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And we talked to Frances Solá-Santiago about how it came to be. THE LITTLE BOOK OF… series is very near and dear to my heart. Published by Welbeck (now Hachette), these mini-histories on brands like Gucci, Givenchy, Prada, Dior, and even Vivienne Westwood are not only incredibly well-researched but are subtly bridging the fashion education gap. (This reads like PR fluff, but it’s true — I’ve read the Prada book at least thrice). Released earlier this month, Frances Solá-Santiago’s THE LITTLE BOOK OF BOTTEGA VENETA joined the series — and thank god it did. Bottega Veneta has always been somewhat of a dark horse against the larger houses, due to its slick edge, love of aesthetic transmutation, and deeply Italian sense of style and substance. To this day, the brand is one of the few labels that innovates and surprises with consistency and without pretense — and has some of the best marketing in the world. For HALOSCOPE, we sat down with the NYC-based Solá-Santiago and asked her about how the Little Book came to be. SEB: I’m curious about the genesis of the book — as well as your personal genesis as a writer. Take me to the beginning. FSS: For me, it all started with The Hills on MTV. I’m from Puerto Rico, where fashion is not much of an industry, so I had no idea that I could make a career in this industry until I watched Lauren Conrad in her internship at Teen Vogue. That was my entry into fashion, and although I first wanted to become a designer, I eventually settled for fashion journalism. I went to school for journalism in Puerto Rico and later moved to New York to do my master’s degree at the City University of New York, where I focused on fashion reporting. The path to the book and my current job is a bit complicated — I’ve worked in everything from video to content marketing to pay the bills, while focusing on getting freelance assignments in fashion on the side. I landed my job in 2021, which was a dream role for me. I was actually commissioned the book by Welbeck Publishing, since it’s part of their Little Book series. I truly thought it was a scam when I first saw the email, but it thankfully was a great surprise. I chose to write one on Bottega Veneta because it’s one of the most impactful luxury brands today, yet there isn’t much written about the history of the brand. I saw it as a good opportunity to dive into its heritage and highlight what makes it such a relevant brand today. SEB: What draws you to Bottega Veneta as a brand? FSS: I think Bottega Veneta is one of the few luxury brands that can really hold craftsmanship as one of its main pillars. Every creative director has really made that the core of the brand, even if they’ve expanded into other categories beyond leather goods. I’m also really drawn to the idea of having no logos, but letting your signature weave speak for itself. It’s something that each creative director has reinterpreted for themselves and I’m so eager to see how it evolves. SEB: With [evolving] in mind — Bottega Veneta has become a dominant cultural force and has radically shaped the luxury landscape across the past few years, consistently topping the LYST Index since 2019. What do you attribute that massive sea change to? FSS: Daniel Lee’s tenure was absolutely pivotal to this. His ability to grasp internet culture and the fashion industry at the same time really made the brand a must-have. For years, Bottega Veneta was known as a stealth-wealth brand (not in a TikTok-quiet luxury way, though), and that came with an almost unapproachable aura. Tomas Maier, who helped the brand until 2018, was not really interested in creating “It” bags or more culturally relevant moments — so when Lee stepped in with a different approach, that really changed the narrative for the brand. SEB: Speaking of narratives…  the Jodi bag has quickly become synonymous with the brand itself, under the creative direction of former CD Daniel Lee. You mention that part of the selling point is the bag’s youthful spirit. In your opinion, do you see that spirit across the rest of the Bottega Veneta brand? FSS: It’s interesting because so much of youth culture today is consumed through social media, and Lee took Bottega Veneta off of Instagram and other platforms. Yet, it’s impossible to scroll social media without seeing Bottega Veneta. I think that’s a unique dichotomy that really helped Bottega Veneta because, even though they kept releasing campaigns, people mostly consumed their products through other peers. And that made the brand much more approachable and desirable to a younger demographic. SEB: What was the most surprising, shocking, or interesting thing you learned while doing your research? FSS: One of my favorite facts about Bottega Veneta is that Giles Deacon was the creative director for a hot minute. The brand really wanted to get with the Y2K phenomenon in the early 2000s, so Deacon tried to make it very colorful and full of logos. Needless to say, it didn’t work. But those collections are so interesting to see as part of the brand’s archive. I wonder if anyone will ever tap into them again. SEB: I love that you talk about BV’s approach to color-as-branding in this book. Could you elaborate a little more on how Bottega green has taken over our feeds, closets, and lives? FSS: The way that Bottega Veneta creative directors have long reimagined logos is fascinating. And Bottega green is a great example of that. Lee used this hue in clothing and accessories, but also in the brand’s shopping bags and other promotional materials. It became the de facto logo because it was such a unique shade of green. Some of Bottega Veneta’s early work had this shade of green, so it was interesting to see Lee referencing the brand’s archive and making it his own. SEB: What do you hope readers take away from this book — especially devoted fashion acolytes? FSS: So much of what we know about Bottega Veneta today is through the lens of Lee and Matthieu Blazy’s tenures. But this era is literally a quarter of the book. I want them to look back to the work of people like Edward Buchanan, Giles Deacon, and Tomas Maier, and to learn about the brand’s deep history of craftsmanship. SEB: And last, but certainly not least: do you have a favorite Bottega Veneta piece or collection? FSS: Oh, this is hard. But I think it’s the intrecciato knee-high boots that were first created in the ‘60s and Matthieu Blazy has reincorporated into the brand. They are just such a showstopping piece. 🌀 You can purchase The Little Book of Bottega Veneta here. Savannah Eden Bradley is a writer, fashion editor, gallerina, Gnostic scholar, reformed It Girl, and future beautiful ghost from the Carolina coast. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the fashion magazine HALOSCOPE. You can stalk her everywhere online @savbrads.

A peek inside the wild and wonderful world of hats. For centuries, a good hat was a fixture in every wardrobe. Whether it be a cotton coif, a beaver felt hat, or a molded wool fedora — people wore hats all the time. Have to run to the store real quick? Throw on a hat. Going over to your friend’s house? Better take your hat. Leaving your home for literally any reason at all? Don’t even DREAM of forgetting your hat! But these days, walking outside in a fabulous little cap earns you a one-way ticket to Clown Town. A hat is considered trying too hard — it’s too over-the-top, too goofy. Once a proud staple of the standard wardrobe, they’re now relegated to the most dedicated fashion lovers among us. Don’t you know? We’re all about comfort and ease now. We’re Clean Girls with chocolate syrup hair who won’t disrupt your visual landscape too much while walking by — and a Jean Paul Gaultier SS98 red beaded ship hat doesn’t exactly scream “blending in.” In 2022, The Gentleman’s Gazette published an inquiry into why no one wears hats anymore. Writer Preston Schlueter came to four main conclusions: CLIMATE CONTROL Most places these days have air conditioning. So, while you’re getting dressed in the morning, you’re not really anticipating being out in the elements for too long. Schlueter explains that you’re really just “leaving your heated office for 20 seconds to get into your heated car, which you’ll [...] then leave for another 10 seconds to enter your heated house” — no need to bundle up in your Ötzi bear fur hat. CHANGING NOTIONS OF SOCIAL CLASS Have we beaten the “quiet luxury” buzzword into the ground yet? Either way, the truth remains, most rich people prefer to wear a regular-degular grey t-shirt (that just so happens to be a $300 special-order from Italy) over the classic robe à la française. PREVALENCE OF AUTOMOBILES Can you imagine wearing a tall, plumed Victorian hat while crammed into a Nissan Altima? MEMELORDS The “Tips Fedora” meme of the late 2010s decimated the possibility of men’s hats being cool again. Even as a noted #Lover of Fashion, I can’t look at a fedora without thinking about “M’lady.” It does, admittedly, harsh the hat-wearing vibe. Despite the waning popularity of hats in the general public since the 1960s, we’ve had some incredible millineric contributions in the high fashion space over the last couple of decades. Stephen Jones is one of the most famous milliners (that means “hat makers”) in fashion history. In the late ‘70s, he entered the scene as a flamboyant club kid studying at Central Saint Martins. Following his graduation, he opened a glamorous hat shop in London which captured the attention of celebrities like Boy George and Princess Diana — that then catapulted him into the public eye. But it’s his decades-long collaboration with John Galliano that has produced some of the finest hats the world has ever seen. Specifically, his work in the John Galliano Fall 2007 Ready to Wear Collection is of note. It’s a master class in “fine hattery.” Vibrant birdcage cloches and haunting chiffon veils — his designs are so inventive and bold. They harken back to an older sense of design and theatricality without being kitschy or costumey. You really can’t ask for a better fashion fantasy. Stephen Jones still maintains a cadence of regular work today — having just made a couple of hats for Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour — and his influence continues to ripple throughout the fashion space. Former employees of Jones, Adele Mildred and Gabrielle Djanogly, founded HOOD London in 2015 and have been responsible for some pretty big hat moments in recent years. We have HL to thank for the lovely headwear in Richard Quinn’s AW22 and SS23 collections (especially this look on Linda Evangelista for Vogue!), this hood worn by Barry Keoghan in his recent photoshoot for W Magazine, and So. Many. Incredible Dita Von Teese pieces. I had long been a follower of Adele Mildred — after discovering the bridal headdress she created for her 2013 nuptials, I knew she was a gothic glamour girl after my own heart. HOOD London’s designs are often a little bit darker and Old Hollywood inspired. In their stock, you’ll find little hoods that hover somewhere between “haunted medieval baby” and “Anita Ekberg’s devil costume.” They’re fabulous. I often find myself gravitating towards designs that are darker in nature. I love a moody fantasy. One of the most famous moody fantasies is Alexander McQueen’s “Dante” show for Fall/Winter 1996 RTW.  The hats and headwear in the show included hoods and horns and feather nooses — all designed by Philip Treacy. Philip Treacy is a milliner that has long been a high fashion darling. Before he had even graduated London’s Royal College of Art in 1990, he got a job working under the aforementioned Stephen Jones (remember what I said about Jones’ influence making waves in the fashion industry? I wasn’t joking. That guy was a big deal). His career has spanned decades and his work in hat-making has evolved through different styles and genres of interest over the years. My favorite Treacy pieces are his hats inspired by nature — what can I say? The man knows how to make a bug in the hair look chic. All this to say… There are some cool hats out there. We only need the gumption to wear them. For the past year and a half, I have been tip-toeing into the world of wearing hats. I have successfully worn a hat outside of the house only one (1) time – and that was for my engagement pictures. Even then, I took the hat off after we left the photographer’s studio to go to lunch. I felt like wearing a fluffy fur stole and a nearly see-through nightgown in a small diner was attention-seeking enough — I didn’t need to jump the shark by adding a hat. That’s the trouble with maintaining a sense of bold style in a world that prioritizes sameness. It takes a good deal of bravery to stand out like that — a bravery I often don’t have. Which is funny coming from a person who owns a closet of exclusively “weird clothes.” Sure, I’ll wear a sheer lace dress to the grocery store, but I draw the line at a sun hat. An important thing for all of us to remember is: not all staring is bad. Sometimes, people are just thinking: “Damn, that hat looks cool.” 🌀 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 late designer, who served as Givenchy’s Creative Director from 1996 to 2001, has been one of the most contentious appointments in design history. The expressive styling duo of Law Roach and Zendaya struck once more on the Dune: Part Two press tour, with the actress donning a circuit-board suit from Givenchy’s FW99 Ready-to-Wear collection — one week after another remarkable Thierry Mugler FW95 Couture archival pull. As Zendaya, as always, commanded exalting attention, fashion historians' mouths hung agape — for this was no usual Givenchy artifact. This was Givenchy designed by Alexander McQueen; considered by many to be the most complex and contentious pairing fashion has ever witnessed. Already generating controversy with his nonconformist works, of which he had created just eight, 27-year-old Lee Alexander McQueen took on the prestigious position of artistic director at Givenchy on October 15th, 1996. He had finished design school a mere four years prior. During his tenure, McQueen would produce 18 collections for Givenchy, meanwhile balancing his namesake label which he had founded in 1992. What would this defiant architect, bursting with vigour, bring to a luxury fashion house established with naught gimmick and endless class? In his own words, given to Hilary Alexander of The Daily Telegraph soon after his appointment: “I may be quite mad on the public circuit, but I’ve got my head screwed on — tight with a wrench.” The impending four and a half years would prove arduous. In many ways, the fleeting occupancy of the house by John Galliano ahead of McQueen should have acted as a slight buffer. After all, Galliano had initiated a more exuberant energy at the house — as he would go on to show at Dior and Maison Margiela. His scintillating, theatrical creations were far larger than anything beheld at Givenchy previously. When Galliano chose to break the mold introduced by Hubert, audiences cheered. When McQueen chose to do the same, audiences jeered. Inspired by the mythological legend of Jason and the Argonauts’ quest for the Golden Fleece, McQueen’s primary presentation (SS97 Haute Couture) signalled a fresh journey — one which endeavoured to honour Givenchy as well as invite in a contemporary mode of storytelling. Saturated in white and gold with distinct ancient Greek motifs, the show accented McQueen’s impeccable tailoring talent and enchantment with birds of prey. The reception to this newfangled creative was far from encouraging — to put it lightly. The ladies of the couture sorority were “taken aback, it seemed, by the sheer excess of youthful vitality and confusion parading before them in outrageous clothing. The distinctly now was clearly passing them by,” as noted by Hilton Als in The New Yorker. McQueen would pragmatically reply, “I’m not Givenchy. I’m Alexander McQueen.” If he could direct garment stories inspired by elegant mythology, McQueen could equally master the sensual art of seduction, proposing tight-fitting leather pantsuits, leopard-print skirts with alluring thigh-slits,  and suggestive strapless dresses for his sophomore outing — FW97 Ready-to-Wear. “He is also committed to creativity 120 percent. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here,” McQueen declared of LVMH’s Bernard Arnault at the dawn of his residency. How far would that willingness for creativity stretch? McQueen would not be afraid to test, and push, the boundaries. Strongly influenced by restrictive Victorian silhouettes, and a continual adoration of Scottish tartan, McQueen’s work for FW97 Haute Couture could easily be mistaken for works constructed for his own label. None of the restraint and delicacy of Givenchy was evident. McQueen had been handed more money than he could dream of to create to his heart's content — is it any wonder, therefore, that Hubert de Givenchy’s DNA dissipated in one fell swoop? Collections inspired by Dolly Parton (with many rhinestones), Japanese Art Deco (with intricate embroidery), Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic Blade Runner (which he closed wearing opaque metallic contact lenses) and Anastasia Romanov (who, in this imagination, escaped to the Amazonian jungle after her family’s downfall) ensued. It was for SS99 Ready-to-Wear that McQueen, who had allowed his ungovernable artistic licence to take glorious control, attempted commercial simplicity. Inspired by smokey jazz clubs, here were calm, pared-back garments in varying tones of grey, white, and black. “It’s kind of a new approach for me, trying to cut down the theatrical and trying to concentrate on people who buy clothes,” he said of this uniquely composed project. It was the first, and ultimately, only time McQueen would determine to cater to the traditional Givenchy consumer. The pieces were technically sound, however, the lack of intense passion was deafening. One would never assume this was the work of the complex genius Lee Alexander McQueen. For SS99 Haute Couture, dedicated with great tenderness and vulnerability to McQueen’s aunt Patsy, late 19th-century features were married with leather biker pants, as well as checkerboard jester prints featured on acrobatic bodysuits. The half-woman, half-cyborg ethos of FW99 Ready-to-Wear (the collection Zendaya’s ensemble hails from) hinted at the endless computer-based possibilities at our fingertips on the brink of the new millennium. Modelled by fibreglass shop window mannequins, FW99 Haute Couture was displayed much like an art exhibit. “It was so you didn’t focus on the models but on the clothes,” McQueen explained to Suzy Menkes at the time. By the time he reached his closing presentation for Givenchy, McQueen had secured a life-altering deal with the Gucci Group (now Kering), who acquired a 51 percent majority stake in his eponymous label — allowing for major expansion and further investment. It was this that would pave the way for McQueen to create without the cracking whip of a house’s legacy. It was also this that would be the true making of a legend. Speaking to Andrew Wilson for his 2015 biography of the designer, a longtime friend of McQueen, Chris Bird, suggested: “I really think the reason he sold his share in the company to the Gucci Group was really to stick two big fucking fingers up to Bernard Arnault.” Arnault was seemingly committed to creativity back in 1997 — just perhaps not 120 percent. Julien Macdonald replaced the turbulent designer as Givenchy’s Creative Director. Under Macdonald’s tenure, he chose to reinstate Givenchy’s precursory codes, meanwhile retaining a fragment of the sex appeal McQueen dared to introduce. On the other hand, McQueen continued to extend his imprudent, revolutionary, and legendary shows to a global audience at his namesake label, changing the face of the industry forevermore. He may have shaken up the inner workings of Givenchy, come under fire season after season, and made his complaints transparent, but McQueen would eventually come to terms with this period of his artistic life. Of the time, he stated: “I treated Givenchy badly. It was just money to me. But there was nothing I could do: the only way it would have worked would have been if they had allowed me to change the whole concept of the house, to give it a new identity, and they never wanted me to do that.” It is unquestionable that this unsettled chapter provided some of McQueen’s most enigmatic moments and, ultimately, confirmed that no one, regardless of how much money provided, could tie McQueen down — he would always find a way to float onward and on his own terms. 🌀 Molly Elizabeth is a freelance fashion writer and commentator based in London.

Watching Priscilla in conversation with Woolf. Watched Priscilla on a whim Tuesday night. Boyfriend was sick, so I went on my own. Wore holey black tights. A black miniskirt. Paired with a black sparkly jumper. My hair pulled back by a plastic hairband. And leather knee-high boots. My local cinema, populated by red velvet curtains and red leather two-seaters. Purchased a big cup of Diet Coke with a fat paper straw. Unzipped my boots, tucked my feet under my thighs, and slid my slim red Vivienne Westwood glasses over my face. Perfect. An hour and a half later I left the cinema, unsure what I’d concluded. The final scene of the film features our titular character driving away from Graceland. A quite touching and understated parallel to the previous punctuations of the film’s acts — when Elvis drives away from Graceland, leaving Priscilla behind. We never see past those gates until the end. Just like Priscilla. But, while making my way home, I struggled to understand exactly what the film wanted me to believe Priscilla was driving away from — and, equally, what she was driving towards. Biopics tend to be emotionally self-evident. What is on the screen does not need to have a purpose aside from exposing the audience to the actions, atmospheres, and, if ambitious enough, inner life of its subject. In this way, the purpose of Priscilla is obvious: to tell the lesser-known side of a universally-known story. But Priscilla wouldn’t fit into my understanding of a biopic. It felt fresher, somehow. Not too fresh — it’s not exactly Pablo Larrain’s Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart, as Princess Diana in a pastoral, speculative fable. No, Priscilla is heavy. Dense with vintage authenticity, Coppola’s trademark, like dust settled in velvet curtains. Everything — from the music, the props, and the wardrobe —  is authentic to the period: Aqua-Net, plush carpet floors, viscous black hair dye, thick cotton clothes. The same goes for the various filters and filming techniques employed, which show that Sofia Coppola’s newest offering is more concerned with creating an authentic world and conveying that world loyally, as opposed to arguing for a myopic interest in its subject. I could almost smell the plastic chemical hair salon, the chlorine, the swish of perfumed schoolgirl skirts. After all, is that not who Priscilla is? A random girl in a special situation. A girl who does not yet know herself dropped into a fantastical world of fame and excess. When a biographical film is not mainly concerned with the texture of a person, it is concerned with an event of which the subject was a part. Priscilla isn’t this, either. If so, the event would be Elvis’ very existence. It’s a story of proximity, about a world built on proximity. About living in margins, in footnotes, and what exists there. Most notably, it’s about what existence looks like in proximity to greatness, which any wary woman should know is not synonymous with goodness. In 1929, 30 years before 14-year-old Priscilla met 24-year-old Elvis in Bad Nauheim, Germany, Virginia Woolf penned her seminal essay on women and writing, A Room of One’s Own. She writes: “Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.” Elvis minimizes Priscilla’s life, and he tells her plainly, “Well, it's either me or a career, baby.” She is taken precedence over, so he appears greater — Priscilla quite literally makes Elvis greater, larger, due to their staggering height difference (seen most affronting when they leave the Vegas casino together). “The life” in question is his life. The other side of that life, for her, is waiting. All that waiting. Priscilla rarely does anything. Anything at all. She sits. She stands. She picks up the phone when Elvis calls. She is occasionally applied to: makeup, hair, nail polish. When she is with other people, mostly Elvis, she does what she is, explicitly or implicitly, instructed to do. Shoot a gun. Put on a dress. Be a good girl – Elvis’ mantra for her. When Elvis says “Black hair. And more eye makeup,” Priscilla nods affirmatively, with real excitement in her eyes. She wants to fulfill a task. She is like a devout believer, existing only in the gaze of a volatile man, whom she wants to please — for that is how she can continue to exist. So, then: what is she driving away from?  And what is she driving towards? The obvious answer is that she is driving away from a whole lot of everything., including everything she’s ever really known. In the script, Coppola describes Priscilla surveying the walls of Graceland before she leaves: “...the only life she’s ever known […] walking through the empty rooms, taking a last look of where she grew up.” She’s driving away from her tumultuous relationship with the King, and she’s driving towards freedom. But from my understanding of the film, by its end, their relationship is essentially non-existent. When Priscilla tells Elvis she’s leaving him, it’s more of a formality than anything. There’s no build-up. No defiant door slamming. No screaming match. No clever, cutting words. You would be hard-pressed to find this scene nestled in a compilation alongside Amy Dunne, Pearl, or Tonya Harding. Until the very end, she stays a good girl, doing things the proper way. Of course — she doesn’t know anything different. It’s a universal, but oh-so-personal experience: to place all your personal value in a relationship with a man. Priscilla is precisely about the dichotomy between being the most special girl in the world and also absolutely nobody at all.  Priscilla is a glorified doll — to be dressed, rejected, and disrespected. A young Priscilla leaves the whispers of Lucky her! that surround her at school to go home to an empty house, to wait for the older man that, literally and figuratively, defines her. In a media landscape saturated with simulacrums of strong women and half-baked neoliberal-feminist icons, Priscilla feels like a truer tale of reclaiming oneself. This is not necessarily to the fault of strong female characters. These stories are meant to be aspirational, idealistic, and not necessarily authentic (or, in the case of one Amy Dunne or Pearl, cathartic). Priscilla is cathartic in an alternate way. After watching Priscilla do a whole lot of nothing for the majority of the film’s runtime, I wanted to whoop and cheer when she finally did something, like very slow karate, after moving to L.A. I worry slightly that I’m not-like-other-girls-ing Priscilla, but I guess that is what I find so fascinating in the film: that due to her strange upbringing and circumstances, Priscilla barely functions as a subject. She is not a protagonist. She does not drive the story forward, until the very end when she drives away. I had recently watched Springsteen on Broadway. Americana was on my mind. In the introduction to “The Promised Land,” Springsteen describes driving through America as a young man. A line I immediately went to jot down: …disappearing into nothing. My favorite thing. Perhaps this is what Priscilla is driving towards at the end of her film: sweet, delicious nothing. A woman’s simple right to be on her own. A woman’s right to amount to nothing. A woman’s right to capital-N Nothing. Woolf suggests a woman needs a room of one’s own to tell a story (she also suggests cash). A quote echoed in one of the last lines of the film: “You’re losing me to a life of my own.” It’s no coincidence that the final scene is Priscilla leaving Graceland, not Elvis. Just like the man never belonged to her, neither did the place. But as opposed to a place of one’s own, she does not need the man to start living her own life or telling her own story. Woolf’s looking-glass quote has become my new marker for whether a film treats a female counterpart honorably. Does she primarily function to reflect the figure of a man?  To make him greater? Does she exist to be taken precedence over? And, in the vein of Priscilla, how is this regarded, depicted? How is his “greatness” depicted? Is that worthy of her destruction? Her misery? There has been a lot of discussion about great men in the last few decades, and what they are owed — and what we owe them to look away from. Priscilla serves as a much-needed reminder of how the victims of these men are tangible, whole beings, lives who disappeared in favor of bolstering the men who used and abused them. As much as we do need aspirational female characters and role-models; the basic, more unbecoming reality of women’s lives is equally important. It is not always our stories that revolutionize things, but the very act of telling them itself. I have seen critiques of the film saying that Priscilla barely speaks. As a friend rightly pointed out, she doesn’t have the vocabulary to understand what’s happening to her, or the awareness that a young woman might hold today. Priscilla has no agency because she has not had time to develop an agency, as a skill and as a virtue. She has not been made privy to the fact that she has agency. Young girls these days might “know better.” They are hopefully apt to recognize forms of benevolent sexism — sexism that treats us cushily, buys us clothes, and lets us live in its houses. Sexism that tells us not that we belong in the kitchen but to keep the home fire burning. The fact that Priscilla can be made, starkly portraying the unsavory side of a man who was once larger than life itself, illustrates the spacious rooms now made for women within fiction and story-making. After all, A Room of One’s Own is not just a manifesto; it is a lament. It is a cry of tragedy for all the fiction lost to the oppression of women. The glamourous glimpses of Priscilla never take full precedence over what we recognize as her true reality. Priscilla taught me a lesson I keep having to relearn in real life, as the film depicts the divide between reality and façade. All of Priscilla’s waiting days outweigh the spectacle — the gowns and the Roman candles and the casino scenes — by tenfold. What is, or becomes, representative of someone’s life is not necessarily what actually constitutes a life. For me, it ended up answering the question I am so often plagued by while traversing social media: “Why doesn’t my life look like that?” The simple answer being: “No one’s life looks like that.” The beautiful stranger on my phone screen’s life doesn’t look like that. Her life looks like setting up a tripod to film an illusion, to create a façade. Whenever I found myself yearning for Priscilla’s dresses or moments of excitement, the film made sure to remind me of the flipside of her existence. In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf contemplates the ever-elusive concept of reality: “What is meant by “reality”? It would seem to be something very erratic, very undependable—now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now a daffodil in the sun. It lights up a group in a room and stamps some casual saying. It overwhelms one walking home beneath the stars and makes the silent world more real than the world of speech—and then there it is again in an omnibus in the uproar of Piccadilly. Sometimes, too, it seems to dwell in shapes too far away for us to discern what their nature is. But whatever it touches, it fixes and makes permanent. That is what remains over when the skin of the day has been cast into the hedge; that is what is left of past time and of our loves and hates.” The reality of Priscilla’s life is what is left over from her time with Elvis, of her love and hatred of him. These shapes “too far away for us to discern what their nature is” feels genuinely prophetic of Woolf. The shapes have come closer; they take the form of cinema or phone screens. They fix and make permanent facades of reality. I am equally guilty of this supposed fixing. This self-preservation. This façade. I started this essay by describing myself — what I was wearing, how I was sitting. The brands I hoped to represent me. Packing myself away into a neat little vignette. To set a scene? To immerse? Yes, of course. But also to manipulate. To self-aggrandise. To lace images of myself in between my words, in between something potentially worthwhile to say. Trying to make myself matter. The King, social media, we ourselves, all become purveyors of women’s self-surveillance. Patrons of the inner voyeur. And, for a moment, through my own self-voyeurism, through my own words, I got to be the most special girl in the world, and also absolutely nobody at all. Dressed up in a dark room to see a film about a girl who sits alone in someone else’s house. 🌀 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).

No more pigeon clutches. JW Anderson’s Fall/Winter 2024 show is an arbitrary study of imperfection. Described on the fashion house’s website as being about secrecy and subtlety — of having “this, that” — the collection seems unfinished; just not in the way that Anderson would like us to believe. Despite the guise of intentional undoneness, the show was desperately lacking cohesion and finesse. Posed as a study on tropes, the brand attempted to convey the art of dress that is found in undressing. But perhaps while trying to have one thing and acknowledge the other, JW Anderson perfected neither. The everyday casual wear juxtaposed against the public dowdiness of design is seen in the shearling boots, likely inspired by the reclamation of early aughts footwear brand Ugg, paired with a comically oversized suit jacket. Pointelle cotton matching sets a la Cou Cou Intimates or Pretties Venice deliver an overly-influenced yet uninspired meditation on wearable comfort. Citing inspiration from English nostalgia, the collection is to be envisioned with a lens on a gardening neighbor, a world in which privacy and intimacy are blurred. Chunky knitwear and slippers imagine a lazy Sunday of chores and cleaning, complete with a grandma-esque hairdo and a red lip. There’s a semblance of pastoral coziness in the show’s presentation of sweatpants, one leg cuffed at the ankle, suggesting that the wearer quickly threw on a pair of pants and boots while running out to the shop. Despite these fully-formed vignettes of artistry, though, I can’t help but feel that the collection is incoherent and distanced from these memories in all actuality. Anderson presents necklines similar to a thrifted crewneck sweatshirt that you might wear to the gym. There are boxing shorts with an unflattering, flared hem above the knee. Sheer dresses gathered, twisted, and braided at the waist drape down the model’s bodies, finished with tassels at the breasts that I can only imagine are meant to evoke visions of vintage, gaudy curtains. Belts decorated with colorful flowers and long panels of fabric, not unlike party streamers, clash with the idea of British mundane life. In essence, the eponymous label’s newest collection is a product of confused sincerity. With JW Anderson describing the presentation as “An inquiry into dressing as a psychological act [and] looking next door,” I can only conclude that his neighbors dress in a more abstract way than my own. We have next season to look forward to, where these ideas may be explored in more contrast and deliver upon the idea of going unnoticed. 🌀 You can view the whole collection here. Erica DeMatos is a writer, editor, and student based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Find her on social media at @erica_dematos.

Designer Kazna Asker asks us to consider fashion’s political power. “What are we fighting for?” was the question on the mind of BFC NEWGEN designer Kazna Asker as she presented her Fall/Winter 2024 collection during London Fashion Week — as well as on the backdrop of turbulent UK and global politics.  Anger, resentment, and frustration abound, yet Asker sought instead to draw together a sense of united community, with the show notes aptly reading, “With everything happening in the world right now, I think it’s important that we stand for something collectively.” Community is at the passionately-beating heart of all that Asker produces, seeking to uplift, honour, educate, and confront. She first made dynamic waves with her Central Saint Martins MA graduate collection — the first of its kind to feature hijabi models — and has raised over £20,000 in charity fundraisers for Yemen and Palestine. In the simplest of terms, Kazna Asker’s work has communal power. Her latest collection does not stray from this course; if anything, it courageously dives deeper. In a lengthy, dimly-lit room in the Old Selfridges Hotel (a London Fashion Week hotspot), one was transported and immersed in a space inspired by Asker’s gida’s living room. Incense filled the nose; traditional Yemeni music thrilled the ears; and everyone’s eyes were enraptured in Asker’s clothing, modelled as tableaus in an intimate majili (sitting room) environment. Presenting a collection in this intimate abode — elevated further with live henna artists, biscuits, and Yemeni tea (this was London, after all) — allowed more time to examine Asker’s work. Time which she deserves. On the back wall of the venue, a mural storyboard laid out Asker’s manifesto — what she is fighting for and what we, as a fashion collective, are fighting for: Palestine, Yemen, and the notion of a global community. On tables scattered around the space, books illuminated the beauty of Arab culture and traditions, stories often untold in luxury fashion. On her models, all of whom are Muslim and/or hijabi, Asker’s garments blended sportswear with traditional woven fabrics and silhouettes, creating something uniquely modern. In reality, though, the clothing is simply one aspect of the living art Asker manipulates. It is a vessel with which to protest and to unify, and in that sense, Asker’s clothing is the pinnacle of all that fashion can be. Fashion has forever been, and will forever remain, one of our most subtly effective socio-political instruments. 🌀 You can view the whole collection here. Molly Elizabeth is a freelance fashion writer and commentator based in London.

Like it’s hard. Back in the 90s, the scene was on the streets. And in the heart of New York, Chloë Sevigny was everywhere in art, from modeling to acting. From cult film Kids to American Psycho, the eclectic figure became a symbol of downtown Gen X while sneaking from Connecticut to lower Manhattan. Everyone asked, Who IS that girl? According to the New York Times, in 1994, she was no less than the coolest girl in the world. Since then, the multidisciplinary artist has continued to impress us with her versatility, solidifying her status as the ultimate original It Girl. Whether as the muse of fashion label Chopova Lowena's fairy tale fashion book Conversations with Angels, (as the mythical Snow Queen from Danish folklore), or as the definitive queen bee in The Last Days of Disco, the intriguing actress has brought originality and realness to the fashion world while surprising us time and time again with her off-the-wall fashion choices. Check out the 20 times Chloë Sevigny confirmed her status as an It Girl and ended all other It Girls. RUNWAY DEBUT AT MIU MIU SS96 (1995) The actress' runway debut was in the Miu Miu Spring/Summer 1996 collection, where she opened the show in a matching powder blue shirt and pants. Later looks included a black long-sleeved blouse with a midi blue skirt to an ivory top with a sheer avocado open skirt. Sevigny later starred in the label’s SS96 campaign, photographed by Juergen Teller and styled by Joe McKenna, in an intimate and minimalist photoshoot. PREMIERE OF TREES LOUNGE (1996) At the premiere of the film Trees Lounge in 1996, Sevigny attends the event in a black asymmetrical pearled gown with tiger print tights, a red long coat, and a retro-cool flower pin. THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO PREMIERE (1998) In a high-neck floaty gray dress and razor-sharp red heels at The Last Days Of Disco premiere in New York,  Sevigny adds a brown Hermès bag to elevate her look. THE OSCARS (2000) Nominated for the film Boys Don’t Cry, the actress attends the 2000 Oscars with an Alber Elbaz black gown for Yves Saint Laurent paired with a sturdy crystal necklace — an outfit that has become the pinnacle of edgy-chic. THE SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS (2000) At the 6th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles, the artist steps out in a sheer red and pink floral-patterned dress, showcasing a vivid, colorful, and kitschy mood for the occasion. GANGS OF NEW YORK PREMIERE (2002) At the New York premiere of the movie Gangs of New York, the model wears classic '90s tailored black pants, a soft brown sweater, and an eye-catching fur-trimmed coat, underlining Sevigny’s long love of edgy looks. DOGVILLE PREMIERE (2003) Sevigny wears a shimmery silver dress adorned with a black ribbon at the premiere of Dogville at the New York Film Festival, showing an unconventional yet girly-charming combination. AT THE BEACH (2005) While on a casual stroll on the beach in Miami, the actress was spotted carrying a Louis Vuitton monogram bag with a coquetteish red and white lace jumpsuit. INFINITY AWARDS (2005) At the 2005 ICP Infinity Awards, the model wears a maxi floral draped gown with a deep ruffled neck collar — both delicate and alluring. MET GALA (2007) At the 2007 Poiret: King of Fashion Met Gala in New York City, Sevigny wears an emerald strapless dress with a black clutch and utilizes a surprising accessory: her bangs. 60 YEARS OF CHLOÉ (2013) Attending the 60 Years Of Chloé event at Barneys New York, Sevigny wears the controversial SS83 Chloé violin dress by Karl Lagerfeld. MET GALA (2015) At the 2015 Met Gala celebration, China: Through the Looking Glass,  the actress walks the Met red carpet steps with a J.W. Anderson off-the-shoulder floral dragon embroidery dress. CANNES PHOTOCALL (2019) For the photocall of the film The Dead Don't Die at Cannes in 2019, Sevigny pairs an embroidered and tailored black silhouette Loewe dress with Brioni sunglasses. SIMONE ROCHA FW19 (2019) The model joins the runway at Simone Rocha FW 2019 in London Fashion Week, wearing one of the Irish designer’s signature white ruffled gowns and sparkling pearled hair accessories. WINTER STREET STYLE (2019) Combining two of the best fashion modes — winter style and a fashion-forward archival wardrobe — the actress appears in the New York City street in a leather bomber jacket, denim, and a Chanel suede ushanka trimmed with white fur. SUMMER STREET STYLE (2022) Do you believe in astrology? Because HALOSCOPE bets Chloë does — and that she’s proud to be a Scorpio. Photographed by William Strobeck for Vanna Youngstein, Chloë Sevigny wears a black Scorpion t-shirt with sunglasses, denim jeans, and a jacket. MUGLER SS22 (2022) As a model in the Mugler Spring 2022 ready-to-wear film, Sevigny is photographed by Lengua in a dreamy tulle dress that blends beige and black tones. WEDDING TO SINIŠA MAČKOVIĆ (2022) Two years after marrying husband Siniša Mačković at New York City Hall, Sevigny officially celebrates the union, wearing multiple white looks by designers such as Glenn Martens for Jean Paul Gaultier couture, Jonathan Anderson for Loewe, and Casey Cadwallader for Mugler. PROENZA SCHOULER FW23 (2023) Sevigny's voice reads diary entries by author Ottessa Moshfegh as an inner monologue in the most New Yorker label — Proenza Schouler's — soundtrack. The model opens the runway in a leather skirt, tailored jacket, and sharp white blouse while her voice remains until the show ends. FEUD: CAPOTE VS THE SWANS PREMIERE (2024) Styled by Haley Wollens, Sevigny wears Look 01 from Christopher John Rogers’ Pre-Fall 2024 collection — a white, strapless ribbon-front bubble dress in industrial nylon for the Feud: Capote vs. The Swans premiere. 🌀 Ana Reitz is a Brazilian fashion writer who breathes fashion. As a Latin American fashionista, she values a diverse and inclusive fashion landscape and aims to make a difference in the complex yet beautiful industry that surrounds her. She writes anything fashion-related for her own Substack For Fashion’s Sake.

For years, cool-girl underwear brands have exalted empowerment and aggressive optimism. Too bad you can’t feel sexy in them. MY UNDERWEAR MAKES ME FEEL BAD. I am sent tidy boxes of thongs and bralettes from brands on the verge of filing for Chapter 11, all in exchange for public affection. Here are colorways in Kombucha or Fairy Dust, and exotic recycled yarns, and “real” models in the promotional materials, wobbly-kneed and winking under thick varsity letters: BE YOU. Microscopic text makes promises of planted trees, hot meals, donated bras. Put this underwear on and become a good person. Be you! I do not ask for these boxes, from brands like Parade and Savage X Fenty, but here they are on my doorstep. The exchange — an Instagram story here, a TikTok there, a shoutout in this very magazine — is implicit. I don’t know how I get on their PR lists. I’m not a prude, but I made a promise to myself to never post too much of my body online, even a wisp of the thigh, because that could open me up to immense psychic damage. As a young teenager, I had a small following on Tumblr. To this day, I occasionally stumble upon cropped pictures of myself on Instagram and Pinterest, frequently saved on anorexic thinspo moodboards. I let my body be publicly anatomized before I knew what that choice meant. As I got older and my body changed, my privacy became sacred. This is all to say: I am not going to post a picture of myself in my underwear. I refuse to be myself. I donate the boxes, I give them to friends, but — most horrifically — I sometimes wear them. That’s when I have to pop an omeprazole. Not only do I not have enough mettle (or ego, depending on your view) to post myself wearing these, which seems to be a prerequisite for even putting them on, but I loathe the way they feel. These are boyshorts and thongs made out of recycled water bottles, now whipped into a cool, plasticky nylon. It all feels foreign and buttery and cold, like alien foreskin. A dingy suitcase in the back of my closet, permanently dented from a scuffle at Gare du Nord, houses the pairs I’m too lazy — or just plain afraid — to sort. A bralette dotted with melting ice cream cones is suddenly moth-bitten and pilly. Green hipsters that say FEARLESS across the ass fill me with intense fear. The worst is a black lacy push-up bra, two sizes too small for my chest. Here are three pieces of lace, noxious with a puff of factory air, held together by a few single stitches. The whole thing is delicate, but not in an elegant way. Any pull of a string could break it loose. I suppose that’s the point — recycled underwear, yes, but designed to be destroyed and bought again and again into infinity. A mailer accidentally thrown in with the lot shouts at me: YOU’VE GOT THIS, DIVA! Using the word “brand” as stuffing, here, isn’t in error — almost every DTC underwear brand, from Parade to ThirdLove, is blissfully interchangeable. There’s the Fight Songian copywriting, sure, but the actual pieces look near-identical, too: creamy nude t-shirt bras with hidden underwires, or none at all, cling shapelessly to the breast. High-cut granny panties in color palettes called Marzipan and Ganache stretch and shrink under fluorescent studio lighting. Hiphuggers, cut shabbily for curve models, are Photoshopped to look perfectly uniform in the final stills. It’s the kind of satiny, bright, inoffensive brand identity that’s become increasingly prevalent even outside of underwear (see: Lululemon, Outdoor Voices), and proffers no ideas beyond: BE A GOOD PERSON. WEAR THESE. BE A BETTER VERSION OF YOURSELF. BE YOU. Is it a brand’s responsibility to volunteer radical ideas? Not really. Mastercard doesn’t need to be your friend. But, in many ways, wearing these brands feels somehow worse than wearing nothing at all. Despite positioning themselves as the thinking woman’s lingerie, progressive DTC underwear labels weaponize the same kind of rhetoric that sustained so many of their pre-2010 rivals, including Victoria’s Secret: that wearing this magical, special underwear could spirit away your aura, mold you into a better woman, and baptize you anew. Lingerie, or a simulacrum of it, could make you beautiful; in fact, you didn’t just need to be beautiful, you deserved to be beautiful. You deserved to feel good about all of this. And you deserved 15% off by using code LOVEME4ME at checkout. For women of a certain age, the ruffled shadow of Victoria’s Secret — once practically synonymous with mass-market lingerie — looms large. I remember it in abstract; I can mostly recall the years of VS Pink and supermodels clobbering down the runway in pastel angel wings, but my teenage years had barely commenced by the time the company croaked. At the last-ever VS Fashion Show, in 2018, model Taylor Hill looked directly into camera and said: “We’ve got to be sexy for ourselves, and for who we want to be, not because a man says you have to be. It was never about that in the first place.” But it kind of was, wasn’t it? The brand was founded in 1977 by Roy Raymond, a former marketer who named VS after Queen Victoria’s clandestine undergarments; popular origin myths, still repeated ad nauseam today, tell of Raymond being too afraid to buy lingerie for his wife. Victoria’s Secret passed from hand-to-hand; first, from Raymond to Leslie Wexner of L Brands; then, to a series of interim CEOs after a plan to sell the company fell through (and Wexler got outed as an Epstein client). Reaching mass popularity in the early 2000s, Victoria’s Secret designed lingerie as a kind of alchemical candy — sickly-sweet, transformative, and irresistible. The brand’s idea of sexiness was solely informed by the desires of men like Wexler, with airbrushed models in plaid schoolgirl sets carefully teetering in six-inch pleasers; pulling down their tight boyshorts to reveal invisible pelvic bones; and getting ready for bed in pinching bustiers and matching thigh-high socks. Watching old clips from Y2K runway shows, the models are horribly unsteady on their feet, and you can still sense how painful it must’ve been to wear those garments, even some 20 years later. Mass-produced lingerie may have been about women, but it was not by or for women, and it did so much as to say directly to women: this is your fantasy now. Self-objectification, from Girls Gone Wild to the Playboy reality show The Girls Next Door to the advent of Internet porn, made that fantasy clearer and easier to ape — and led to a decade bloated by feminist debate over whether or not any of it was empowering. It became inevitable, then, that a few years after Adriana Lima revealed she didn’t eat solid food for nine days pre-show, an overcorrection would happen. Between 2016 and 2018, Victoria’s Secret’s market share in the US dropped from 33% to 24%. Partially caused by the axing of Wexler and a drop in fabric quality, most of the change came from the company’s competitors. Brands like Aerie started releasing glossy, body-positive marketing campaigns; new offerings like ThirdLove and Organic Basics, philanthropic but aesthetically unremarkable, attracted buyers critical of Victoria’s Secret’s vapid, exclusory image. Body positivity became a phrase in the public lexicon. Victoria’s Secret attempted to keep up with the changing times; they hired their first body-inclusive model, Barbara Palvin — a size 4 — who was publicly referred to by the brand as “plus-size.” Then, in 2020, they found a magic balm. Victoria’s Secret fired the supermodels, made activists and athletes alike the face of the brand, and redesigned their merchandise to look more like the nude nebulousness of their competitors. It was an official confirmation, perhaps subliminally, that the hoi polloi had moved past the need for traditional lingerie. “I think it’s okay to be the woman who breaks old rules,” Kom-I, an artist and new VS Angel, stated. And yet, despite the overhaul and the almost-bankruptcy and the fallen deals and the scandals and the terrible underwear of it all, nothing was being said that Hill didn’t already say in 2018. It was never about that in the first place. Brands like Parade are optimistic but unerotic; brands like Victoria’s Secret — at least, the old Victoria’s Secret — are pessimistic but erotic. You can either feel terrible about yourself and wear a lace teddy, or you can feel terrible about yourself in an oatmeal-colored bodysuit that comes with free stickers. Add in the fact that, as more and more clothing gets thinner and cheaper, it’s much easier to wear blobby panties that say BE YOUR OWN SLUT on the front than it is to wear frilly lingerie. The choice is made for you. Neither of those options, though, speaks to what is actually sensual or what women actually find sexy. I love lingerie — traditional lingerie, that is, made by women who care about the craft — but it’s about sight. Eroticism is incongruous with sight. It’s all about hidden pleasures, mystery, masquerade, freedom, secrecy. Lingerie is not secret; it is a sexual offering, an altar made from visible blessings. True eroticism comes from what cannot be seen, predicted, sensed, or divined. Eroticism carries an essential risk. Lingerie has no risk. It is as plain as a donut. It is in that, then, that we see other things bloom in quiet popularity: Brandy Melville pajamas; satin Comme Si boxer shorts; big t-shirts over panties; and, of course, women online lusting after Nicole Kidman’s Egyptian cotton pointelle tank top set from Eyes Wide Shut — a movie that came out 24 years ago, but still feels new in its approach to eroticism. That approach is multidimensional: these disparate garments are wholly individual, allowing underwear to have the same style and creative spirit as external wear; in the case of boxer shorts, the slightly masculine undercurrent tenders something fecund and surprising; and, most importantly, women wearing boxer shorts and oversized tees can be sensual because the woman wearing them assigns that sensuality. In these garments, women are not having to make an Important Point about how their bodies are secretly beautiful or confirm a male fantasy. They get to be in total control of their sexuality and allow their underwear to either be protective or prurient on the flip of a coin. That is the hidden, risky quality that many brands, try as they might, cannot master. Power and nonchalance — and power over that nonchalance — is deeply sexy, and that elastic approach to eroticism is far more affirming and inclusive of everyone’s bodies than anything else. I’VE STILL GOT TOO MANY FUCKING BOXES. I email and try to get off the PR lists; Mailtrack tells me they haven’t been opened yet. They probably never will. On a family vacation, my grandmother, back from the laundromat, asks who owns the panties that say DIET COKE on the crotch; I grab them and hurry back up to my room. My bras, once supportive and lace-trimmed, have been slowly replaced with dirty-pink shelf bralettes that make my back ache. When did that happen? I don’t remember. More and more packages pile up on my porch. As I scroll through my Instagram feed, I see women proudly wearing the underwear I’m too embarrassed to own, reposted directly by the brand. The underwear doesn’t look good, but they look good. They gave it power. This is not to implicate these women, nor to say that body positivity is a bad thing; I don’t think that at all. But for women of a particular group — those who came of age in the 2010s — two contrastive ideas were in play. While marketing campaigns screamed out pithy proverbs about loving your terrible-no-good-awful-imperfect-body, you had to fight the tendency to compare yourself to other women — a tendency that is extremely pronounced among teenage girls and became more affecting as social media replaced real-life interaction. Not only was social media helping form new insecurities, but young women were actively being told that they were part of the problem for being insecure in the first place. The only way to win was to come out of the womb preternaturally confident; or, at least, pretend like you had. Though that, a lot of body-positive rhetoric was not body-positive at all, and instead reinforced a chthonic level of shame. I think often about body normalcy — like, yes, wearing the Eyes Wide Shut tank top or a baggy t-shirt, existing without pretense — and what could’ve happened if we allowed that idea to have more credence. Around Christmas, I watched Eyes Wide Shut and cleaned out my closet. When it came to my underwear, I split them into three piles: things that made me feel comfortable, things that made me feel sexy, and things that made me feel neither. Comfortable and sexy didn’t split; everything I sorted, there, ended up being part of the same group, funnily enough. I put the FEARLESS hipsters in a fabric recycle bin. Who knows where or even what they are, now. Maybe they’re collecting dust on a factory back shelf; maybe they’re in a landfill, neon as ever, to keep the planes away. But I’d like to think they’ve been reborn, like Lazarus rising, and are now sitting in someone’s closet — someone who has no idea that their underwear once told them to be brave. 🌀 Savannah Eden Bradley is a writer, fashion editor, gallerina, Gnostic scholar, reformed It Girl, and future beautiful ghost from the Carolina coast. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the fashion magazine HALOSCOPE. You can stalk her everywhere online @savbrads.

As lensed by Oliver Tucker. Alexa Chung. Law Roach. ANNA. And more, all lensed for HALOSCOPE by the lovely Oliver Tucker. Scroll through the whole gallery below. 🌀 Click each photo to expand.

Plus, some thoughts on Molly Goddard and 16Arlington. Rulers make bad lovers. Simone Rocha — despite often getting squared away as a coquette brand at the mercy of trend — is very good at breaking her own rules. The last installment of a three-show cycle Rocha dubbed The Dress Rehearsal, her FW24 show is a testament to the end of affairs — one last trench coat over lingerie, one last lipstick stain on a highball glass, one last stab in the dark at forbidden love. Staged in the 12th-century St. Bartholomew’s Church (the Europeans really have the edge on haunted venues), Rocha is working against the nebulous forms of her previous collections and spending a little bit more time on shape. Those gauzy pearls are still there, though: one ultra-’60s mint dress hangs like a dead jellyfish; another, the ethereal uniform of a castle executioner. But the tight corsetry is what immediately caught my eye — including a pale pink coat padded with quilted satin and etched with tiny roses, as well as a cropped, corseted overcoat that hides a pair of silky bloomers. While I think Rocha’s work at Jean Paul Gaultier was better, does it even matter? When you’re as good at what you do as her, the margin for error is so slender it might as well be invisible. On the topic of dead jellyfish — Molly Goddard kept the bulbous, balloon-like forms at FW24, but punctured them with a level of strategic repulsion. To Vogue Runway, Goddard divulged that she worried if “[the clothes] were so ugly they are beautiful.” Naturally, it was sort of both. The good looks harkened back to classic Goddardian imagery, including a maroon tulle dress flocked with roses; an oversized gray sweater dangling over a tutu; and a sleeveless polka-dot gown, the color of melting sorbet, that feels more relevant for Fall 1984 than Fall 2024. That’s Goddard’s charm, of course: a little awkward, a little passé, but earnest in ideas. The bad looks, though, were worse than bad — they were irrelevant. Goddard, whether she set out to or if it was thrust upon her, speaks for a very particular set. It’s not uncommon to see an upwardly mobile woman, usually in her early 30s, wearing a Goddard taffeta dress over jeans on the subway, in the vintage shop, or in the bathroom at the co-working space. These clothes don’t speak to that woman, nor do they speak to anyone. The dropped waists of the opening looks — piles of fabric squished under peasant blouses — are ill-fitting and inapplicable; other moments, like a paper-bag tunic over a swollen skirt, read less Barbie pink and more Pepto Bismol-vomit. I could see one or two looks translating to red-carpet fodder, but otherwise, there aren’t any legs, here. On the other side of things, 16Arlington’s Marco Capaldo made some deeply wearable clothes this time around. I’ve been keeping tabs on 16Arlington since 2018, and I’m a big fan of what he’s doing. You can see the Miuccia Prada influence in every collection, but over the past few seasons, Capaldo has steadily been tightening up his specific design language — and it feels like last season’s seeds are finally blooming into something fecund and sophisticated. Inspired by curator Charlie Fox’s 2017 book, This Young Monster, as well as Madonna’s 1994 song “Human Nature,” these clothes are smart, sexy, and impeccably made. Such a high level of connoisseurship is present, even from a distance, in organza panels that bisect the abdomen; shaggy fur coats, individually dyed and assembled in chevron patterns; white-blue turtlenecks that look as if they cling wet to the breast; pleated skirts made of ostrich leather. And yet, for all these disparate ideas, it never feels inorganic or meandering. In fact, it feels like the handiwork of someone who was born for the job. 🌀 Savannah Eden Bradley is a writer, fashion editor, gallerina, Gnostic scholar, reformed It Girl, and future beautiful ghost from the Carolina coast. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the fashion magazine HALOSCOPE. You can stalk her everywhere online @savbrads.

And solid offerings from Coach and Altuzarra. Five years ago, during the last pre-pandemic season, Carly Mark staged the very first Puppets and Puppets runway show. An oddball macédoine of references to American Psycho, Fabergé eggs, and whether or not Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia was murdered by the Bolsheviks, the consensus was even: Mark was a young artist who was witty and talented but a little wet behind the ears. It was assumed, as it is with many new designers, that following collections would focus more on sell-ability and popular taste, rather than individual vision. That, of course, didn’t happen. Her co-founder, Ayla Argentina, left the label; Mark was criticized, often, for not focusing on growth and instead designing garments that were beautiful but acutely unwearable. In an interview with Nicolaia Rips for Air Mail last December, she said: “I don’t think fashion designers should be fashion designers their whole lives. I think you have to be deeply enmeshed in the Zeitgeist in order to do this.” It’s saddening, but unsurprising, then, that the Puppets and Puppets FW24 show is Mark’s last; she announced earlier this year that she is moving to London and focusing on accessory design, rather than ready-to-wear, for the time being. To Vogue, Mark said: “At this point in fashion, as a young designer, thriving is just surviving.” What is possibly the most saddening of all, though, is that this collection is finally Mark’s best. No more veneers of irony (save for “Nothing Compares 2 U” on the show soundtrack). See: cloaked models in veils and wimples; dark velvet capri leggings; half-dresses revealing ridged nylons, like bones popping out of sockets. Instead of spelling it all out, like usual, Mark is making use of symbol. There’s a lot being said about repentance, here, along with spirality and onus. The best look by far — and a clear reason as to why Mark is pivoting to accessory — is a pair of stretchy red socks that morph into tights, which pull out from behind the ankle, up the back, and over the shoulder. The commentary on responsibility and misconception isn’t exactly subtle, but it is refreshing seeing Mark have something to say and doing so with tact. I don’t want this to be the end of her career, and, frankly, I don’t think it will be. The Coach show was staged at the former chateau of tobacco magnate James Buchanan Duke and volunteered a pastiche of midcentury America: rumpled raincoats, “Moon River” on the aux, oversized sweaters slapped with poodle-skirt style bow appliqués. That contrast — a stately American home housing models, like children, in candy-colored clothing a size too big — felt distinctly Annie, Richie Rich, and even Eloise at the Plaza. These are not bad garments, though, not at all; the taffeta skirts, swung low on the hip, feel distinctly fun. And, as always, designer Stuart Vevers knows how to make a damn good coat. The logic of the collection, though, leaves much to be desired. On the one hand, I’m glad that the balmy cleanness of every other show this season isn’t present, here, and that these looks have a distinct identity. On the other hand, the presentation was erroneously front-loaded. By the end, models walked out in high-waisted, crumpled denim tucked under wrinkled satin camisoles. These are just-OK, inoffensive outfits, but they don’t make sense as a closing number. (Overheard on the street outside: “Did they lose a bet?”) Finally, there was Altuzarra, who sent out personal invitations to his show and didn’t allow a single celebrity or influencer into the room. At a studio preview, he purred: “It wasn’t as much about stories and much more about pieces that I felt interested in developing.” It’s a perfectly simple, unpretentious statement, but is also very radical at a time when every other designer’s collection seems to need a theme or a journey or God forbid an aesthetic. The closest trend Altuzarra approaches is a pair of red tights — but he gelds them by subtly alluding to Thomas Gainsborough’s Blue Boy. With the exception of the particularly modern bodysuit-contra-stockings closing look, there were clear beatific, historical references: Pierrot clown ruffles; Harlequin printed chiffon fit for a court jester; Kandinsky watercolors; Weimar Republic design rules. It reminded me, in a circular way, of Kate Bush’s The Sensual World — a record that, for the first time in a long time in her career, was not a concept album, but merely a collection of very good, playful songs. This is merely a collection of very good, playful garments, and reminds me just how lucky I am be alive at the same time as Joseph Altuzarra. 🌀 Savannah Eden Bradley is a writer, fashion editor, gallerina, Gnostic scholar, reformed It Girl, and future beautiful ghost from the Carolina coast. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the fashion magazine HALOSCOPE. You can stalk her everywhere online @savbrads.

Luar FW24 asks us to move on. GET NOSTALGIC ABOUT FASHION’S NIGHT OUT. Claim that New York Fashion Week is dead. Argue with a wall. Repeat ad infinitum. The criticism of New York Fashion Week as an institution is not without reason, given how the event is beset by scheduling difficulties and an unequal playing field for emerging designers. But the coroners’ calls often have nothing to do with either of those things, and instead focus on what New York doesn’t have in comparison to London or Paris: big names, bigger parties, bigger moments (whatever that means). These criticisms are the blatherings of people who care more about getting the invite than they do about the actual clothes. One of my favorite people, Rian Phin, put it plainly: It is safe to say that Raul Lopez is not an emerging designer anymore and is simply a designer, given that he was named the CFDA’s 2022 Accessory Designer of the Year — and has had an (almost) pitch-perfect streak of seasons. But it is notable that Beyoncé showed up to the Luar FW24 show in particular, rather than saving her energy for Balenciaga or Balmain. Giving an independent designer a boost simply by being there (Google searches for “Luar” skyrocketed after she was spotted) is one of the most low-effort, high-reward things a celebrity can do, and can shine a light on collections that would otherwise go undetected. The NYFW critics got quiet after that. Speaking of light: nobody had any. The former factory used to show the collection was poorly lit, and fashion critics like Cathy Horyn couldn’t make out the models in the dark. Meanwhile, Beyoncé shone brightly in the front row, aglow in iPhone flash. Who has access — and who ordains that access — will always be a fuzzy industry-wide problem, and it is always, too, difficult when celebrities take focus away from the clothing. The clothing, by the way, is divine. The Luar FW24 collection, entitled “Deceptionista,” focuses on the advent and metamorphosis of the metrosexual. “There are different generations of the metrosexual, and now we are in the era of the stray,” Lopez told Vogue Runway. A stray is, of course, a straight gay — the Bushwickian men with their black nail polish, crop tops, pearl necklaces, and creosoted egos. “These are men comfortable enough to greet you with two kisses and talk in a way that hypnotizes you into believing they aren’t who they really are.” The strays show up in tight jeans and even tighter shirts, crucifixes dangling over the breast; motorcycle jackets with exaggerated, broadened shoulders; semi-sheer zebra-print longsleeves tucked into office pants; fur stoles protecting thick overcoats. Despite “metrosexual” being a distinctly late-’90s term, these textures felt overwhelmingly new. Here is a designer unafraid to comment on the current culture, examine its innards, and hypothesize about the future. And yet, much like Lopez’ last Luar collection, it's his womenswear — only slightly related to metrosexuality, and instead a byproduct of Luar Basics — that feels the most substantial. See: a hooded chocolate-syrup gown worn by model Alex Consani with thigh-cut tights; a pannier embedded at the top of a sweat-skirt; organza shirting melting underneath matching pants. One top, an off-shoulder swath of burgundy leather squished and bound by a diamond cuff, could be a phallic symbol or a muddy rose on a long stem, depending on your view. In many ways, Lopez is not asking us to be nostalgic for New York or the days of Style Rookie or Studio B, but to instead develop language for the New York that’s already around us. But how? How is it possible to feel optimistic about the fact nobody can afford rent or Pookie getting an invite or the Cheetos SS20 show? Even pre-pandemic, it’s been nearly impossible to live in the city. The traditional wave of art school freaks moving to mothball-infested fifth-floor walk-ups has dissipated in favor of puffer-vested Wharton grads who go to axe-throwing corporate mixers. Pride is sponsored by Citi Bank. That taco place overrun by Monsteras used to be a women’s shelter. When subculture stops existing, serious thinking stops existing (as stated by Alexandra Hildreth). When people complain about New York Fashion Week getting stale, they’re really complaining about New York itself getting stale, and what it means to experience art in a monoculture. But you can’t blame Lopez for trying. By God, someone has to do it. The more attention, time, consideration, resources, and flowers we give to independent designers, the more the needle can flicker back to the center. Life — messy, discombobulated, thrilling real life — can get inoculated back into New York's art. It’s important to note that you can’t have subculture without a dominant culture; it’d get quite boring if we didn’t have a Cheetos SS20 show to laugh at. But we need more designers like Lopez willing to look forward and set new standards. Otherwise, I don’t want to have to one day agree with the coroners. 🌀 You can view the whole collection here. Savannah Eden Bradley is a writer, fashion editor, gallerina, Gnostic scholar, reformed It Girl, and future beautiful ghost from the Carolina coast. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the fashion magazine HALOSCOPE. You can stalk her everywhere online @savbrads.