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Some reflections from the inside of a red plastic cup. Streets are saying that Los Angeles feels exactly like the early 2010s — and we all know they’ve been coming back for a while now. It’s not always easy to know when nostalgia is playing tricks on us, but it’s even harder to know when it comes to fashion. As Indie Sleaze morphs into its summer counterpart and Isabel Marant’s wedge sneakers take hold of the Internet’s smaller corners, those of us who are particularly vulnerable to the thrill of a sunny day and a warm night begin having L.A. hallucinations. There has always been something transcendentally Party Girl about Los Angeles. Beachy waves, salty blonde hair, hot pink, heavy kohl eye makeup… whether you love it or you hate it, messiness has slowly taken over the polished way girls have been presenting themselves these last couple of summers. While messiness — waking up in your bathtub, racking up $46,305.04 in Chateau Marmont debt, et cetera — seems like an easier gig, surprisingly enough, it is, in fact, harder to be a Ke$ha girl in a Hailey Bieber world. Is cool messiness harder to achieve in a world hostile to problematic women? Or is the clean girl aesthetic so ingrained in our brains that we find it almost impossible to let go? And, more importantly, what does Los Angeles have to do with it? It’s not easy to find a Los Angeles blog from someone who actually lives there; visitors are the ones providing city tours on YouTube. Look no further than the recent wave of nostalgia TikToks providing quick glimpses of what one could see were they to visit the (in)famous city at the height of its power. However, these blogs, TikToks, and even movies set in L.A. have one thing in common: they portray the city as a breezy landscape where all of its landmarks are adjacent, easy to access, and full of magic. Why face the reality of an unwalkable city when one can dream about a forever-sunny land where reality is suspended under the shadow of a thousand palm trees? Its unseriousness as a city is equally well-known. Forever acting as New York’s antithesis, it has become the embodiment of athleisure, leisure itself, and influencer culture against New York’s gritty, frantic, razor-edged tempo. To whatever extent this may or may not be true, it seems that Los Angeles has now decided to embrace its own stereotypes — a land of promises with a dark underbelly, of which a thousand poorly-written novels and films have been written — and is luring us back. YouTubers are back from the dead, Minnesota teenagers are making Erewhon shopping lists, and we all want to go to Coachella once again. Everything in the City of Angels feels very specific and tied to its infernal core. Stacey Battat, who works regularly with director Sofia Coppola and was responsible for the costume design of her 2013 film The Bling Ring, mentioned that one of her main inspirations at the time was the mere act of being in Los Angeles — and that it was essential for them to use Juicy Couture sweatsuits and Uggs, which she thought was “a very L.A. thing at that time.” An arsenal of flashy tracksuits, fur pieces, chunky jewelry, and glittery jeans made up the cast’s wardrobe and represented not only what celebrities were wearing back then but the Los Angeleno ideal at large — all without appearing too costumey or artificial. Some of these trends may be nothing new to avid internet users; everyone’s already witnessed the Y2K revival and is familiar with names like Von Dutch, Playboy, or Ed Hardy. Still, celebrity culture is a huge part of L.A., and the style of professional Party Girls such as Paris Hilton, Ke$ha, and Lindsay Lohan influenced the Los Angeles landscape as much as they were influenced by it. This type of messy Chateau type of L.A. girl is intimately related to McBling — and touches on a very specific obsession with hedonism, trash, and celebrity culture of the early 2000s. Twenty years ago, people wanted to see celebrities being celebrities; fed by reality TV, the masses craved a glimpse inside the life of those inoculated by messiness and excess. Reality shows such as Jessica Simpson’s Newlyweds or The Simple Life forever changed the celebrity game, establishing Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie as the standard Beverly Hills girls and bringing socialites back into mainstream media. It was also during this time that celebrities started calling the shots in the fashion department, with brands relying on them to dictate trends and boost sales. Celebrity casual style, which combined regular garments with logo-slathered luxury items, kicked off a fever of imitations and dupes that sidelined exclusivity in favor of consumerism and mass production. Opulence and manufactured beauty, already a central piece in Los Angeleno identity, became the cornerstone of the L.A. girl. It is quite easy to get tired of excess and obnoxiousness, though — and the messy party girl slowly faded away: too rowdy, too tarnished, too “much.” She would soon be replaced with sun-kissed, natural, and discreetly fun-loving Malibu girls. With the Hadids as the archetype, the group eventually included now well-known Kendall Jenner, Camila Morrone, and even Internet celebrities like Madison Beer. Excess was still there, but it took a different shape: Starbucks drinks instead of wine bottles. Victoria’s Secret workout sets instead of Juicy Couture tracksuits. Philosophy body washes instead of stolen hotel room soap. Açaí bowls instead of coke for dinner. The L.A. Girl identity was still there — just cleaner. To a certain extent, that change encapsulates our contemporary tension between excess and minimalism. Here is the cool, calm, and collected put-together girl, commonly associated with control, discipline, and slightly crunchy sophistication; here is another girl who actually gets to have fun. However, whereas the clean girl uniform is easy enough to recreate, there is a secret ingredient to the L.A. Party Girl formula. Few modern attempts at “messy girl style” — of which TikTok rakes in thousands of videos — get it right. Even those who nail the mismatched glittery outfits or slept-in-eyeliner lack the nonchalance of a rich girl gone wild. In the 2020s, algorithmic life compels us to stay polished and controlled, and even when we attempt to be messy, we still, inevitably, come off as polished and controlled. Now that the tables are turning and the masses are yearning for silliness and fun, it seems that we still cannot stray too far away from the disciplined, comforting beauty of our already familiar ways. Perhaps some things are meant to remain elusive. As Susan Sontag writes in Against Interpretation: “To speak of style is one way of speaking about the totality of a work of art. Like all discourse about totalities, talk of style must rely on metaphors. And metaphors mislead.” Identity plays a bigger role in fashion than what one may assume at face value, and fashion would not be as alluring as it is if it lacked the element of mystery. After all, it can be hard to draw the line between style and costume or to pinpoint what makes a city the symbol of something bigger than itself. Alas, taking off the clean girl slick bun or unplugging the Dyson hair wrap might not be the key to the L.A. Party Girl look, but it might mark the beginning of a new era, with Los Angeles as a backdrop instead of a final destination. 🌀 Paula Luengo is a freelance writer based in Madrid. Her interests draw from music to fashion and media analysis, with special emphasis on all that’s old and battered. You can find her on Instagram at @0030300.

And a Goyardine Saint Louis PM bag. Tomorrow, the streetwear brand releases its Spring/Summer 2024 collection — including work jackets, barrage knives, and appearances by Goyard and Rolex (no joke). Titled “I Never Thought It Would Be Like This,” candy-colored statement pieces pair with luxury accouterments — including a $2,100 Goyardine Saint Louis PM bag to a $2,000 Maison Raksha engraved pair of Apple AirPods Max, all emblazoned with the brand’s iconic logotype. Other custom luxury pieces include a Portefeuille Matignon GM wallet; a Rimowa Classic Cabin carry-on; and a customized Rolex Submariner ($29,000). While these luxury products take center stage for SS24, they’re not part and parcel with ASSC, with the brand underlining: “While the products are authentic and customized by ASSC, they are not official collaborations with the mentioned brands.” ASSC’s devoted fan base — of streetwear acolytes and sneakerheads — frequently sell out the brand’s drops. SS24 is a change of pace; while streetwear brands leaning into luxury is nothing new, there is something notable in the fact that ASSC in particular is growing alongside their tight-knit community, not against them. Let’s see what comes next. 🌀

Predicting the archival looks that will grace the red (or beige?) carpet this May. First it was “Sleeping Beauties,” now it’s “The Garden of Time” — I can’t keep it straight. Trusted advisors of mine (the group chat) say that there’s always been a difference between the exhibit theme and the dress code, and to that, I say: Heavenly Bodies? Camp: Notes on Fashion? Manus x Machina: Fashion in the Age of Technology? We’ll even do a deep cut — Charles James: Beyond Fashion? Sounds like revisionist history to me. Whatever the theme may be, the “low-hanging fruit” here (pardon the pun) is going to be floral gowns. Floral patterns, floral appliques, and light, gauzy fabrics that give the illusion of flowers around the neckline or hemline or whatever-the-hell-line. It’s safe to assume we’re going to be seeing lots of celebrities in florals for spring. But onto the pressing question — what would I wear if I were invited to the biggest night in fashion? Answer: Just about any look from Givenchy FW96 Couture. This Regency-style sheer nightgown with the delicate floral embroidery on the bust would be a showstopper — and, of course, I would style it faithfully to the runway look. I’d never leave behind a lacey panty, dripping crystal headpiece, or white fur stole! It’s against my nature! This puff-sleeve white gown on Kate Moss sets my bridal heart ablaze. But, of course, you’d have to do it with the hair, or else it doesn’t work. This red lace number with the giant rose epaulets? A clear winner. But yes, again, you would need to wear the giant feather bang. I don’t make the rules — I just follow them. I also love this red 1940s-style dress with the full bouquet bust and little heart hat. Mostly because it reminds me of the costume Dita Von Teese wore for her “Lazy” number at the Crazy Horse in Paris. So maybe my bias is showing a little bit. While we’re on the DVT subject, this Jean Paul Gaultier butterfly corset look from his Spring 2014 Couture collection would be perfect. Honestly, the entire collection is ripe for the picking. It’s chock-full of garden-inspired headwear. I especially love this black and white ostrich feather plume paired with that silky polka dot gown and little crochet bolero. Also, if someone wore this bridal butterfly showgirl look, I’d lose my mind. I could see a more daring man in this black suit pants + nude mesh butterfly shirt combo. Conan Gray? I’m talking to you. This look from Prada Spring 1997 RTW is the perfect balance between the two themes — very egalitarian. It’s covered in floral beading (check) and the cut of the gown combined with its sheerness is so deliciously reminiscent of a classic nightgown (double check). Lest we forget about Viktor and Rolf Spring 2003? It truly is a treasure trove for garden looks. This is a fun suiting look that I hope makes an appearance — and for once I will say, I hope they don’t do the hair from the runway. It would look so much better with big, bouncy, curly Keri Russell hair. Emrata or Zoe Kravitz could make this Viktor and Rolf Spring 2003 printed silk skirt set look very hot. It’s very flirty — Mediterranean Siren, Mirror Palais vibes. I can also imagine Riley Keough in this '70s-inspired, high-neck sheer dress — but maybe that’s just because the model kind of looks like her. I’m so excited to see what the stylists and design houses put together this year for the gala. It seems every year there’s a major curveball we don’t expect. Whether it be Rihanna’s showstopping Yellow Guo Pei Gown or Karlie Kloss’ infamous “looking Camp right in the eye” — we’re sure to be shocked and delighted. The only thing I ask is: please no more Marchesa. We’ve seen enough Marchesa. 🌀 Kaitlin Owens is a vintage fashion writer, movie buff, lover of good eats, and a women’s size 7.5 (if any shoe brands are reading). She is the Editor-in-Chief of Dilettante Magazine. You can find her on socials @magdilettante.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show star owns over 500 pieces of vintage Mugler alone. Laverne Cox doesn’t just have a wardrobe — she has an archive, dahliiing. With notable highlights of her closet including THE wing-tipped Mugler Bustier (yes, that wing-tipped bustier from the famous Iceberg shoot in Greenland!) and an Alexander McQueen matador coat, few fashion lovers have amassed a collection of designer relics as large as Miss Cox. In 2023, Cox shared a tour of her staggering 500-piece Mugler collection on her YouTube channel. The collection focuses heavily on Thierry Mugler’s early work — specifically his ’80s wasp-waist blazers. The Orange is the New Black actress owns one in just about every color. Although her focus isn’t limited to only the early days of Mugler, Cox is a major supporter of Casey Cadwallader and has been photographed in the Creative Director’s looks many times. Cox had only begun collecting Mugler garments three years prior to the video – but has been obsessed with the designer for over 30 years. It is surprising how quickly she’s been able to hunt down each piece, but no more surprising than the fact that her archive has grown so large that she has begun renting out the apartment across the hall from her in New York to store it. Imagine that… an entire NYC apartment as a closet... Carrie Bradshaw, who? Laverne Cox isn’t the first fashion obsessive with extreme brand loyalty. Vogue’s DEVOTED series on YouTube profiles collectors who have become singularly focused on acquiring the works of a specific designer. On the show, they have featured Fiona Luo and Michael Smith, a couple who have dedicated themselves to collecting the works of Rick Owens; Joey Arias,who has been collecting Jeremy Scott for over a decade; and Michelle Elie, who owns over 70 pieces of Comme des Garçons. In his Vogue profile, Arias tearfully explains: “When I came upon Jeremy Scott’s work… it awoke something in me. I think that little kid inside of me really fell in love with what was in front of him and saw himself playing with these life-size Barbies on the runway.” It’s a specific kind of person who becomes a collector — especially a collector of über-expensive, high-end goods like couture. You buy the clothes because you feel intrinsically connected to the designer. You believe in what they stand for, you feel drawn in by their expression — their fantasy. It’s an extension of the same kind of parasocial relationship we talk about when discussing stan culture. There has to be some degree of projection — of constructing a facsimile of the designer to relate yourself to, to aspire to, in order to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of man-hours acquiring their works. In an article for GQ — “Why The Ultimate Luxury in Fashion is Human Connection” — Noah Johnson writes that “I’ve always thought that the ultimate aspiration […] is to wear only clothes made by people you know. [...] Then there would always be a reason to get dressed, some kind of higher purpose to the act of putting on clothes—less a declaration of brand affinity than a signal of support, or a pledge of allegiance. Like going to a restaurant where you know the chef, or being backstage at a concert, you would somehow become complicit in the clothes that you wear.” We all just want to feel connected to the things that we love and to be seen by others for who we really are. If you’re a lover of art and fashion, this feeling is amplified beyond the level of an everyday person. There’s a strong desire to mold your physical form as close as possible to the vision of yourself in your heart. In an interview with British Vogue, Cox explains that her fascination with Mugler (and specifically his tailored pieces) comes from “...being a trans woman and not being very shapely.” She says, “...the construction, the architecture of it all, is really what excites me.” At the end of the day, sometimes the Tumblr-famous quotes just hit the nail right on the head: “Art and love are the same thing. It's the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.” – Chuck Klosterman Couldn’t have said it better myself. 🌀 Kaitlin Owens is a vintage fashion writer, movie buff, lover of good eats, and a women’s size 7.5 (if any shoe brands are reading). She is the Editor-in-Chief of Dilettante Magazine. You can find her on socials @magdilettante.

The answer is complicated. It was in 1991 that Elizabeth Taylor, the famed British-American actress of the Golden Era of Hollywood, launched White Diamonds. A floral fragrance with notes of lily, bergamot, jasmine, and a healthy dose of neroli oil made the perfume one of the most commercially successful fragrances of all time, generating $1.5 billion in sales alone since 1991. According to Revlon, there's one bottle sold every 15 seconds. While it wasn’t the first fragrance launched by a celebrity, it laid the foundation for the celebrity-branded fragrance frenzy of the 2000s. It was J.Lo’s Glow, Britney Spears’ Curious, Mariah Carey’s M, Xtina’s Xpose, Justin Bieber’s Someday, and countless other celebrities that released fragrances within that decade. Jessica Simpson, along with her fragrances, even released a crazy popular line of beauty products, Dessert, that included deliciously-scented (and edible!) lip gloss, body creams, and shampoos. In 2024, celebrity fragrances continue to be launched, but there's a new market to cash in on: cosmetics. Like fragrances, celebrity makeup brands have long existed, but the mid-2010s and 2020s have made celebrity-branded cosmetic brands a dominant, serious force in the industry. Since the Y2K celebrity fragrance era, the demand for makeup and cosmetics has drastically risen since the 2000s. In 2000, sales from the top 100 beauty companies totaled $93 billion. In 2020, that same figure rose to $212.59 billion. With the help of social media and influencer marketing, it’s easier than ever to buy and sell makeup products. It makes sense for popstars to release fragrances because you want to bottle their intangible sparkle — but it makes less sense when non-pop celebrities try their hand at brand-building. The beauty industry is so popular and profitable right now that even celebrities who have no prior experience, connections, or even clout in the industry are taking up market share. What do Scarlett Johansson, Pharrell, Brad Pitt, and Addison Rae all have in common? They’ve all launched beauty brands in the past five years. Beauty consumers are flooded with constant new product releases from celebrities. Some of these brands have flopped and struggled to cement a name in the space (Rae’s Item Beauty has quietly been removed from Sephora’s shelves), while others like Selena Gomez’ Rare Beauty and Halsey’s about-face are flourishing. The reason why? People can see through the BS. Unlike fragrance, makeup has to serve a hand of efficiency and functionality. A lipstick must have color payoff; a mascara must thicken or lengthen; a foundation must not oxidize. Whether a fragrance is inherently good or bad is up for debate; if a makeup product doesn’t deliver on its basic purpose, it means that it just sucks. “The products need to work," Allison Hahn, Senior Vice President for makeup and fragrance at Sephora, tells Allure about celebrity beauty brands. "They still need to do everything any product we sell does." As such, people also need to believe in a brand’s authenticity — that there's a real connection between the product, face, and message. It’s why Fenty Beauty, the beloved makeup brand that launched in 2017, succeeds. Not only does Rihanna constantly use and promote her products, but the brand also stands for diversity and inclusion of all ethnicities and skin types by releasing 50 different shades of foundation and concealer, ranging from the palest of fair skin to the deepest of deep. It’s also why Kylie Cosmetics’ sales declined hard after it was revealed that her voluptuous lips were the work of fillers. The skepticism towards celebrity beauty is warranted, as it seems that business and profitability come first, with beauty and creativity second. According to WWD Beauty, while these stars may be the face of a brand, many of these companies are actually backed by large investor groups. Big incubators like Coty Inc., Bain Capital, and Forma Group own stake and manage formulations and operations for the business. It’s easier than ever for a star to launch a company they have no affiliation with beyond face value. That’s not to say that Xtina was in the lab trying to perfect Xpose’s candy-gummy gourmand back in 2004; rather, that celebrity beauty brands are merely a continuation of what consumer goods corporations perfected 20 years ago. When it comes to cosmetics, there’s no amount of star power, marketing, or money that can replicate a tried-and-true product. With so many options right now, those celebrity-backed brands that have found a niche within the community rise above the others (see: Rare Beauty’s Soft Pinch Blush!) and have not only fan loyalty but also longevity in the industry. That’s what really matters when it comes to cementing reputation, legacy, and profitability. ) 🌀 Niya Doyle is a forever East Coast-based writer, beauty buff, and cat lover. She is a freelance journalist for HALOSCOPE covering beauty. You can follow her makeup and skincare journey on TikTok.

Put on your velvet choker, Lip Kit, and handle it. Spring has finally sprung. For outerwear enthusiasts, it’s a great time of year to break out those jackets that don’t really do much besides looking good. One might think of jean jackets or cropped woolen bombers. What comes to mind for me, though, is their distant cousin: the green military jacket, which has ostensibly receded from view. If memory serves, green jackets were thrust into the mainstream around 2016 and retained their chokehold on the average consumer through the early 2020s. Less than a decade later, people cannot expel them from their closets quickly enough. Consignment giants like ThredUp and Poshmark are teeming with what might as well be a relic from the days of yore. Green jackets, it must be said, were never a fashion statement. Their quiet simplicity was overshadowed by more salient trends; they lacked the audacity of neon clubbing attire, the grandeur of royalcore, and the grittiness of festival garb. These jackets instead morphed into a civilian analogue of the military uniform, which can be conceptualized as a malleable blueprint for outfit building. In the 2010s and early 2020s, uniform dressing was typified by jeans, T-shirts, and white sneakers. Green jackets, subsequently, were layered over striped tees; tied around skinnies or mom jeans; and thrown over casual dresses to curate uniforms of their own. Part of the mass appeal of these jackets came from being designed with wearability in mind. They were sold in a subtle yet wide variety of silhouettes, fabrics, and tones. Many were hewn from cotton or lyocell, others from nylon or Gore-Tex; they came lined or unlined, drop-tailed or straight-hemmed. They were perfect for transitional seasons, with plenty of room for sweaters or fleeces underneath. For a type of jacket that doesn’t do much, the green jacket really did a lot. The popularity of green jackets was even more remarkable in historical context. The year 2016 will be remembered as a corrosive one, to say the least. The events that unfolded over those 365 days brought to a head many of the tensions that had long been simmering beneath the ragged terrains of our sociopolitical landscape. Amongst a bitter race for the White House, the deadliest mass shooting in United States history, the Flint water crisis, and the rise of the #MeToo movement, the very infrastructure of this country and its institutions seemed poised for imminent collapse. Green jackets were a sartorial constant during an era rife with civil unrest and uncertainty about the future. Politically indiscriminate and universally flattering, they represented a rare beacon of solidarity among women from all walks of life during a period when the United States appeared to be more polarized than ever. I recall a time in college when I spotted a classmate in an outfit that could have been whisked out of my own closet: green anorak, navy striped shirt, skinny jeans, and a pair of Vans. The moment would have been inconsequential if not for the peer in question, who was an opinion columnist at our campus newspaper and, at that time, one of two staunchly conservative crusaders on staff. Her flaming red hair was rivaled only by the incendiary ideas that poured from her mind, penning column after column against reproductive rights, funding for transgender troops in the military, and other progressive issues. Seeing her cross the grounds in an ensemble that I would have worn left me dismayed — in much the same way one might feel when someone they dislike says something irrefutably funny. On reflection, the idea that I actually had something in common with someone whose entire worldview stood at odds with my own reinforces one of fashion’s blithe powers: setting a standard that transcends individual differences in philosophy or personal ethos. As Troy Patterson wrote in The New York Times Magazine, “...the army green jacket could variously represent the shell of a loner (Robert De Niro in “Taxi Driver”) and the skin of a neurotic (Woody Allen in “Annie Hall”), the badge of the last honest man (Al Pacino in “Serpico”) and the sign of a rebel’s toughness (the guys smoking cigarettes in your high-school parking lots).” Anyone can slip into a green military jacket; all it signifies is that they like it and have good taste. The many parallels to be drawn between the sociopolitical climate then and now are only too obvious. If 2016 was a turbulent year, it barely hinted at the severity of the turmoil that was to come in the new decade. The 2020 election yielded a narrow victory for the Left and the new administration fought to restore a long-lost dignity to the Oval Office — a feat doubly impressive given that it was accomplished on the heels of an insurrection. However, any sense of cautious optimism quickly dissipated as COVID-19 began its rampage and the country found itself plunged into a state of even deeper crisis. I would trace the green jacket’s decline back to this point in the early 2020s. Global lockdown orders and the transition to remote work left many of us unmoored. As life grew less structured, many wardrobes followed suit, ushering in a new era of athleisure and oversized everything. The green jackets understandably lost their status; we weren’t going outside, let alone into battle. With the tentative return to normalcy — current political climate notwithstanding — I had hoped they would make a comeback. I still have mine, a mossy-hued number to which I have sworn fealty. Even today, I find myself reaching for it over its denim and leather friends. Uniform dressing certainly seems to be regaining traction, with the capsule wardrobe concept once again circulating online, so maybe there’s hope. Trends have always moved with the times and are, more often than not, cyclical. After all, green jackets as civilian garb stretch back to the Vietnam War era; their immense popularity has been remarkable because of their ordinariness, not in spite of it. Wherever we come from, wherever we go, certain pieces will always have a place in our closets. 🌀 Neha Ogale is a twenty-something freelance writer, recovering coat hoarder, and indie film enthusiast based in NYC. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @urbangremlin.

Some thoughts on shopping, meaning, and Jane Birkin’s wicker basket. DOES ANYONE HAVE A FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT ANYMORE? While listening to Leonard Cohen’s 1971 song of the same name, I recently found myself dwelling on the innocuous symbol. A piece of clothing that is so often worn that it becomes recognizably yours. In Cohen’s song, the raincoat is paralleled with a lock of hair. These are the only descriptions we receive of the subject of the song; a literal part of their body and a piece of clothing. How integral. Now, we might be known for our style or overarching fashion sense, but are we ever really known for our garments? The difference between Cohen’s 1971 and our 2024 is the result of the over-buying, under-wearing, and unrelenting trend cycle. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a garment is worn only 7-10 times before being discarded. Everyone knows this is incredibly bad for the environment, but I’d argue it’s also bad for your soul. To not feel a connection to the garments you place on your body devalues your bodily awareness. I believe disconnecting from our clothing, through garment waste, could be considered a moral experience — that is actively devaluing the lives we are living. Recently, I have been especially ill at ease with the struggle between my love for fashion and my hatred for over-consumption. Will these two priorities of mine ever be friends? Can they, even? Being anti-overconsumption and fashion-interested is oxymoronic. Mindful and ethical consumption is fundamentally opposed to the proclivities of the fashion industry. The quite obvious truth is that the most sustainable clothing choice is to not buy and instead wear what you already own. According to The Hot or Cool Institute, we should be adding only five new pieces to our wardrobes per annum to comply with the UN’s global warming limit. (Though I do question this way of phrasing the issue — there could be good, clothes to buy if fashion companies didn’t churn flimsy garbage out at hyper-speed?) Rhi Harper expressed my dilemma perfectly in a tweet from last December: “I think I love style and hate fashion.” But what can this look like in praxis? How do we accomplish style without the intervention of fashion? The answer is obvious but cannot be overstated: by actually wearing our clothes. In recent attempts to curb this overconsumption and inspire sartorial creativity, there have been a plethora of trends; styling challenges; No-Buy initiatives; and minimalist approaches, like the capsule wardrobe. I’m going to offer a different but kindred approach – to simply connect with your clothes and to invest in clothing that connects with you. Maybe I’m unnecessarily sentimental — I know I am — but I like things to matter. And I think by building lives with beautiful things, we build valuable, truthful lives. We should fill our closets and homes with carefully selected, meaningful objects to enrich our lives for the better instead of objects that bog us down — or, worse, have no meaning at all. I must also pause to suggest that this overconsumption is linked with the newer idea that a sense of identity lies in a set of commodities. People think of style as who they are, and to deprive someone of the right to express themselves is seen as oppressive. Across the wide scope of human history, identity used to determine what you wore; now, clothing functions to determine identity. I hate having clothes without meaning. There is something soulless in the modern style procession: 1) seeing a jacket in an Instagram post 2) following a link to an online shop 3) ordering the jacket for yourself and 4) having it delivered within a week. Where’s the story? Where’s the passion? Can that really even be considered having an interest in style — or has the work been done for you? Once upon a time, style signaled something. Garments could say something about you, your politics, and your people. An accessory could arise for practical reasons, like punks using safety pins to make garments, since that was an available, concert-ready resource, which eventually became a signifier of the subculture itself. We are eons away from this material integrity of alternate style. Can it really be considered “style” to see someone wearing a specific pair of tights online, going on Amazon, and buying the same pair of tights? So that way one can fulfill the idea of oneself as a person who dresses a certain way. That’s not identity. That’s not style. That’s certainly not community. Nothing about these garments says anything about who you are, where you come from, or what you do — aside from who you want to project and be perceived as. Where’s the story? Where’s the development? It feels vacuous and simply unintelligible. At the same time, I do believe self-expression is a right, and that one of the pleasures of life is being able to shape oneself. To create an ideal image and realising it is a powerful tool. In matters of sexuality and gender, it can be revolutionary. The emotional power of clothing is truly magical. But it is not a right to accomplish this — especially in an unsustainable, ridiculously sped-up window of time. I just think it should happen very, very slowly, over a lifetime. We see these bids for connection with our clothing appear in aesthetic culture. Currently, it’s being channeled through the resurgence of Indie Sleaze, 2014 Tumblr, and Twee. The reappearance of these 2010s fashion eras is an attempt at experiencing — or for some, re-experiencing — the emotional implication of times past by wearing the clothes, or at least signaling to by posting  online, the blithe joy of “the good old days.” Eventually, these renaissances fizzle out and we latch on to something new because the same issue reoccurs; it doesn't bring fulfilment. Is it not that deep? Maybe. But do we not want to be surrounded by beautiful things? Things we have spent years dreaming of, saving up for, waiting for? To live beautiful lives? To feel fulfilled in our wardrobes? I want to have stories with my clothes. I want them to be lovers and friends. I want to treat them like treasures. It should be harder to create the wardrobes we want, and we should embrace difficulty and particularity in curation. I will finish with some show-and-tell, from a treasure chest of clothes that do more than just clothe a body, but are memory-laden and sacred — maybe even in their mundanity. Jane Birkin’s Wicker Basket What: A woven fisherman’s basket. Worn: With everything. Where: From the Cannes Film Festival to Pro-Choice rallies, and everywhere in between. Before she was the namesake of the Hermès Birkin bag, Jane famously carried a wicker basket, sometimes referred to as “the other Birkin bag.” When she met Jean Louis Dumas on a flight in 1984, the meeting canonised itself into fashion mythology — the wicker basket spilled its contents, starting their conversation. Birkin bought the fishermen’s basket in Portugal, and even after the creation of the Hermès Birkin, she continued to favor it (though the lid looks to have disappeared at some point). Sturdy, roomy, light, and lidded, Jane Birkin carried the basket through seasons and years. Half of Birkin’s most iconic, Pinterest-ed-to-death images feature the woven bag in hand with floor-skimming, heavy black coats; summery miniskirts; silky party dresses; heels; and her daughter on her hip. From a Pro-Choice rally in 1972 to the Cannes Film Festival in 1974, the loyal companionship of the wicker basket is emblematic of the salt-of-the-earth quality that has made Birkin’s image and style so enduring and apt for endless reference. Eddie Vedder’s Corduroy Jacket What: A cropped brown corduroy shirt. Worn: Unbuttoned over t-shirts or long sleeves, with cargo shorts or trousers. Where: Gigs, informal photoshoots, and festivals. “Does it get more ‘90s grunge than Eddie Vedder and a corduroy jacket?” begs the caption under the picture of Eddie Vedder I return to. Vedder bought the shirt from a thrift store, and it became a core part of Pearl Jam’s visual identity. Hemost famously wore it in the band’s 1992 MTV Unplugged recording. It’s also a really nice jacket. The slight crop at the waist and slimmer fit streamline the baggier components of Vedder’s outfits. In 1994, after seeing a similar shirt being sold for a much higher sum, he went home and wrote the song “Corduroy” where he wails (as Eddie Vedder only ever wails), “They can buy / but can’t put on my clothes.”In a 2002 interview with The A.V. Club, Vedder said “[the] song was based on a remake of the brown corduroy jacket that I wore. I think I got mine for 12 bucks, and it was being sold for like $650.” Hoping to procure one yourself? One Pearl Jam subredditor suggests “[getting] a time machine back to 1981.” Stevie Nicks' Top Hat What: A 1920s black top hat. Worn: With Stevie’s classic witchy-bohemian garb. Where: Concerts, photoshoots, and the “Go Your Own Way” Music Video. There are two T’s that have accompanied Stevie Nicks through Fleetwood Mac’s journey: a tambourine and, over her thick bangs; a top hat. Nicks has donned an array of top hats, with increasing amounts of flair: feathers, satin ribbons, rosettes, trailing veils, and silver talismans. She still owns her original 1920s top hat, which she bought in Buffalo, New York. Talking with V Magazine in 2009 about some of her most memorable looks, she explained, “We were on tour and on one of our days off Christine and I went antique shopping. I found that hat in some random little shop. I still have it. It’s at home in a box. I keep everything. There were a few classic pieces that got lost or stolen along the way, but everything else I saved.” It’s truly admirable to have the guts to wear any hat, especially a top hat. And Nicks pulls it off, taking her visual identity to the heights of iconic silhouette. During the 2014 Fleetwood Mac Reunion Tour, the hat would be brought out for the encore, like a celebrity guest. “[The] hat has its own roadie, its own box and its own cage. It’s always protected,” she shared with Rolling Stone in 2014. “Once again, it’s me and a top hat… the little top hat that could.” Truly. Elvira’s Dagger Belt What: A waist-hugging leather belt held together with a bejeweled dagger. Worn: Always. Where: Everywhere. Speaking of iconic silhouettes, has anyone ever perfected and realised their look as well as Elvira? The Mistress of Darkness’ look is both maximalist and simple. A towering bouffant of jet-black hair; the plunging neckline of a figure-hugging bat-winged dress with a daring slit; sheer black stockings; and black pumps. (To specify “black” is redundant, here.) In the middle of this iconic uniform sits a leather belt held together by a bejeweled dagger. Elvira’s look is a perfect lesson in accessory. The belt, amplified cleavage, dramatic makeup, and stiletto nails add the perfect campy details to an otherwise quite minimalist look. Cassandra Peterson, the woman behind Elvira, revealed in a 2020 interview with Vogue that the original belt was from Macy’s and sheathed with a leather pin. Robert Redding, who helped design Elvira’s look, eventually “designed a drawing of a dagger and then went out and had it cast in metal and added jewels to it.” The belt is made of A-1 pleating and remains a component of the performer’s costume, which she has been wearing since the 1980s. Bonus Item: Joan Didion’s Packing List What: A packing list. Worn: While traveling. A slight diversion away from sole garments, Joan Didion’s packing list exists for a practical reason, but also illustrates the idea of stripping one’s wardrobes down to the necessities. My own, most recent, packing list — for Easter weekend — features broad phrases like “Monday outfit” and “Outfit for going home in,” but Didion’s list features specific amounts of specific items — an early rendition of the capsule wardrobe. In The White Album, Didion notes the anonymity afforded by the outfits: “Notice the deliberative anonymity of costume: in a skirt, a leotard, and stockings. I could pass on either side of the culture.” It offers a different consideration of clothing, not as identity but as camouflage. Similar to Elvira, this “uniform” allowed Didion to do a job — and to do so efficiently. Didion further suggests, “The list enabled me to pack, without thinking, for any piece I was likely to do.” It makes me wonder what a wardrobe enabling one to dress without thinking — not for lack of creativity but due to careful consideration in its curation — would look like. May we all take notes on how to dress from Joan. 🌀 Olivia Linnea Rogers is a Norwegian-British writer, fringe enthusiast, film watcher, and poet, if you're lucky. Based in London. She can obviously be found online on Instagram (@olivialinnearogers) and Twitter (@olivialinrogers).

What does intelligence — or the illusion of it — offer us in fashion? Intellectualism is in. JSTOR, the popular .PDF archive for students and academics alike, has become more than just a knowledge-sharing platform — it’s become a trend. And that trend has become representative of a major cultural shift away from last year’s embrace of the vapid “I’m just a girl” façade. Girls tweet about the .PDFs they save in Google Drive or are.na; they talk about how much theory they read; they even buy hats with Mary Gaitskill or Lydia Davis’ names embossed. The oversimplification of academic interests and accomplishments is a reductive and regressive attempt at seeming approachable, but can we say the same about the commodification of intelligence? If trends are based, at least partially, on their perception from other people, there has to be some sort of external element that can be observed for them to be deemed valid, right? This externalization takes form in aesthetics, in labels, in the “-core” assignment as to what type of person you are. But if you’re into reading, how can you show this to people? How can you silently prove to everyone in the coffee shop that you like Joan Didion just as much as they do while you’re waiting on your almond milk cappuccino? The New Yorker (or The Paris Review, or Shakespeare & Company) tote bag is a virtue signal of one’s literary interests; with just a glance, everyone who looks upon your fashion accessory is aware that you care about academia. Or, at least, they know that you know it’s cool. Model, actress, and famed nepo baby Kaia Gerber began a book club called Library Science in 2020, where she live streams to her 10 million Instagram followers while discussing books with guests from the likes of Jia Tolentino to Kaveh Akbar. Unveiling a deeper understanding of texts and relating to characters from fictional novels, Gerber proves to be both beautiful and smart, all at the same time. It makes sense: models are judged by their physicality, and through their physicality they must advertise what lies underneath. Paparazzi pictures of celebrities highlight this idea — that appearance and intellect are inextricably linked. Model Emily Ratajkowski, actor Jacob Elordi, and Gerber herself have all been photographed and lusted after on X for their dedication to the literary scene. They’re papped while wearing a quarterly magazine’s apparel or carrying a paperback copy of some feminist theory, providing voyeurs with a chimerical combination of beauty and brains. Regardless of intent — and whatever level of desire for social equity as a recognition of intelligence — hosting a free online book club for people all over the world cannot be a bad thing. Wherever your feelings fall on the debate of intellect-as-accessory, it’s clear that this trend is a dissent from the feminist reclamations of recent years. 2022 presented hyper-feminization as a sort of social consciousness; self-proclaimed bimbos indulged in pink, glitter, Barbie, and any other stereotypical girlish aesthetics that were perhaps once used as a slight against women. Alongside this reclamation of innocent enjoyment, though, came the “girl math” trend of 2023: a new set of arithmetic propositions that suggest a lack of understanding toward what it means for a thing to have value and what it means to be hardworking. Girl math is needing your boyfriend to help add up the tip; girl math is ending up with a $20 Starbucks order. Priding oneself in being incapable of doing something correctly — and labeling it as something specific to the female experience —  works against women’s fight for respect and independence. The bimbo-fied “girl math” seemed fun upon its initial adoption into the current zeitgeist, but it quickly became tired and destructive — and brought back a surface-level idea of equality amongst the sexes. Susan Sontag speaks about the dangers of categorizing oneself in her 1966 collection of essays titled Styles of Radical Will: “Ours is a time in which every intellectual or artistic or moral event is absorbed by a predatory embrace of consciousness: historicizing… The human mind possesses now, almost as second nature, a perspective on its own achievements that fatally undermines their value and their claim to truth. For over a century, this historising perspective has occupied the very heart of our ability to understand anything at all. Perhaps once a marginal tic of consciousness, it's now a gigantic, uncontrollable gesture - the gesture whereby man indefatigably patronizes himself.” (p. 74) Confining oneself to the criteria of a certain aesthetic, or even a certain presentation of womanhood, is both limiting and consuming. Ever-present documentation of our corporeal being — and our engagement with the world — can become haunting when we try to develop our lives further. We know this to be true through our observations of interchanging fashion trends. How does this issue present itself when society not only turns to a new style, but also to a cultural, philosophical dissent? The constant self-consciousness around how we are perceived by others is pervasive and defining, making its way into the most minute of our clothing (and book) choices. People are complex, and so is our style of dress; we should not uphold a binary that limits self-expression and places womanhood in an anti-intellectual crucible. I, for one, am happy to see some subversion of this reductive trend become popular. We seem to have adopted an aversion toward the pandering oversimplification of femininity. We’ve moved away from girlhood and into womanhood. The definition of the self has graduated from disguised slights to self-proclaimed intellect. But how long will it last? Let's hope that 2024 brings intelligence, beauty, and most importantly, earnestness —  in our interactions with social media, each other, and ourselves. 🌀 Erica DeMatos is a writer, editor, and student based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Find her on social media at @erica_dematos.

On Beyoncé, Baudrillard, and the new Western aesthetic. When Texas-born superstar Beyoncé announced a pivot to country music, it was inevitable that she would launch a thousand think pieces about who — or what — gets to be country. The image of the cowboy has long been far away from the realities of ranch life. The old idiom “all hat, no cattle” is a yeehaw way of calling someone phony for wearing a Stetson. But, as with any heavily-commodified cultural token, the origin point of the authentic cowboy is long lost. Almost two centuries of romanticization have created a hyperreal Western aesthetic, one that is not observed or genuine. Instead, an idyllic vision of an imaginary America, re-packaged for sale. The earliest versions of what we today know as Western wear arrived in the southern United States with Franciscan missionaries in the early 1800s. From the tall-crowned hats to boot spurs, North American cowboys adopted and adapted the workwear of those missionary vaqueros (literally translated as “cowboys”). By the 1870s, Texas was Texas, and the North American cowboy was a distinct aesthetic figure, cloaked in symbols we recognize today. Stetson hat, bandana, long-sleeve button-down shirt. Leather or canvas jacket. A modified version of cavalry boots, structurally reinforced with decorative stitching. Early cowboy gear featured delicate beadwork, heavily influenced by the Great Plains tribes — including the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe — which would become definitive of Western wear in later decades. But as soon as he walked and roped, the cowboy was commodified. The U.S. Census Bureau officially recognized the end of the Frontier Era in 1890 — and the mere idea of the cowboy quickly loomed larger than the cowboy himself. By the turn of the century, his uniquely American image had traveled around the world, in dime novels, newspaper serials, and traveling shows. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show began as early as 1882, a blend of circus and rodeo that capitalized on (and contributed to) the cowboy’s mystique. The traveling show cowboys were sharp-shooting, prize-winning, costume-wearing characters, unencumbered by the banalities of ranch life. There was already a divergence between the guy working cattle and the cowboy sans cow, whose livelihood was less about ranching than it was about performing capital-C Cowboy. No longer was the cowboy tied to Texas. Western wear catalogs offered a little bit of cowboy lifestyle to anyone anywhere. Americans from Buffalo to Los Angeles could own calfskin jackets and ten-gallon hats. German immigrant Levi Strauss’ sturdy denim jeans quickly transcended their workwear origins to become a national staple. By 1950, the television screen had absorbed the open ranges and skies. The Wild West was a full-blown commercial industry. Will Rogers. The Lone Ranger. Gene Autry. Red Rider. More than a historical figure, the cowboy was an aspirational figure — the American knight errant. He looms large in the national imagination because he is a distilled symbol of America’s most cherished values: bravery, independence, and steadfast adherence to morals. Celebrity Western wear designers like Bernard “Rodeo Ben” Lichtenstein, Nathan Turk, and Nudie Cohn pioneered a new and bejeweled iteration of the cowboy look. All three men immigrated from Eastern Europe and learned about the American West from early cowboy movies, frequently filmed in Europe (hence the name “spaghetti Western”). These designers crafted embellished stagewear for country music artists and silver-screen cowboys that blended the embroidery and beadwork of traditional Western wear with Old World finishing techniques and theatrical flashiness. By the late 1950s, Cohn’s bedazzled suits were status symbols for country music royalty like Porter Wagoner, Buck Owens, and Hank Williams. Gradually, the center of the cowboy universe shockwaved out of the West, away from any real place, and into the simulacrum of Hollywood film. In other words: all rhinestones, no cattle. It’s here that the West truly shifts from a place to an idea. “American West” and “American country” are often vague synonyms, overlapping in meaning and equally nonspecific. Attempts to qualify an identity untethered from location, heritage, or profession are futile. Instead, meaning is attached to recognizable, material objects like cowboy boots. It is, in its purest form, aesthetic. A canonization of national identity through images that could then be reanimated as advertised stuff. Jean Baudrillard called this a uniquely American project, in hyper-contrast to European tradition. In an essay titled “Utopia Achieved” from his 1986 collection America, he writes: “[I]t is not conceptualizing reality, but realizing concepts and materializing ideas, that interests [Americans]… They build the real out of ideas. We transform the real into ideas, or into ideology.” In America, the fantasy comes first, and the material world falls in line. Western wear reconstituted itself yet again to match a new collective fantasy of the West when Ralph Lauren reinterpreted it for high fashion. Cowboy boots hit the runway for the first time with his FW78 collection. Like the famous Western wear designers before him, Lauren grew up on cowboy movies. As a kid in the Bronx,  he was spellbound by John Wayne and Gary Cooper; as an adult, he traveled to Colorado and Texas, only to discover polyester workwear that fell short of his childhood fantasies. Thus, he set to work outfitting a “more authentic” cowboy, alchemizing Western costumes into high fashion. Bolo ties, prairie skirts, and duster coats, patinaed with a singular sense: that putting them on was to claim a little piece of the frontier for yourself. “Ralph was the first designer to go West and find something distinctly American worth repeating on a runway,” observed journalist Phoebe Eaton in a 2006 Harper’s Bazaar retrospective on the designer. Though, of course, Lauren’s discovery was as much about the West of the movies as it was about the geographical West. To say that the West is fashionable again now would be to suggest that it was ever out. The West is too bound up in American culture to ever fully disappear, but Western wear did dip out of the national zeitgeist in the early 2000s, as national mythology splintered in politicized and polarizing ways. Today, the cowboy is undeniably back, reclaimed by the American mainstream. Fringe is everywhere. Concho belts are slung around many a waist. Google Trends show a steady upward trajectory for “cowboy boots” since January 2020. Like Beyoncé, pop star Lana del Rey announced a forthcoming country record called Lasso. Supermodel and noted horse girl Bella Hadid has recently acquired a ranch-ready look, a house in Dallas, and a rodeo-star boyfriend. Meanwhile, Beyoncé has appeared in cowboy-coded outfits that constitute concept art. In an editorial spread for W Magazine, high fashion standbys like Gucci, Chloé, and Proenza Schouler mix with Stetson hats, glittering bolo ties, and a Champion’s Choice Silver rodeo crown. In juxtaposition, each item is defamiliarized, much like the music of Cowboy Carter. Beyoncé introduced her cowboy project as a Beyoncé album, not a country album, “[...] born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed.” That experience drove her deep into the country archive to create an album that revels in the dimensionality of American country music. Beyoncé is reclaiming the cowboy, as only Beyoncé can. Pharrell tackled the same themes with his Western-pilled FW24 collection for Louis Vuitton. In a post-show press meeting, he contextualized the collection as an attempt to represent a more authentic version of the American cowboy, saying: “I feel like when you see cowboys portrayed, you see only a few versions. You never really get to see what some of the original cowboys really look like. They look like us, they look like me, they look Black, they look Native American.” The collection included bolo ties, neck bandanas, and a few lassos. But, apart from some psychedelically-embroidered denim chaps, it felt less like a reanimation of Western wear than a curation of it. The recombinations were exciting but the pieces themselves, spangled suits and yoked shirts, read as literal interpretations of the embroidered suits designed by Turk or Cohn, designs that were themselves a few layers of meaning away from “authentic cowboy.” While models were diverse, the clothes recalled the aesthetics of the Wild Bill era, which purposefully left out the black and indigenous cowboys that Pharrell claims to be representing. The show was, at its core, a timeline of cowboy aesthetics curling inward on itself — a Western diamond-backed ouroboros. When Beyoncé appeared in Pharrell’s signature studded Louis Vuitton suit and Stetson hat at the 2024 Grammys, it recalled the old country stars outfitted in sparkly Nudie suits. Here was a musician-designer collaboration that evoked history and a new, more globalized future. For an iHeartRadio Music Awards appearance, Beyoncé reached for an archival Versace look, from Gianni Versace’s Western-influenced FW92 collection. As she plays with outsider (read: European) visions of the cowboy, she reinforces the parallels that Cowboy Carter draws between country outlaw and Blackness.  The number-crunching Instagram account DATA, BUT MAKE IT FASHION reported a 19% jump in the popularity of cowboy hats in the week following Beyoncé’s country announcement, including celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry. If it feels like a costume, one could argue that cosplaying cowboy is itself the great American tradition — from cowboy hats in California to the lifted pickups in suburban subdivisions. The infinity mirror of Western wear appeared on other European runways, too. English designer Stella McCartney showed a modern spin on chaps, both in paillettes and minimal, studded leather as part of her FW24 collection. Meanwhile, Italian designer Antonio Marras presented fringed fabric chaps as part of a Pre-Fall 2024 collection that seems to have emerged from an alternate universe American West, with shapes and textiles that appear at once otherworldly and appropriative. This is Baudrillard’s hyperreality — perpetual imitation of a forgotten “authentic” original. Texas-born Tom Ford’s 2014 spin on the cowboy boot, cut from high-pile black velvet and balanced on a stiletto heel, contains both the memory of the leather pull-tabs favored by early vaqueros and the costume drama of a Nudie suit. As the Millennium dawned, cowboy boots were deeply associated with country music, which had settled into a cultural low point after a renaissance in the 90s. Fifteen years later, Ford’s boot seemed to be reclaiming the cowboy boot object from that unflattering association. In a review for the New York Times, Suzy Menkes suggested that Ford had designed boots “to put the Rodeo back in Rodeo Drive.” Once Ford had decontextualized the cowboy boot, other major designers tried their hand at the American staple, including many who were not American. Saint Laurent showed tall minimalistic versions of the cowboy boot for SS20, while Danish streetwear darling Ganni has been producing dirt-road-appropriate boots since 2015. Many of the European reinterpretations were more easily recognizable as cowboy boots than the velvet stilettos that Ford created, as if an object farther from its original context was obliged to follow stricter aesthetic rules. Either way — the collective fantasy of the American West was now an international project. Ford is the rare high-fashion designer with deep roots in the American West. Today, Texas brands like Rosecut Clothing and Fort Lonesome work in the spirit of vintage Western wear, but do so outside the gates of high fashion. Meanwhile, European designers riff on the cowboy fantasy. Last year, Maison Margiela’s iconic Tabi boot went west with a new Tabi Western Boot silhouette, that pairs the familiar split-toe design with a slouchy shaft, leather pull tabs, and a pointed toe. Many of the European designers simplify the traditionally maximalist cowboy boot, often with only one distinctly Western characteristic at a time. For FW24, Gucci showed texture boots with a subtle shape and minimal stitching over rich reptilian textures, while the Versace version of a cowboy boot was shorter and untextured with a pointed toe and bootstrap. Meanwhile, Chloé showed slick duster coats that were giving gunslinger, with their high-necked collars and caped shoulders, alongside blousy dresses, thick with ruffles, that could belong in a Wild West saloon. At Isabel Marant, a suede jacket with fringe and leather-lace trim, or a blanket shawl draped around the model’s shoulders, evokes a non-specific Wild West — more fantasy than history. And then there is the West of reality: a massive territory composed of a thousand distinct Americas. The suburban flatlands of Kansas. The rhinestone spectacle of the Fort Worth Stockyards. The nuclear testing legacy of the New Mexico desert. Diverse from the immense ski chalets of Jackson to the shining sea of upper California. Alternately: impoverished or wealthy, fetishized or pathologized. Almost supernatural in scope, the metonym “West” was just an attempt to impose a unifying heritage in a country so big that anything collective could only be fabricated. Enigmatic, even to Americans. Contemporary designers and popstars are doing exactly what Buffalo Bill did in the 1800s: selling a placid, theme park version of the West that never existed and doesn’t exist today. Baudrillard described America as a country founded on “the miraculous premise of a utopia made reality.” A place that coerces naivety from its viewers with an insistence on its artifice. The mythology of the American West appeals to us because it erases reality, with all its violence and moral complexity. To distort it is to reinforce its power; a lesser mythology might be more readily harnessed. Our nostalgia for the cowboy is for a cowboy who did not exist. And to claim the objects of the West, stripped of their practical function, is to wrap oneself in the fabric of that collective fantasy — about a place where natural resources are boundless, good guys wear white hats, and the skies are not cloudy all day. 🌀 Rose McMackin is a Texas-based writer, editor, and cowboy boot collector. Find her on social media at @rosemcmackin.

New perfume lines love a cannabis note. But can the rest of us embrace it, too? Cannabis can smell earthy, woody, green, smoky, and sometimes a bit sour or damp — it can be herbal, and, at times, floral. It can be paired with bergamot, sage, cedar,  or covered up with body spray or Febreze. It’s been known to hang heavy in the air of suburban basements, head shops, and dive bars… or, more recently, on the wrists and necks of the chic and trendy. In the last five to ten years, there’s been a steady emergence of perfumes heavily featuring a cannabis note, elevating the scent to something in vogue in the fragrance world. Brands that are known for being hip and cool all seem to be producing a cannabis fragrance. There are, of course, the classics (Malin & Goetz’s Cannabis, Demeter’s Cannabis Flower), as well as the newer scents from both luxury brands and indie darlings — Dries Van Noten’s Voodoo Chile, Maison Margiela’s Music Festival, Thin Wild Mercury’s Laurel Canyon 1966,  Akro’s Haze, Boy Smells’ Cowboy Kush, and many others. This scent profile, while specific, is not so different from other herbal notes and accords — what these cannabis-centric perfumes really offer us is something undeniably transportive. In 2012, Colorado became the first state in the country to legalize recreational cannabis. Historically, societal attitudes towards cannabis have been negative, with much of its criminalization and demonization in the US tied to racism and xenophobia. Cannabis was associated with the reckless, the lazy, and the underachieving at best — and the criminal and dangerous at worst. But, in the past 12 years, cannabis has undergone a rebrand. Since Colorado, 23 other states have legalized recreational usage, and the way we, as a culture, interact with cannabis has changed drastically — going from a subversive gateway drug to something more akin to a glass of wine. Despite the fact that people still sit in prison for cannabis-related crimes,  cities across the country have dispensaries on main drags; paraphernalia is made to be cutesy, stylish, and look like decor; and the smell, once thought of as dirty and something that needed to be hidden, is not just acceptable now, but fashionable. When it comes to selling these cannabis scents, companies have to tell a story — and the stories tend to look similar. A smoky room with a record player and a guitar, dancing with your hands up at Coachella, silk scarves, flowy fabric, and golden afternoon sunlight. You’re relaxed, you’re carefree, you’re artistic, you’re Daisy Jones & The Six, you’re a part of what Jusbox’s fragrance copy for Green Bubble describes as: “...an earthly paradise, ruled by the original sin: Love. Mankind, folk culture and everyday slow living.” You’re free. These stories may be accompanied by hazy photos featuring beatnik iconography and the cannabis leaf, displayed tastefully, like any other herb or floral.  Perhaps there’s even a note saying this perfume was inspired by some beautiful cosmic event that took place in the ‘60s or the ‘90s. These fragrances often have other notes frequently associated with a hippie vibe, like patchouli, clary sage, mate, and wormwood, but are then brightened and sweetened with citrus, ginger, or vanilla, making them more… wearable. While the growing cannabis legalization and market have sanitized the reputation of the drug (it’s sold in storefronts next to Whole Foods), the story of its scent is still told as a bohemian one. We’ve bottled the sensation of youth, music, and counterculture, and can spray it without the fear of getting weird looks at the office. Concurrently,  as the availability of cannabis and the attitude towards it have shifted, so has the way we consume it. Vaping and edibles have increased in popularity due to their unobtrusive nature and for being friendlier to our lungs and the environment. Not only is the smell becoming less associated with burnouts, but the smell of real cannabis smoke is less prevalent in general — making the scent (and all its stylistic associations) something beyond simply trendy: it’s nostalgic. As Don Draper once said, “Nostalgia — it's delicate but potent. It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.” The spiced, sometimes skunky smell of past joints wafts through the annals of my mind back to languid teenage evenings with friends, giggling girls watching stupid movies, and woody parks on summer nights. We romanticize the past until our personal memories become cultural memories. Our recollections blend with media and advertisements. I think of fragrances like Juliette Has A Gun’s Lipstick Fever, or Maison Margiela’s Lipstick On, which both seek to capture the iris/violet/rose-y, waxy scent of classic lipsticks. Most lipsticks don’t smell that way anymore. This vintage make-up smell is associated with an older generation, with glamour, with vanities and powder puffs. The smell conjures memories that are not my own, but rather what media, film, and fragrance have taught me to conjure. When selling fragrance, brands turn to storytelling via stunning visuals and evocative copy in an attempt to capture something intangible. Most consumers might not know the exact scent of every flower, but they know what a fresh spring day smells like, and perhaps more importantly, they know how it makes them feel. Fragrance, and the teams that sell it, can work within the landscape of our collective unconscious to trigger an emotional connection to a scent or even create one for the first time. Perfumes featuring cannabis notes are not telling the story of buying pre-rolled joints on your way home from work and decompressing. They’re utilizing modern attitudes on cannabis to embrace narratives from the past in a way that’s endearing, evocative, and romantic. Perhaps one day the scent of cannabis that was ubiquitous in so many college dorms, street corners, and ex-boyfriend's cars will be rare, making it more enticing. It won’t be known as a smell to be diffused out of a dryer sheet, but rather the signature scent of some cool girl you know. Younger folks will not have memories of it, but will smell it in their perfume bottles and have flashes of things they never lived: Woodstock and free love, Dazed and Confused and rebellion — despite never knowing a world where cannabis was particularly rebellious. Is it inevitable to find the scents of a fading world alluring? Will new perfumes boast shoe polish accords? With the rise of electric vehicles, will trendy brands embrace the smell of gasoline (following the footsteps of Snif’s Dead Dinosaurs) and use ad copy about the sexiness of the open road? In our increasingly digital world, will we yearn for the scents of newspaper ink and glossy magazine paper (perhaps in the direction of Diptyque's Papier)? There is something deeply sentimental and fundamentally human about the urge to take the past, take our memories, take hold of the way things once were, and to bottle it — to want to wear our memories on our skin every day (even if it’s a sleek Madison Avenue version of those memories). To use fragrance to signal, however subtly, the way we’d like to be perceived, saying: — I may work a corporate job now, but I was a free spirit once. Can’t you smell the cannabis note? 🌀 Carly Silverman is a writer and producer who’s worked in television + digital media. Her passions are film, fragrance, literary fiction, animation, and the New Jersey music scene. You can catch her doing comedy with Young Douglas or here on X.

How dupes — and quests for virality — overloaded the beauty industry. At the height of full-glam 2016 makeup, Milk Studios, a creative full-service agency, launched Milk Makeup Cosmetics — staffed by founders Mazdack Russi, co-founder of Milk Studios; his wife Laura Russi, an entertainment and fashion journalist; Dianna Ruth, COO; and Creative Director Gregorie Greville. Milk Makeup offered something different at the time; inspired by the authentic and unrelenting amour propre of New York City, it started as a progressive, LGBTQ-friendly, clean beauty brand, launching products like Lip Markers, tubed Eye Pigments, and click-pen glossy Eye Vinyls that were definitely ahead of its time. “High Concept, Low Maintenance,” it once boasted on its website. Milk Makeup was once somewhat analogous to Glossier. If Glossier was the mid-to-late 2010s It Girl, then Milk Makeup was her effortlessly cool and edgy BFF. I remember being 16 and watching makeup tutorials on the Milk Makeup YouTube channel, dreaming of someday being a Milk girl. In the beauty world, there has never been a better time to discover new ideas or curate your personal style — so why does it feel like every new “viral” product is just a copy of the previous one? Have beauty brands lost their edge in innovating unique products? Despite the COVID-19 pandemic halting the world in 2020, the industry has bounced back to pre-pandemic numbers. In 2022, the market generated about $430 billion in sales and is expected to grow by 6% each year — reaching nearly $600 billion by 2027 according to McKinsey. With the recent proliferation of independent beauty and skincare brands, there’s clearly tons of money to be made in this space. Let’s take lip oils, for example. First gaining virality at the beginning of 2022 with the Dior Addict Lip Glow Oil — essentially a lip gloss with skincare benefits — the product spurred countless other brands to quickly release their own lip oils, all to gain a slice of the market share and compete for the attention of beauty blogs and influencers. Similarly, with the hit of Rare Beauty’s Soft Pinch Liquid Blush, brands have released their own line of liquid blush products — some following marketing rollouts and packaging likely to Soft Pinch (i.e Juvia’s Place Blushed Liquid Blush) and some reminiscent of Glossier’s liquid blush offering Cloud Paint (see Quo Beauty’s Featherweight Cream Blush). At Sephora and Ulta displays, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything different or experimental outside of a brand’s core product line — and, instead, you may find the latest dupe of an already-viral product. While a viral product itself may be a marker of popularity and innovation, it also breeds copies upon copies. Of course, none of this means that makeup dupes are inherently bad for the industry or a terrible purchase in and of itself. Dupes are a great option to get a similar product for less money as well as to buy a cruelty-free or vegan option if the original wasn’t. What’s problematic — as the beauty market is, again, already oversaturated — big-name brands aren’t as cutting-edge as they could be. This sentiment especially extends to packaging design, with many brands using the same brand direction, font styling, and kerning. We all know that branding is imperative to the beauty industry, from campaigns to display shelves to even a brand’s core philosophy. In 2022, Jennifer Carlsson, a Sweden-based beauty brand strategy consultant, found that 1,127 brands use a similar sans serif font, and that 1,055 brands use all-uppercase letters for their branding. How can consumers differentiate one brand from another in an already-saturated market — let alone build loyalty? “It’s important for brands to be able to grow and reshape themselves… though of course still hold onto the core,” said one anonymous marketer working in the industry. “Viral brands are easy to identify — it's sort of like fast fashion. If they're rolling out a new product every other week or they have something new dropping imitating a trend that just went viral... that's a little bit of a warning sign.” They mention that rebranding isn’t always a brand decision, and may actually be a stipulation from a retailer, like Target or Sephora — packaging has to be standardized so a product can fit the shelves. At other times, packaging rebrands are done to stay on top of trends. In a controversial move last year, Milk Makeup reduced the size of their highly popular 1.0 fl oz. bronzer, blush, and highlight cream sticks to 0.2 fl oz for the same price of $24. It’s hard to pinpoint why Milk Makeup reduced the size, but it’s possible that the new packaging from the brand was due to merchandising requirements. Household names in the industry, like MAC Cosmetics — a long-time ally and activist for LGBTQ+ rights, since its inception in 1984 — and Urban Decay, a company that launched against the pink-red ‘80s and instead mirrored a more ‘90s grunge sensibility, have matched pace to meet changing cultural moments and answered to their communities. In the 2020s, there are plenty of subcultures — people can find communities in aesthetics online, from coquette to goblincore (really). In comparison to the ‘80s and ‘90s, there has never been a time with so many options to choose from when it comes to beauty. But there’s a missing link: beauty brands today often do not reflect the individuality and authenticity that comes from trendsetters themselves and thus become trendsetting brands in the process. Brands now only mirror what’s already popular and mainstream. As Linda Wells, founder and former Editor-in-Chief of Allure puts it in WWD: “This is a really powerful time where we’re not resting on a singular type of beauty. We’re in this time of the triumph of the individual, fueled in much part by social media.” Without risk-taking, there is stagnation — and the cycle of virality continues to build upon itself. As if a call back to the early days of the brand, Milk Makeup released something cool again this year. The new Cooling Water Jelly Tints are fun and jiggly, like Smucker's jam. It’s so edible-looking that the brand had to announce a PSA that it’s not meant for consumption. To me, this product represents the eclectic, carefree playfulness that first drew me towards the brand as a 16-year-old. While my personal style and tastes have evolved since then, my want for originality in a sea of limitations hasn’t. “We set out to reinvent the beauty industry, not reinvent the customer,” says Gregorie Greville for Centennial — which is an ethos every brand should follow. 🌀 Niya Doyle is a forever East Coast-based writer, beauty buff, and cat lover. She is a freelance journalist for HALOSCOPE covering beauty. You can follow her makeup and skincare journey on TikTok.

New York-based piercer Kaia Martin talks punk, piercings, and possibilities. Feathers, frocks, fringe. Vamps holding vapes. Bleached hair in hues of platinum and pink. Smokey eyes and thick liner. Gelled hair that spikes gravity. No hair at all. Tattooed necks. Tattooed scalps. Tattooed arms. Music that drums your heart like caffeine. The rise of Instagram Reels and TikTok has produced an array of trends, aesthetics, and subcultures marketed toward young women trying to understand themselves and their place in the world. Downtown’s resident piercer, Kaia Martin (who also goes by Fambie), rejects these calls with a radical self-acceptance reminiscent of New York’s bygone era. This is unbridled self-expression where you’re most likely to find it: crammed inside Lines New York’s studio on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, everybody impatient for the show to start. When the music cuts to a mix, the models ascend. Each person is so distinct in their sense of self that no two models look alike in height, shape, or size, but they all carry the same ethereal air. Each outfit is complimented by a geometrical piercing pattern laced up by hoops, ribbons, and bows. One model has overlapping chains draped on her stomach; another’s face is crossed out by red ribbons. A pair of breasts are accentuated by a corset, the areolas framed by five-point stars. A back is threaded together in a delicate flower sequence. White ribbons are pierced into the shape of ribs across one model’s torso and corseted down the backs of thighs and forearms on others. A left eye and neck are knit together by thick, black ribbon and tied into a fragile bow at the end. The models strut down the runway three times, giving the viewer more time to absorb the catalog of looks, which now seem incomplete without the piercings. The crowd grimaces, gasps, and applauds, craning their necks to photograph the grotesque and surreal sight of pain upcycled and reimagined into beauty. Cue Kia Martin, the brains behind the show, who appears at the front of the studio in a monochromatic chrome outfit. “First of all, make some noise for all the piercers.” At just five feet, Kaia commands the space immediately. On a regular day, she assembles herself like an AI-generated image of clashing patterns in polka dot, plaid, or paisley, and a disharmony of colors, all wrapped up in lace, spandex, mesh, or denim. The 23-year-old Virginia-native/New York-transplant has carved out a name for herself in the East Village, ensconced in Manhattan’s temple of punk and pride. When Kaia first imagined a fashion show that exhibited fashion collections and play piercings simultaneously, she couldn’t get it out of her mind until she saw it through. “I became a prisoner to [this] idea and the only way I could set myself free of that was to see the show come to life,” she tells me. Kaia decided to approach Crystal, Lines’ co-founder and an ex-colleague, with the idea. “In my own journey with Kaia, since first meeting when we were working at 6Skulls, this [show] was a long time coming,” says Crystal, whose experience as a fashion designer and creative director for international brands helped materialize and facilitate Kaia’s vision. Lines’ studio was originally House of Field — costume designer Patricia Field’s iconic boutique. Field decided to close shop in 2015 after watching the Bowery change over the course of a decade, but Crystal and her co-founder, Jiwon Ra, saw the potential to honor her work and her vision. “We took a big risk with the space being so big, but, given its history and the history of the neighborhood, we felt like this is exactly where we have to be. Punk was very much my aspiration and my identity, but it died for quite a while. I’ve been bored of the fashion industry for a while, too; it’s all become so commercialized. I wanted to create a Mecca of multidisciplinary artists that could regenerate our economy together. So, when Kaia came to me, I said ‘Cool, this is what I’m trying to do, too.’ I’ve had my visions produced at fashion shows already. I wasn’t here to do that, I was here to help [Kaia] understand what parts and pieces were needed, from good lighting to chairs.” The show took shape over ten weeks. Kaia assembled a team consisting of her most reliable and trusted piercers; sourced several pieces from the collections of seven different designers, like Cloudiejobi and Synph17; and worked with her mentor, Phil, and her apprentice, Wiki, in visualizing the piercings on each model’s body. “Balenciaga did a campaign with the prosthetics of play piercings. I wanted to up that,” says Kaia. “I created 25 looks in total, which turned out to be 23 in the end. The piercings were central to each look, so the outfits and designers worked around them.” Kaia recognized that any large-scale production meant that there would be room for things to go wrong, especially in a show that asked so much of its models and her team. She met with the production team once a week and began to cast models one month before the show, breaking down the procedure to them and ensuring that their comfort and consent were at the forefront of every creative decision. The models were pierced two days before the show using curved barbell insertions to prevent swelling and pain, and, on show day, they were swapped out for hoops. “That was by far the worst pain I had ever felt,” said Wiki, who modeled 52 piercings while simultaneously lacing up other models’ ribbons through their hoops. “But a lot of my own inspiration comes from –– this sounds crazy –– grotesque horror movies. The gore just makes for something more interesting and eye-catching.” Black women and queer communities have always provided the public with the license to experiment with personal style and try on different versions of themselves for size. Forging a capacious and multidimensional existence is, of course, the antithesis of what young men and women are told to do in the digital age. “Being trans, for a lot of trans individuals, modifying [our] bodies is a way to align our physical appearances with our gender identity,” said Wiki. “It empowers us to express ourselves and take control of our bodies.” Kaia, like Crystal, believes that body modification is the highest form of fashion and personal style. “There are a lot of people that do not fit into the mainstream’s stylistic standards. Punk is about people who are willing to be more extreme, and one part of that extreme is pain,” says Kaia. As the music winds down, the gravity of what has been achieved in a show that lasted no more than thirty-five minutes is palpable through the awe that colors the crowd’s cheer. They rest assured knowing that the city’s lore lives on; whatever price they’ve paid to live here will amortize in bearing witness to its art. “I didn’t know that throwing down damn near 640 piercings within a span of two days was possible, but now we know,” concludes Kaia, who later admitted to the panic that gripped her throughout the night. “Let’s see what happens next.” 🌀 Tracy J. Jawad is a freelance writer and reporter based between Brooklyn and Beirut.