animals that have potentially escaped from a local zoo. BH: Is there anything else that feels important to how you've curated the space, or maybe what you hope to include in the future? BM: I'd like to note that my room has no windows, and it has this, like, weird sliding barn door. Sometimes I refer to it as the “stable.” A lot of people would mind this, but not me. I'm kind of a vampire, and I'm often working in the wee hours of the night anyway… so I get to just shut myself in this bizarre cave and get a lot done. I love it. Belinda Cai Belinda Cai is a writer and musician who received her M.S. in Journalism from the University of Southern California. She has contributed to VICE, NPR, Tinder, Hobart, Car Crash Collective, Dream Boy Book Club, and more. BH: How long have you lived in L.A., and how long in this particular space? BC: So, I’ve lived in L.A. for nine years this September…[and] I’ve been in this apartment for about four years now. I will be moving out this summer to an apartment with my partner and then moving into a house down the road. I'm really excited to finally leave a studio, but there also is a certain charm [to it]. BH: As you've lived in this space, how have you seen your sense of style and your sense of design choices change? And do you think that you'll keep a similar style as you move into your new home? BC: When I had my first studio here in L.A. almost nine years ago, I was very “Ikea-core” both due to budget and just not really knowing the aesthetic I was going for was… [I had] a lot of minimalist, cheap white furniture. And I think over the years I've started to really be inspired by more vintage designs … I actually have this great book called “A Century of Color and Design,” and it shows really beautiful furniture pieces that I certainly can't afford… but is just good inspiration. I really like the playfulness of the mid-century modern era, just like the fun pops of color and quirky designs… I want to incorporate just a wider range of vintage, too. I really like Victorian [pieces], which are such a stark contrast to mid-century. [Victorian style] is very detail-oriented, lacy, and intricate. It’s a little feminine and kind of spooky… I'm trying to figure out how to marry multiple kinds of vintage styles together and see where that takes me. BH: I also wanted to ask you about how your curation ties into your work. Do you feel like your personal decor style is reflected in your artistic sensibilities? BC: I would say so. I am very inspired by the books that I have on my bookshelf and draw a lot of inspiration from them, [and] for my memoir that I'm working on. I use them as research. I have, here on this wall… two pieces by my mom, and this is by [my partner] Eric… and a collage I made for an album cover [for] my sister, Kelly, who passed away in 2020. So these [pieces on my wall] are all very personal, either from someone I love or of someone I love, because I write a lot about my personal life as a memoirist and nonfiction writer. I think it tracks that I have these personal pieces of art that I feel attached to and are sentimental. They’re reflective of how I convey myself as a writer. Maryze Maryse Bernard is a Canadian-French musician, writer, and model based in Los Angeles. She served as Editor-in-Chief of Recording Arts Canada, and her writing and translations have been published by the CBC, Bitch Media, and Also Cool Mag. BH: I wanted to start by asking how long you've lived in L.A. for, and how your sense of style has changed since? M: We moved here from Montréal eight months ago, and I was coming to L.A. back and forth for two years before that. I've always liked to have everything kind of appear like a whimsical, witchy garden, and that has not changed. But having an outdoor space, which I never had before in Canada, has helped bring the greenery inside… Being able to have windows that act almost like a painting… is really nice and helps me drift further into that inner fantasy garden world. BH: As you’ve been delving back into writing and concurrently building your space, are there any ways you've noticed those two processes interplay? M: Yeah, I think [it’s important] to find places that feel like my own. I've been doing art my whole life, but I always feel self-conscious, just with music, with singing, with anything, when someone else is around. But even just sitting and being like, “This is my little corner.” [I believe in the power of] making little corners that feel beautiful or inspiring, kind of, regardless of how small they are. I guess I'm superstitious, so [I believe in] having your talismans, your lucky items around and kind of locking in when you're sitting in front of them and being like, “okay, this is where I am when I come up with ideas.” BH: And then I'm also interested, what items in here, in particular, would you say you have the strongest attachment to? M: Things from my grandma, her sapphire-eyed cat [figurine]... a French music box … stuff that doesn't have any real monetary value. I've carried them in every place I've ever lived… Vancouver, Québec, Montréal, any time that I've been anywhere outside of my house for more than a couple [of] months, I've always brought them. So I've seen them kind of exist and live in all these different homes. Even if a space is unfamiliar, it just makes it feel more like home. Los Angeles writers are not a monolith, and neither are the styles and decor that inspire them. Some fill their space with spiritual protection – talismans, candles, and tarot. Some aim to achieve specific aesthetics – whether it’s midcentury modernism or minimalism. Some appreciate the California sun; others feel it hinders the creative process. Yet despite the stylistic and creative differences, each writer seeks to curate a space that feels uniquely personal; each includes pieces gifted by friends, family, and lovers. Some draw on these personal connections in the work, and others use the pieces as a continual reminder that Los Angeles is their creative home. 🌀 Becca Hochman is a writer & filmmaker based in Los Angeles; she covers media and culture, and is interested in what interests you.

As intimacy declines and images dominate, a new wave of beauty brands are reclaiming the most sensorial experience of all — sex. We’re so used to sex selling beauty that we hardly blink when it happens, if we notice it at all. Full, parted lips, fluttery eyelashes, and the pertest of derrieres construct the fantasy that the “right” products will increase the users’ (usually women’s) sex appeal. Sex is hinted at, evoked, with little care or interest for whether it leads to consummation of any kind. “ Better Than Sex ,” said a standard black mascara from Too Faced; “ Orgasm ,” whispered a blusher shade from Nars, conjuring only a timid cheek flush. A sex recession is upon us, with data  reporting that younger generations are having less sex than their predecessors. Yet we don’t need data to say with confidence that we’re living in acutely looks-obsessed times , and that Zillennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha dedicate much time and resources to looking styled, perfected, and desirable; an investment in pleasures visual over bodily, an embrace of the controllable over the mutable. In other words, “ everyone is beautiful and no one is horny .”  Amid this landscape – not quite neo-puritanism but more a flirtation with its features – a few beauty brands are making the case for sex again. More importantly, they’re doing so without the coy and saccharine trappings that saw a wink and a giggle as a good-enough substitute for the real thing.  When the elevated bodycare range Nécessaire  launched in 2018, the Sex Gel was part of the core offering. Presented in a minimalistic pump bottle and adorned in a cursive typeface, it announced itself and its use directly. Care for every part of your body , it seemed to say with utilitarian practicality.  Body care brand Mienne  took the idea a step further. French for mine , Mienne is interested in what is felt, not just what is seen, and incorporating this concept into the brand was essential. JR, Mienne’s marketing director, says, “Desire had to be part of it because we’re making products for the body. We’re interested in bodycare as ritual, something that brings you into presence. We wanted to create formulas and objects you’re drawn to using again and again: skin you want, scent you want, objects you want to keep close. That pull matters, it’s what makes care feel intuitive, not clinical.”  For Mienne, desire has a dual meaning; the products are objects of desire, and they work to inspire and facilitate it in virtuous symbiosis. “Desire is both the aesthetic and the function. We design the packaging and the sensorial experience to feel covetable — high design, tactile, almost like you want to reach for it before you even know why. And then the product experience reinforces that: the texture, the scent, the finish on skin,” JR continues. Mienne’s makers aren’t shying away from the kinds of acts that might follow the use of their products. “When skin looks transformed and feels inviting—when you’re more aware of your body—you tend to feel more open, more connected, more interested in touch. That’s the symbiosis: objects you desire, that make you feel more desirable, which naturally attracts desire from others,” JR says. Alongside products like body wash, body cream, and a dual-purpose massage candle is the Sex Serum. The organically shaped bottle and round cap make it look like an objet d’art,  while the travel size resides in a chrome bullet adorned with a leather tassel (or mini-flogger, depending on your disposition). Offering a lubricant “was always part of the plan,” says JR. “If we were building a brand around desire and touch, we couldn’t ignore the most intimate context for both—especially in a category that’s largely underserved in prestige skincare.” As for the name, it’s “direct because the intention is direct. We didn’t want euphemisms,” JR states. No other fragrance has attended to the materiality of sex as closely as Secretions Magnifiques by Etat Libre d'Orange . The scent is an homage to sweat, saliva, blood, and sperm. I tried it once, many years ago (a sales assistant escorted me outside the shop to spritz on my wrist), and will never forget the saline, metallic, wet, musky experience. It’s a provocation few would dare wear. A subtler iteration is Pigmentarium ’s Erotikon, inspired by Gustav Machatý’s 1929 silent film of the same name and its softness of images achieved through modern American lenses, which are translated into enveloping base notes of amber, musk, and sandalwood. Scandalousness is telegraphed via a heart of tonka beans and spicy, edible top notes: ginger, chocolate, pink pepper. The effect is a playful invitation to lean in a little closer.  While many individual perfumes have flirted with sex and desire to inspire scent profiles, few brands have dared to base their modus operandi around them. When I discovered Jouissance  and Discothèque  last year, I was struck by how boldly both embedded sensory pleasures into every touchpoint.  Jouissance’s connection to pleasure and the erotic is most direct, and underwriting it is a statement of intent: “Literary passions, distilled into scent.” The founder and creative director, Cherry Cheng, draws direct inspiration from female writers and thinkers who embraced their desires and helped others do the same. “I was drawn to female writers and thinkers who spoke openly about desire because they gave language to something that has so often been muted, distorted, or claimed by others. Their work didn’t treat desire as something to be apologised for, but as a source of intelligence, creativity, and power. That felt radical, and still does,” she says. The philosophy is inscribed in the brand name as jouissance,  a term the French feminist writer Hélène Cixous used to discuss a particular form of pleasure interweaving spiritual, mental, and physical aspects unique to women.  When creating Jouissance, Cheng “initially thought that the brand would be read as deliberately provocative and expected a degree of backlash.” The three scents in the range capture the writing of Catherine Millet (En Plein Air ) , Anaïs Nin (Les Cahiers Secrets), and Pauline Réage’s The Story of O  (Bague d’O). Cheng says she was “ prepared for that tension,” especially since The Story of O  and its depiction of total female submission have long been a subject of criticism in some feminist circles. Instead, what Cheng has seen is a response of “recognition rather than resistance” with customers describing the fragrances “as intimate, personal, even affirming – an invitation to reconnect with desire on their own terms. That reaction has clarified something essential for me: people aren’t rejecting the erotic itself. They’re rejecting reductive or externalised versions of it, and are gravitating toward more nuanced, reflective, and inward ways of experiencing desire.” Discothèque locates its inspiration in some of history’s best clubs and unforgettable nights out. It pulses with references to the bodily, the pleasurable, and the possibilities unleashed in losing oneself on the dance floor. It’s unapologetically sexy and very much by design, according to founders Jessie Willner and Hanover Booth. “Fragrance is such an intimate experience: it lives on skin and is noticed at close range, to pretend it’s neutral or polite just doesn’t feel like Discothèque,” says Hanover of the decision to address desire directly. “The brand leans into that freeing feeling on the dance floor, where you feel most alive, a little undone, but completely yourself. Scent is incredibly evocative, and it can bypass logic or conscious thought and instantly transport you back to a memory. It’s physical and tactile and undeniably sexy.” And Discothèque is having fun about it, too. Its scent sample pack looks like a cigarette packet, while individual 2ml samples are packaged to look indistinguishable from condom wrappers. (To be on the safe  side when going out, I’d double-check you’re bringing the right one.) Willner didn’t think Discothèque would resonate with quite so many people, attributing the continued success to making and saying things “that others may only be thinking.” “People want things that embrace and celebrate what can sometimes be the most inhibited parts of themselves, and the experiences we're inspired by are so universal, but sometimes taboo. Most mainstream brands would probably not have approved me designing a condom-wrapped 2ml sample or calling a fragrance Baise Moi on the Dancefloor.  To think that these luxury retailers that we’ve partnered with have signed off on everything we've made is so special: we've been allowed to bring subversive design into the world of luxury, which is rare,” says Willner. It does feel subversive to see a fragrance brand state the quiet parts loudly. We wear perfume to smell good to those who get closest to us; clubs are sexy, intimate spaces where you might just find someone to baise , on the dancefloor or not. Language is central to how Jouissance and Discothèque embody their positioning to embrace the sexy and the erotic. Cheng drew on Nin, Cixous, and Audre Lorde’s ideas about what desire can look like when it’s perceived as an open horizon, free of predetermined concepts and images. “These thinkers offered a framework where desire is not spectacle, but authorship. Jouissance grew from wanting to honour that lineage – creating fragrances that act as a personal language, inviting the wearer into a more conscious, sensual, and self-directed way of being,” explains Cheng.  Every fragrance and candle by Discothèque comes complete with a sultry description courtesy of erotic short story writer Jessica Garrison, animating the scents with heady, aesthetic prose that delights the senses. It’s not product copy but a way to experience, albeit briefly, the scent world. Take Body Heat . It’s 1974 in Monte Carlo, and the wearer smells of cardamom and coffee to start before the fragrance shifts to reveal orris, suede, and dark chocolate, wearing down to an intimate base of amber, oud, and cedarwood. Garrison’s words ask us to imagine the encounter that took place. “Her amber eyes lingered, her palm on his arm. They were pressed between bodies, dripping in sweat and suede fringe. [...] Their wrists intertwined as they started to move. A tryst that began in a cedarwood booth on the French Riviera on a hot night in June. His hands grabbed her waist, his breath warm on her neck, like soft-burning sage. From first song to last, they danced through the night, their skin flush from a crush and marked with a bite.” Working with a range of references like music, scent notes, historical photos, and stories of clubs, Willner and Booth give Garrison an open brief to write what feels right. “Jessica has such a natural understanding of tension and restraint in her writing, and it's never literal; it captures those feelings you associate with the best nights out. It reads like a half-remembered moment you recognise instantly, even if you can’t name it,” adds Booth.  Joussance closes the circle on its literary inspirations, commissioning and publishing the erotic short story publication, The Collector ; a “natural extension [because] of the brand has always been about translation—exploring what can’t fully be expressed in a single medium,” Cheng explains. “The series, like our fragrances, seeks to explore the erotic in a way that is intimate, imaginative, and provocative, inviting conversation, reflection, and the reclaiming of desire as a creative force.” Helena Whittingham, director at Lover Management , a talent agency specialising in intimacy and the erotic, has likewise observed the shift within the beauty industry, a step away from acting coy. “It’s genuinely encouraging to see beauty brands collaborating with sex workers and people who work directly with desire, like with the Urban Decay X Ari  or Levi Coralynn's recent career , and not just borrowing from the aesthetics.” Whittingham sees this reflecting a wider newfound appetite “for the physical and the sensorial right now, especially after years of digital fatigue and emotional distance. Sex has always sold, but what feels different in this moment is the confidence. There’s a sense of desire being treated as adult, embodied, and worth taking seriously, which I hope signals a pushback against the neo-puritanism we’ve seen creeping into culture. I basically live to see it! love seeing sex-positive brands and sex workers crossing into beauty and fragrance – when it feels like bridge-building rather than just branding.” “I think what we’re seeing isn’t an absence of desire, but a discomfort with how narrowly it’s been represented,” reflects Cheng. For too long, narratives about sex and desire were defined externally and disseminated through images that created a normative effect. None of the brands mentioned here deal in stereotypically sexy imagery to elicit their desired effect. Products are presented either with a degree of utilitarianism (Nécessaire) or sensuality. Jouissance’s few images of bodies appear illustrative, not prescriptive, while Discothèque insists on a sense of fun and play in a few promo images featuring a real-life couple. What desire is, what sex means, and how pleasure is defined are left for us to figure out.  “There’s a fatigue around performative or commodified sexuality, which can look like neo-puritanism on the surface,” says Cheng. “But beneath that, I think the desire for intimacy, meaning, and embodied experience is very much alive.” 🌀 Zhenya Tsenzharyk is a writer and editor living in London, covering (most) things sensory through a culturally critical lens. She loves to over-intellectualise her ever-growing perfume collection.

The secret third thing between control and surrender. Monica Vitti in La Notte (dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961) For the first 30 years of my life, I was certain that I was submissive through and through. I was always ambiently searching for Daddy in lovers and art, bouncing from person, place, and thing, fantasizing about being told what to do, what to wear, what to eat, what to think. However, when I look back on how I was actually moving through the world, I came off more like a delusionally confident, moderately pretentious know-it-all with very big ideas, not great listening ears, and a 55% success rate when it came to follow-through. I was submissive in my mind's eye, but life is a cruel mistress, and she made a girlboss out of me. When it came to sex, I was fully enveloped in my inner fantasyland, crafting stories and scenarios and almost completely unable to actually be in the present moment with my lovers. This would manifest in multiple instances of partners asking, “Where did you go?” when they inevitably noticed I was so transparently Not Here. Rich for someone who is a student of Ram Dass, lmao. Some of this was trauma, some of it was shame, a LOT of it was just not being fully acquainted with my real  desires enough to even articulate them. Yet, on the rare occasion of truly transcendent sexual experiences, so much of the “wow” factor was a product of either surprise and mystery, or my partner seemingly being able to read my mind so that my fantasy became a part of the reality without my having to exert any effort at all (which we cannot ever truly expect of our partners). Of course, we often hear that people who are submissive in bed are often dominant in life and vice versa, but this binary is reductive. There was this secret third thing, this ebb and flow of longing and turning away, something akin to a hunger pang… not exactly painful, not exactly pleasureable either — this dissonance that I noticed arising in my late 20s. So what is this dissonance? Carolyn Elliot (PhD and author of Existential Kink ) would say having is evidence of wanting.  I thought I wanted to be told what to do by others in art, life, sex, whatever. But what I actually wanted, craved, and starved for was the tension   of being told what to do — seeing how it could be the right thing and not listening. Getting good, solid advice, and going “Nah! I’m gonna do it my way. Thanks though!” I was creating scenarios that were ripe for people to tell me, “You can’t do that,” “Are you sure?” “Shouldn’t you get a real job?” just so I could prove them wrong. Or, rather, just so I could try, fail, feel that hot sting of embarrassment, and try again. In other words, I’m a big fucking brat. To be a brat is to be a bit of a fucking pain in the ass to yourself and others at all times. This translates in and out of the bedroom. For me, it’s not being whiny or petulant in the traditional sense. It’s more like a subtle but constant jockeying for position with whoever is the most powerful man in the room. And I always, always win. Even when I “lose”, I still win, because on the rare occasion that I’m losing, that means I’m rubbing up against a man who is smarter, stronger, braver, and altogether more together than me. He knows better than I. There are very few of these men in the world, and when I meet one, or more to the point, allow one in my bedroom, I am more than happy to lay down my arms and my panties in kind.  The thing about these men is that they are truly dominant. Not Andrew Tate-style, tiny man in a suit-dominant, which is actually just controlling. These are the men who can look at a little boy throwing french fries in a restaurant, walk up to him and his friends, shake his hand, and strike the fear of God into him with his presence alone, no words required. We can learn much from these men. Being dominant (sexually or otherwise) isn’t about telling anyone what to do — dominance is responsibility, and taking that responsibility for the entire situation. It’s not “bEnD ovEr I’m GonNa hAvE mY Way WiTH You.” That’s a sub pretending to be a dom. True dominance involves preparing the environment, gathering the tools, and existing in the flow state to execute. In other words: the dominant focus = responsibility. The submissive focus = pleasure. More specifically, pleasure and trust in being in good, reliable hands that will not Fuck It Up. This dynamic can be applied to creative work, making money, personal responsibility, and all facets of life, really. It’s important to get very well acquainted with the dom and sub within you, and to know when it’s time to wear each hat. This is especially true if you consider yourself an artist, which, as we’ve learned, most of you secretly do. In the boudoir of creativity, when it’s time to be the dom, you create all the conditions needed to produce great work: studio setup, time blocks, limiting distractions, and saying NO to anything that takes you off course. When it’s time to be the sub, you are flexible, open to making mistakes and embarrassing yourself,   embracing the full expression of the inner sanctum, with no holding back, and are ready and willing to try new things. Consider, if you will, how you can be a better dom to yourself — to money (money, like ego, is a wonderful servant and a terrible master), to your work, to your art, etc. Perhaps a re-calibration of your Google Calendar is in order? Perhaps it’s time to start going to bed before 2 A.M. If it’s the sub in you that needs attending to, maybe it’s time to turn the phone off and go for a long walk to get some ice cream. Perhaps it’s time to throw away the underwear with holes and buy something lacy. Maybe what you need is self-directed yoga in a very hot room. Only you can know what you need, and I encourage you to be your own scientist and find out for yourself.  If any of this hornyspeak triggers the prude in you, consider the fact that creative energy is sexual energy. Same energy, zero differentiation. The only difference is the end result, i.e., what is born. But you can be pregnant with a painting the same way you can be pregnant with a baby. That old adage, “Everything in life is about sex except sex, which is about power,” is very true. These are truly secret codes of the universe that, when adopted and practiced, will inevitably change your entire life. There is much to still be discovered here for me personally — let alone for us as a collective. This monologue is less of a deep dive and more of a treading the shallow end, but I’d be curious to hear how this lands for you, dear reader. As it happens, in last month’s Reading Room , we dug into Gillian Anderson’s 2024 collection “ Want ” , a selection of anonymous letters written by hundreds of women from around the world, revealing how women feel about sex when they have the freedom to be totally honest. This month, it’s J.G. Ballard’s Crash , a provocative and surreal masterpiece that explores the visceral fusion of human experience and modern technology through the lens of high-speed car accidents as erotic playgrounds. I would love to see you there. The sub in you desperately wants a dom with a PLAN and the willingness to EXECUTE. The dom in you desperately wants a sub that will DO WHAT SHE IS TOLD and RELAX. And the dog in you wants to go fetch. Arf arf! 🌀 Sophia R.K.  is a musician, writer, artist, ex-thinker, and intern for God on the weekends. She is the creator of the members-only book club Reading Room.  You can acquaint yourself with her musical alter ego here . You can find her on Twitter @kaliyugacowgirl.

Thanks to Love Story, men and women alike are biking around the city, dyeing their hair platinum, and scavenging for vintage Calvin Klein. But how long can we play pretend? “Please don’t get so close to me.” Carolyn Bessette never gave a single interview. Fewer than 100  photographs of her are in the public domain, and even fewer of her audio clips. Rare footage reveals , in just seven words, that she had a voice and certainly wasn’t afraid to use it when necessary — oval sunnies and tortoiseshell headband in place.  The first-season release of Ryan Murphy’s FX anthology series Love Story  has prompted a whole new generation to rediscover the 1990s It Girl, whose high-profile romance with John F. Kennedy Jr. captured the public imagination in a way few, if any, other couples have. America’s Prince has found his princess,  the tabloids crooned. Only the much-anticipated engagement of then-Lady Diana Spencer to Prince Charles and the ensuing public frenzy could rival that of these American royals, though the gap in their individual appeal was only too obvious.  “Diana didn’t just upstage Charles,” commented Tina Brown, former Vanity Fair editor-in-chief and author of The Diana Chronicles, for a 6-part CNN docuseries  on the British Royal family . “She eclipsed him, actually,” adding, wry as ever, “I mean, she made him nothing, is the truth.”  The “golden couple” of the ‘90s, though, were glamorous and disarmingly evocative in their own right, each a star in its own firmament. Murphy’s show, filmed largely on location, has sent waves of tourists  flocking to Manhattan restaurants and other businesses of which John and Carolyn were reportedly patrons, perhaps hoping to catch a glimpse of what their life together might have looked like. America’s uncrowned prince and princess have undoubtedly been imprinted on the cultural consciousness. The question that nobody seems to be asking, among the style guides  and tourist traps , is: Why?  Well, why  do famous people enjoy enduring popularity decades after their deaths? Looks and money come to mind, certainly. Good posture and immaculate tailoring probably help. As does that awful cliché of a word, charisma.  John and Carolyn possessed all of these attributes. But attractive couples have surely lived and died long before their time; as far as I’m aware, we aren’t still producing movies and television shows about them decades later, or trying (and failing) to emulate their very essence . Just last week, hundreds gathered in Washington Square Park for a “JFK Jr. Lookalike Contest.”  The men of New York City are nothing if not audacious.  Of course, an analysis of the unofficial royal couple can’t be done without unpacking the raw magnetism of the Prince’s better half. While John had grown up in front of the cameras, Carolyn was plucked from obscurity and catapulted into the public gaze. Parallels between Carolyn and Princess Diana have inevitably been drawn. Sunita Kumar Nair, author of CBK: Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy: A Life in Fashion   and a consultant on Murphy’s show, noted that both women married royalty, either literally or figuratively.  "Neither…could foresee or empathize with the sheer magnitude of their partner's public status," Kumar Nair told the BBC .  Unlike Diana, who openly chronicled her triumphs and struggles, Carolyn was and remains an enigma. How did a girl from the Connecticut suburbs grow up to snag the most eligible bachelor in United States history? Her ascent to New York high society and then into the arms of a Kennedy fueled decades of speculation that have raised more questions than answers. You see, Carolyn had personal lore when having lore actually meant something. If Diana and John understood the power of images and public statements, Carolyn leveraged silence and discretion for the same reasons. In keeping a low profile, she mastered the art of visibility without familiarity, remaining elusive without being cagey. Carolyn was ahead of her time and projected exactly the kind of emotional unavailability en vogue today, though she has been characterized by those close to her as a warm and compassionate figure, much like her husband. Whichever version was her true self, the one facing the cameras understood something her modern-day mimics can’t quite intuit: proximity is often best enjoyed at a distance.   In keeping a low profile, she mastered the art of visibility without familiarity, remaining elusive without being cagey. Part of the fascination with John and Carolyn, I think, is also rooted in the serendipitous origins of their doomed romance. If sources are to be believed, their story began in 1992 with a chance meeting in a VIP showroom at Calvin Klein when John came in for a fitting. The premise alone sounds simply implausible today. COVID-19 made pretty much everyone start doing all their shopping online, for one thing, not to mention the steady surge in online dating. By 2022, over 30% of adults  under 35 reported meeting their significant other online. Whether John really flagged Carolyn down at work is irrelevant; it’s the thrill of pursuit — of being pursued — that feels anachronistic and therefore so covetable. The short explanation is that smartphones ruined everything. Rapid technological developments since the turn of the century have fundamentally reshaped social norms, triggering a cascade of downstream effects that promote endless optimization at the expense of genuine lived experience. Think about it: pre-cell phones, pre-social media, walking down the street with headphones on would have been considered terribly antisocial. Third spaces were commonplace, and plans could be made with a quick phone call instead of weeks of lukewarm ping-pong over text. People used to actually talk to their neighbors and engage with members of their community. Now, they can’t even manage the supermarket checkout without their AirPods in. Omniscience and convenience have reduced us to spectators in each other’s lives rather than participants, and, on some level, we have accepted all of this as normal.  No wonder ‘90s nostalgia is once again all the rage. I would give anything to be able to experience New York City then, even for a day. It just seemed like a simpler time, one where readily available technologies like telephones, computers, and cameras, as well as modern modes of transportation, helped reduce some of the day-to-day load without eliminating the need for intention, effort, or curiosity. I once described the feeling to a friend as a kind of homesickness for a place in time that I never inhabited, at least in any meaningful way. As Gen Xers stumbled through the Meatpacking District (braving the erstwhile slaughterhouses) to hit the clubs, I was probably dodging the umpteeth “two more bites”. Despite the generational gap, I shared at least one quality with those girls: I didn’t know what was going to happen next. That’s all I want, not to know. I want to not know what others are doing every minute of every day. I want to know what it's like to go a whole day without being asked for a username and password. I want to come home to a Panasonic answering machine and listen to my loved ones’ voices on the tapes. John and Carolyn’s story will always resonate because it evokes imagery of what, in retrospect, might just have been the last halcyon days of modern life. Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette Kennedy in Love Story (2026) An identity crisis plagues young adults today. They don’t know what to wear, what to eat, or even what to say without consulting TikTok or ChatGPT. A year ago, on a fine day in the West Village, you could hardly move for white tank tops and sambas . For a demographic with no discernible self-concept yet an ironic desire for main character status, Murphy’s show has reintroduced a brand new protagonist on whom to mold this season’s personality. The Internet did as the Internet does and sent thousands clamoring for “ the CBK look ,” from her exact shade of blonde to the apothecary reported to have sourced her tortoiseshell headbands, down to the Egyptian musk scent she was rumored to have worn. Men’s publications also seized their opportunity for a quick commission, offering readers a blueprint for achieving John’s “uniquely preppy” style .  It wouldn’t be the Internet, though, without rumblings of dissent. Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy Is Not Your Unwitting Brand Ambassador ,  Allure magazine hissed. Even Cosmopolitan engaged in a bit of finger-wagging: JFK Jr. & Carolyn Bessette Kennedy Don’t Need  To Be Your Fashion Icons , a recent Instagram post scolded. What people fail to realize is that their fascination with John and Carolyn is less about the clothes than the context in which the couple wore them. By showing restraint against a backdrop of extravagance, their union represented a higher yet still accessible ideal that the layperson could aspire to, one in which normalcy and simplicity reflected personal values rather than mere branding.    John and Carolyn's lives have left an indelible mark on contemporary history, yet their deaths are often reduced to footnotes. Mining these figures for content further robs them of their humanity. Perhaps this relentless, wholesale glamorization explains why the reimagining of the couple’s romance could represent yet another welcome if clumsy distraction from the prolonged violence and civic decay flooding viewers’ feeds. To the more skeptical onlooker, though, Love Story is more of a cautionary tale; a dark reminder that the premium we place on youth, beauty, and idiosyncrasy remains lucrative, despite the devastation they leave in their wake, time and time again.  John and Carolyn continue to haunt us because they were palpably, fallibly, unflinchingly human. Nearly three decades have elapsed since television cameras recorded  Carolyn Bessette telling a ravenous press to back off, and three decades since she and her husband departed on what would be their final journey together — yet the memories linger. Though Love Story  takes a fair few creative liberties, we all know how the story ends: John’s ill-advised flight to Martha’s Vineyard, with Carolyn and her sister Lauren on board, cost all three of them their lives when he lost control of the plane and plummeted into the Atlantic.  “In the US, the Kennedys occupy territory somewhere between the British royal family and Greek tragedy, a tale of impossible glamour pierced by spectacles of public mourning,” writes  David Smith in The Guardian. For generations, misfortune and sorrow have haunted one of the 20th century's most illustrious families. Their associates, too, tend to suffer collateral damage. John and Carolyn’s untimely departure from this world seemed to confirm that the so-called “Kennedy curse” had struck once again. The couple’s relationship was turbulent from the start, and the plane crash occurred at a crossroads in their marriage. Intense public scrutiny, alleged drug use, and murmurs of infidelity on both sides conspired to tarnish their reputation.  “We must not let in daylight upon magic,” the 19th-century British historian Walter Bagehot once warned. And towards the end, John and Carolyn's spellbinding public image shone in the most lurid light imaginable. By the spring of 1999, numerous outlets had reported that the couple was hurtling toward divorce. The sensationalism of their private lives and the extraordinary circumstances under which they perished proved cataclysmic. Humans can’t help indulge a morbid curiosity about death, and mortality is particularly fascinating when it comes to young people who appear to have it all. Fairytales are supposed to have happy endings. But that’s the thing about fairytales and main characters — they aren’t real. John and Carolyn continue to haunt us because they were palpably, fallibly, unflinchingly human. Through good times and bad, their lives glossed a cultural moment unjaundiced by the trappings of the digital age, spontaneous and brimming with possibility. Therein lies the eternal magic. Their legacy lives on, and that’s why we still care. 🌀 Neha Ogale  is a clinical psychology PhD student, relapsed coat hoarder, indie film lover, and occasional writer based in New York City. You can find her on Instagram @urbangremlin .

The Chicago-based perfume label’s debut scents dabble in the art of confabulation, from Band-Aid accords to the smell of cereal milk. All photos courtesy of Domestica Domestica  has managed to create an impressive debut introduction for themselves amid the ever-rising scene of independent American perfumers. Heralded by Chicago-based couple Marty Schissler and Alvaro Lozano, their scents capture the joys of the domicile, without being stuffy or relying on ironic archetypes. In fact, all three scents are very accessible, capturing three distinct moments: playing outside, eating a bowl of cereal, and having a sick day with a loved one.  These are intimate and youthful fragrances rooted in the concept of confabulation  —  a neuropsychiatric disorder where the patient produces false memories unintentionally. It can include small details, entire events, or broader dynamics, as a way to integrate an aspect of self and fill gaps in memory. Some psychologists speculate that such false truths are due to low-grade forms of amnesia or a post-traumatic response to protect one's sense of self.  Domestica has a playful take on confabulation, calling it “honest lying”. A creative language this clear is rare for a brand as new as they are. The team behind these scents has rejected the common marketing tactic of exotic escapism; Domestica’s brand of escapism isn’t about retreating from the material world but about escaping towards what is right in front of you. Their perfumes want to remind you it's okay to be grounded. And where better to land than home?  The first fragrance I had the opportunity to smell was Yard , a fresh, green, slightly aquatic fragrance. At first spritz, I sense lemon mist, a touch of mint, and water. It’s like drinking from the hose as a kid. Once it settles, a strong chlorophyll emerges, finished with a touch of tomato leaf rolled in the earth. It’s reminiscent of a long day playing outside while your mom manicures a garden bed. A couple of hours later, I still detected the chlorophyll and mint; however, it's sweeter and blends into a fresh skin scent, likely due to the vetiver and green pepper base. Fans of Mandhi Rhubi from Isabelle Larignon  will appreciate the vegetal base, and those who crave something more complex from their aquatic scents will cherish the longevity. In the emerging ranks of independent midwestern perfumers, Yard is a wonderful entry into the canon of scents that capture youthful summers spent outside. Wearing Yard made me feel like anything is possible; the most divine thing may be in my backyard, or running through the sprinkler. Its balance of effervescence and earth feels right at home next to cult favorites like Clue’s Dandelion Butter  and Pearfat’s Kewpie Doll .  Domestica’s second scent in the trilogy is Reckless Baby . It is the clear standout of the three, featuring a delicious fruity cereal accord, followed by a pang-in-your-chest nostalgia loaded with a dose of colored pencil shavings. I have never smelled anything like it; Schissler and Lozano have achieved the perfect balance of fruity, lactonic, and woodsy without relying on any of the trendy fruity gourmand tropes flooding the market. The opening includes a synthetic pear accord paired with a strong pink pepper, keeping ripened fruit from leaning overtly sweet. As the pink pepper fades, Fruit Loops take center stage. On my skin and a test strip, this lasted hours. The sleeve of my sweater even smelled like cereal milk the next morning. The cereal accord never fully fades, eventually inviting in the pencil shaving note. It brings back distinct memories of walking up to the pencil sharpener in elementary school during craft time, right after eating an individual serving of prepackaged Fruit Loops in the cafeteria. Reckless Baby moves like a memory, seamlessly shifting between notes no matter how long it's been. Sometimes it's a ripe fruit, sometimes cold milk brings you to the breakfast table. Just when you think you’ve figured it out, a whiff of something new comes out, pulling you back in.  Home With You  is the first fragrance developed for their debut collection, inspired by a sick day at home with a loved one. Some of the listed notes include cherry cough drop , Band-Aid  accord , and someone to hold . This perfume is less wearable than the other, more playful fragrances, yet it has the strongest projection of the three. The traditional mix of white flowers and resins tends to create sexual, voluptuous scents that veer matronly. Domestica’s take on an animalic white floral has the medicinal quality pumped up to the max, with a mentholated cherry dominating the composition. At first, I was repulsed and turned off, possibly because of the stark contrast with the other two. However, I kept coming back for more. As it evolves, the cherry dissipates, and a note I can only describe as penicillin emerges. I imagine this is supposed to be the band-aid accord, supported by carrot seed and orris. Carrot seed keeps the composition energized, trying to bridge the gap between sterile and animal notes. The menthol never truly fades, overpowering the coziness of opoponax. Home With You is an incredibly literal interpretation of a sick day. It brings to mind the cravings one has when sick: someone to hold, a medicine to take the pain away, and the slightly vile sweetness of retreating from the world.  Connotations of domestic environments evoke images of nuclear families, 1950s housewives, a pristine lawn, an apron-clad worker. Instead of leaning on traditional evocations, Domestica goes inward. They open up memories, small moments of bliss and tenderness. For queer people, especially those who grew up in traditional American domiciles, these memories either don’t exist or become overshadowed by a culture of fear surrounding expressing one's identity. Smelling these perfumes offers a way to redefine that relationship through the honest lie of ephemera. Suddenly, playing in the yard as a carefree child is not a fantasy, just something you forgot you did. Domestica’s version of a home is one of color and self-expression. You can have sugary cereal for dinner and a mess of drawings on the coffee table. It’s undone, the sweetest mess to bathe in for your moment of respite.  Domestica is sure to be a welcome addition to the collection of independent Midwest perfumers selling nostalgia in a bottle. The first three scents are available for $140 a bottle on their website ,  as well as Everything , and the Center of Order and Experimentation , both in Chicago. They will also be at Fumed , an exposition for independent perfumers and consumers, set to take place on March 28 in Chicago.  By returning to the home, a place that can be a site of tenderness — or painful beginnings for queer people — is reframed as one of play, comfort, expression, and nostalgia. Marty Schissler and Alvaro Lozano offer their customers an opportunity to reclaim a space that, for many, holds complicated feelings and disjointed memories. The magic of Domestica lies within leaning into that memory gap, holding a place for a simpler world that the wearer can always return to. In queering the domestic, they allow the wearer to engage in this honest lie. And it's addicting. 🌀 Ruby Robison  is a multidisciplinary artist originally from rural Oregon. She has lived and worked all over the United States as well as in Amsterdam as a writer, model, actor, and media researcher. Her creative process includes Socratic seminars in the back of an Uber and sleeping 10 hours a night. Currently, she serves as the art editor for Sabr Tooth Tiger Magazine  and has perfume column on Dirty Magazine . Links to a variety of her work can be found on Instagram @darlingmsbaby .

An announcement. When we sat down to create the new HALOSCOPE almost three years ago, we did so with a single question in mind: what would happen if we took fashion as seriously as any other art? Since then, we’ve published stories on everything from perfume as a weapon of the fascist imagination to how cowgirl fashion invokes our shared national mythology. These stories have sparked platform-spanning conversations, debates, and friendships across the globe — all united by a shared passion for more thoughtful, critical, and joyful engagement with fashion. Now, we’re building our own corner of the Internet where we can do just that. Coalescing the best of our site, exclusive newsletters, and more, the HALOSCOPE Substack — also called the Salon — is our brand-new members-only club for friends, thinkers, obsessives, aesthetes, and readers both old and new. Launching tomorrow, Substack will be the new home for our STAR⟡MAIL newsletter and The HALO* Report, alongside additional exclusive essays, quizzes, conversations, podcast episodes, shopping roundups, and other experiments we can only do in a more intimate, direct-to-reader space. Our main priority is and always has been to honor the work and intellect of our incredible writers and readers, and that means meeting you where you’re at: your inbox. That said, our main site is not going anywhere ; haloscope.org will always remain live and active, and as the main portal into our little world.  On behalf of the entire team, we are deeply thankful for your continued support of HALOSCOPE over the past few years, and we are deeply energized by the opportunity to continue our expansive, playful, and essential work, now closer to you than ever before.  🌀 With love and gratitude,  Savannah Eden Bradley Editor-in-Chief

Arabelle Sicardi’s new book, The House of Beauty , reminds us that care is resistance. I began reading Arabelle Sicardi ’s debut essay collection   while I waited to get called back for a mani-pedi at the nail salon. I spent the next hour trying to keep the pages on my lap, stealing glances as I placed my painted fingers under the fluorescence of portable UV lamps. I  read it in between getting my legs waxed and my eyebrows threaded. Their book followed me around on errands, crammed between makeup and skincare purchases from Sephora and Ulta, restocks from my favorite K-beauty store in Chinatown, and samples from the niche perfume stores in SoHo. I reached for it when I grew impatient waiting for my dyed hair to process and when I procrastinated on putting on a full face for a night out. Equal parts historical epic, investigative journalism, and memoir, reading The House of Beauty: Lessons From The Image Industry   means you’ll never see your hauls, your daily routines, or local salon services the same way again.  From the beginning, Sicardi is determined to show the very real blood, sweat, and tears that underpin the beauty industry. In a chapter titled “Choose Your Own Disaster,” readers begin their dangerous journey at the source of two popular cosmetic ingredients found in 70% of the world’s beauty products — mica mined in India and palm kernel oil harvested in the peatland forests of Malaysia and Indonesia. Sicardi guides us across oceans and continents through the perspectives of these exploited laborers and the journalists and NGOs risking their lives to document these dangerous, often illegal operations. We become a child dying in a mining cave collapse, a cargo ship deckhand held hostage by pirates, a migrant plantation worker with their passport locked away in an administrative office, desperate to return home. We eavesdrop on a Malaysian government lawyer bragging about convincing Indigenous villagers to sign over the rights to their land. We sit in boardrooms where bribes are exchanged, and the destruction of communities and ecosystems is negotiated through corporate meetings. We even become the purchased product in the shower, on the counter, shown off in review videos, and restocked on a shelf by an underpaid retail employee. By following the money from these places to people like Estée Lauder heir Ronald Lauder, noted for his Republican mega-donations , and the under-resourced innovations in foundation shades by Black cosmetic chemist Balanda Atis  (of L’Oreal’s Women of Color Lab ), Sicardi puts a face to the workers whose suffering is overlooked in the name of globalized commercial efficiency — and a name to those in the industry both perpetuating its violence and trying to solve its thorny problems.    In sharp contrast to the previous chapter filled with the accounts of unnamed workers, Sicardi turns their attention to one of beauty’s most recognizable names: Coco Chanel. Despite the House of Chanel’s best efforts at suppression, the designer’s collaboration with the Nazis  has become well known in recent years, complicating her legacy in fashion and beauty. Still, Chanel No. 5 remains one of the most popular perfumes in the world . Despite what little I already knew of Chanel’s biography, I didn’t expect to learn about the Wertheimers , the Jewish family who became responsible for producing and manufacturing the fragrance, inadvertently helping to sustain Chanel’s lavish Parisian lifestyle during World War II. Nor about how quickly Chanel began to associate herself with the Nazis to maintain her wealth and prestige. Sicardi confronts how her selfishness and hatred helped her not only survive, but thrive, in Nazi-occupied France. Behind the iconic fragrance, Sicardi locates a monstrous history of greed. “And it makes sense, really,” they write, “because power appears beautiful, and beauty makes time feel conquerable. Beauty makes cruel choices so easy. Beauty makes empathy a political tool.”  Of course, beauty is more than just the products we use or the ideas of how our bodies should look. It’s a history and culture shaped over generations by economies, geopolitics, conflict, and the movement of commodities and people. Sicardi chooses to explore beauty’s connective tissue first through hair, then through the nail industry. Through hair, Sicardi wrestles with how styles and textures have signified resistance, forced assimilation, opportunities for entrepreneurship, and materials for self-empowerment. Biographies of Haitian-American barber Pierre Toussaint  and activist business mogul Madam C.J. Walker  intersect with the violent cutting of Chinese men’s queue  braids in San Francisco jails as part of the Pigtail Ordinance of 1878 ; the rise of South Korea’s wig industry in the 20th century, fueled by U.S. embargoes after the Vietnam War; and the emergence of synthetic extensions and hairpieces. By following each strand of this braid, Sicardi untangles the politics that underpin our beauty supply stores and hair salons. Through manicures, Sicardi wrestles with the complicated legacy of actress Tippi Hedren , credited with building America’s nail industry by offering training to Vietnamese refugees. Billed as an opportunity for the disenfranchised, Sicardi unpacks the racism, classism, and exploitation these manicurists experienced: “The reality of a miracle is that it is also a story of devastation.” Yet there are also opportunities for solidarity, such as the founding of Mantrap , a Black- and Vietnamese-owned salon, in the 1980s, or collective organizing by cooperatives like the New York Nail Salon Workers Association  and the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative . Sicardi describes learning how to care for their hair and do their own nails as part of this journey, carrying on these living histories through the work of their own hands rather than merely being a passive consumer.          Only Sicardi could write a book about beauty as incisive and thoughtful as this one. They are, after all, a veteran of the very industry they set out to critique. Perhaps their name rings a bell from their Rookie Mag  days. You’ve probably clicked on one of their articles for publications like Allure , Teen Vogue , The Cut , Harper’s Bazaar , or The Verge . In 2015, Sicardi made headlines when they resigned from their role as Buzzfeed ’s beauty editor   following the censorship of an article criticizing a misogynistic ad by one of the site’s advertisers, Dove. In the introduction, Sicardi recounts how that moment shaped their perspective as a critic: “It is hard to live under the specter of what bodies are supposed to be. It gets even more complicated when you are getting paid to articulate those rules — when your job is to give voice to the rules at the same time that you have to make it seem like you’re pushing against them.” Today, Sicardi continues to carve out their own space in beauty, offering their services as a brand consultant and as a judge for the Art and Olfaction Awards . In 2022, they founded the nail art culture nonprofit, the Museum of Nails Foundation  — a fitting evolution of their activism, given how they write in the book about the empowerment and precarity of the nail industry. As a tastemaker, critic, journalist, consumer, and self-described “beauty world builder,” Sicardi has built their career on negotiating beauty’s complex networks of power. The House of Beauty isn’t just a call to expose the industry’s harms to themselves and others; it’s a call for readers to learn, resist, and advance positive change.  The House of Beauty begs the question, “What’s the state of beauty criticism today?” It’s a thought I kept pondering as I made my way through the book. Like many twenty-somethings today, my formative understanding of beauty was shaped first by magazines, then the meteoric rise of beauty YouTubers, Instagram influencers, and TikTokers. It’s hard not to drown in a sea of whitewashed sponsored content, shady brand deals, and profit-motivated recommendations. Sicardi is one of the few beauty creatives who continues to challenge the status quo, drawing attention to companies’ bad behavior while also providing much-needed education on how our culture of beauty and wellness today is shaped by political histories of race, class, immigration, disability, gender, and sexual identity. The House of Beauty ’s hybrid intervention situates Sicardi among fellow critics like Fariha Róisín , Sable Yong , Tanaïs , Mimi Thi Nguyen , Moshtari Hilal , Chloe Cooper Jones , and Ellen Atlanta , who coalesce their lived experiences into the industry’s systemic injustices.  As much as Sicardi’s book is concerned with the past and present of the beauty industry, The House of Beauty also looks to its future. Sicardi wrestles with how beauty’s production actively contributes to the climate crisis : through the harvesting of natural resources, the waste produced by packaging, and polluting emissions; its use of fossil-fuel by-products; and companies’ push to displace Indigenous peoples from their homelands . They unpack how greenwashing buzzwords like “clean,” “organic,” and “sustainable” aren’t enough to address the industry’s systemic issues with extraction and over-consumption. When they visit a conference for bodyhackers and transhumanities, Sicardi identifies body modification technology as the beauty industry’s sinister new frontier. Obsessions with self-enhancement and optimized perfection find institutional support from tech companies , the military , and universities . Yet these futures of beauty hardly acknowledge the cost, feeding into the capitalist drive for continuous growth while overlooking the harms that such technologies and ideas have on the disabled, working class, and communities of color. In a chapter about activists mobilizing to distribute hygiene kits in places like Los Angeles’s Skid Row during COVID lockdown, community hygiene during police brutality protests, and the precarity of beauty store and salon closures, Sicardi finds a way to turn these daily anxieties into a roadmap of new possibilities. “Beauty as an ethical act means understanding you have the duty to use it responsibly,” they write, “We are given imperfect choices. We must force better ones.”  Through The House of Beauty, Arabelle Sicardi holds up a mirror to the beauty industry, inviting us to look, listen, and learn about this world that has shaped how we perceive ourselves — even if we don’t like the ugliness we see. Beauty becomes a method, a tool, a weapon, a bridge, a form of survival, a guide through which we can understand the world, an archive of deeply personal and expansively global histories. Sicardi confronts beauty’s behemoths, from individuals like Coco Chanel to the multinational corporations monopolizing the industry, but also makes sure to recognize the life and legacy of industry heroes whose stories are overlooked and whose contributions remain underappreciated.  A project that was years in the making, I found myself craving more and reflecting on what I felt to be missing: further teasing out of the linkages between the beauty industry and the military industrial complex, deeper explorations of beauty’s historical intersections with disability, how beauty has functioned in queer communities as forms of self-affirmation and political resistance. The House of Beauty  is a comprehensive guide, yes, but it also reads as an invitation for others in the industry take Sicardi’s kit off the vanity counter and learn more for themselves. “When the world tells you beauty is not your bounty, not your legacy, not your place, not your home, when the world tells you that you are not deserving of care,” they instruct us: “Don’t believe it. Write yourself in.” The work of understanding beauty—its mechanisms, its materialities, its evolutions, its trend cycles, its capacities for world making, knowing, and undoing—is never finished. In 2026, the stakes of Sicardi’s project feel more urgent than ever. The House of Beauty  ends with a section titled “Heart Chest,” a collection of resources highlighting organizations that provide services like hygiene for unhoused communities, gender-affirming care, financially-accessible bodywork, wellness support for chronically ill and disabled people, beauty industry worker advocacy, and climate justice activism. For all of the ways beauty hurts us, Sicardi shows how its rituals, skills, and products can help us care for each other and ourselves in times of crisis. As they put it, “I am crawling my way out of the rubble with very manicured hands.” 🌀 Eleonor Botoman is an art historian and culture critic based in Brooklyn. They are currently a PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center studying environmental art, material culture, and design. When they’re not experimenting with perfumery, you can find them curating multimedia wonders for their Substack newsletter, Screenshot Reliquary .

Who wouldn’t want a Victorian-era edge to their look? In a world so painfully minimalist, populated by mantras like ‘‘less is more,’’ few pieces of jewelry really catch one's eye. Having mastered the art of ‘‘more is more’’ beautifully, designer Mia Vesper — whose mother was an antique collector and textile designer — stands at the vanguard of challenging this. Founded in 2017, Vesper Obscura is the type of brand that tries to defy industry norms.  Although the founder started with clothing, her defiant and timeless jewelry is its true star. But whether they’re garments or ornaments, Vesper is dedicated to making relics that flirt with the past, the present, and ultimately the future as well.  Ahead, we sit down with Mia to discuss Vesper’s newest collection, her creative process and influences, and how she continues to build a company that stays unapologetically true to its values in an era ruled by fleeting trends and relentless speed.  This interview has been edited for length and clarity. ANA BEATRIZ REITZ: I’m very curious about how all of this began for you. Could you walk me through the founding of the brand?  MIA VESPER: Vesper Obscura was founded the way a lot of honest things are founded: out of necessity; mild terror, really. The clothing line was burying me financially, and I needed an escape hatch that didn’t feel like surrender. Jewelry offered salvation. The margins are real, the object is permanent, and the ethical math is different. I started making jewelry in 2024, during one of the most difficult periods of my life. But it was followed, almost immediately, by a far better one. Jewelry didn’t just change the business; it changed my nervous system. For the first time in years, the work felt viable. ABR: Now, Vesper Obscura feels like a breath of fresh air amidst the same staleness that rules fashion. Did you set out in the very beginning to position the brand with that slowness, sustainable charm so different from the current speed, or did that ethos reveal itself naturally over time? MV: Made-to-order began as a financial constraint. I didn’t have the luxury of making inventory and praying for conversion. But it also turned into a kind of discipline, because it forced me to treat each piece like it had to earn the right to exist. And yes, the rejection of sameness is intentional. I’m not interested in half-hearted design integrity, especially not in a world already overflowing with objects. In a capitalist society, making something is a moral act. If I’m going to produce, it should be good, it should be considered, and it should feel scarce for a reason, not for marketing theater. ABR: How would you describe your creative process, from the first spark of inspiration to a finished piece ready to be sold? MV: I start with a sketch. Sometimes I’ll prototype, but usually my job is to draw the idea clearly enough that it can be translated into a real, wearable object. Then I work with production partners to engineer it into something that has weight, structure, and presence. I’m not precious about the mythology of suffering –  my part in the assembly line is fairly low lift to be honest – I’m precious about the object. ABR: What guides your choice of materials when developing a new collection?  MV: Materials are chosen for integrity and endurance. I’m drawn to metal and stone because they’re stubborn materials, old materials. They refuse to be disposable. ABR: Your work feels both ancient and futuristic at the same time. How do you manage to create and equilibrate this tension, and why is it relevant for you? MV: Because I’ve spent so much time looking at what already exists, I’m interested in the gaps, the missing artifacts. I’m trying to design things that feel like they should be found in a velvet-lined drawer in 1890, or unearthed in 2090. Ancient and futuristic aren’t opposites to me; they’re the same impulse, just aimed at different directions in time. ABR: For so long, jewelry has been connected to power. Do you see your designs as a form of armor of their own ? MV: Yes. Everyday armor. Not costume, not occasionwear. The kind that changes your posture. ABR: Vesper Obscura’s latest collection has a distinctly Victorian style with a modern twist. Which aspects of the Victorian era interested you most in reinterpreting them through a contemporary lens? MV: I’m obsessed with body jewelry because it’s still strangely underexplored, and when it is  explored, it often gets trapped in a bohemian vocabulary that I personally cannot tolerate on my own body. I wanted to take something that’s usually coded as “earthy” and make it feel architectural, sharp, and intentionally styled. The Victorian influence shows up in restraint, intimacy, and a kind of ornamental severity. But I wanted the end result to feel now: clean, sporty, slightly confrontational. I always want a jarring juxtaposition, and then I edit it down until it becomes wearable instead of theatrical. ABR: Many of the pieces feel truly like talismans, with a life of their own. When creating, do you imagine histories or characters or this is something that comes later? MV: The character is me, which sounds unbearable, but it’s simply honest. I design what I want to wear. I’m a purveyor and obsessive appreciator first, and a designer second. I like objects to a slightly dangerous degree. The histories come later, or sometimes they arrive automatically. If something is built like an artifact, it starts generating its own mythology whether you write one or not. ABR: What do you hope someone feels when wearing one piece from this collection? MV:  Cool. So so so cool.  ABR: In an industry obsessed with speed, slowness can be a radical act. How intentional is that pace for you, and what does working slowly allow you to protect? MV: If I’m honest, the slowness has mostly been structural rather than ideological. It’s what happens when you don’t have unlimited cash. In clothing, sustainability felt like a constant ethical negotiation. With jewelry, the moral math is cleaner for me. I avoid questionable stones, I work in materials meant to last, and I’m making objects that can actually be kept. Working slowly protects quality control, cash flow, and my sanity. Creatively, though? I’m not attached to scarcity as a personality trait. If I had unlimited resources, I would design constantly. I don’t worship slowness.  ABR: As the brand continues to grow, how do you protect its integrity and values while allowing it to evolve? MV: The integrity is the design rigor. As long as I’m still making things that feel necessary, I know the brand is alive. The moment I start repeating myself, I’d rather stop. I never want to make the white t-shirt of jewelry. Growth is exciting if it supports the work instead of sanding down its edges. I’m very at peace with the vision. ABR: Why do you think there’s a deep appetite for ornament, nostalgia, and symbolism right now? MV: Because reality has become aggressively unromantic. Life feels a little hellscape-adjacent, and people are hungry for atmosphere. We don’t write letters beside a babbling brook. We have Slack. We have doomscrolling. We have the bright fluorescent lighting of modern existence. Ornamentation is a way of taking your life back aesthetically. It’s cinema you can wear. I also think we’re watching individualism get morally complicated. We’re watching a shift in how people relate to status and identity. There’s a growing desire to flatten hierarchies and question what matters, but we still want beauty, theater, and self-mythology. Jewelry is one of the places where it’s socially permissible to be the main character. ABR: What advice would you give to emerging designers who feel caught between honoring their vision and keeping pace with the algorithm? MV: It’s a terrible predicament. Not everyone is built to be a content machine, and treating that as mandatory is a great way to kill art. If you’re naturally suited to posting constantly, leverage it. If you aren’t, don’t force it. Build alternative engines: trunk shows, email, collaborations, a collector base, real community. There are ways to sell that don’t require turning your life into a feed. And my biggest advice: don’t build your business around a daily practice you hate. Entrepreneurship has endless work baked into it. Take the easiest, most enjoyable avenue whenever morally plausible.  ABR: Finally, when you think about the legacy of Vesper Obscura, what do you want it to leave behind in the jewelry world? MV: Objects that feel immediately understood, but not predictable. That’s the line I care about: clarity with surprise. I want to leave behind future heirlooms, pieces that can be passed down with pride. Consumable surprises, built to outlast the era that created them. 🌀 Ana Beatriz Reitz Gameiro is a Brazilian freelance journalist covering fashion, entertainment, beauty, and culture. Her work has appeared in publications such as FASHIONISTA, V Magazine, Polyester, Remezcla, and NSS. She is also the voice behind The Devil Writes Fashion (previously For Fashion’s Sake), a weekly newsletter where fashion is dissected, celebrated, and occasionally roasted with humor, heart, and just a little bite.

The collaboration, over 25 years in the making, proves that nostalgia itself isn’t the problem — it’s how we choose to handle it. Three pieces from the Vivienne Westwood x Nana collaboration, shot by Alex Soroka. The long-awaited official collaboration between fashion house Vivienne Westwood and Ai Yazawa’s cult shōjo manga Nana (stylized as NANA) has finally arrived — but not without controversy. From confusing rollout logistics to limited stock and simplified designs, die-hard fans criticized the capsule collection as “nostalgia bait”. Is this collection really a cash grab or something more culturally complex? THE GOOD As part of the anniversary campaign, Vivienne Westwood sat down with Nana creator Ai Yazawa for a rare interview , offering insight into Yazawa's creative process, influences, and motivations. Yazawa is historically private and has seldom spoken publicly since an unspecified illness delayed the completion of Nana in 2009. Nana is a popular Japanese manga and anime series, first serialized in the early 2000s by manga magazine Cookie. It gained a cult following thanks to its unique illustration style, compelling plot, memorable characters, and iconic fashion pieces. In addition to the manga, the series inspired an anime adaptation, two live-action films, video games, and several tribute albums.  The plot centers on two women, both named Nana, who meet by chance on a train to Tokyo. They quickly find their lives and ambitions intertwined. Nana Osaki, an aspiring punk rocker, is the heartbeat of the story — and she is often adorned in stylish Vivienne Westwood pieces that symbolize her musicality and confidence. She is determined to bring her punk band, the Black Stones (aka BLAST), to the top of the music industry and chart her own path as a musician. Alternatively, Nana Komatsu (affectionately known as Hachi) struggles with self-discovery and undergoes aesthetic changes throughout the series. She seeks her purpose, often feeling lost or unfocused, and ultimately seeks validation in relationships that don’t always put her first. Hachi becomes the support system for Nana O.'s band, that is, until an unexpected romance threatens to break everything they have built.   Their style journeys reflect not only their ambitions but also their uncertainties and hesitations — an element Yazawa mentions in her interview. “For me, fashion has always been central to storytelling,” Yazawa explained. “Since manga can’t produce sound, fashion becomes an important tool to express it visually.” Before creating Nana, Yazawa studied fashion at Osaka Mode Gakuen and eventually left school to pursue her true passion: becoming a mangaka. Her reflections during the interview with Westwood revealed just how integral fashion was to Nana's story and reinforced what fans have always known: Nana’s use of style was transcendent. Yazawa used fashion not just for aesthetics, but as a metaphor for each character’s personal transformation. “I’ve loved Vivienne’s clothes even before drawing Nana, and I had been collecting them, so almost all of the items that appear in the manga are from my own collection,” Yazawa added. “For me, drawing a punk band and drawing Vivienne’s clothes could not be separated. I believe that music and fashion have always been deeply connected, no matter the era.” Her punk-inspired aesthetics, rooted in the Japanese subcultures of the 90s and early 2000s, influenced an entire generation of readers. This collaboration with Westwood, at least conceptually, felt both emotionally and artistically aligned. The collection featured thoughtful details, such as reinterpretations of the Armour Ring  with Yazawa-inspired illustrations etched on the inside panels. The Armour Ring is featured extensively in Nana and is a signature piece worn by Nana O. The collection also featured red pieces, such as the Stormy Jacket  and Puppy Corset , which can be seen as a subtle nod to Nana O., given her strong association with red clothing throughout the series.  Abandoned by her mother at four, Nana O. was raised by her grandmother, who discouraged her from wearing red and pink clothing, as they were seen as tempting to men. Her grandmother used this restriction in a warped form of protection — keeping Nana from following the path of her mother and having a child out of wedlock or otherwise making life choices her grandmother deemed as dishonorable.  After her grandmother dies, Nana wears a red dress — also known as the Happy Berry dress — in an act of defiance (and freedom). For this reason alone, pairing red clothing pieces with Nana O. grounded the collection in the manga's original visual language.  Personally, I would have liked to have seen Westwood’s interpretation of the Happy Berry dress in the collection. It is a significant outfit in the series, not only for the plot points mentioned earlier, but also for its role in sparking Nana’s relationship with Ren—her love interest and rival throughout the series. The capsule also featured familiar favorites like the Rocking Horse Ballerina  shoes and gave popular pieces — like Nana O.’s pendant orb necklace  — official recognition by virtue of the collab, satisfying a need that unofficial cosplay versions had been filling for years, often for thousands of dollars. But most importantly, the collaboration introduced Nana to a broader global audience, solidifying its fashion status and extending its cultural legacy into wider circles of fashion and pop culture. But that expansion wasn’t without its costs. Two Nana comic covers from 2000 and 2006, respectively. THE BAD Where the collaboration excelled in concept, it fumbled logistically. The rollout was undoubtedly messy.  Though positioned as a 25th-anniversary celebration, the collection launched nearly six months after Nana’s official publication anniversary on May 15. On October 6, Vivienne Westwood posted a reel on their Instagram  teasing the collaboration with no mention of individual pieces or styles. Two weeks later, Yazawa posted on Instagram , announcing the 25th anniversary edition of the manga set for release on October 31—with no clear connection or mention of the capsule collection.  On November 12, Vivienne Westwood continued teasing the release with an Instagram Reels post  featuring the updated manga set and the caption “Almost time…”. There were no teaser posts on Facebook, and their X account has been largely silent since 2024.  The next day, November 13, the house announced on Instagram  that items would be available at 10 a.m. “local time” at their boutiques . Yet, many fans discovered the pieces had already gone live online on November 12, with several items selling out within a few hours. “I'm in the U.S., and for some reason I can see it all uploaded and even shop, though I was under the impression it was dropping tomorrow. Sadly, multiple pieces are already sold out,” one Reddit user wrote. “I signed up for the newsletter and didn’t even get notified when it dropped. They really messed up the release; literally no one had a chance with how bad the organization was for the drop,” another Reddit user wrote . Beyond logistics, some fans criticized the design choices, like (presumably) Hachi’s Mini Sunday Dress and Nana’s Cigarette Trousers, for feeling oversimplified and geared toward mass appeal.  In the manga, Nana O. continually layers her outfits, sometimes mixing patterns and silhouettes, and maximizes her creative expression through distressed layered tees, belts, pyramid-studded bands, and other punk accessories. By contrast, the Cigarette Trousers felt plain.  On the other hand, Hachi is always changing her look to fit a new job or to reflect a new stage of her life. As a high school student, Hachi’s look was reminiscent of the early gyaru/kogal style, with loose socks, loafers, cellphone charms, and other accessories to individualize strict school uniforms.  As the series progresses, Hachi’s looks change. She sometimes mixes vintage pieces from the ‘50s and '60s (think Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s), and at other times, Hachi dips into coquette or Y2K styles. It is understandably difficult to adapt to such a varied style profile, but some fans felt that more options should be available that better evoke Hachi’s range of taste. There was also artificial-scarcity-fueled frustration, particularly for high-demand items like the Giant Orb Lighter — modeled after Shin’s signature piece (but not in the iconic silver finish popularized in the manga) — that were limited to just 250 units worldwide. Price was another sticking point. The Giant Orb Lighter, for example, retailed for nearly $1,800, and many fans criticized the use of brass instead of gold in the jewelry items. And yet, despite these missteps, the collection largely sold out. THE ENDEARING When asked her thoughts about Nana’s enduring legacy, Yazawa said during her interview with Vivienne Westwood: “I’ve always believed that even as times change, human emotions themselves don’t change much. Being able to have my work continue to be read is one of the greatest joys an author can have.” Her answer, in part, illuminates the reasons behind the collab selling out despite its downsides: emotional resonance. Nana shines because of its ability to communicate the exciting yet fleeting years of early adulthood. The playful mixing of styles. The rush of firsts while setting out on your own. It taps into that expansive feeling of possibility while also delivering the cold clarity of consequence. Each character in the series has an opportunity to grow from their past or choose to repeat it. This emotional resonance, paired with the stylish visual branding behind Nana, is a key factor in the collection’s success despite its criticisms. There’s also another element at play — the recent resurgence of early-2000s nostalgia.  According to Archrival, 59% of surveyed Zoomers  say they’d most like to live in the early 2000s because of its culture and entertainment. Brands recognize this selling point and are capitalizing on it: Hollister launched a dedicated Y2K capsule , Aéropostale now highlights an entire Y2K section online , and Coach’s resurgence  has been fueled in part by revivals of its classic leather and Soho-styled bags. But just because nostalgia sells doesn’t mean it feels authentic. Two pieces from the Vivienne Westwood x Nana collaboration, shot by Alex Soroka. THE MEANINGFUL For nostalgia to feel authentic, brands must do more than replicate past designs — they need to reinterpret what made them desirable, tap into current cultural moments, and innovate. Some brands are doing this well. Gap’s collaboration with designer Sandy Liang  reimagined ’90s and early-2000s essentials through her personal lens and Cantonese heritage. The result? A fun, unique, and refreshing collection that actually felt like a personal tribute to the 2000s. Similarly, ONE OF , an atelier specializing in deadstock and historical garments, transforms archival pieces into bespoke designs that honor their history while giving them new life. Both of these examples demonstrate that thoughtful, intentional reinterpretation — not mere replication — is what makes dipping into the past meaningful rather than exploitative. And perhaps that’s the real lesson behind the Vivienne Westwood x Nana collaboration: nostalgia itself isn’t the problem. It’s how we choose to handle it. FINAL THOUGHTS Despite drawing criticism for price point, a messy rollout, and certain design choices, the Vivienne Westwood x Nana collaboration helped solidify the series' fashion status, expose it to new audiences, and create buzz around its anniversary, which is invaluable. It will be interesting to see how future capsule collections from this collab (now with the benefit of fan feedback) perform and which key pieces from the series come to light. One takeaway brands can have from this collab is the importance of integrating culture, context, and history when working with artists or legacy IPs. It can’t just be about aesthetics or hype — it needs to be personal. After all, works like Nana create more than nostalgia. They define generations. They create moments that unite people across time.  As Nana once said, “People can't be just tied together. They have to connect.” 🌀 Amara Johnson  is a writer based in Philadelphia, PA. When she’s not writing, she’s reading or scrolling through Pinterest for style inspo. She loves finding the story in everything.

From Comme des Garçons to Hollywood Gifts , and everything in between. L-R: Universal Flowering, Étude in Black; Serviette, Byronic Hero; Hollywood Gifts, Centerfold It is one of the more uniquely human impulses to catalog. One of my favorite books of theory, Hiroki Azuma’s Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals , defines a new type of media consumption predicated on Otaku , or obsessive fans of various types of new millennium Japanese media. Azuma’s view of Otaku is highly critical, describing this new mode of consumption as inherently “animalistic” — trading the primacy of authored works for mere categorization of derivative types. The modern mode of consumption, therein, is never able to consider anything on its own, and is in a constant compulsive state of referential comparison, holding the self-authored work on par with countless fanmade derivatives: a wholly postmodern and degenerative way of turning reading or watching or listening into the automatic construction of Relational Databases. Other scholars, both in and outside Japan, following Azuma’s theories, have grown to soften their attitudes towards this type of consumption. Like it or not, however, I think in 2025, nearly 25 years after Azuma wrote about the fandoms behind media like Neon Genesis Evangelion  and Cardcaptor Sakura , Japanese media has taken over the world, and in a broader sense, people have become Otaku, or hyper-obsessive fans about so much more than just Idols and anime.  I am an Otaku for lots of things, some more embarrassing and traditional than others , but if nothing else, I am not as much of a perfume collector or ideally a perfume critic as I am a perfume Otaku. I would still buy it in secret if it stopped being cool, and my love for perfume has overshadowed and defined a number of IRL relationships with friends, family, and lovers. It’s been more of a problem in the past, but my urge to catalog is still as sharp as ever. That’s why, during my favorite time of year, I still find time to break away from Lessons and Carols church services and eating English toffee to rank my favorite and least favorite perfume releases of the last year. Like last year, the   obvious niche perfume boom  has given me a lot to celebrate.  I won’t waste any more time. Ladies and either gay gentlemen or a few uncharacteristically idiosyncratic heterosexual gentlemen probably on the spectrum, these are my favorite perfume releases of 2025. The Year’s Biggest Triumphs Clue Perfumery, Dandelion Butter This was a clear standout, and really a release that defined a good portion of my personal year in terms of just how often I wore it. Like a few other fragrances here, I wrote an entire review and a broader interview with the team behind Clue Perfumery about this scent, so please refer to that for my more elaborate thoughts on it . Suffice to say, here, that as nearly half a year has gone by since its summertime release, I still feel this perfume is one of the most inventive and delightful things I’ve smelled in a long time. I think the broader category of what I could call “weird gourmands” —   rice ,  milk ,  nuts , etc. — is incredibly in vogue.  Dandelion Butter feels wholly divorced from the trend cycle and moreso connected to a nostalgic, gritty sense of childhood play. Its inspiration, a nonsensical childhood game involving real dandelion stems, taps into a sort of underground information economy of old wives' tales and 20th-century children’s games, and thus feels decisively before the internet age — in which kids were forced into authoring their own kinds of fun instead of defaulting to the adult developers of Roblox or Fortnite. The smell itself reflects the same warped childhood perspective that inspired   my favorite Clue scent, With the Candlestick . Refrigerated, high-salt butter in slab form, grassy pollen stems, and dainty yellow blooms abound, and the drydown yields to a sweet sap that recalls tonguing honeysuckle in the outer bounds of the park your elementary school went for recess. A true pleasure to wear, and something absolutely worthy of cult status in the niche fragrance community. Get your hands and nose on it whenever it’s in stock. Serviette, Byronic Hero Another fragrance I’ve written about , and that’s also   received press writeups  from people far more influential than me. To suffice, this is the peak of Trey Taylor’s unique perfume style: accessible, rounded edges, marketable eccentricity, and deeper-than-it-seems class-conscious mingling of the profane with the sacred. The defining feature here is a pretty realistic diesel exhaust note, capturing that addictive gas-station smell and mixing it with a saffron-rose-oud combo that evokes   some of the more popular designer niche oud fragrances . It’s not wholly dirty and has the same sort of alt-sheen as something like   Black Saffron  (a sweet leather styrax take on saffron I count as one of Byredo’s best). Wear Byronic Hero to the club, and let its distinct and unflinching sillage start conversations as easily as it frightens asthmatics. Marlou, Heliodose I do think   Doliphor , the second fragrance release this year from enigmatic provocateurs Marlou, is the more unique and lauded of the two, but somehow Heliodose ended up being my secret favorite. The second collaboration with perfumer Stéphanie Bakouche, this attempts to translate the characteristic ferality (and fecality) of Marlou’s DNA into a floral fragrance. Needless to say, this is not at all what I was expecting. I imagined an animalic floral in the vein of their classy and very lovely   Poudrextase , or even Eris Parfums’ stinky, sultry   Night Flower . Heliodose, in contrast, focuses on the oft-maligned hedione molecule and elevates it to a hyper-sweet tropical zenith. Maybe the most accessible Marlou, this evokes the almond-tiare summertime sheen of Serge Lutens’   La Dompteuse Encagee . I get milky, fleshy, obscene white florals that shine with an almost plastic-toy perfection. It’s pretty simple, but laden with pissy indoles. Not even to the extreme that my beloved   Olene  turns heads — this indole heart resounds with a shallow femininity. If all the other Marlou perfumes smelled like 85-year-old women and   were virally worn by beautiful 20-something girls , this actually smells like a 20-something girl, but probably won’t be worn by them. Sensual, but in an entirely new way for Marlou. If these are the fruits of expanding the palate of a very tightly controlled fragrance series, count me in. Bogue, Come I hadn’t tried any of the infamous Bogue fragrances before this, but Antonio Gardoni’s radical animalic work has come highly recommended. In a similar vein to Marlou, he is known for hyper-stinky perfumers’ perfumes, and this time has made something comparatively quite sweet. Suggestively titled, this is a sticky tropical floral enshrined in honeyed civet and medicinal helichrysum. The civet here is instantly recognizable, dated and regal in the same vein as Michael Jackson’s signature   Bal A Versailles . What distinguishes it is a thick, sweet honey note that warms the nose in harmony with the helichrysum, and renders the animalics here much more approachable to the uninduced masses. Undertones include vanilla, ylang ylang, and grassy immortelle. Staggeringly layered, this unfolds over many hours on skin, revealing green nuances of wild patchouli, tea, and musk. Wear Come to a free love commune in rural Virginia in the 1960s and find new and inventive ways to have awful unprotected sex on psychedelics. L-R: Marlou, Heliodose; Zoologist Perfumes, Olm; Agar Olfactory, Cereale DI SER, Zuko DI SER is perhaps the peak of modern Japanese perfumery in terms of the sheer quality of its releases, but often sticks faithfully to a   citrus-forward palate , occasionally dipping its toes into dark oud with success . Zuko marks a departure into the world of incense and presents the accord in a novel manner wholly divorced from Western culture. This is the farthest thing in the world from   Incense Avignon  or any other requisite churchy smell, and highlights the ultra-camphoric smell of Zuko, a fine incense powder used by monks that also served as the inspiration for my all-time favorite discontinued Diptyque fragrance,   Kimonanthe . DI SER’s take is equally medicinal as Kimonathe, but offers up a more faithful rendering of apothecary ingredients like turmeric, cinnamon leaf, and clove. What comes through most prominently, however, is eucalyptus-borne camphor. Like a hefty scoop of Tiger Balm, this wears less like a perfume and more like a remedy. As a professed fan of perfumes people   often tout as unbearably medicinal , I was hooked. There is no ash here, but rather a grated spice that purifies the mind and body. Bring this with you to practice aikido , and rub it on your pulse points whenever you start to feel a cold coming on. Zoologist Perfumes, Olm This is a curious artifact. Composed by Spyros Drosopoulos, the Greek surgeon turned perfumer behind Baruti Perfumes, this slippery little fragrance is a far cry from the   bold gourmand powerhouses   that built up his original brand. As much as the packaging can sometimes be a little Reddit, I like the Zoologist series because it often involves commissioning perfumers with their own brands or established practices to make something a bit more weird and animalic. This takes a slightly different avenue with a similar spirit, being much more of an earthy-vegetal fragrance in the vein of Early Modern’s Celadon , a cult hit for the Scottish perfume house. I get a distinct umami impression of algae, but also a very damp, watery sediment-clay accord, like the   highly underrated fragrance Lake Bottom  from Folie a Plusieurs. The website itself lists a '“Water Cave Accord,” which I think does a good job of summing it up. There is a bit more traditional ISO E Super base that gives it some oomph , and does a good job of adding to the slightly unsettling alien sheen created by wearing this fragrance on skin. I don’t get the other stated notes of amber and sandalwood, but describing the base as “oily musks” is a delightful little turn of phrase that I think is followed up into the drydown of this fragrance’s wear. I would wear Olm from Zoologist Perfumes to hibernate in my bed for a few days at least, emerging slowly but surely from my covers like a wriggly prehistoric creature climbing onto dry land. Agar Olfactory, Cereale Speaking of prehistoric and weird creatures, this release from Chicago-based Agar Olfactory was launched right at the end of 2024, but had such a meaningful impact on my scent rotation this year that I feel it is wholly worth including. agustine zegers (styled in lowercase) has had a big year this year, to say the least. What went from a very precious Chicago insider’s secret has blown up on the weird girl niche fragrance Internet scene. I now see screenshots of their provocative notes lists on random corners of the internet, and find them stocked at a number of premier scent retailers in NYC, North Carolina, and beyond. Moreover, zegers has publicized a parent venture to Agar Olfactory, dubbed   the speculative scent lab . Very much made in the collaborative, artistic vein as Agar, this project eschews optimizing retail profitability in favor of hosting   a number of fascinating workshops  at the intersection of ecology and olfaction, and   custom smellscaping  in the service of collaborating with artists on scented installation work. In a sales environment where an ounce of virality often triggers an outpouring of big-business capital, it’s truly meaningful to see zegers double down on the countercultural spirit that made Agar Olfactory stand out.  Their most recent release, Cereale , does just that. Inspired, as all their fragrances are, by a potential iteration of ecological apocalypse, the imaginative copy describes rye and bran monocultures threatened by a novel infection. This perfume, they write, is what food scientists develop to appease the taste for bread still prominent in popular culture. One of the most viscerally shocking fragrances I’ve smelled in recent memory, this is nothing like the delicate rose-water sourdough found in similar   Chicago-based bread perfume  purveyors. This smells, to me, exactly like a bowl full of warm water and active dry yeast. It isn’t even a baked bread perfume; it is a baking perfume itself. I get creamy lactone butter notes, atop a walloping from fermented yeasty dough. What adds to this perfume’s unique aggression is its insane strength. A few sprays instantly turn any room into the back of house at a Panera Bread, and on clothes, it lasts so long I smell it on them after  running them through the laundry. Somewhat of an impish little sister to   Selperniku , which is another oddball butter scent with an uncharacteristically powerful performance, wear Cereale to terrorize stay-at-home moms on the subway, or to carboload at 6 AM before running a half-marathon. Jorum Studio, Vernus I really didn’t hear much chatter about this perfume online, which is a shame. Released as a limited springtime exclusive for Scottish genius Euan McCall’s Jorum Studios, this is the polar opposite of   a fresh, dewy tulip scent . Rough, dirty, and edgy, this is primarily a narcissus scent, which is among the more challenging floral notes in perfume. It used to be one I regarded with a bit of fear. At its worst, it is incredibly screechy and hay-like. Thanks to a wonderful ultra-dusty floral-loving close friend of mine, however, I’ve given narcissus a new lease on life. Vernus is undoubtedly a narcissus and daffodil soliflore with incredible dimension, getting to the essence of two very adorable but unexpectedly musty floral notes. Like lazily digging your fingers into dirt, it opens very tart and faintly sour. A visceral bright yellow and brown, you smell the entire flower from root to stem to bloom. I swear there’s almost a charred meat dimension to this floral perfume, it’s that fleshy. An extremely high dose of Jonquil absolute is what really defines Vernus’ profile. A subtle peppery-honey mixture, it speaks to the sweet arrival of spring with uncharacteristically warm tones. Wear this fragrance in April, or whenever you want to remember that one unfortunate time you got so happy about the end of the cold season you skipped through a flower field so fast you fell flat on your face. January Scent Project, Sorabji I was excited about a new release from Providence auteur John Biebel for a very long time. He’s been in a long process of rehauling his bottle and storefront designs, and I’ve certainly missed smelling things through his hyper-unique point of view. There isn’t a single JSP scent I don’t find technically interesting, but his newest, Sorabji , is uniquely approachable compared to some of the more heady concepts like the sharp herbal lilac/tumeric/apple experiment   Vaporocindro . Inspired by the works of English composer Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, this fragrance softly hums with warmth and spice, wearing like an amber perfume tinged with those candy lollipops spiked with scorpions . Based around the interplay between osmanthus, black tea, and apricot, I was perhaps projecting my experience of more Asiatic-oriented osmanthus-apricot fragrances like   Kimonanthe   onto my expectations for this release. The resulting smell, however, is closer to the warm library suede of   Kafka on the Shore . Bolstered with a red Morocco book leather accord, my nose picks up chili pepper, tickling cooking spices like tarragon, and a hearty dose of osmanthus. Where there is apricot, it moreso adds a hazy sweetness, wearing into the drydown like a vanilla-amber on my skin. I truly feel this is a great scent to gift someone to introduce them to the world of experimental perfume, as it’s made from exclusively strange ingredients you won’t find on designer shelves, yet it has an addictive, sweet tinge that makes it a beguiling and wearable signature. Buy this for the person in your friend group who loves an NPR subscription and a good cup of spicy instant ramen, and watch the compliments from its extrait-level sillage roll in. L-R: Sylhouette Parfums, L’Etoile Mourante; Commes des Garçons, Max Richter 01; d'Annam, Spring Festival Commes des Garçons, Max Richter 01 You’ll learn this later, but beloved alt-fashion house Comme des Garçons’ fragrance release schedule has been very hit-or-miss this year. Needless to say, I wasn’t expecting to like this one, but it’s a hit. Another experimental musician collab, this fragrance draws from smells familiar to a musician’s studio: graphite, piano wood, magnetic tape. What I smell is somewhere in between the mellow coffee musk of   Odeur Du Theatre Du Chatelet Acte 1   and the more marketable varnish-accord   skin scent Zero . In a sense, it does something both of these fragrances try to do in their own ways: evoke the intimacy and atmosphere of artists at work, including the more unseemly smells of their materials. Max Richter 01 does this with a very realistic metallic pencil lead smell, mixed with a sleek black pepper wood base that feels marketable to Rick Owens bros who are willing to drop money blindly on something like this. I don’t get a ton of other notes, here, but the art-class-wood effect feels approachable and not horribly indebted to the current trend cycle, so I think it works. There’s enough here to differentiate it from other releases from the house, and if anything, I think it does a better job fitting into the Odeur series, of which its bottle seems reminiscent. Hollywood Gifts, Centerfold The debut from   Nose Candy podcasteuse Maddie Phinney , I’ve   previously written a lot on my blog about this perfume . Needless to say, I think it's really good at doing the kitschy poptimist gourmand thing lots of more established perfumers (see the final entry on this write-up) are trying to do right now. Centerfold , a photorealistic Cherry ChapStick accord meets amaretto and boxed chocolates, wearing on skin for an entire day and evoking memories of cool older girls in high school who smoked stolen cigs behind their parents’ backs and had trashed cars full of tabloids. Frankly, Woah This is a hard one to find, but really fun. Born from design studio I Know You Know, Whoa ’s bottle is an art object in and of itself. Inspired by the delirious tones of California in the summertime, this is a pineapple fragrance with a unique nail polish accord. It’s not necessarily the front-and-center of the composition, which is very wearable. I think of this as a sticky, juicy grapefruit-tropical hybrid, with an acetone artificial base that wears similarly to a mainstream CDG fragrance. Of all the fragrances on this list, I do think I’ve worn this one the least, but it has its time and place from June through August. Extra points should be awarded for having a gorgeously designed bottle, though I get the sense from the other fragrances in this line that the aesthetics of their release may have even been too prominent a concern. As far as design studio perfumes go, though, this one will do just fine. Sylhouette Parfums , L’Etoile Mourante Of everything I’ve put in this list, I was most wowed by this weird little perfume from Vietnam-based provocateurs Sylhouette. I haven’t smelled as much as I’d like from them, but it’s safe to say pretty much everything I’ve encountered has been cutting-edge and hyper-experimental. Explicitly dedicated to the victims of the Genocide in Gaza,   Molotov Cocktail   was a truly breathtaking metallic fragrance, with accents of blood, burned leather, sweat, pepper spray, and vodka that would make fragrance bros who hype up the utterly mediocre   Inexcusable Evil   turn up their patchy pubescent mustachioed noses. L’Etoile Mourante is something entirely different, a quiet, aching fairy that wiggles quietly into the grey matter in your brain. I see loose comparisons only to two very hard-to-find gems:   Serge Lutens’ Bas de Soie , a fleshy hyacinth in the noble tradition of   No 19 , and the ultimate discontinued unicorn from   Byredo, Seven Veils . Like Seven Veils, L’Etoile turns the spotlight on carrot seed: a suede-like, vegetal, peppery smell that cuts deeply into the nostalgia glands, evoking simmering stews and old world glimmer. Fantasy accords like “star dust” and “cosmic smoke” read to me as sultry orris and black pepper. The principal floral accord here is Blue Wisteria, a highly delicate hanging floral with dewy green budding accents not unlike   Jo Malone’s grandma’s favorite hand soap .  There’s something elegiac about this perfume; Palo Santo and smoky incense undertones lend a severity to the pretty floral-spice opening. There are no real similarities between the notes, but the quiet register in which this perfume speaks reminds me of my prized signature scent,   Passage d’Enfer . Astoundingly delicate, this wears on skin with a subtlety that can truly be thrown off by something as commonplace as the ambient smell of a room. This perfume is best experienced outside, perhaps right after it’s rained the kind of long-awaited summer rain that turns cracked soil into feed for earthworms. Long, wriggly, and nothing other than that which they are, and an unapologetic and tiny natural beauty the entire food chain has grown to depend on. Pearfat Parfum , Sister Hildegard This one also surprised me, because Alie Kiral’s work for Pearfat is always extremely inventive, but it often features a quirky warmth and wearability. This perfume, on the other hand, seems quite difficult to wear, with an inherent strangeness that really caught me off guard but has endeared it to me all the more over time. The scent is inspired by one of my favorite saints, the polymath and abbess Sister Hildegard of Bingen, whose musical and theological work has managed to break free from the exclusive confines of Christian worship into the cultural mainstream. Celebrated as an esoteric feminist icon, her work transcends gender, class, and often even religious piety, speaking to the strange dignity of the soul and calling listeners into mystic realms of union with the divine.  Kiral’s tribute eschews the too-obvious choice of making a capital-C Church Incense Perfume, focusing rather on Bingen’s love for the   Viriditas   of the natural world. The first and most prominent note to me is cyclamen, a watery, crisp vegetal note I associate with an odd little gem from my benefactors at Diptyque called   Eau de Lierre . It prevails into the drydown, wearing as if you’d romped through the small overgrown cemetery behind the cathedral walls. This is also a lactonic scent, however, and a prevalent tepid milk quality evokes   The Nursing Madonna  and the strange maternal visions of Saint Bernard  partaking of the Virgin Mother’s breastmilk. Underlying accords submit themselves to the union of green and milky overtones, but I do detect a vague smokiness as well as the punch of juicy orange. A fantasy accord Kiral describes as “flecks of dust against stained glass,” I don’t entirely smell the full vision here, but there is something really strange and evocative about this perfume.  I honestly see another potential comparison to the very misunderstood   Secretions Magnifiques  from mainstream provocateurs Etat Libre d’Orange. It garnered viral fame for supposedly being unwearable, for smelling like blood and cum mixed together in a tribute to the most disgusting viscera of what makes people people. I don’t entirely think it lives up to this claim, however — and, to me, it wears on skin as an almost-tropical seaweed iris and milk fragrance. There’s a similar fleshy, salty quality here, though that would probably be enough to make someone not already entrenched in the world of weird perfume pretty put off. Luckily, this is a limited-edition scent from an indie retailer that exclusively appeals to weird girls looking to smell like memories or twee concepts, so it’s found a tidy little audience of freaks to nestle into. Wear this perfume to 12 PM Thursday Mass with only three or four people in the church, and wander aimlessly around the campus afterwards until you start to hear voices. d’Annam , Spring Festival There’s been a lot of hype this year about perfumes from Vietnam-based d’Annam, all inspired by different aspects of Asian culture and released in small series dedicated to specific countries. I do really enjoy their   coffee scent , and I was partial to the more   premium offering from their Japan line . That said, I do sometimes feel they miss the mark   with some of their concepts , and not everything they release wowed me. That said, I was interested in the Chinese-themed collection released this year, and while I was only able to sample one option, I liked it a lot. Spring Festival , or Chinese New Year, is the annual center of the Chinese celebratory calendar. The fragrance created to commemorate this occasion is quite unique and evocative, centered around a Candied Hawthorne note inspired by   Tanghulu , a skewer of fresh fruit covered in sugar often served at New Year’s festivals. Citrus notes of mandarin take a backseat to a smoky, medicinal sugar and plum blossom mixture that maybe doesn’t feel uniquely Chinese, but certainly evokes various East Asian sundries and tonics at large. The drydown is powdery and sweet, perhaps from the stated notes of Red Dates and “Red Lanterns” (Something paper-adjacent? What a bold fantasy note to include). I think of all the scents included, here, this is the least effective at living up to its very specific concept, but I will always love any fragrance that bolsters up medicinal, powdery, and fruity smells into a lovely salve. Wear this in Chinatown to smell like you know where to find the best Tang Yuan glutinous rice balls in town. Neela Vermeire Creations, Eshal This scent is truly gorgeous. Contributing a fresh take on the tuberose soliflore, an extremely crowded market already, this scent is defined by a bold injection of turmeric. Tepid, spiced, and herbal, the tuberose in Eshal is far from milky or opulent in a classical way. I see a similarity   to Dominique Ropion’s “brutalist tuberose” scent for Regime des Fleurs . In an effort to distance himself from having created perhaps the most iconic niche tuberose perfume of all time, defined by its headiness and plush sensuality, Ropion has gone on   to make fragrances that push tuberose  in a dry, verdant, or spiced resin cast. To be honest, I’ve found this approach to have mixed results, but here, another master perfumer, Bertrand Duchaufour, seems to have taken this playbook and excelled with it. Another man,   somewhat burdened by his most iconic scent compositions , this fragrance smells like the (honestly better) younger sister to his own private-label tuberose,   Jodhpur 6AM . Zesty, exotic, and dry, this fragrance opens with a similar lime to   Moonmilk . The center is indeed tuberose; however, it reads less like   White Diamonds  and more like green, waxy tubers and stems. Vibrant and fresh, this is a tuberose that eschews Eurocentric ideals of ballroom white florals and smells like Indian tuberose in its holistic environment. Universal Flowering , Étude in Black Courtney Rafuse has been moving pretty under the radar for the last year or so, releasing only collaborations with other creatives or businesses, all while navigating the various pitfalls of being a Canadian brand shipping frequently to the tariff-laden isolationist USA. Needless to say, it came as a welcome surprise to see two new bombshells saunter their way into the Universal Flowering core collection. Released quietly alongside a broader streamlining of her bottle and website design, Étude in Black and her brother Big Night certainly prove that Rafuse still has the touch.  Big Night is a bold pineapple mélange in the vein of the criminally underrated   Music for a While , or DS&Durga’s clubbing fragrance   Black Magenta . The centerpiece here is a gritty, sweet vetiver, not unlike the ingredient used in the ginger-forward   Poems One Through Twelve . Where Poems leans sweet, Big Night is tart and sour. Like a man cozying up in Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville resort after calling over several hookers, this is sleazy, charming, and masculine in a weird, off-kilter dad way. That said, Étude in Black was my favorite of the two, and immediately garnered an impulse bottle buy on the basis of its sheer uniqueness. Rafuse always couples her scent creations with evocative associative poetry, and Étude is no exception. I found her description here so meaningful, I feel it’s worth repeating in its entirety below: The roses arrived at noon. I don’t recall the impact, only the machinery of its reception. Chrome shears dulled by tap water, the too-tall vase, a note of brutalist prose. This is how it always starts. With a feeling, yes, but more so the things I decorate the feeling with in order to engage in the ceremony. This is not just a story I tell myself. It’s simply an excavated surface I have to tend to. Pruning a bush with the focus of a surgeon, making the essential cuts that angle at growth. Hours arranging a room like a calculation of chance. This is not just a ritual! So I left the roses in the vase. I didn’t trim the stems. I didn’t change the water. I watched them mainline their own filth to a familiar, clouded end. How perverse, witnessing a thing so alive delight in its own consummation. Is letting them just be the most violent instruction? The now black petals, dutifully dropping onto the polished wood, are the only appropriate response. This is a rose perfume, I suppose — but one completely turned on its head. Rose is quite a hard note to convince me of, as I often feel rose perfumes rest too heavily upon their own laurels, so to speak, doing very little to expound upon the same few recipes for popular success invented in the 20th century   or even the 21st .  That said, this fragrance is clearly conceptually interested in the aesthetics of decay and of delirium, which I find it evokes quite handily. I barely get rose as a flower, here; it's listed in the notes as “rose liqueur,” and the opening of this perfume has all the sparkling boozy effervescence of a good   Poinsettia   or even a   Rose Cocktail . Plasticine juicy strawberry adds a playful femme veneer, like   Fraaagola Saalaaata’s  older sister, who during the long winter of ‘77 was involuntarily committed to a mental institution.  Even beyond its booziness, this scent evokes soirees and juicy red fruits at wintertime gatherings. Into the drydown, however, two notable accords emerge. One is candle wax, a dramatic smoky-waxy sheen not unlike the accents of one of my own most worn scents of all time,   With the Candlestick . Hinoki and rosewood combine into a nondescript industrial-woody veneer, like the sheen of a wooden bar counter or a well-worn antique chair with long, unkempt fingernail scratches along the sides. Candle smoke, incense, and powdery cocktail glitter turn this rose into a Plato’s Cave reflection of the flower. This is rose-flavored , not a floral or fruity scent. This evokes all the finer trappings of a princess dissatisfied with the insanity-inducing confines of her station. Wear Étude in Black to unnerve people at your office’s holiday party, or to whittle down the days while shut in your room on a 19th-century rest cure. The Year’s Biggest Disappointments As perfume giveth, perfume often taketh away. With the explosion of niche perfume comes the marketing of $200+ bottles of snake oil — Eaux de Parfums you quite literally do not need, bolstered by high-budget ad campaigns that try to convince you others will like you better for wearing them. Some of these perfumes were things I was really excited to smell, but was really let down by. I generally try to stay away from independent perfumers who are trying their best, but maybe just didn’t connect with my audience niche. Big box niche retailers, however, are always fair game. Let’s begin. DS&Durga, Brown Flowers I feel, based on its advertising campaign, this perfume was supposed to be Wes Anderson, Annie Hall  drab-chic core as a smell. Leave it to the (often lovable) hipsters at DS&Durga to try to make a perfume that smells, ironically, boring on purpose. I wish it even did that, to be honest. David Moltz is usually pretty deft with floral notes, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of his past   stabs at white floral perfumes , including some great ones   they felt the need to discontinue . That said, Brown Flowers was basically just a dusty coffee-jasmine hybrid, and didn’t really feel vintage to me, much less something that speaks to current niche scent interests.  Maybe my biggest problem with this perfume is that it’s not brown, and not even grey. This is much more of an orange, springy white floral, which would maybe be better marketed as an April exclusive or as one of the elusive and often very unpredictable Studio Juices. I don’t even hate this scent; I was just so hyped by the marketing that I found the scent itself didn't really relate to its inspiration at all. Maybe throw in some powdery animalic base, make it actually reminiscent of the 1970s. Whatever, a shot and a miss is something Moltz is certainly capable of brushing off, and I’m still excited to keep up with their packed future release schedule under the auspices of my own generous employer, Manzanita Capital. Commes des Garçons, Odeur 10 This one actually made me mad. The Odeur series represents some of the most experimental attempts at designer niche perfumery, and I consider scents like   Odeur 53 masterpieces . This perfume is simply   Byredo Blanche  for people who think they’re too good for Byredo Blanche. Barely even off-putting, it’s a fresh laundry, modern aldehyde skin scent, not buttery, not spiced, just clean. I never thought I would see the day that Comme des Garçons caters to the clean girl market. Sad! L-R: DS&Durga, Brown Flowers; Maison Francis Kurkdjian, Kurky; Byredo, Alto Astral Francesca Bianchi, The Essence This one is a bit of a weird artifact because I don’t think it was necessarily meant to stand on its own as a perfume. This was the great Italian perfumer Francesca Bianchi’s attempt at capturing the general base notes common to most of her existing fragrances, to wear as a sort of “enhancer” for other fragrances. I suppose she does a good job at capturing this, but to be honest, I don’t find The Essence terribly compelling. When Bianchi is at her best, it’s often what she can add to this basic violet-civet structure that makes her perfumes great. Maybe this was an attempt to compete with Molecule 01 -type basic skin scents, and in that case, I don’t really think it works. Moreso, I think this bit is kind of played out in 2025, and I’d like to see Bianchi working to give her audience more , not less. In the wake of Glossier You terrorizing girls and gays across the world, I think perfume that distinctly smells like you are wearing perfume  is the new vogue. If I wanted to seem like I wasn’t wearing perfume, I would just not wear perfume. Which, of course, I would never do. Byredo, Alto Astral These days, I’m mostly done being reflexively mean to the enfant terrible  luxury niche perfumers at Byredo, only because, by my own suspicions, they’re likely on the brink of bankruptcy. That said, this new perfume is just objectively a bad attempt to capitalize on the success of their aldehydic laundry scent,   Blanche . I was somewhat hopeful to see aldehydes on the menu again, because while I don’t think it’s terribly inventive, I do have to hand it to Blanche for making young women crave aldehydic scents again, and to break past their knee-jerk reaction to call anything aldehydic “old lady-like” because of its connections with   Chanel No. 5 and the usual suspects .  It’s funny to me that “clean, fresh, laundry scents” are very in with the masses right now, but only if you market them without mentioning the very same ingredients that made classic perfumes of the 1920s-50s really pop. There’s a recursive beauty to knowing that women are deathly afraid of aging and, by extension, don’t want to smell like their grandmothers, but also have noses that respond to the same core ingredients their grandmothers did, making them more alike than either would probably assume. Needless to say, Alto Astral has none of the historic connotations of aldehydes, and instead sublimates the note to a suntan-lotion style vanilla coconut note that reminds me of sugary ambers like   Baccarat Rouge  and   its countless imitators . It’s actually quite the opposite of a grandma scent; this perfume was designed to please a teenage girl and all those whose olfactory tastes haven’t evolved from that stage of life onward. If I wanted a tropical scent,   I would get a tropical scent . If I wanted a clean soapy scent,   I would get a clean soapy scent . This perfume tries to do both and ends up accomplishing neither. Maison Francis Kurkdjian, Kurky I honestly feel sorry, because I do think that Maison Francis Kurkdjian has made it onto my biggest disappointments list every single year I’ve made them. I don’t hate MFK, despite my indications, and the Grand Soir  series is lovely. I’m so glad they brought back   Absolu Pour le Soir , even if it is updated to modern guidelines. That said, this new release, Kurky , is literally the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen hit the Neiman Marcus shelves. Even when Frederic Malle did   the whole playful childhood nostalgia thing , he did it with an ounce of class. This not only looks like a perfume for seven-year-olds, but it smells like one, too. I understand the whole getting in touch with your inner child thing, but my inner child isn’t spending $265 on a fruity musk fragrance that smells like off-brand children’s shampoo. I know Quest International Flavors and Fragrances wasn’t paying that much to commission brainless fruity gourmand scents back when you used to push perfumes for them. Please learn from this, Francis, for all our sakes. 🌀  This piece was concurrently published in Robinovitz's perfume newsletter, Eat Your Lipstick . Audrey Robinovitz is a multidisciplinary artist, altar girl, and self-professed perfume critic. Her work intersects with the continued traditions of fiber and olfactory arts, post-structural feminism, and radical orthodox theology. At this very moment, she is most likely either smelling perfume or taking pictures of flowers.

Unlike most fashion trends, leopard style never really goes out of fashion. From royals to old Hollywood, to now, these spots have remained fierce as a sartorial statement and a cultural touchpoint – here’s why. L-R: Alexa Chung, Carrie Donovan, Meryl Streep Is there any arena more fickle than fashion? Somehow, within this most volatile of jungles, leopard looks and motifs continue to prowl and reign.   While our jeans may ride high or low and we may quietly tuck away last year’s fad (please! No more naked dresses), our possibly primal love of leopard never seems to fail. It happens like clockwork every year and across the seasons:  fashion-y insiders declare – yet again – that leopard is back. The thing is, it never really  goes away.   As I write, I’ve spotted no fewer than seven social posts, two   Vogue  articles, and several leopard-clad celeb sightings that have resulted in instantly coveted looks. I can also spot several such looks in my own closet, and I’m not opposed to adding more if some cute new leopard garment catches my eye.   Cat power is real, and leopard looks go back a long way with fashion history intersecting with real history. The ancient Greeks were the first to make the leopard look chic by associating it with Dionysus, the god of wine. A favored animal of the god, Dionysus is often depicted riding a leopard or in a chariot drawn by the animal. These gorgeous creatures could also be found by his side as this good-time god travelled the earth teaching the art of winemaking to mere (and eager) mortals. Leopards, in that sense, were the first party animals. Fashion trends being contagious (not much has changed there), Dionysus’ priests soon adopted the look for themselves  by draping their bodies in leopard skins to symbolize the merits of wild times and good wine.    This mythological connection also pops up in ancient Egypt, where leopards were a popular motif. Seshat, the goddess of writing and wisdom, was often depicted wearing a leopard skin dress or mantle as a symbol of authority, giving leopard print a nice splash of cerebral chic. Leopard later scored points with real-life royals, too. Henry VIII, never one for subtlety, boasted a pretty out-there fashion sense with a variety of animal furs making up the king’s wardrobe – leopard skins among them. Interestingly, exotic animal gifts were all the rage during the medieval and Tudor ages and also inspired what would become the royal menagerie at the Tower of London, a collection of exotic animals from far-flung places as varied as Norway, Africa, and India. In 1516, Sir John Wiltshire wrote to the king, warning him of the arrival of some rather unusual gifts from Italy’s Duke of Ferrara – among them, a live leopard.   Henry decreed that commoners were forbidden to wear leopard in any form, thus crowning the leopard look with that all-important driver of fashion trends – exclusivity. Of course, exclusivity has a way of triggering something else: instant desire. Fast forward to now(ish) and exotic animals as both a look and a power pet would become all the rage in 1920s and ‘30s Paris, albeit among a rarified set of high rollers and stylers. Josephine Baker, an international sensation at the time and later an honorary French citizen, was often seen strolling the streets of Paris with her pet cheetah Chiquita in tow. Note that cheetahs are considered relatively harmless to humans as opposed to leopards. However, to the untrained eye, the shock and awe upon seeing such a creature is the same. Baker was known to cause a major stir among café society as she glided past gasping onlookers, clutching a long and bejeweled leash attached to Chiquita.   Diana Vreeland, fashion legend and editor-in-chief at Vogue  from 1963 to 1971, recounts in her memoirs one of those infamous Josephine Baker sightings . A discerning style spotter, she was surprised – and thrilled – to discover Chiquita and Baker sitting just a few seats away in the same Paris theater in Montmartre one summer day. All in attendance were there to escape the heat while taking in a screening of L’Atlantide , a Jacques Feyder film which featured a bevy of cheetahs. Surprised to see the glamorous film-goer, Vreeland was duly impressed by both Chiquita’s good behavior and the exquisite style of her mistress as she watched the pair speed off into an awaiting white and silver Rolls-Royce. A lways one for sweeping pronouncements, Vreeland described the scene thus: “What a gesture! I've never seen anything like it. It was speed at its best, and style.” Vreeland has also been quoted as saying she never met a leopard print she didn’t like .   Leopard sightings in fashion became more common during the 1920s, as the motif became increasingly accessible in fabric, popping up on everything from couture gowns to hats and scarves. In 1938, leopard looks took a starring role in the Hollywood classic, Bringing Up Baby , starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. The screwball plot effectively heightened the fascination with leopard adventures.   Come the 1950s, leopard styles would convey a different kind of danger via the bombshell look. Pin-up stars like Betty Page and Jayne Mansfield soon adopted leopard styles to seal their own naughty girl-next-door vibes. Too shy to wear leopard in public? No problem, thanks to Fredericks of Hollywood, a brand that launched a racy leopard-inspired line of lingerie in 1947. Technically, Vanity Fair, a competing lingerie brand, was the first to market leopard lingerie  with the introduction of its signature print bras and slips, alongside a campaign that straddled the elegant with the risqué, but it was Fredericks that pulled out all the stops for bombshell looks. Soon, a new national audience could unleash cat-powered sex appeal in the privacy of their home. Josephine Baker and her pet leopard, 1930s. Leopard looks, with all their flash, are not for the timid or those who want to blend in. In an ironic fashion twist, this is the opposite function of leopard prints in their natural habitat, according to fashion aficionado Jo Weldon, who wrote Fierce: The History of Leopard Print, a tell-all history of leopard fashions. “A leopard’s coat serves as a supreme camouflaging device in the wild, making it difficult for their prey to observe them,” says Weldon. “But this is quite the opposite in an urban jungle where wearing leopard makes a powerful statement and commands attention.”   Over time, not-so-subtle leopard styles would take on an even more sexualized vibe, straying into new territory – namely, gentlemen’s clubs and as a go-to look in striptease. But fashion, always mercurial, meant that leopard looks would eventually assume a loftier spot. In 1962, Jacqueline Kennedy, the epitome of high style and elegance, appeared in a stunning leopard-skin coat  for an official engagement, effectively setting off a whole new wave of leopard obsession. Designed by Oleg Cassini, the look instantly ignited a frenzy for leopard coats that reportedly resulted in the capture of nearly 250,000 leopards. Cassini, who never quite recovered from the guilt of setting off such a cruel trend, vowed never again to work with fur, becoming one of the first and most notable anti-fur crusaders and an advocate for animal preservation. An early adopter of then-new synthetic fabrics like polyester and acrylic in his ready-to-wear collections, Cassini paved the way  for innovations that led to realistic-feeling faux fur, ultimately helping to offset the desire for the real thing. Leopard fur was officially banned in the United States in 1973 by the Endangered Species Act, which prohibited the importation and sale of leopard skin – thankfully marking the end of the leopard fur coat.   There’s always been an evolutionary aspect to fashion’s trend cycle. The leopard look has been particularly adept at transforming and seizing some peak pop culture moments. There’s Anne Bancroft’s iconic leopard fashions in the 1967 Mike Nichols film, The Graduate,  with Bancroft playing the classic cougar in pursuit of her daughter’s fiancé, a young Dustin Hoffman (who was only six years younger than Bancroft at the time of filming). More cultural breakthroughs came by way of ‘70s punk and glam rock, with some of the most notable leopard-print wearers — among them, Debbie Harry, Iggy Pop, and Rob Stewart —  whose leopard suits and skintight pants would become sartorial staples, both on stage and off. During the pandemic, Stewart was even spotted  wearing a leopard print mask, proving yet again the generational prowess of leopard style.  Apart from its punk glam appeal, leopard has turned up at style moments as varied as burlesque; on our favorite superhero films and media (hello, Catwoman); midcentury muses like Edie Sedgwick; and, later, entire style movements like big ‘80s boldness, and even drag. When you think of John Waters’ films, you automatically think of Divine, and when you think of Divine, you think of drag and leopard. Divine’s presence was accessorized by many a leopard look, both on stage and in those cult movies by Waters. So, what is it about leopard styles that holds such enduring fascination and undisputed fashion cred?   “It speaks to us on every level,” according to Weldon, who points out its unique cultural appeal. “Over the years, it has accumulated many meanings while adapting to various styles and situations – from luxe to lazy and from the divine to the debauched.”   Once the dominion of gods, goddesses, and kings and queens, leopard style has gone from the royal to a full-on rebellion, proving its wildly democratic power. But perhaps the most significant power lies in having crossed every imaginable boundary, including gender, affluence, and celebrity, while flirting with plenty of taboos along the way. And that might be the ultimate attraction: a lack of rules and the freedom (AKA joy) of making a statement, however small or neon sign-like. Leopard print, after all, has an instinct for attention and always makes an impression as it prowls across the seasons, turning up on everything from winter coats to summery slip dresses.  Recently, leopard styles roared onto Chanel runways for its celebrated show in New York City. An instant sensation thanks in part to an unlikely NYC subway setting, Matthieu Blazy’s designs included, you guessed it, a leopard look or two . Madame Chanel was known to carry off her own leopard looks back in her day, so the influence and reference were  fitting as the dots continue to connect. Leopard style continues to prove to be that rare and coveted thing in fashion: timeless. When it comes to communicating confidence, sexuality, and unabashed style, it’s the biggest game in town. 🌀 Beatriz Zimmermann is an award-nominated fragrance writer based in NYC. An incurable Francophile (and romantic), she loves to connect some of her favorite things in her writing whenever possible, like art, fashion, history, and literature. You can find more of her musings @luxemlove .

Ripe are the fruits that hang low on the tree of romantic desire. Do you feel that? I’m sure you feel it all around you, online, offline, spiritually. Everyone is morphing into a court jester. Symptoms include yearning for an autistic girlfriend to the point that it gets creepy, casting judgment on people for having a boyfriend , and declaring “I need someone who can match my freak” in your Hinge profile, when your “freak” is just enjoying leaving the house. It is thrilling and addictive once you start, but going back seems like a Sisyphean task. I am referring to our collective inability to be sincere, earnest, and honest with ourselves and potential romantic partners.  DAZED’s Angel Martinez recently penned this compelling article , investigating an alleged influx of men fetishising autistic women on dating apps — they say men, but let's be real, this issue supersedes the gender spectrum. The presumption that DAZED seems to offer is   as integral to a viral article in 2025 as baking soda is to a cake rising: it's all men’s fault! They desire autistic women because they are vulnerable and easy to manipulate.  It couldn’t possibly be because autistic women can be wonderful partners, or that maybe this is a sign of netizens’ well-meaning but misguided attempts to normalize neurodivergent romance. The piece  paints autistic women as lacking agency and emotional depth, likening them to “people with youthful interests and colorful outfits.” What is most fascinating about this whole issue is not what is being said, but rather what is not  being said. I’m not sure if it's AI, chronic irony poisoning, plummeting self-esteem rates, or a combination of all of the above, but our collective phobia of sincerity is only getting worse. Fetishizing autism is one piece of the puzzle, but this points to a larger problem, a communication breakdown that leaves us disjointed and maladjusted. Perhaps autistic people are being sought after because there is an illusion, to no fault of their own, that they are the last remaining sincere people on earth. To have faith in this myth is to do a misdeed to yourself and others. Stating that you’d like a partner with a specific neurodevelopmental condition needs to be taboo again. It’s not even about having “standards”; it’s that the premeditated inner scheming that goes into choosing partners is increasingly  based on repairing complex shame systems that no one except oneself can fix. I’d love to travel back in time to 1970 and tell people that in 2025, youngsters are wearing T-shirts that say “girls love my autistic swag” with an image of the Grim Reaper on a motorbike. It didn’t originate with evil intent, but has snowballed into something monstrous after rolling down the long, debris-ridden slope of cyberspace. “Situationships” are another sign (though this is often rooted in insecure attachment) that people have a romantic drill sergeant inside them, whacking them with a wooden stick to stand up straight whenever they have thoughts of beginning a serious, devoted relationship.  Art across space and time shows us this drill sergeant has always lived in us. Countless films, music, and other media depict women “playing hard to get,” not wanting to be tied down, and mediating their desires.   As art and communication have migrated to digital spaces most accessible to young people, those ideas are amplified and much harder to ignore. Short-form content on TikTok prompts women not to settle for less ( if he wanted to, he would ), and gives us access to a host of advice on the pseudo-psychology of love. The perpetual nagging on social media for girls to stop chasing men and instead use the power of their mind to make one appear is a crude example of the psychological warfare we are encouraged to engage in for love. Videos like this  instruct women to take a laissez-faire approach to dating, insisting on the part of men, “If they don’t want to work for it, they don’t want it.” Lying down and basking in the sun like a lizard waiting for a cricket to crawl by, brushing off all attempts at vulnerability or sincerity,  might have worked wonders in the 1950s; nowadays, if you ignore men's assertions of romance, they will simply stop contacting you. Nobody has the time and energy to play the dating chess game anymore. Young couples are just trying to make rent and put food on the table for their cats.  Even simple features, such as a push notification lighting up your phone and hailing your attention to somebody “liking” you on Hinge, have effectively rewired our reward systems. We’re conditioned into believing that, when navigating dating, you’re home free as long as you avoid stepping on broken glass or making too much noise. But romantic desire is programmed to be ritualistic, and quite frankly, irritating. The heterosexual dating gap is exacerbated by women’s ability to be financially independent and pursue post-secondary education; while this may not feel new, across millennia of societal adaptation and evolution, women’s lib is still fairly adolescent. Social scripts that have existed for thousands of years tell us that men should pursue, so it's no surprise that women are confused by the apparent lack of assertiveness. Could it be, perhaps, that social norms are finally changing? I thought we wanted men to embrace their emotional side, their inner tenderness, and that it’s OK not to be OK . We neglected to consider that, with these positive leaps in mental health care, we cannot cherry-pick the emotions we are encouraging people to connect with. When their machismo is unmasked, men likely feel a newfound discomfort. Pouting and using passive aggression online as a tool in hopes of inspiring women to leave their partners instead of communicating their needs is a lost cause. Needs boil down to the individual. Not everyone wants the same things from their partner, regardless of gender. And not everyone wants sincerity anymore. The addition of technology to mediate our relationships also changes the way we think about the distinction between childhood and adulthood — nonchalance signals maturity. A generation whose youth is intimately immortalized on Tumblr and the like tends to reject classic markers of childhood, including joy, naivete, risk, and play. They want to grow up fast and leave their potentially embarrassing home videos collecting dust in the attic (I guess they wouldn’t be on VHS at this point — iPod Touch videos, perhaps?). And yet they have the gumption to exclaim, “I’m a minor, you know!” when a man breathes too close to them. I don’t say this to disparage young women; the urge to run as far away as possible from your past self is real. Even just thinking back to your childhood can feel scary — we cannot imagine existing in a world where irony flies over our heads.  Admittedly, my peers and I have uttered similar yearnings for an “autistic” partner more times than I can count. Sometimes, we’d even say “a little bit” autistic — this was years ago, however, I still see it online from time to time. We knew that it was utterly bizarre to think like this, yet it was everywhere, so it didn’t mean nothing. It’s helpful to reflect on earnestness as intrinsically linked to childhood. To remove the term “inner child” from its obsolete, pop-therapy context of today, and just leave the bones of the words stripped clean to their origin: what do you see when you envision her? Maybe you see innocence. Is it truly innocence, per se, or is it just the absence of shame? She might be sporting a Hannah Montana tee, whom she adores. It’s not a “guilty pleasure” to her; in fact, the very notion that deriving pleasure from something might spark guilt or shame is absolutely mind-boggling to her. In her book Cook, Eat, Repeat, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson stresses that guilt should play no part in pleasures.  Of course, she was referring to food, but the same goes for desire. Digging deep, I realized that what I wanted when throwing around the term “autistic boyfriend” was to love someone who I could learn endlessly from, and have them love me so much that they would want to learn from me, too. I wanted devotion, an intellectual fortress, substance that fueled my rich inner world, and the ability to give back to theirs.  “There are few greater pleasures than sharing your enthusiasms.”  — Nigella Lawson via CBC Radio Desire begins at a cellular level. We are all wired to seek out mates that have healthy immune systems, reproductive fitness, all that sexy stuff. Someone with no hobbies or passions, especially as an adult, is not very likely to fit the bill for that kind of health. The undesirable basement-dwelling neckbeard gamer archetype has taught us this for decades. Depression takes an unspeakable toll on our bodies, and loneliness automatically increases our risk of death . These neuroses are often temporary and come in phases, though our primitive ape minds suck at remembering that. Having clear-cut interests serves as an indicator for cognitive focus, stability, and sociability, all of which are paramount in child-rearing — sorry to be that guy, but at the end of the day, we are all driven to seek partners because our biology wants us to have babies. I don’t condone fetishizing neurodivergence, but to put all our eggs in the basket of misogyny is not productive in this case. The aforementioned DAZED piece includes this statement by Milly Evans, an autistic sex educator, referring to the burst of “I’m looking for an autistic partner” in online dating profiles: “I’d like to have a conversation with these people to understand what they’re hoping to achieve.” Asking this question with the intention of waving a finger, like the article seems to do, is useless. Posing it as a rhetorical question, however, might yield fruitful revelations. When swiping between Hinge, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and your inbox full of millennial marketing quips, the lack of linguistic code-shifting becomes increasingly palpable. Most people prefer to wade in the dialect of the masses; the warm, familiar waters of memetics, which is the smartest way to attract a mate, at the end of the day. Why wouldn't one make their dating app prompts as funny as possible? This language is universal. Women love a silly, goofy guy, right? Our species’ mating ritual is performed on iPhones, so it’s important to evoke a visceral emotional response in potential mates. Igniting laughter in someone is the most streamlined option — it creates an intimate physiological reaction, your face blushes, and you might even vocalize laughter. Have you ever laughed out loud at a flirty text and felt somewhat violated? I mean, what can I say — if food is the way to a man’s heart, laughter is the way to a woman’s heart (and bed). These intricate patterns are what make insincerity an easy fallback. When fishing for love on the apps, post-ironic humour is placed like sticky fly traps. It allows users to be easy to respond to, to be entertained, and then be kicked to the curb. Hinge bios that say “I need a woman with a touch of the ‘tism” are now as ubiquitous as live laugh love  signs in TJ Maxxes. Historically, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype is a classic example of a widely desired partner who puts aside her own desires to fix the male protagonist’s life. She’s full of whimsy and is not afraid of sharing her eccentricities with the world. Contenders in the dating marketplace that express a similar passion to MPDGs and people on the spectrum are very attractive, no doubt. I tried to illustrate this in a MS Paint project, shown below.   Ripe, juicy, red fruits of sincerity hang from the tree of romantic desires’ weary branches (they taste like Swedish Berries gummies). Most notably, these fruits are low-hanging . These are three distinct examples of cultural byproducts produced by skirting around sincerity in any way we can. I’m sure they won’t be the last. The obsessive focus on maintaining nonchalance can also be seen as a nihilistic response to our capitalism fatigue. It’s a penetrating, bleak reality, and no wonder it’s so easy to roll our eyes at everything. A member* of a group chat I’m in recently unleashed their feelings at another user, stating: “idk how u dont see the actual active harm nonchalantism, brainrot, and insincerity does to you and the world at large. Anti-intellectualism is why tf this stupid ass country is bland, corrupt, (...)  Especially for artists and creatives like me who care and will not conform to a hateful and disenfranchised world.”  The palpable frustration shown by this individual is something I think many people feel, and the medium of this message, Discord, is a perfect snippet of irony.  Being ambiguous is a useful skill, especially as women, in that we are often asked to be absolutely obsessed with something or, inversely, hate it (see this stellar Substack post  by Liv Jarrell). It gets dangerous when ambiguity becomes a self-defense mechanism. Don’t get me wrong — I love ironic humor just as much as the next person born in 1999. Wearing a cloak of irony as armour prevents us from developing meaningful, complex relationships with one another. We’re constantly doing this balancing act of channeling our sense of childhood whimsy and our “adult” demeanor. I fear the muscles that allow us to do this meaningfully have atrophied, all at the hands of the fear of appearing naive. Harnessing the power of irony takes vigorous practice, akin to climbing the tree of romantic desire. The branches may look intimidating, but you do have the strength; your muscles have memory, too.  Being a jokester can help us grow closer to those we love by offering a simple touch of vulnerability. Verbal irony can also help us regulate our emotions. But have you ever had a friend ironically enjoy   another person ? Forget about the ironic enjoyment of art, that of which we typically analyze through the lenses of camp and kitsch — this is human to human; sort of like bullying, but permissible, for some reason. It’s that one friend who leaves you bewildered when they say things like, “He’s so hot, I really like him, we had an amazing date, but I’m going to ignore his texts and maybe just hook up with him with a paper bag over his head.” Lying to yourself about your desires isn’t a new phenomenon, but the reckless ways we deploy irony and sarcasm (especially online) have waterboarded our last few breaths of conviction. This sort of rhetoric drives a wedge in all directions — towards our own needs, and towards our friends and family who are grasping at straws to give us the benefit of the doubt while we stumble through the outrageous, carnivalesque exhibition of modern romance. Biz Sherbert recently gave this golden advice   in a Substack post : “Do not undercut your work, do not be self-deprecating. You did not 'write a thing.’ You wrote something.” I say: Say it with your chest. Write it on a cue card and tape it to your bathroom mirror. Throw your arms into a self-embrace, and say, It’s okay to want somebody who I find interesting. It’s OK that I don’t have the right tools to convey that on Tinder right now. I am scared, and I am willing to get better at this.  The line between irony and cruelty is thin. The leaves on the tree of romantic desire carry toxic dewdrops leftover by an ironic storm. It’s truly poisoned the whole tree — once we accept nonchalance as a learned behavior, and stop denigrating autistic people (or anyone) in the process, a veil will be pulled back, revealing full individuals that deserve love and inquiry. Let’s leave having a crush on someone as a joke in elementary school. As bell hooks reminds us in All About Love, “ If you do not know what you feel, then it is difficult to choose love; it is better to fall. Then you do not have to be responsible for your actions.” This book is a must-read, assigned to you by us. There will be no quiz, but please take notes. We are living in a mental health crisis; debilitating anxiety and depression make it even harder to say what you mean, and in some places, you’ll even go to prison for it . Sincerity is vulnerability. You don’t have to have it all figured out, but take a stab at it. Post that cute picture of you and your boyfriend. Write a long, enthusiastic blog post about your vintage clothing haul; people will love it. Commit to treating post-ironic humour like it’s nuclear, and practice discipline to wield it with clarity and consequence. We need to spread the fruits of sincerity and share them with the less fortunate. People are starving, and the fruit is inches from the ground, about to drop and rot into nothing at all. This is an excellent opportunity to practice uplifting each other as citizens of the web, and, dare I say, set an example for the next generation. In a world where it seems like your only communication tools are the skull emoji and fire emoji, practice dipping your feather into the inkwell of earnestness — hey, it might feel like an old friend. 🌀 Lauren Lexa Brown is a Canadian writer, cyber-anthropologist, hardcore perfume enjoyer, and admirer of any and all vintage ephemera. She can be found adding things to her cart and singing to her pet guinea pigs. You can find more of her work on her Substack .