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A lost-and-found editorial by Rachel Anne Bartz. Click the right arrow to view the full photoset. Photographer: Rachel Anne Bartz ( @rachelannebartz ) Model: Jessica ( @hotelfantasysuite ) Photo Assistant: Leah Wendzinski ( @leahwendzinski ) Nails: Nim ( @fruityynails ) Film Processing: Chicago's Pro Film Lab ( @cswfilmchicago ) Scanning: Bellows Film Lab ( @bellowsfilmlab )

And the olfactory ethics of nostalgia. Politically speaking, cultural nostalgia rears its ugly head perennially like a proverbial hydra — cut one head, and a new one appears more hideous. Nostalgia has been utilised as a political tool most pertinently by figureheads of the right. In the UK, this nostalgia appears in many different forms, but one seen most potently is in the figures themselves. Politicians like Jacob Rees-Mogg don’t simply just talk about the cultural values of a more draconian era, they embody them . His ghostly Edwardian style and clipped RP accent figures as an emblem of a Britishness long gone, a swirling mirage almost phantasmic enough to make you forget about him moving City Firm, the investment fund he founded, to Ireland  before his well-flogged Brexit flop unleashed its inertia onto the UK. This connection, between cultural nostalgia and right-wing politics, is not a new one, especially in European scholarly circles focusing on the tenets of 20th-century Italian Fascism, which is making another striking comeback . Particularly, the connection between right-wing and fascist politics to nostalgia is attributed to a certain logic of conservative thinking which constantly looks back to a past, history, or geography — whether these be real or imaginary.  But the fascism of the past is not the fascism of the present. The conditions that allowed for the blossoming of fascism in the 20th century are not the conditions of the present, what would have been considered outlandish — and ultra-right political discourse has made its way to represent the “average” concerns of the “average” citizen. No longer do governments incite paramilitaries to unleash violence upon populations backed by economic decline  and rupturing social order; instead, networked civic populations bolstered by online footprints aim to rupture existing “liberal” social orders by inciting culture wars prevalent in the UK and the United States. The inchoate nature of the current age of right-wing tyranny poses a new threat to understanding how tools of nostalgia function in contemporary cultural discourse and production.  But I’ve seen this sentiment spreading beyond specifically political discourse. The exact phrasing of “nostalgia is a tool for promoting fascism” can be seen on joke tweets recounting lovers lost. It’s been applied to the media cycle, constantly re-hashing bits and pieces from past decades, recounting the hits of the ‘80s or ‘90s, devoid of any crumb of criticality. And it’s found its way into fashion discourse, too. Nostalgia, in the original medical term coined in the 17th century, was devised as a specific pathological current in which an individual was “obsessively” looking back to a distant homeland long gone. The term has, as we know, expanded much beyond that initial medicalism. But it’s important to understand how the concept has shifted, from a diagnosis of a spatial homesickness to one distinctly temporal. Instead of only connoting a longing for a distant homeland, nostalgia as a concept has morphed into a longing for a time   itself since gone.  But what about when the whole concept   of something — the very structural and conceptual corpus of a product — is, in itself, entirely rooted in nostalgia? This is seen most expressly in beauty products, which compel us to yoke ourselves to the past. Perfume, specifically, is nostalgia. It couldn’t function as an object without it. It is an inherent and eternal ligament — the nerves that animate the body.  Perfume is a facade or simulation — one that enacts sensuality into the forefront of its function, yes, but a simulation all the same. Some of my favourite scents from my favourite perfumers are entirely rooted in cultural nostalgia. Take the perfume house Arquiste . Founded by  Carlos Huber , a Mexican architect and building conservationist, the perfume house constantly utilises cultural nostalgia and historicism as a core design philosophy. Venice Rococo takes us back to a 17th-century Venetian parlour room; Anima Dulcis takes the wearer to a 16th-century Mexican church; Nanban transports the wearer to the underbelly of a 17th-century Japanese trade galleon filled to the brim with spices and treasures. The entirety of Arquiste’s production marries historical moments to narratives, expressed in the perfume’s beautiful, artful, and dainty construction. It’s no surprise that Arquiste has claimed some of the most prestigious awards for perfumery in recent years, including winning the Perfume Foundation’s Indie Perfume of the Year for L’or de Louis in 2024 and earlier in 2021 for Misfit , as well as three of their perfumes claiming finalist positions in other iterations of the award cycle.  Huber’s history as an architect is not just hinted at, it exists in almost every perfume available in the catalogue. The built environment and its history rest as the eternal touchstone for the house, an endless source of creative inspiration. As such perfumes touch upon historical artifice, the creation of the perfumes themselves often mimics historic practices of perfumery melded with contemporary methods, breathing an olfactory life into history. For instance, with the fragrance pair “Él” and “Ella,” the perfumer aimed to mimic the disco scene of 1970s Mexico, adding sultry contemporary overtones to more classical imprints of Mexican perfume culture — blending classical herbal concoctions to scent profiles that match that of the Mexican dance floor. It is this blend of historical intrigue and contemporary techniques which sets Arquiste apart from other perfume houses that aim to utilise cultural nostalgia and cultural history in crafting their exquisite perfume stock. Huber’s status as an architect and building conservationist also provides a unique angle that manages to elide some of the othering qualities inherent in the perfume trade. By rooting perfumes in not only the context of history but in the specificity of place   and the built environment, generalised nods to “exotic lands” are replaced with a keen interest in evoking the actuality of place and time—  rather than an assemblage of generalised evocations of place.  To contrast, let’s move to the other side of the world — England — to perhaps one of the most famous perfume houses in the world. Penhaligon’s  was founded by William Penhaligon in 1870, beginning as a barber shop on Westminster’s Jermyn Street. Barber shops in the late 19th century were not just places to get one’s haircut, but rather vital social hubs built specifically for men. Distinct from other social hubs, like bars or pubs, the barber shop enabled cross-cultural and cross-class interaction between individuals. Similar to many Victorian enterprises, the barber shop was often plush, ornate, and extravagant. Many modern barber shops emulate these historic aesthetics and practices today — walk past any barber shop in London, and you’re likely to see groups of people chatting and laughing; a curated aesthetic; and all types of people inside. It was soon after founding his flagship barber’s in 1870 that Penhaligon’s first official fragrance was born. But one might expect — owing to Penhaligon’s current copy and marketing strategy — that the perfumery of Penhaligon’s origins contained some sort of “quintessential” Britishness, perhaps a homage to royalty and aristocracy, but you’d be wrong. The first-ever perfume created by William Penhaligon in 1872 was Hammam Bouquet . The scent was inspired not by the upper echelons of British culture but by a nearby Turkish bath — called The London Hammam — at which Penhaligon was a resident barber. In the fragrance, we have exuberant, citrusy bergamot dancing over rose and iris root, a powdery blast of hypnotic florals and resinous ambers. During the mid-to-late Victorian era in England, several hundred of these Turkish baths had taken up business, owing, in large part, to the London & Provincial Turkish Bath Company. While the first documented “true” wave of Turkish immigration to the UK occurred over 100 years later, in the 1970s, the 19th-century Turkis baths were actually spearheaded by a Scotsman: the politician David Urquhart. The diplomat’s first introduction to Turkish culture was in 1826 when he travelled to the Levantine region to fight in the Greek War of Independence (on the encouragement of his mentor Jeremy Bentham,  who theorised the panopticon). After being wounded, Urquhart was then sent on a diplomatic tour to Constantinople, where he changed his allegiance to Turkey. It’s here where Urquhart developed a deep devotion to Turkish culture,  which he expressed throughout his life and career, publishing works such as The Spirit of the Eas t in 1838. He brought the Islamic cultural tradition of the Hammam — or the Turkish Bath — back to England, and championed its use for both medicinal and healing properties. To quote a contemporary who often wrote in the same magazines as Urquhart — Karl Marx — he was a “maniac,” utterly entrenched in conspiratorial political schemes, convinced that Tsarist Russia was threatening a global takeover.  Strange aligning histories aside, the introduction of Hammams into British culture coincided quite neatly with the all-encompassing trend in cultural objects — art, literature, plays — to emulate and sustain Orientalist tropes. The East was treated with a constant tilt of fascination in Victorian Britain, and these tropes found their way into almost every major novelist and artist of the period, from Dante Gabriel Rossetti to the Brontë sisters to the essays of Thomas Carlyle. Orientalism in this period looked to the East as a treasure trove of exotic cultural objects, and it was indeed fashionable to own ornaments and possessions from such places. To have travelled to distant corners of the world was a marker of one’s class, intelligence, and aesthetic training. The East was positioned as wholly Other, and a fixture to project one’s own sensibilities onto. This came alongside a marked shift in the Victorian-era sensibilities surrounding perfume, with a tendency towards heavily perfumed bodies, clothes, and homes functioning as both a status symbol and a method to mask the potentiality for unwanted bodily odour. Hammam Bouquet was an unmitigated smash hit, propelling William Penhaligon to considerable fame. By 1902, when the business was inherited by his son William Penhaligon Jr., the company was commissioned to create a perfume for the 9th Duke of Marlborough. Here is where that association of Penhaligon’s with aristocracy and royalty begins.  Perfume is nostalgia, yes — relying on the powers of the olfactory sense to provoke elegiac or nostalgic feelings in the wearer. But there’s another element revealed in the powers of nostalgia afforded by perfumery, a form that traces the initial diagnostic weapon as it was conceived in the 17th century. Perfume enacts the nostalgic power of not only temporal reasoning but also geographical and spatial   reasoning. How is it that the English bourgeoisie were drawn to the scents and spices of a region they very likely had never set foot on nor had any personal connection to? With the 19th century seeing the ravages of colonialism expand into ever-far-reaching corners of the globe, suddenly, to the wealthier class of Britain, the world blossomed. The spices of the Levant began appearing in London’s barber shops and parlours, an expression of the endlessly consumable nature of the world available to their wealthy patrons. Another example, from the world of art: the shift towards an Orientalist aesthetic and sensibility seen in the curation of home decoration by artists like Dante Gabriel Rossetti and even Oscar Wilde. Britishness, once held in the confines of aristocracy and the gentry, now became something that could be altered and heightened by engagement with the Other. Perfumery can do this in a deeply specific way. Perfumery completely transcends the need for direct   personal experience. Instead of travelling to Turkey, or anywhere in the Levant and the Middle East, one can bring the treasures   of the world into one’s own dressing room.  This method of nostalgia has barely changed since the 19th century. Nearly every perfume house you can think of has some sort of oud in their catalogue, whether the house be based in the US or the UK; nearly every perfume house expresses Orientalist tropes in their copywriting; nearly every perfume house has a scent in their range denoting a specific place and space in time. Yet, in most cases, it seems dubious that each niche perfumer has such intimate knowledge of the area.  Perfume is nostalgia, yes, but it is almost always posited in the language of “discovery” — a method of uncovering that which was previously shrouded in mystery. The entire legacy of Penhaligon’s boils down to one magnetic fulcrum that keeps the entirety of the perfume industry locked into place: simulated desire. Without getting too deep into Baudrillard or Barthes, here, it is markedly interesting that the legacy of such a historic house is rooted in a facsimile of a replica of a real object. Because, at the heart of it all, perfume is a facade or simulation — one that enacts sensuality into the forefront of its function, yes, but a simulation all the same. It pulls the wearer into an olfactory representation   of a certain place, time, or theme. Nanban  by Arquiste is an exquisite fragrance — saffron, black tea, black pepper, grounds of bitter coffee, leather, Chinese osmanthus, myrrh, and juniper dance around each other in a hypnotic clash of objects. But these are all precious items of cargo, key pieces that enabled the dirge of global enterprise to wreak havoc on the world. Arquiste’s copy describes it as “the intoxicating spirit of a singular, extraordinary voyage of discovery.” But the copy goes one step further. Instead of washing the narrative behind the fragrance in a simplified or vague expression of the period or place, the brand bolds the opening phrase: “January 1618, a Japanese galleon, the Pacific Ocean.” Perfume is one of the few contemporary luxury enterprises where global inspiration is a given, with houses bottling precious materials and selling them to those who most likely have no direct experience with such places, materials, and times. Wearing such perfumes invites the wearer to engage in a simulated experience   of the place and time. In perfumery, the idea   of a place can be communicated by simply mixing certain ingredients and writing complementary copy.  Perfume as a cultural object is an important litmus test for understanding the shifting sands and wobbling tectonics of the cultural ground it exists upon. In Mandy Aftel’s introduction to her book Essence and Alchemy, Aftel notions towards this by proclaiming that “the world was discovered in perfume’s wake.” We can gather much from this one deceptively oblique sentence. Perfume was one of the oldest high-value goods to be cross-globally traded for the mere presence of its perceived value, and so, this notion highlights how geographically the trade of perfume allowed for the “discovery” of distant corners of the globe. But also, in this vein, perfume’s experience allows the wearer to discover   and involve   themselves in distant cultures and lands without necessitating actual travel. Perfume is nostalgia, yes, but it is almost always posited in the language of “discovery” — a method of uncovering that which was previously shrouded in mystery. Penhaligon’s most famous oud, Halfeti , inspired by the souks of the Levant, is visually described with the imagery of a distant voyage: a ship’s rope dangles above a  sepia-drenched globe beneath pencilled drawings of twee hot-air balloons. Even Arquiste uses this language of exotic discovery in the copy of Nanban. For something to be “discovered,” it implies that it was not known before — but how can we say that the spices of the Middle East are to be “discovered” when that region of the world had been producing precious perfume materials for thousands of years? Here is the marked tension present in almost all perfumery, through both its construction and how it is marketed. Perfume must simultaneously be something imbued with nostalgic power, but at the same time represent the unmasking of some new sensation or experience or place. Discovery is represented as an idealised and individualised experience — an individual uncovering an idea or place or time, which in turn is evaluated by the discerning wearer, who translates their interests in the other and the undiscovered into a markable metric of their own tastes and desires.  But that’s part of the unusual and hypnotic power of perfumery. Perfumers can take materials and create something new, and, in turn, hope to represent the deepest jungle or the furthest reaches in time. Perfume is nostalgia in the way that it crosses both temporal and spatial categories in its production, in the hope of drawing the wearer into an exoticised other. Perfume is nostalgic, yes, but nostalgia is a personal endeavour. What’s nostalgic to me will simply not have the same emotional effect as it will on you. One of my favourite perfume notes is violet leaf because I used to be obsessed with eating Parma Violets as a child; whenever I smell lilies, I think of my aunt in Ireland who only wore Anais Anais ; the smell of cigarette smoke reminds me of my childhood babysitter, who drew pencil-thin brows on her leathery brown skin, aged by tobacco and sun. But these things don’t have the same emotional power to you as they do me. No perfume house can create a nostalgic perfume that fully aligns with each individual emotional backdrop, for each memory and sensation experienced. And so, to combat this ineffectual turn, perfume houses turn to the imaginary “other,” Perfume simulates experience, desires, places, and times, and creates something new from the tyranny of the past. 🌀 M.P.S is a writer, zine-maker, part-time urban researcher, full-time perfume over-thinker, maximalist fashion enjoyer,   and creature from East London. You can find her looking gorgeous on Instagram as @_femmedetta  or giving unsolicited opinions as  @cyberyamauba  on X.

The best picks across fashion, beauty, and living, hand-selected by our editors. Listen: we know you're inundated with holiday gift guides right now, whether they be from Glossier or Vogue or that Substack newsletter you forgot to unsubscribe to. Instead of telling you who to shop for, we've hand-picked the best presents to gift yourself this holiday season — from Loro Piana phone purses to bespoke rings made from human teeth (more on that later). And most importantly — none of this is sponsored! Just our genuine picks, starting with... ESPRESSO NAPPA DEMI FLATS ($196) Selected by... Savannah Eden Bradley, Editor-in-Chief AKA the perfect transitional Fall-Spring shoe, handmade in Spain. I’m partial to the Espresso-colored leather — like peeking inside of a chocolate box. Swoon. From Margaux . You can buy it here . BALE PHONE CASE BAG ($950) Selected by... Olivia Linnea Rogers, Fashion Editor Never understood the appeal of a phone bag before this one. Perfect if you really want to treat the most chronically online person you know. Also good for city-dwellers with phone theft trauma (me). From Loro Piana . You can buy it here . PLAITED TINSEL KNIT HOOD CARDIGAN ($750) Selected by... Bella Vega, Runway Writer Simone Rocha is undoubtedly the connoisseur of a femininity that is both delicate and subconsciously violent. This piece from her FW24 collection brings a bit of holiday sparkle to your wardrobe — a burgundy knit cardigan with a darling hood. Wearing this to your next function is sure to honor your inner child while feeling sexy and rebirthed. You can buy it here . SELVEDGE DENIM BAKERS JACKET ($538) Selected by... Galaxia Wu, Web Director Because it’ll just as well suit your uncle who lives on a farm in Ontario as your trendy New Yorker cousin and your old money aunt once removed.  From Universal Works . You can buy it here . FOLIE SILK SET ($230) Selected by... Savannah Eden Bradley, Editor-in-Chief This is more of a “gift yourself” kind of thing, but do what you want. This caramel-colored set from Lorette — made from 100% silk chiffon — wears like a dream. You can buy it here . CHERUB’S HAIR SHORT-SLEEVED BUTTON-DOWN ($275) Selected by... Bella Vega, Runway Writer I am not aware of a more whimsical and cheeky brand than Pleasing — from their latest balloon-inspired collaboration with JW Anderson to this piece inspired by Disney's Fantasia . I'm a big button-down girl, and seeing the cherub motif looking so homey and faded on this shirt invokes a longing to step into my next work party and show the delicate beauty and desperate fun of my soul. You can buy it here . PILE ROOM SOCKS ($41) Selected by... Galaxia Wu, Web Director Socks for Christmas forever! From ROTOTO . You can buy it here . MAEVE FUZZY PLATFORM SLIPPERS ($48) Selected by... Laura Rocha, Fashion Writer Cozy & chic, these slippers are everything the fashionistas in your life need to maximize their at-home style. Plus, their feet will be warm all winter long. From Anthropologie . You can buy it here . AMANCE CARDIGAN ($145) Selected by...  Savannah Eden Bradley, Editor-in-Chief Love somebody enough to get them pure mohair. People can be fastidious about clothing-as-gifts — but I’d be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t ooh and aah over a hand-picked Sézane sweater. Or you can just buy it for yourself. You can buy it here . SWAN ROMANCE SWEATER ($55) Selected by...  Bella Vega, Runway Writer Barcelona-based label Favorite Child Collective makes apparel for the Literary It Girl in all of us. Inspired by Black Swan , this pink knit sweater is sure to be a staple of any coquette wardrobe. You can buy it here . NIGHTCAP PERFUME ($35-100) Selected by... Micaela Jarlstam, Design Lead A warm and spicy perfume with hints of ginger, cardamom, and vanilla, this fragrance from Bella Hadid's Orebella captures the true essence of being an It Girl on a night out. You can buy it here . SCALP MASSAGER ($80) Selected by... Laura Rocha, Fashion Writer Any at-home spa is immediately elevated with the Amalfi Scalp Massager, which will make you feel like you’re on a sandy beach bathing in the Mediterranean sun. (It also helps promote hair growth.) You can buy it here . TOBACCO VANILLE PERFUME ($300) Selected by... Sydney Yeager, Fashion Writer This rich Tom Ford scent is well known for being a unisex perfume, but in my world, it’s truly the perfect scent for an It Girl. The dynamic aroma is perfect for cologne, but the sweet scent of vanilla pulls the scent into a more feminine sphere. It’s so easy to imagine Chloë Sevigny or Kate Moss spritzing themselves with this scent before leaving their homes. You can buy it here . LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL BODY SPRAY ($40) Selected by... Micaela Jarlstam, Design Lead A unisex Lush scent that has been making the rounds on TikTok — but is truly worth all the praise. With notes of popcorn and caramel, this body spray is for you if you’re into gourmand or pastry-type scents, or, if you’re like me, you just love being complimented on the scent you’re wearing. You can buy it here . SWAN MILAGRO NECKLACE ($130-525) Selected by... Audrey Robinovitz, Fragrance Editor Julyssa’s sterling silver or 10k, 14k, and 18k gold milagro necklaces are not only timeless feminine accessories but tell a story of cultural tradition, perseverance, and healing. I wholeheartedly recommend pretty much anything she makes, but the Swan Milagro necklace holds a special place in my heart. Perfect for the post-coquette girl who thinks she has it all, this necklace adds a little spiritual devotion to even the most austere of outfits. You can buy it here . CUSTOM WISDOM TOOTH RING ($190) Selected by... Olivia Linnea Rogers, Fashion Editor Got some spare teeth lying around? — I am seriously counting down the days till I can have my wisdom teeth removed and do this. KettleBlackSilver also does silver casting jewellery if you’re a bit squeamish but like the look. #FreakWeek You can buy it here . ORCHID EARRINGS ($34) Selected by... Laura Rocha, Fashion Writer From Olivia Cheng’s New York studio, a set of orchid earrings preserved in tree resin feels like wearing a piece of art. Since the earrings are made with real flowers, none look exactly the same, adding to the charm of owning something literally no one else has. Add two to your cart to get a pair. Other fruit and flower options are available on the Dauphinette website. You can buy it here . CUSTOM SEASHELL SIGNET RING ($415) Selected by... Savannah Eden Bradley, Editor-in-Chief IMO, a signet ring is a more understated — and therefore chicer — version of Carrie’s infamous nameplate necklace. Emma Krafft ’s flourish work is just divine; if you aren’t into the nautical touchstones here, consider her signet rings with Victorian flowers or Art Deco engravings. You can buy it here . MINI COCOTTE WITH HEART KNOB ($32) Selected by... Laura Rocha, Fashion Writer An adorable addition to anyone’s kitchen, the Mini Cocotte is perfect for making desserts for one — or even to keep on the counter as decor. We all love Le Creuset , and who could resist the heart knob detail? You can buy it here . SERVING FRIENDS ($40) Selected by... Galaxia Wu, Web Director Hosting is the chicest thing to do right now — make it that much more chic with these cute wooden spoons. From Selena Liu for Areaware . You can buy it here . TAPER CANDLE (IN FEU DE BOIS) ($32) Selected by... Audrey Robinovitz, Fragrance Editor I am, of course, biased in saying this, as I do nothing but sell these, but this is truly a great deal. I’ve done the math and everything: these gorgeous tapers only offered for the holiday season are about as much wax as our small-size classic Diptyque candles and sell for half the price. The smoke-laden cedar Feu de Bois is my winter scent of choice, as sadly, corporate doesn’t offer taper candles in Myrrhe or Bois Ciré. You can buy it here . TOWEL WARMER ($80) Selected by... Kaitlin Owens, Archive Editor Don’t we all want to live a little bit more like Gwyneth Paltrow? Throw in your robe and towel before your nightly bath and step out into a world of comfort — yoni egg not included. From SereneLife . You can buy it here . IMABARI WAFFLE TOWELS ($124) Selected by... Galaxia Wu, Web Director For the person that has everything: the most perfect, absorbent towel made in a family-run mill that has spent 100 years perfecting the art of towel making. From Imabari Towel . You can buy it here . JAPANESE WHETSTONE KNIFE SHARPENING KIT ($25) Selected by... Kaitlin Owens, Archive Editor When is the last time you sharpened your knives? Have you ever sharpened your knives? Trust me, you need this. From KERYE. You can buy it here . HINOKI WOOD TIN CANDLE ($6) Selected by... Olivia Linnea Rogers, Fashion Editor The perfect winter scent from everyone’s favourite Japanese everything-store Muji . Capable of transporting you to mystical and comforting woodlands from even the most metropolitan of city flats. You can buy it here . BAD TASTE: OR THE POLITICS OF UGLINESS ($15) Selected by... Olivia Linnea Rogers, Fashion Writer A must-read by Nathalie Olah for anyone interested in how taste intertwines with culture and politics. What is  “good” or “bad” taste? Olah tackles Donald Trump, The Sopranos , Pamela Anderson, Peter Thiel, “normcore,” and a plethora of other harbingers of “good” and “bad” taste in this appropriately leopard-clad hardback. You can buy it here . CUSTOM EYE PORTRAITS ($50) Selected by... Ella Gray, Newsletter Editor The Lover's Eye cameo was an especially romantic style of sentimental miniature portrait popularized in the Georgian era. These beautiful custom eye paintings by Liv Hickman come in the perfect size to grace a trinket shelf, wallet, or picture frame ornament. A set of eyes makes a fantastic gift for a couple, a friend group, siblings, you name it! You can buy it here . PLUSH-LINED MICROFIBER SPA ROBE ($98) Selected by... Kaitlin Owens, Archive Editor Last month, I spent a week attending multiple resort spas in Las Vegas (tough life, I know). The one thing all of them have in common: deliciously comfortable complimentary robes, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They’re plush-lined with a smooth outer shell, long sleeves, deep pockets, and the perfect weighted feel. If you’re looking to upgrade your life in 2025... this is the perfect place to start. From Monarch . You can buy it here . AFGHAN RUG MOUSEPAD ($15) Selected by... Olivia Linnea Rogers, Fashion Editor Self-explanatory. You can buy it here . EVERYTHING STORE GIFT CARD ($25-100) Selected by... Audrey Robinovitz, Fragrance Editor I have trusted Em, KC, and the team at Chicago-based alt-fashion retailers Everything to dress me for the last three-some-odd years, and I have never regretted it in the slightest. The curated antique/vintage, local contemporary fashion, and consigned designer clothes they stock have garnered me endless compliments and truly brought me that much closer to the sustainable slow fashion wardrobe of my dreams. You can buy it here . Happy shopping! 🌀

Emmalea Russo’s debut novel, Vivienne, is a fashion lover’s dream. Did Vivienne Volker kill Wilma Lang? That’s the question on everybody’s lips throughout Emmalea Russo’s debut novel, Vivienne. Published through Arcade in September 2024, it follows a week in the life of the infamous surrealist artist Vivienne Volker as she deals with the consequences of her murderous controversy.  Vivienne is equally as spine-chilling as it is tantalizing —he perfect novel for lovers of the macabre. Russo seamlessly weaves images of surrealist art and otherworldly fashion with the starkly modern concept of an artist’s public perception on the Internet.  Russo does not shy away from artistic references, creating an almost cinematically rich world for the reader. Martin Margiela, Rick Owens, and even Carolyn Bessette Kennedy all had a hand in fleshing out the novel’s deliciously fashionable world. I had the pleasure of catching up with Emmalea Russo to talk all about her inspirations for Vivienne  and her favorite things in the art and fashion world. This interview has been edited for content and clarity. Kaitlin Owens: Vivienne Volker's work seems to be part surrealist sculpture, part mixed media painting/fashion/video. Is there any artist in particular that served as inspiration for her career? Emmalea Russo:  From the jump, the character [of] Vivienne Volker had her own peculiar energy — singular and quirky. A manic and controversial portrait of Vivienne is formed, in the beginning of the novel, from public perception: comments on YouTube videos and responses to her work getting cancelled from a high-profile exhibition called “Forgotten Women Surrealists.” The Internet chatter also paints a portrait of her style before we ever meet the “real” Vivienne.  Before she stopped participating in the art world, Vivienne was most well-known for her controversial “Dressing the Doll” sculptures back in the 1970s (which then made a resurgence in the present-day world of the novel). I was envisioning strange garments made for large, disfigured dolls and constructed from scrap fabrics and detritus. After leaving the art world, she works as a seamstress.  While I didn’t have a particular inspiration for Vivienne’s life and work, I did pour over comments on YouTube videos of iconic and controversial women, from Carolyn Bessette Kennedy to Camille Paglia. I was also thinking of my own grandmother, who was the most glamorous person in her small town, and my great-grandmother, who worked as a seamstress in New York City’s garment district after coming over from Italy. KO: There seem to be references to garments made by both Rick Owens and Elena Velez in your novel (and obviously the Vivienne Westwood connection). Work by the former two designers is often described as dystopian and otherworldly, whereas Westwood errs on the more glamorous side of deconstruction. Were these purposeful choices in outlining the emotional undercurrent of  Vivienne? ER:  Definitely. While writing, I looked at so much surreal artwork and vintage clothing. Like the characters in the book, I was swimming in digital images. I wanted Vivienne  to feel cinematic, haunted, absurd, alive, and vivid. More than the deconstructive and glamorous dystopias of Rick Owens, Elena Velez, and Vivienne Westwood, I was looking at footage from Margiela’s Fall/Winter 1995 show in Paris. Both the clothes and the atmosphere of that show inspired the emotional energy of Vivienne .  [Margiela’s FW95 show] happened under a circus tent as a deranging waltz played. The models wore Margiela’s signature masks — faces covered, and the fabrics were black, navy blue, hot pink, red. Grimy and dystopian, but also light, playful, carnivalesque. Like a lot of ‘90s Margiela, the show achieves this mix of seriousness and silliness that I was going for in Vivienne.  There are velvet dresses with puff sleeves, layered deconstructed looks, and mechanics’ jumpsuits. In the book, one of the commenters describes having seen Vivienne at that show. Martin Margiela’s own mysterious anonymity and vision were also inspiring. Like Vivienne Volker, he quit. At the end of that circus show, the models take their masks off and flit around with balloons as “A Girl Like You” plays. The only footage you can find online is damaged, crackly, and homemade — which gives the event an aura and texture of surreal memory. It happened, and it was a magical moment, and now it’s gone.  While there is a very dark and dystopian thread running through Vivienne , it’s also a love letter to art and a farewell to art. What can art be and do — separate from cults of personality, fame, affirmation, consensus? What are the risks and sacrifices required to stay true to a vision? When to compromise? When to quit?    KO: More broadly, what were your inspirations for the novel? ER:  Glimpses of how things could  be: both dystopian futures where artists are instruments of the state and vessels for messaging, and rule-breaking moments of utopian worlds alongside the world of art as we know it. Paradoxical and ambiguous possibilities that burst through everyday dreariness. In terms of clothing in the novel — I was inspired by utilitarian and familiar uniforms constantly occupied by the wearer (Lou’s work jumpsuit, Velour’s white robe, Vivienne’s long black coat)  and  garments as unfamiliar, ghostly, vacant. There is something haunting, uncanny, exciting about an article of clothing on the floor, or even displayed on a mannequin. Empty [garments] as both aftermath and possibility. KO: Who are your favorite designers and artists — personally, separate from the novel? ER:  Artists and designers I always return to include Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler, Dorothea Tanning, Louise Bourgeois, Margiela, Yohji Yamamoto, Remedios Varo, Rei Kawakubo, Rita Ackermann, Andrew Wyeth, and Puppets and Puppets. KO: What do you hope readers take away from  Vivienne? ER:  I think novels are emotional, bodily experiences. So: stomach drops, weird sensations, possibilities for rebirth and spiritualization from decay, death, decline. No clear messages, lessons, or takeaways, but a sense of exhilaration. 🌀 Vivienne is now available in hardcover and as an ebook. For more information about Emmalea Russo and how to purchase the book, please visit her website , or her Substack newsletter, Cosmic Edges . Kaitlin Owens  is the Archival Fashion Editor for HALOSCOPE and the Editor-in-Chief of Dilettante . For a closer look at her work, please visit her website .

Shelby Ivey Christie has made waves in the fashion world. Now, the Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree has set her sights on publishing. Shelby Ivey Christie  is a woman with a fashion CV as long as your arm: Vogue , W  Magazine, InStyle , Amazon Fashion, L'Oréal — heck, there are a few major brands out there she hasn’t  worked with. Now, the fashion and costume historian is dipping her toe into the publishing world. Her new publishing house, Haute Heritage Publishing , is dedicated to examining fashion through the lens of race, class, and culture — particularly the many contributions of often overlooked black fashion trailblazers. “Our mission goes beyond creating beautiful books,” says Christie. "We're preserving and celebrating Black fashion history while inspiring the next generation of fashion professionals.” Their first release for young readers, Black Fashion Legends , is a stylishly illustrated and smartly written educational tool that celebrates iconic figures such as June Ambrose (who also wrote the foreword), Dapper Dan, Naomi Campbell, Ruth E. Carter, and Christopher John Rogers. From Anne Lowe to Virgil Abloh, Kwame Brathwaite to Zelda Wynn Valdes, the book takes readers on an inspiring journey from A to Z, introducing the next generation to those who have shaped fashion history. The book arrives at a particularly opportune moment, not only because, as Christie explains, it is coming “...at a time when many books examining race, class, and culture are being banned across the country,” but also because the next Met Gala theme was just announced to be Superfine : Tailoring Black Style.  To me, this seems like the perfect opportunity for stylists to reference their Black Fashion Legends book and flashcard deck. I asked Christie about her feelings on the theme and if there were any references she hoped to see on the carpet that night.  “I'm incredibly excited about this theme,” Christie states. “It's particularly meaningful to see the Met Gala celebrating Black contributions to fashion in such a significant way. I hope to see references to pioneers like Dapper Dan, whose innovative approach to tailoring and luxury redefined street style, and Stephen Burrows, who revolutionized the way we think about color and movement in fashion. It would also be powerful to see homages to Elizabeth Keckley, who was not only Mary Todd Lincoln's dressmaker but a groundbreaking entrepreneur who bought her freedom through her tailoring skills. These figures, all featured in our book, have left an indelible mark on fashion history that deserves to be celebrated on fashion's biggest night. I’d also love to see some regionality represented like Buffs & Furs from Detroit [and] Zoot suits from Harlem & LA.” Come that heavily anticipated first Monday in May, I know we’ll all be watching at home, waiting to see which stylists and celebrities did their homework on the theme. But you, dear reader, don’t need to be caught unaware! Black Fashion Legends is now available for purchase at most major book retailers, Amazon, and on Haute Heritage Publishing’s website . So, study up! 🌀 Kaitlin Owens is the Archival Fashion Editor at HALOSCOPE and the Editor-in-Chief of Dilettante . For a closer look at her work, please visit her website .

On how fashion objects compel, control, and convince us. My surprise isn’t that ginormous Acne Studios multi-check wool scarves continue to dominate both IRL and my TikTok FYP for yet another winter. My surprise is more how much I personally want one. People have written both about the popularity of this particular viral scarf ,  the hashtag of which has more than 4.5 billion views on TikTok, and on TikTok fashion writ large. Trend cycles have probably been around since people began wearing clothes (l liked this recent piece   by Madison Huizinga on “trend journalism”), but something about the Internet makes trends feel particularly hyperreal , especially in the last five years. I am never not a bit unnerved to see my TikTok and Pinterest FYPs jump out of my phone and onto the street, and about my own boundless desire to have this one piece that may look basic on my phone but that I know I could pull off if only I had the means; the algorithm is working. I’ve never been a huge trend follower, but even that statement makes me wonder if that’s really true. The truer statement is, like a lot of people with personal style, I’ve never really had the funds to fully follow trends, and as a result, developed a more personalized look that hinges on what I can afford and thrift rather than what is new or “in” every season. But certain pieces are irresistible, and with this scarf, I’ve felt an undeniable pull.  The influx of eco/slow fashion has made me pull away from trend cycles, even as certain pieces become so unaffordable that the Zara version is the only one within reach (I wouldn’t ever shop Temu though — there’s a line). Still, we’re all familiar with the way certain garments from H&M, Forever 21, and even Zara deteriorate upon first wash, and sometimes paying full price is worth it. $400 for an extremely popular scarf is baffling to me, though; the ubiquity of it even more so. Not only does the scarf cost a quarter of rent, but everyone has it. I feel a similar, unending confusion when I rabbit hole on TikTok and discover influencer girl after influencer girl with 500-900k followers. All of these girl’s faces meld into one amalgam of a TikTok face, with names like “Blake” or “Riley.” Who are these girls, and more importantly, who are their followers? The boundlessness of social media is always astounding to me, and the waste. I love a novelty product as much as anyone, but who could possibly need the amount of products peddled by these same accounts, or even have room for them? I think of how there are probably garbage bags full of sponcon, used once for a video in which the creator made thousands of dollars. The Acne scarf is at least a seemingly high-quality product; the Swedish brand founded in 1996 has long been at the forefront of innovative but wearable luxury fashion, and, in lieu of classic branding, counts celebrities such as Kylie Jenner , Rosalía , and most recently Charli XCX  as its ambassadors. However, the unaffordability and universality of this specific piece is the confusing part, as well as the amount of dupes I see on the daily, people wearing a simulacrum of the original 2019 piece without even knowing it (or perhaps, knowing all too well).  Were trends always this powerful and inescapable? I remember when Adidas Superstars were super popular when I was in high school, and then Adidas Sambas when I was in college, in 2022. I maligned this trend because — not to be that person — I had a pair of baby pink Gazelles in high school and a pair of OG Sambas in college, before they got to be $150 and worn by hordes of sorority girls in the South (sorry to be mean). The immense popularity annoyed me; they genuinely are a great everyday shoe, European and svelte and sporty, equally stylish with a miniskirt or jeans. Now they’re expensive, and not only that, they no longer indicate what I want them to. They’re basic, and if I accidentally wear them with something like Reformation straight-leg jeans, then I’ll look basic, too. This is also why the news that Onitsuka Tiger (a Japanese subsidiary of Asics) wouldn’t have stores or sell in North America  was so crushing to me — Onitsukas were my refuge from the Samba takeover. They were definitely picking up momentum in the influencer market with their yellow Mexico 66s and decided to dip out   (I still have two pairs and will pay the eBay bidding war tax — they’re perfect, I don’t care).  I wonder whether these aforementioned European (mostly Acne; Adidas has been popular since time immemorial) brands care that their beautiful and bespoke products are being bastardized by rando beauty influencers from the Midwest. I know this makes me sound horrifically coastal elite, but it’s not the Midwest that’s the problem — it’s the fact that the girl on TikTok wearing an Acne scarf is wearing it in a way she imagines a quintessential NYC girl would wear it, but Carrie Bradshaw would never be caught dead following a micro or macro-trend. In fact, I (and everyone else in the world) loved Carrie because she set trends, not followed them. It sounds cliché, but her style was completely unique and fearless and beholden to no one but herself — anyone who wears that many hats doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her. Imagine if all the Sex and the City girls showed up to brunch in the same fuzzy 8-foot mohair scarf — this would never happen, because they had the originality, and the choice, of the ‘90s. Fashion has become narrow to fit the algorithm, products wearing influencers as opposed to the other way around. Now, when I look around and see thousands of facsimiled outfits copy-pasted from social media, I can’t help wishing people still had the guts to look bad, or at least, different.  I may not have a very large budget, but I only buy an investment piece (read: investment for me, a grad student) if I feel like it will really suit my existing style and wardrobe — which is why I have Repetto ballet flats and a Coperni bag. I want the items I wear to bring out an innate unique quality, which is why I long for a Birkin even though they’ve been gentrified by influencers who scooped it up as a status symbol gift from their sugar daddy. I’ve watched too many 1960s French movies to watch Jessica on TikTok with a decontextualized Birkin paired with skinny jeans and a fall bootie. If I had an endless fashion budget that could afford such purchases, I would be scooping up archive runway like this Raf Simons Rothko sweater   I’ve been thinking about for ten years (it’s so sold out it’s scary), not statement pieces from my phone’s robotically generated neverending grid (plus, I have grown-out bangs… let me have a Birkin). A Birkin would actually be immensely more useful and meaningful to me now, because it is so classic, timeless, and everyday, whereas if I had a Birkin bank account I probably would care less about the daily wearability of a bag. The Birkin is an extreme example, but it speaks to how fashion lines and pieces have been unpaired from their context in order to become more marketable, and more universal, which is how we got Aliexpress Tabis   or Dossier , a perfume website that sells $40 dupes of iconic and pricey scents like Tom Ford’s Lost Cherry  or Jo Malone’s Wood Sage & Salt.  Maybe some of my trend hostility is bitterness — it’s true I’ve spent a lot of my fashion budget on having a durable car and an advanced degree and can’t afford many of the trendy pieces I genuinely love (goodbye, Bottega bag). But if I had more resources and time, I would build the closet of my niche and hyper-specific dreams — hello Marc Jacobs dress worn on the set of Gossip Girl . Maybe I have a little bit of that leftover middle school resentment toward the girl who always fits in effortlessly or has access to dad’s plastic. It would be simple to wear a uniform made up of the SSENSE trending page every season rather than budget out, re-wear, and try to style affordable basics like Brandy Melville (sorry) and L.A. Apparel, paired with some designer pieces in a way that feels me . But deep down, I know I would wear that Scandinavian balaclava scarf better than any of the auto-generated looks delivered via my algorithm, which pains me. Sometimes trends actually hit, and their oversaturation means I have to surrender another genuinely cute piece like my beloved OG sambas, which I’ve sacrificed at the altar of being basic.  I guess we’ll see if a comically oversized, multi-checked neckpiece stands the test of time, or if, like skinny jeans, it will get abandoned, relegated to millennial “cringe,” and then rediscovered by niche, specific LA/NY music scenes   riffing off 3OH!3. Until then, I’ll be wearing my thrift store, hand-crocheted skinny scarf that reminds me of something Carrie Brownstein would wear in a Portlandia  episode. But I probably won’t be posting about it. 🌀 Fiona Deane-Grundman  is a writer, film scholar, and library student from Northern California who lives in Montréal, Québec. When she is not experiencing punishment in graduate school you can find her writing in various publications, in her diary, on her Substack, and on Twitter @pacino_girl .

The Palestinian-American model made her long-awaited catwalk return during the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. No modeling career hiatus has been felt as much as Bella Hadid's. Following her appearance at Miu Miu's Spring/Summer 2023 show  in October 2022, she took a break, citing her battle with Lyme disease and the stresses and strains of the fashion industry, sharing on August 6, 2023, in an Instagram post that “[ she’d] be back when [she’s] ready. ” Now, after two years dedicated to her health while still working on editorials, launching her ethereal fragrance line Orebella , and exploring her passion for the equestrian world, model and businesswoman Bella Hadid has returned to the runway.  It was at Paris Fashion Week that she made her big return, walking for Saint Laurent Spring/Summer 2025 . With slicked-back hair, an androgynous suit, and chunky glasses à la Yves, Hadid dazzled fashionistas, netizens, and industry professionals worldwide. It's not that a Saint Laurent appearance wasn't in the cards. After all, she has been a Saint Laurent girl for quite some time — whether as the face of the brand's Fall/Winter 2024 campaign or at the Cannes Film Festival in May, when she stunned in a sheer dress from Anthony Vacarello's Fall/Winter 2024 collection on the vibrant red carpet. Many thought Hadid’s scant appearances with the French fashion house were simply because she was fulfilling a contract. However, on October 15, at the much-hyped Victoria's Secret Fashion Show after a five-year hiatus , Hadid proved she was back for good, strutting the runway in red lingerie and a fluffy, voluminous coat to match as Cher sang “Believe.”  Whether in a suit or lingerie, fashion devotees, pop culture aficionados, and insiders alike were thrilled to see one of the most influential models of a generation back on the catwalk with her unmistakable strut and poise. But beyond the thrill of seeing her back on the glitzy, sometimes-messy runways, her return may have more significance than just delighting the public. In a highly-politicized world where professionals and burgeoning voices alike can lose gigs for their political, moral, and social stances , Hadid's comeback could demonstrate a thing or two about standing up for what you believe in.  Since the media frenzy around Gaza and the Hamas-Israel conflict started in October 2023, many publications and public figures have chosen to either be silent or adopt pro-Israel positions, while those who have expressed sympathy towards Palestinians have been silenced. From the one-sided headlines currently circulating on the Internet to instances in the entertainment industry, such as the dismissal of actress Melissa Barrera from the film Scream   VII  after her statements against the violence and human rights violations committed by the Israeli government, there has been a growing tendency to condemn support for Palestine over the past year.  The fashion industry, like any other, is dominated by Zionism. Ranging from multinationals such as LVMH keeping their financial ties with Israel , to an internal message shared by   WWD  from Chanel chairman Alain Wertheimer and CEO Leena Nair expressing their deep sadness ‘‘...by the terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens’’ while donating $4 million to pro-Israel organizations, the boycott lists continue to grow — including the likes of   Dior, American Eagle, Tory Burch, and DKNY.     As intolerance, bigotry, and oppression are far from being lost in the fashion landscape, those who show any form of support for the Palestinian cause are increasingly being targeted. Instances of professionals such as model Camilla Déterre, who posted “#freepalestine” on her Instagram stories  and was subsequently dropped by her agency Elite, and Vogue fashion editor and stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, who was nudged into stepping down from her role  after using her social platforms to advocate for a ceasefire, are evidence of this climate.  Given Bella Hadid’s Palestinian roots — her father is Palestinian businessman Mohamed Hadid  —, the insults and harassment are much more intense. The scars have been there since her youth, from being called a terrorist by the head of her school’s football team, as the model shared with Libyan-American journalist Noor Tagouri's The Rep  podcast, to being cut out by friends.  Since becoming a strong voice for the Palestinian cause , she and her family have been subjected to online harassment and threats from both Zionists and the Israeli government . Besides the impacts on her personal life, her professional one has also been affected. On Tagouri's podcast, the model revealed that many companies have stopped working with her because of her beliefs. From the recent Adidas situation  — where the sportswear giant removed her Adidas SL72 campaign amidst reactions from pro-Israel organizations — to sharing her feelings about being turned down by other brands due to her values, Hadid explained to Tagouri that she believes “...if [she] had started advocating for Palestine when [she] was 20, [she] wouldn't have gotten the recognition and respect [she] has now.” But for Hadid, certain aspects of her life are more valuable than her career. “I realized that I’m not on this Earth to be a model,” she shared in an interview for GQ  with journalist Sarah Hagi. “I’m so lucky and blessed that I’m in a position where I can speak out the way that I do. And really, the downfall is what? That I lose my job?" Sacrifices come and go, but her principles remain. By challenging the dominant ideology of the fashion industry while asserting her cultural identity, Bella Hadid has helped raise awareness of the Palestinian cause more broadly. Together with her sister, Gigi Hadid, they have donated $1 million to Palestinian humanitarian groups, according to multiple sources such as Teen Vogue ,  BBC , and  Business Insider . The Orebella founder has also acted as a key figure in mobilizing younger generations and other celebrities to support the Palestinian liberation — for instance, beauty mogul Huda Kattan , founder and CEO of Huda Beauty, credited the model with inspiring her to come forward in an interview for Dazed . ‘‘She gave me the courage to speak out,’’ Kattan explained, adding that while it can be scary, she's there ‘‘for something bigger.’’ Ultimately, Hadid's runway return to the runways, alongside numerous editorials and the rise of her fragrance label, holds deep power. She's a constant reminder that there's no need to hide your moral principles and positions in order to conform to the industry’s expectations and politics. In the end, some things matter more. 🌀 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 .

Fiona Lynn, frontwoman of NYC-based indie band Whisper Doll, talks Perfume Garden, Courtney Love, and grunge musician-style. The visualizer for Whisper Doll’s single " Change " begins with fast-moving flowers blooming in a dark purple filter, the echoey vocals of the intro moving in — straight from a Fairyopolis   book. Perfume Garden , Fiona Lynn’s debut album under the moniker Whisper Doll, was released on October 24th. Each song is like a dream rock Garden of Eden, with fantastical Mazzy Star -esque vocals. The band’s live shows are the same, with venues and basements bathed in a familiar blue glow. For the album release party, co-sponsored by Kitsch Magazine, crowds of girls dressed like dolls came to sing along feverishly to " Doe Eyes ." A couple of days before the show, we chatted about artist's identity, stage style, and visual language. This interview has been edited for grammar and clarity. Mila Grgas:  How did you come up with the Whisper Doll persona? How does your stage style manifest your artist’s persona?  Whisper Doll:  The name of the band came from my favorite movie, Daisies (1996). It has this scene where the two main girls talk about how they feel like they're dolls, and the world is rotten, so they will be too. Feeling like a doll and that other people view you as a vessel is something I connected with. Throughout the movie, they wrestle with being seen as real people. I write a lot about these themes, especially in my song "Lady in Blue." The Whisper part of the name is a slightly creepy element. Also when we play our louder songs, I like the contradiction.  Mila Grgas: Who or what are your biggest style inspirations? Whisper Doll: I was really inspired by KatieJane Garside . She is this cool artist who makes a lot of creepy neo-folk music and some hard rock. She toured with Hole and inspired Courtney Love's style. The images that are out there, I was really inspired by [them]. And she kinda dressed like a disembodied doll. I’m inspired by all the ruffles and lace, Mori Kei  style, hyperfeminine mixed with some sort of masculine element, whether some sort of hypermasculine accessories like a military belt or the loud grungy music itself. I love the contradiction. I like how Sky Ferreira  and Courtney Love  have interpreted this style, too.  Mila Grgas: What are your opinions on the '90s feminist grunge rock style and the kinderwhore look that artists like Courtney Love and Bikini Kill are known for?  Whisper Doll: When I was younger, I really liked it. When I found out KatieJane Garside inspired Courtney Love, that made a lot of sense. I think that style is really cool and I love how it subverts traditionally feminine clothing. Mila Grgas: Which songs on the new album have a particular look to you?  Whisper Doll: I normally have visuals associated with songs, and I can kinda direct my music videos around them. With the song "Cheap," I always had an image of a beach in my head, so we shot the visualizer on Rockaway Beach at dusk. I was seeing a lot of light and dark blues. Then, the "Change" music video was placed on a New York City street in the East Village. The drum beat sounds like a march to me, like marching yourself through "Change," and blossoming out of a bad situation. I saw grays and purples for that song and visuals of the walking and of blooming flowers. All of my songs I associate with colors and snapshot images, and I try to bring that to life when I create the visualizers.  Mila Grgas:  What led to having the audience dress up as dolls for this release? What do you think about artists having their fans dress up and its popularity? Whisper Doll:  Since it’s so close to Halloween, people were asking if we had a costume theme for the show, and I thought it would be fun. I think having people dress up is cool, it gives an extra kind of creativity for the audience and creates community in the crowd. I can't wait to see what people wear. Mila Grgas: How have you been sourcing your stage outfits? Do you feel like you source them from those visuals? Whisper Doll:  I normally feel pretty rushed, I throw on whatever feels right. If I’m playing a basement show I go a little more grungy. The stage outfits are always a heightened style of my own outfits. Mila Grgas: What is your dream stage look?  Whisper Doll: It would definitely be some sort of tattered lace frilly doll-like dress. Something entrenched in that '90s hyper-feminine-yet-tattered style. There’s this Etsy seller,  Zollection,   who makes tattered, recycled, [and] stained vintage dresses, so something like that. Mila Grgas: Do you have your stage outfit for the album release?  Whisper Doll: [laughs] I have some ideas. I got this really cool dress while touring in Japan when I was with Kara [Lu, bassist]. Probably I’ll wear it with a blouse over it and some tall boots. Maybe I should get that dream dress from Zollection’s Etsy. I wonder how fast it could come. That dress is so disembodied, tattered, and torn. It is a very emotional look and it speaks to the music. It's how my songs would look if they were a dress. Mila Grgas: When I first met you, you were a stylist for a shoot we were on. How has styling and working on shoots influenced your style? Whisper Doll: It’s emphasized how important visual images are to musicians and how important crafting some sort of visual that people can attach to. Our generation is so visual and music is so much more impactful when you have a visual to connect it to. And it’s really fun.  Mila Grgas: I feel like you’ve done an amazing job of defining your image. Just by looking at your flyer for Thursday, you can tell what kind of art, and music you are out to make.  Whisper Doll: Hell yeah, thank you. It's definitely very intentional. The way I make art flyers and stuff, it’s all building off of my own personal style and relating it to the music.  Perfume Garden will be available to stream on Spotify  on October 24th. For more information about Whisper Doll, including ticket availability and concert dress themes, please visit their website . Mila Grgas is a writer, filmmaker, and New Yorker. Her work often covers feminist mythology and art.

Washington Spirit’s Creative Director Domo Wells shares her approach to elevating the club’s fashionable offerings. “A sports renaissance,” is how Domo Wells, the recently appointed creative director of the Washington Spirit, describes the accelerated growth of women’s soccer in 2024. A sublime summer of sport, piloted by the US Women’s National Team’s sensational victory at the Paris Olympics, has heralded a 45% increase in NWSL attendance. Now, more than ever is the time for clubs to do all they can to maintain this upward trajectory, and for Wells, this means spearheading a new approach to tangibly merchandising the Spirit.  Wells, a D.C. native now residing in Los Angeles, spent the last decade with her feet placed squarely in the music industry, calling Spotify her home for three years. While an interest in fashion was pre-established, “the sports aspect was actually a surprise,” Wells tells HALOSCOPE, sharing how she came to her new creative leadership role. It was in fact the Spirit themselves that propositioned Wells — who had not long before founded her creative agency, Dead Dirt. “They saw some spillover after my launch from some WNBA players who had worn some of my pieces,” she shares, adding that, “[Spirit] wanted to do a one off and I wasn't interested in that. I was like, ‘I think there's a lot more that could be done here if you guys are open to it.’ And they were.”  The result of this first-of-its-kind role for the club? A fall capsule merchandise collection and accompanying campaign marrying prime fashion editorial with the traditional sports aesthetic. “My intention was to elevate the merge in a way that hadn't been done yet,” said Wells of her choice to focus on garments not usually provided by the club, moving away from modest logo-ed baseball caps and minimalistic crew neck sweaters — which are, of course, still on offer in the club’s core collection. “It wasn't necessarily about completely flipping their merch upside down into something unrecognisable more than easing them into the elevation,” she explained, seeking inspiration from sporting merchandise of the ‘50s and ‘60s, like the much-beloved varsity jacket. “They’re meant to feel like pieces you would want to wear outside of being at the game or in the stadium,” Wells says of the capsule’s garments, adding that these are, “...pieces you would want to actually wear as part of your wardrobe because they're cool and not just throwaway merch for the season that you turn over whenever there's new stuff next season.”  At the heart of the campaign, aptly entitled “Renaissance Sports Women,” are the highly personable Spirit players for which the club’s supporters hold in the highest regard. Photographed in an ostentatious exterior, the French parterre and greenhouse of a historic D.C. home, the players don the collection confidently, their collective and individual strength on full display. “I think the best thing about working with athletes is how coachable they are, they really value instruction, especially if they're in a foreign environment,” Wells said of the shoot experience, noting that all players involved were “honestly amazing.” The creative director, who had not worked with the players in such a close capacity previously, has high praise for the athletes. “Courtney Brown was giving model. Aubrey [Kingsbury] came to slay. I was like, ‘Oh my God, girl, you might need to get into this for real.’”  Shot in the summer during the Olympic break, many of the Spirit’s brightest and most popular stars were unavailable to feature in the campaign as they were busy playing, and winning, in France. Nevertheless, Wells was “...super happy with who showed up because they came with all the positive energy of being willing and ready — and they had never done anything like this with the team for the team.”  The hope is that this capsule collection, and the many that will surely ensue, will aid in bringing together an authentic and diverse fan community to the Spirit. “This team and the league in general are doing a ton of work to appeal to diverse audiences and so they're on their way, but there is a ways to go,” shares Wells, adding, “You have to allow people to learn with you and earn their trust that you know what you're talking about. And I understand that process.”  Wells believes that her previous experience in the music industry, and not having worked within a sports team before, greatly aids her. “[Spirit] has enough sports experts. They need someone who understands what they are trying to achieve, but comes from a different place of expertise.” Naturally, this differing angle of interest shapes Wells’ wider wishes for the team. “It should be a no-brainer that there's a halftime show, it's a no-brainer that we have pregame performances and we have a playoff capsule and amazing new merch, and it's a no-brainer that we have all of these notable people at the game.”  As for the continued growth of the women’s professional soccer league, Wells wants to see “the NWSL operating very similarly to the WNBA, where people understand them in the same way and they value them in the same way,” adding that, “I think that this year really has been a historical marker for women's sports and the WNBA has really led that charge.”   As the Spirit surpasses their 2023 merchandise sales, it is clear that their ahead-of-the-pack attitude is beginning to pay off, ushering in a new fruitful era, both monetarily and culturally. “What I look forward to is seeing what things look like two to three years from now and what we've built on top of what they already have going. We just have to bring everybody to them,” says the hopeful creative director.  🌀 The collection is available in stadiums now and online on November 11th. Molly Elizabeth  is a freelance fashion writer and commentator based in London.

The nearly 50-year-old punk label is retooling for the modern age. When news hit the HALOSCOPE office that BOY London  was going to be digitizing their visual archive for the first time, we were absolutely chomping at the bit to get our eyes on it first. Founded in 1976, BOY London has been emblematic of underground subcultures from Punk to Acid House for nearly 5 decades now. Made famous through their connection to major celebrities like Madonna, Boy George, Andy Warhol, Rihanna, and Beyoncé, BOY is fanning the flames of their ever-burning cultural relevance with their Fall/Winter 2024 collection. I had the chance to meet up with the BOY London team to talk all about their inspirations for the collection, their vision for the future, and to answer the age-old question: Is punk really dead? Here is our conversation: This interview has been edited for grammar and clarity. KAITLIN OWENS:  I’m seeing a lot of utility wear and racing-inspired looks. How did you go about designing the collection? What were your inspirations? BOY LONDON:  For Autumn/Winter 2024, our racing inspiration came from Bosozoku . It’s a Japanese youth culture associated with customized motorcycles and outlaw biker gangs [that] turned against the Westernized business suit-and-tie and adopted their own uniform style called Tokkōfuku , modelled off military wear — hence the utility references in the collection. We looked carefully at the slogans and symbols that were used by these gangs and interpreted them in the “BOY” way — always reverting back to our punk heritage and DNA. KO: I am obsessed with the vibrant reds and chunky knits in this collection. How were the red-and-black textiles featured in many of the looks constructed?  BL: [The featured textiles] are a red-and-black knitted Tiger intarsia using merino wool for the base and what's called an eyelash yarn technique in mohair. KO: Are there any plans to revive looks from the early days of BOY? Or is your team looking more towards the future of fashion?  BL:  We are always looking back at our extensive history which is rich in diversity — there is a huge amount to pull from. However, we are always looking ahead and evolving the collections, but always being mindful to create [sic] the core DNA of the brand. KO: As your visual archive becomes available to the media for the first time, I’m curious — what are your favorite collections? BL: Which do you return to as a touchpoint for the DNA of the brand? We always love the simplicity of how BOY was used in the ‘80s and ‘90s — bold logos that are remembered so clearly on caps and T-shirts worn by the likes of Elton John, Rihanna, Pet Shop Boys, and Andy Warhol. The logo is iconic and we enjoy reimagining this in more modern applications. KO: I would love to hear your opinions on the legacy of Brit Punk fashion. We’ve heard ad nauseam that “punk is dead”— what do you think? BL: Obviously, we love the rich and exciting history of “British punk” with the amazing associations with some of Britain's most famous and influential punk artists like Sid Vicious. Whilst these are always very clear in our minds when designing new collections, it's obviously important to evolve with the times and what people are actually wearing and buying into. To us, “punk” is an attitude [that] comes with certain beliefs and idealisms — it's not about safety pins through a ripped jacket but more about how you carry yourself and the life choices you make. Punk will never die because it belongs within us — it's not an image or a particular look but a way of life. For more information about BOY LONDON and to take a closer look at their archive, please visit their website here. 🌀 Kaitlin Owens is HALOSOPE's Archival Fashion Editor and the Editor-in-Chief of Dilettante Magazine. For a closer look at her work, please visit kaitlindotcom.com .

How much of a chokehold does the “fear of looking bad” have on our favorite fashion girls? Each time a new award season approaches (which usually is right after the Emmys), the discourse on how the fashion community will be inevitably disappointed resurfaces. I am all for the referential premiere looks that we’ve seen on Zendaya , Margot Robbie , and Dakota Johnson . I’ve even been surprised and pleased with Ayo Edebiri and Greta Lee’s well-tailored Loewe and Prada looks. However, when I look at pictures from the Hollywood of years ago, it’s easy to see that a fearlessness and lack of polish are lost. I hate to reference a very obvious moment but it’s such a memorable look for a reason. I don’t even need to add a visual, but I will: Julia Roberts  looks joyous in every picture from the 1990 Golden Globes. Her hair is curly, her gray suit is almost too big on her, and she’s wearing a men’s tie. It’s the bravery and naturalism that makes it one of the oft-repeated images on many a mood board. As much as I enjoy romanticizing the ‘90s and what that era meant for red carpet events, the real task on our hands translates to all corners of the beauty world: what does glamour mean to an online community that doesn’t really know what it wants to see? We love drama, archival looks, and when muses truly embody a designer’s vision and brand palette. But we don’t really love when there’s too much going on; when the pieces don’t look wearable or comfortable on the person; when the subject tries too hard or doesn’t risk enough; or when we know contracts on celebrities restrict them from wearing something flattering or less safe. We (I) also don’t know how big a stylist’s role truly is from celebrity to celebrity. Some take a hands-on approach (Law Roach); others merely offer small suggestions. Do they have the power to dictate what celebrities cannot wear? I don’t think anyone can say how much of what we see on a red carpet is the star’s true taste, even when it comes to glamorous looks where they have the chance to showcase their most personal style.  Though the public (online, offline, anyone who consumes pop culture) could have expectations that are too high, they’re still very much based on the pendulum of what’s trending. Right now, the more effortlessly flawless the makeup, hair, and attire are = the more glamorous. This is much more evident than before, in the sense that the look has to deliver on all fronts: while moving, in a close-up, in flash photography, on video, on high-speed slow-motion cameras, and in candid pictures. Achieving that is nearly impossible. It’s unrealistic, but we adore when it does happen, when it clicks and satisfies what we had in our heads for a premiere look, for the Oscars or the Met Gala. Effort is loved but unreasonably looked down upon when noticeable. This could be a greater societal taste indicator, but I would like to keep a mindset that’s as least judgemental as possible. What causes excitement and admiration is obviously very personal, and if we gravitate towards the public figures whose style we admire, maybe the universal term of glamour is no longer useful. These events are the only ones that can really fulfill our craving for glamour, and remind us why we still (kind of) revere Hollywood. Maybe now the truth is that celebrity is no longer this mysterious, magical, all-encompassing prism. Nowadays, we know the reality of how much effort goes into red carpet looks — and the real feat is making them look easy.  What is holding back these appearances could be a lack of jewelry, as has been mentioned many times on social media: the art of wearing a good necklace is lost. Anne Hathaway  is one of the last celebrities to understand its importance, thanks to her Bulgari contract. And, too, consider the fact that the presence of natural curly hair on the red carpet is lost. But what could also be the cause of celebrity fashion’s degradation is simply the notion of how effortlessness can never be the same as flawlessness. A look being effortless itself already makes us believe it is flawless — not because it looks polished in every angle, but because its distinct characteristics have aligned and shown personality, beauty, and fashion sense all at once.  In an interview with blog WORTHY in 2021 , celebrity jewelry stylist Michael O’Connor mentions specific eras that show how the pendulum has swung: “Throughout the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, celebrities still wanted the ‘WOW’ factor, but they wanted a more modern feel. This era seemed to herald the ‘death of the necklace,’ in an effort to modernize and minimalize a look but still create ‘wow!’ As a result, earrings became the most important piece for many celebrities.” He mentions 2009 as an important year for the return of the necklace, with both Nicole Kidman and Amy Adams opting for statement pieces for the Oscars.  This makes me believe it takes a select few necklaces to start the trend again. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a maximalist moment (see Ayo Edebiri’s and Jenna Ortega’s simple silver chains at the 2024 Emmys), but it has to add some kind of “glamour” that we don’t get to see anywhere else. It adds to the new definition of glamour of our time, and it can be the rounding out of an already tasteful look. 🌀

Calling your partner “stinky” suddenly has a whole new meaning. In 2016, Arabelle Sicardi wrote a story for RACKED  on Smell.Dating , the world’s first mail-in, smell-based dating service. The bare bones of the service were this: the company sends you a T-shirt, you wear that T-shirt around town, get it nice and stinky, then mail it back to them. They will then send you a handful of other, pre-stinked shirts sent in by potential love matches. You sniff the shirts, rank your favorites, and then Smell.Dating connects you with partners who also noted that your B.O. was especially primo. A genius idea, right? Our pheromones dictating whether or not two people will be compatible mates has been a prevailing theory  for decades. Now, while there is some controversy on exactly how much  our natural musk affects our dating batting average, there’s certainly some degree of olfactory communication going on between lovers.  Why else would “stink” and “stinky” be such common pet names for those who are sweet on each other? The scent of your partner’s body has long been a tentpole for expressing one’s own attraction and devotion. Does Napoleon’s “Home in three days, don’t wash” letter to his darling Joséphine ring any bells? My own husband enacts a time-honored practice he calls “whiff dosing” (read: shoving my face into his smelly armpits while he laughs with glee) and I will admit (privately, to you, my dear HALOSCOPE reader — and not to him) that despite my pleas for mercy, I do secretly love this little routine of ours. There’s something comforting about the way your partner stinks — it’s alluring and familiar and one of the things I miss most when he’s out of town. In popular media, bodily scent has been featured a few times as the catalyst for sexual obsession and violent crime. The 1985 Patrick Süskind novel and subsequent 2006 motion picture Perfume: The Story of a Murderer  follows a man who becomes so obsessed with recreating the scent of a woman’s body that he goes mad. A Season 6 episode of Criminal Minds  features a killer who distills the bodies of his female victims into scented candles — all the better to smell you with, my dear? So it’s safe to say, that while we cannot definitively prove in a scientific sense that smell is directly linked to romantic or sexual attraction…. there’s certainly something   in the air. All that being said, it’s no wonder Smell.Dating wanted to capitalize on this virtual hotbed of stinky attraction in the name of online matchmaking. But here’s the question on everybody’s lips: Did it work?  I went straight to the source and asked. Arabelle Sicardi has written extensively on scent and its relationship to seduction, power, and identity politics (I would highly recommend their essay on “Perfume, Power and God” ), so I figured, aside from their direct involvement in testing out the Smell.Dating platform, who better to reach out to about a sexy smelly story than the Fashion Pirate themselves? KAITLIN OWENS:  I know it was way back in 2016, but do you remember how any of your Smell.Dating dates went? Was it a love connection or just another dating gimmick? ARABELLE SICARDI:  I do remember going on a few dates — honestly it was fun and a great method of "blind dating" because it brought me into a situation I wouldn't necessarily have chosen for myself. I ended up going on two — two?  — dates with a firefighter who smelled marvelous. But I am, in the end, gay as hell, and I didn't want to date a man, regardless of how cute, capable, and delicious he might have smelled. For the record, I would stand by the fact a gimmick can still be a marvelous adventure. App dating is horrific — I would not say smell-based dating was any worse than any other kind of date I've been on. KAITLIN OWENS: There’s an entire industry centered around pheromone perfumes which amplify or alter your natural scent in order to attract a partner. What is your opinion on these products? Do they work? ARABELLE SICARDI : I've used and have written about pheromone perfumes before, early in my journey of smell culture and desirability politics. They're a fun concept, sure, but just that alone — totally marketing. I'm not mad about it — all of beauty is storytelling. But it's a lie, you know? The science isn't there. And there are simply better perfumes. KAITLIN OWENS: So what makes smell sexy? Is there a particular perfume you wear to attract a mate? ARABELLE SICARDI : Sexy is completely individual. I don't really pick perfumes based on seduction the way it's typically marketed — which, currently, means an edible gourmand. Seduction, to me, requires open-hearted intimacy and familiarity — choosing to be who you are with the person you choose, and the ability to ask for exactly what you want without apology. I don't wear fragrance to seduce. Fragrance is a public garment to me. Knowing what I actually  smell like is a gift few people get to open! I’m inclined to agree! Personally, for me, I use scent as a tool for “sexiness” — but not so much for “attraction” or “seduction.” I’m aiming to be beautiful and alluring but I don’t necessarily want to catch any spiders in my web — the same way you’d wear a low-cut dress or a pair of uncomfortably high shoes. It feels cliche to say “I wear it for me!” but I really do. It doesn’t really matter much to me if my husband likes my perfume or not — he’s not the one wearing it! Now, for the part we’ve all been waiting for: consumerism! Here’s my list of Go-To Sexy Perfumes: Fat Electrician  by Etat Libre d’Orange Babycat  by YSL Odile  by Marissa Zappas Sì  by Giorgio Armani AMBER  by Marc Jacobs Kaitlin Owens is HALOSOPE's Archival Fashion Editor and the Editor-in-Chief of Dilettante Magazine. For a closer look at her work, please visit kaitlindotcom.com .