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The collection is very feminine — and subversive when compared to the expectations that audiences might have had for the new Bode girl. The Bode Spring/Summer 2024 menswear collection leans traditional in silhouette and continues to surprise with the recent debut of their womenswear. The collection is referential of very feminine wear — subversive when compared to the expectations that audiences might have had for the new Bode girl. Figure-hugging knitwear; see-through tops; pinwheel bras; whimsical bows; and a white gown reminiscent of a wedding dress all largely identify the Bode girl as sexy — almost antithetical to designer Emily Adams Bode Aujla’s antique New England aesthetics and textiles that have made the brand infamous. The brand’s emphasis on the preservation of memories is seen throughout its use of deadstock textiles, fabrics, and traditional tailoring. Consistent with these more tactile references, Bode evokes a strong sense of sentimentality for the past through whimsical buttons and lace appliqué, reminiscent of a 20th-century New Hampshire farmstead. The actual clothes worn during that time period, however, were of immediate practicality, with little use found beyond comfort. Alongside this appreciation for vintage-inspired craftsmanship, the designer has seemingly rejected some dated values of the past when it comes to the inspiration behind her garments. If womenswear of its past references was so restrictive and docile, then why wouldn’t the brand create a new line for women to feel liberated? Why not provide something to call their own? Bode’s decision to release a womenswear line reshaped traditionally gendered clothing pieces — weaving connections between family history and modern dress. Emily cites the women in her family as her muses, instilling in the young designer that vintage pieces hold importance beyond their immediate impression. What was once a lace tablecloth can be made into a skirt, each drape a memory of past dinner parties, yet encouraging of a new life to be cherished in its revival. Aujla’s connection with her materials transcends design and reaches consumers in a way that has rarely been seen for such a newly emerging brand. Alongside this dedication from customers came anticipation for what Bode might be able to do with womenswear. Of course, women had been wearing Bode men's pieces for years; the signature blazers and more structured outerwear provided a traditionally masculine edge when worn over a dress. During Paris Fashion Week 2023, Bode surprised audiences with the debut of their women's line during a menswear time slot. Not only was Aujla tasked with rising to the expectations of observant menswear devotees, but she decided to dismantle gender structures in fashion altogether — and would have to face what this meant for upholding the brand’s reputation as a rather ambiguously unisex line. Anticipation grew in advance, with writer and Opulent Tips mastermind Rachel Tashjian Wise appreciating the brand’s unique New England aesthetics, a brief respite from the ultra-Euro menswear week. Despite some fans proving their dedication to the brand’s 20th-century inspirations, some remained wary of change and questioned the intent behind the debut: Perhaps people had become too used to the brand’s consistency, something Emily Adams Bode Aujla warned against — going as far as stating in a Harper’s Bazaar interview that “I wanted to show people that the womenswear that I would design is not the way that most people would think Bode womenswear would be.” Aujla’s consciousness surrounding the perception of her brand resulted in an ironically subversive womenswear launch. The designer has audiences surprised that a dress might be — gasp! — sexy, or that a top might flatter a woman’s body and be adorned with sequins. After all, why would a Bode womenswear collection be… feminine? With the arrival of the Spring 2024 menswear collection, though, fans of the brand had time to adjust their expectations for what a “Bode girl” might look like. In contrast to the way that menswear looks on women’s bodies, Bode’s womenswear accentuates and reveals, rather than conceals. The collection has a bejeweled peacoat that ties tightly with satin ribbons. Bikini-bottomed underwear not only serves their intended purpose, but they adhere to the body in a flattering, complementary way. Knee-length knitwear and see-through blouses have necklines so deep that the décolletage and chest are put on full display. The collection contains an ornately beaded top in a rich, red color; alongside the top, a matching bag far too small to be of much practicality, suggesting a use of decoration and accessory rather than to provide access to items that a woman might need on the go. A dress tantamount to a wedding gown closes out the show; the model balances a gauzy skirt, feathered boa, and a bow the size of her head; all elements of definite femininity, with no room for blurred abjection. There’s a reason Aujla’s traditional, vintage New England textiles and design have not remained in the past. It’s a subconscious underpinning of Aujla’s work: women in rural, working-class areas — who often were once mere counterparts to their husbands — wore pieces of practicality and servitude, covered and unnoticed. Bode’s womenswear takes these references, reshapes them, and creates them anew by placing them in the modern world. While some designers shock their audiences with men wearing skirts and women wearing tuxes, Bode is a brand that subverts its narrative by simply delivering what is expected. A brand that has been widely known for its ambiguity and gender-defying designs has created a womenswear line that consists of pieces typically worn by those who identify as women — a concept that I continue to find humorous and intriguing at the same time. Maybe Aujla’s vision for the modern Bode girl is reflective of the inspiration she finds in 20th-century womenswear and the women of her family, liberating both generations and paying homage all at the same time. 🌀

What Tom Ford’s most popular perfume tells us about the reasons men want women to want themselves to smell good — and why we should demand better for ourselves. There is something to be said for smelling like something you eat. Hélène Cixous writes in Stigmata: Escaping Texts that “...eating and being eaten belong to the terrible secret of love.” To be wanted, so completely and rapturously, that your beloved consumes you whole. In fact, romantic cannibalism has sort of been having a moment lately. Between breakout dream-pop star Ethel Cain’s self-titled character, tragically consumed by the wretched man she adores, to memes about biting your boyfriend making the rounds on all corners of the internet — it seems worth investigating, in this particular cultural moment, why people (women, mostly) want to smell like food. There is much to be said on this subject, and much of it has already upset people. There are innocent fantasies of girlhood and unsexed affinities towards baked goods tied into what might be called the more sinister gourmand-industrial complex, and it is by no means my intention to disturb these wholesome scent preferences. That said, the ways in which sweet candy perfumes intersect with gendered politics of desirability and class are no clearer articulated than in Tom Ford’s 2018 viral cherry organza Lost Cherry. I would love to hear an earnest argument for how a perfume quite literally named after a vulgar euphemism for a woman’s lapsed virginity is not related to misogyny. It is an obvious enough influence to have eventually become retroactively opaque in the pursuit of commodity fetish. Beauty products are made to make women more desirable to men – of course, they bear coded signs of that very desirability. I also don’t mean to suggest I am somehow above this fact of life. I use Too Faced's Better than Sex mascara because I want all-day lift, but I hear the ghost of Andrea Dworkin screaming at me in Yiddish the entire time. Suggestive beauty product naming accomplishes what the toy company Mattel cracking jokes about their profit-based value system in the Barbie movie accomplishes for Mattel profits tied to the sale of tickets for the very same movie: postmodernity is defined by critique of the product embedded into the product itself. It gives you something to think about, a connection to briefly make. Wielding the power of this sexy perfume is like the excitement of losing your virginity. But then you stop there. You don’t think about it any further. Zizek has been saying this for decades. Products no longer sell you a product, and they no longer even sell you just an idea. Products sell you an entire mindset, a politic, a worldview, and they do it in ways often in seemingly direct conflict with their values in order to earn your trust. Why would Victoria’s Secret, a lingerie company, suddenly become interested in a bare-faced simple beauty campaign. Why would Dove, a company producing deodorant and soap marketed to help people smell better, care about your self-esteem? Thankfully Tom Ford Fragrances does not try and pretend it is a feminist beauty product company – but many people who consume it still somehow mentally place it on the neck of an “empowered woman,” whatever that means in the scheme of advertising. Tom Ford himself as a designer and businessman is hardly known for his demure marketing. At its best, the worldbuilding of Tom Ford as a house has stood for the provocative in service of understanding ourselves more honestly. Like the surprisingly modern character of Samantha from Sex and the City, you get the sense that they both are tired of not saying the quiet parts out loud. That sex is a force as constant as the sun, and even the most repressed souls yearn, desire, like all humans do: in inconvenient and obscene and incorrect ways. But quite frankly, there is a difference between revealing and challenging the coded interchanges of heterosexuality, and reproducing them wholesale. Where I think this vision falls apart is when it leaves the tight control of a single room of creatives, and more or less integrates wholly into the pre-existing market for beauty products. If Tom Ford fragrances can’t even clear an f-bomb past certain production circuits, I fear for its ability to make serious waves in the cultural politics of suggestive beauty naming, or whatever loose assembly of legacy platitudes people suggest Lost Cherry might serve to provoke. This is all to say, I have seen women do better for themselves — and I want more for us. There are two important questions at play here. Firstly: is Lost Cherry a good perfume in its own right? And secondly, does what it represents for the culture surrounding perfume consumption bode well for the general state of creativity in fragrance? Luckily enough, the answer to both of these questions can be summarized in a single word: no. Lost Cherry opens with a blast of bitter almonds. I’ve noticed a trend among many Tom Fords (including the equally popular masc counterpart Tobacco Vanille): the opening spray is very provocative, and the dry-down is extremely conventional. In the case of LC, the initial sour profile of the cherry note fused with the bitterness of almonds recalls cyanide, and in one case, the purported smell of decaying corpses. Into the drydown, however, the nutty profile becomes sweeter and the cherry becomes candied. There is very little evolution beyond the first fifteen minutes — once it settles, it does so for a couple of hours of diffusive aspartame fruit showboating, and then it is gone. I can understand why people call this perfume addicting. Usually, the formula for creating this effect is the combination of something widely palatable with the traces of something extremely offensive at high doses. This was the secret to most perfume in the 20th century. Jasmine was entrancing — narcotic, even — because of the traces of urine-like indoles found within the composition. Rose became sensual with the addition of civet, the perineal gland secretion of a small mammal related to the common genet. Lost Cherry uses the rich, juicy profile of a cherry accord to hide notes of alcohol and decay on the wrists of impressionable young women. This is not, inherently, my issue with the perfume. Rather, I find Lost Cherry does far too much to achieve far too little. The notes blend together, the careful deceits fall flat: there is a reason this perfume is perhaps the belle of the dupe economy. If its formula weren’t so generic, it wouldn’t be so easy and popular to duplicate. The second reason so few fans of this scent own a full bottle is, of course, the high price point. A 50ml bottle currently retails for $395. This brings me to my second concern: Tom Ford is not entirely responsible for the inflation of the luxury fashion markets at large, but its most popular offering does absolutely embody the particularly nefarious intersection between completely unreasonable status-based prices, products lacking in conceptual substance, and second-hand male voyeurism. Of course, when you deal in products made and sold under the luxury market, oftentimes prices are less a reflection of the material costs of production and more a material representation of a brand’s prestige and identity. You aren’t paying for the perfume inside Lost Cherry’s bright red bottle, you’re paying for the bottle itself as an idea. You’re paying for an individual enumeration of Tom Ford Beauty, now itself an individual enumeration of the loose collection of ideas festering within the digitized remains of a woman selling cleansing oil in mid-century New York City formerly known as The Estée Lauder Companies. I do not labor under expectations that Tom Ford will lower its prices. I do, however, wish we would stop doing their marketing for them. Lost Cherry as an idea is virtually inescapable on the internet: it is recommended, mood-boarded, and, as referenced before, most often-evangelized through the recommendation of fakes. It is the idea, and you, dear reader, can only ever reach for pale imitations. You wish you could smell like this, but of course, you shouldn’t. There are several far more sophisticated cherry-based perfumes made by independent and niche perfumers. There is nothing that Lost Cherry does that Strangers Parfumerie’s Cherry Amaretto (retailing for $ 90 USD) does not do better. And much of Lost Cherry’s allure — the seductive, red-lipped ingénue, essentially lied from an amalgamation of vamp Pinterest boards — is best enacted as a self-aware subverted performance and not a marketing strategy. I love Lana del Rey as much as the next Tumblr-expat, but I also think what makes her music so electric is her self-aware vulnerability. She’s thinking and acting against her own best interests; she’s playing out self-destructive spirals, but fuck it, she loves him. You may think I’m asking too much of a cosmetic product, but the culture of self-described “empowerment” surrounding Lost Cherry and other fruity-sweet ultra-femme contemporaries does none of this. It is not performative, it merely performs. Something like Mugler’s Angel, widely considered the first gourmand perfume, was so glorious precisely because it was so vulgar and controversial. Some men drooled for it, but just as many loathed it. It was regarded as both chic and trashy, sexually ambiguous, alluring, and ostentatious. In my humble opinion, there are two ways to interrupt the very real modern cultural tradition of men wanting women to smell like food so they can better be consumed: either cut your dessert with something sophisticated and off-putting or dial the saccharine indulgence up to eleven. Part of me wants Lost Cherry to tone it down, and another wishes it would have gone all the way. Where it presently stands, however, feels halfway between pruning oneself for male fantasy, and searching for something perfectly mediocre in your own right. My wish may be unreasonable, but I one day hope to see women justify spending entirely too much on sweet perfume for its own sake. Maybe this is how you feel about your decision to wear Lost Cherry, and that is perfectly fine. Wear it to your heart's content. I just hope that one day, we can decide on figureheads for the neo-gourmand fourth-wave feminist revolution that smell a little less like plastic on accident, and a little more like plastic on purpose. 🌀