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

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

Treatment Menu , a collaborative exhibition helmed by Display Fever’s Naz Balkaya and Teaspoon Projects’ Gigi Surel, understands love not just as a feeling to be experienced, but as a practice. L-R: Works by Natalia Januła, Naz Balkaya, Paula Parole, and Ella Fleck. Photos by Ksenia Burnasheva. How do we love now? There seems to be an endless stream of descriptors that aim to diagnose the current landscape of love and relationships. Love in the age of digital machinery is a continuous search for the next best thing, the shiniest new person; it seems to dissolve the fabric of what it means to love.  Love is an electric flash amidst the cold, dark milieu of the present. Love bursts from the seams of the unexpected, the communion of souls and bodies that arrives in our lives from a seemingly mystical frontier.  But love is not just a yielding entity, a cliche, nor a passing figure of speech. Love has the capacity for radicalism. Love can function as a disruptive force capable of breaking the greedy, omnivorous chains of capitalism that absorb much of our personal lives and inner sanctums. But for love to have such capabilities, we must understand it not as an intangible feeling, but as a sustained practice, a discipline, and a process.  Treatment Menu , a collaborative exhibition helmed by Display Fever’s Naz Balkaya and Teaspoon Projects’ Gigi Surel, understands love not just as a feeling to be experienced, but as a practice . Configuring love as an art form requires an understanding that love is not a passive-consumptive experience, but a state of labour and risk. To be loved and to love in an age where eros is flattened by the iron-clad fists of globalised capitalism that seeks to pulverise difference, transcendence, and transgression, centering the complex matrices of love, beauty, and labour allows those sticky elements of desire and difference to shine through the darkened edges of our contemporary culture.  Inspired by thinkers such as Byung-Chul Han, Erich Fromm, and bell hooks, the exhibition is structured as a simulated beauty salon. This context draws attention to how love requires ritualistic processes, repetition, labour, and discipline to blossom. Love is not something that arrives at your doorstep; it is not something that is conjured out of thin air. It is something to be worked at, something to be worked for .   With seven artists showcasing their work across a plethora of interdisciplinary artistic mediums, Treatment Menu’s  focus straddles the line between razor-sharp and nebulous. The artists — Eva Dixon , Ella Fleck , Hoa Dung Clerget , Natalia Janula , Paula Parole , Julia Thompson , and Harry Whitelock  — work through a variety of methods to explore the rituals and objects of love. The exhibition, showcasing scent installations, found objects, sculptures made from nails and hair gel, LED light installations, and more, highlights how we can understand the processes of love as antidotes to a modern condition that commodifies the sanctity of intimacy. The exhibition began with the development of co-curator Naz Balkaya’s found-object installation Breakup Kit . The piece, fit with a clay-ceramic tray, imagines the dissolution of love through the complex assemblage of objects - such as cigarettes, lighters, and makeup - that we contextualise as part of our identities in the name of self-soothing. In the wake of love-lost, when personal identity feels unmoored and shaken, Breakup Kit  objectifies the vectors of care, heartbreak, grief, and longing in the contemporary moment of the ready-made and endlessly accessible. Through these conversations, Treatment Menu  was born. What exactly is  love, and how does it manifest as emblems in our complex lives? How do we reach for the other in moments of intimacy, when the politics of control demands our focus with an iron-clad grip?   Teaspoon Projects’ Gigi Surel (L) and Display Fever’s Naz Balkaya (R). Photo by Ksenia Burnasheva. Treatment Menu  licks the wounds of love. Love, as a verb, an action, a practice, requires an intensity of intent, a willing plunge into the unseen recesses of the other. In a culture that  eats away at difference and drives us towards endless similitude, exploring the complexities of love and its aftermath offers a way to perceive love as multifaceted — sticky, greedy, confusing, affirming, devastating, rich, and tinged with vulnerability. Love necessitates reaching outwards. Love cannot exist singularly: it must always be in search of the other. But the other is an unknown land, upon which, in our narcissism, we project our own inner landscapes. Conceptualising love as a practice, Treatment Menu  offers a path for understanding how we, as creatures of comfort, as individuals woven into the wider fabric of community, commandeer rituals and exalt possessions as methods of creating our own languages of love and desire, care and heartbreak, grief and longing.  To finalise the exhibition, Treatment Menu, curated by Sayori Radda,   held a reading series to fundraise for the Gaza UNFPA fund. Ed Luker , Jane Dabate , Kate Ebitt , Noor-e-Sehar Ali , Caitlin Hall,   Jessica Key , Alison Rumfitt , Vamika Sinha , Christiana Spens , Ozziline Mercedes , and Susanna Davies-Crook  all spoke towards Treatment Menu ’s theme. Spanning poetry, essay excerpts, prose, and experimental literature, the event materialised - through the diversity, vulnerability, and depth of expression - the necessity of exploring love as a condition through art and literature.  Whilst the print of love marked its shape in the soft snow of the exhibition’s thematic landscape, each writer’s contribution to the evening highlighted that body and soul can possess an amorphous, shifting edge. Love is not experienced in solitude, and yet, our experiences of it can differ so exponentially that having one word for it feels inadequate. We prostrate ourselves at the altar of such universality when it feels that “love” saturates the market of popular culture. But, as Treatment Menu ’s exhibition and reading event demonstrates, undertaking such an endeavor requires a sensitivity to the elements of love that pull us into the orbit of potential and devastating loss. Love and loss are dialectically bound, and yet, the latter does not deter us from the former. We risk ourselves, we risk others. We convert self-shame and self-consciousness into beauty. We give things up, and we take things on. We forever reach outwards, in the hope that the other will find us back. 🌀 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.

It’s a Gwyneth Paltrow versus Joe Rogan showdown this week. You could say that I’m a bit of a health and wellness freak. I’ve tried just about every single wellness fad out there. Vampire facials?  I’ve had one. My vagus nerve?  It’s been activated. Yoni eggs?  Yeah… I’ve shoved one up there (even though they honestly don’t really do anything). In the past, it seemed that the wellness space was primarily dominated by women and queer people. Doing yoga, drinking green smoothies, and caring about your overall health and appearance were considered feminine traits. We used to call straight men who participated in any kind of wellness/beauty routine “metrosexual”. But these days, the Manosphere has developed their own version of capital “W”-Wellness, featuring players like Joe Rogan, who advocates for the sauna/cold plunge combo and dubiously researched brain pills ; The Liver King, a major proponent of the “Carnivore Diet” (and anabolic steroids); and David Goggins, a fitness/motivational speaker known for competing in over 60 ultramarathons and yelling at insecure dudes on Instagram Reels . The Manosphere routine focuses on high-impact training, protein-maxxing, and increasing testosterone production in the body. Whereas the classic Los Angelino-approved, Gwyneth Paltrow-inspired wellness routine focuses on gentle anti-inflammatory exercise, nutrient-dense foods, and rigorous skin care. This month, I decided to pit two queens against each other, comparing and contrasting the two routines to determine which one is better. There are a lot of silly fads involved in the men’s routine, like “ jelqing ” and GORILLA MIND supplements  that I unfortunately will not be able to try, as I lack some very necessary equipment, but I do hope to still capture the Dawg House, sweaty, grindset spirit of the method.  Here are the bare bones of the experiment: WEEK ONE, AKA Gwyn’s Method: MORNING Wake up early and listen to a guided meditation while using a red light therapy panel 2 tablespoons of Spoiled Child’s liquid collagen supplement Gua sha and lymphatic drainage massage with acupuncture ear seeds AFTERNOON Break intermittent fast with a pescatarian lunch featuring heavy veg EVENING Take a gentle walk followed by a Pilates/barre fitness class Dry brushing session followed by a hot bath  WEEK TWO, AKA Joe’s Method: MORNING Wake up at 5 AM and lift weights AFTERNOON Steak lunch EVENING A session of high-impact cardio and more weight lifting Sauna followed by a cold plunge Steak dinner For this experiment, I did one week of Gwyn’s Method followed by one week of Joe’s Method. Gwyn’s Method was surprisingly very easy (mostly because it was a routine that I have been incorporating, in one form or another, into my daily life since high school).  As far as results: a balanced diet paired with regular low-impact exercise makes you feel incredible (who knew). I also really loved starting my day with guided meditation. It made me feel much more relaxed and in less of a rush in the mornings, which led to having gentler and happier days. Starting my days calm and relaxed, then ending them with a hot bath, made for a very serene and anxiety-free week. I didn’t really notice many effects from the collagen supplements or intermittent fasting, but I do love red light therapy (even though I am convinced it might be snake oil). However, ear seeds are one of the greatest inventions of all time. If you take one thing away from this article, let it be ear seeds . If you’ve never heard of them before, they are these little balls on medical tape that you stick to certain pressure points in your ear. The pamphlet that came with the kit promotes a whole host of restorative benefits that I cannot claim any truth to — however, if you’re looking to have a snatched face, ear seeds will get you there. When you massage those pressure points, it helps to drain any fluid trapped in your face and head, leading to a slimmer appearance. Now… for the Joe’s Method results…. let me say this: I will never eat that much red meat again in my life.  [CONTENT WARNING IF YOU’RE SQUEAMISH]  I was constipated for four days and then… it was like a cork popped and I had insane diarrhea for the rest of the experiment. My gut still hasn’t recovered. Lifting heavy weights over your head when you constantly feel like you are moments away from pooping your pants does NOT a relaxing week make…. I didn’t really mind the exercise routine. Yes, running sucks — but getting your heart rate up is important. So I can’t knock the high-impact training too hard. Really, the only part of this routine that I fully enjoyed was the sauna. Saunas are wonderful! They are a Finnish gift to the world and have so many amazing health benefits. Cold plunges, on the other hand? Cruel and unusual punishment. They are a sick and twisted invention from a clearly deranged mind. To plunge into icy water regularly is a cry for help and should be treated like a severe mental health episode. If you or someone you love is cold plunging, please reach out for help. There is more to life than Wim Hof breathing. Overall, I think Gwyn’s method is much easier to incorporate into your daily life. The exercises are low-impact, and the diet has much more variety. I felt a genuine mind-body connection and a general sense of ease during the week — the complete opposite of what I experienced during Week Two. The end goal of Joe’s Method is to make you feel hulked out and masculine, which it does, but I am dubious about the actual long-term health effects of doing high-impact training and only eating meat. To me, I sense the rumblings of a heart attack in my future if I keep on that path. Additionally, the Manosphere routine has very little emphasis on skin quality and appearance, which, to me, is one of the most important parts of a wellness routine. If I don’t LOOK “healthy,” then what’s the point of all this effort? All I’m saying is, I would much rather find the balance between cigarettes and tofu than crap my pants in a cold plunge. 🌀 Kaitlin Owens is the Archival Editor at Haloscope Magazine and the Editor in Chief of DILETTANTE. For a closer look at her work, please visit her website .

Through chaps, fringe, and a great pair of Texan boots. Cocodrilo Botas Texanas is a Western-style boot boutique  in El Restrepo, a neighborhood in the south of the Colombian capital, Bogotá. Up a narrow staircase surrounded by intricate cowboy-themed decor — belt buckles, hats, old pistols —  Texan-style boots line up the walls top to bottom, in rooms carpeted with cowhide rugs, separated by men’s and women’s sections. For anyone looking for high-quality, intricate cowboy boots that won’t break the bank, Cocodrilo is like a diamond in the rough. You can find any color, height, and shape. And if you see a design that you like but would prefer a shorter boot or lower heel, just ask: they can customize it for you. How do I know all of this? I have three pairs. I discovered Cocodrilo thanks to my very stylish uncle, who possesses a flair for the dramatic. And in an aggressively urban city, where cowboy dreams seem so far away, it’s rather surprising to find a place so deeply-seated in this foreign aesthetic.  The telenovela Pasión de Gavilanes  (2003-2004) captured the hearts of viewers in Colombia, and, during the first decade of private broadcasting in the Latin American country, it achieved the highest ratings  on Telemundo. People all over the world, from Venezuela to Bolivia, all the way to Bulgaria and China, tuned in to watch the Reyes brothers avenge the death of their little sister, Libia (Ana Lucía Domínguez), after a tormentous affair with Don Bernardo Elizondo (Germán Rojas) ends in her murder.  While Pasión de Gavilanes  was filmed in El Pórtico, a hacienda in Colombia that is now an iconic restaurant, the production design and wardrobe create a parallel world where Colombian and Mexican culture blend into a cowboy fever dream. In episode one, the magnetic Rosario Montes performed “Fiera Inquieta”  at the town bar and changed Latin American night culture forever. It’s one of those ubiquitous songs that transcended the screen: everyone knows the lyrics, whether you’ve seen the telenovela or not. Angela Chadid, who sings “Fiera Inquieta,” became one of the most popular voices in Colombian radio, even if she was not the most popular face: actress Zharick León portrayed Rosario Montes and lip-synced to Angela’s voice.  The wardrobe of Pasión de Gavilanes  is an essential part of the show. Juan Reyes and his brothers, Óscar and Franco, wear cowboy hats and boots, while the mythic Rosario Montes performs on the bar in halter bras, side-studded rodeo pants, and coin-encrusted, belly dance-style hip scarves. Costume designer Manuel Guerrero brought the characters to life by giving each one a distinct look while remaining within the boundaries of westernwear.  The show was produced to appeal to a broad range of Latin American and telenovela-loving audiences, created for the United States’ Telemundo and Colombia’s Caracol Televisión. The success of “Fiera Inquieta” and the idealization of the wealthy Elizondo family’s ranch is built within the common foundation that Latin American cultures share, while solidifying an aesthetic that feels authentic to the show’s universe. A large cast  with stars from all over the continent contributes to the illusion. The show was so successful that, in 2022, almost two decades after the initial release, it was  brought back  for a second season of 71 episodes.  But even before “Fiera Inquieta” stole the 4 AM drunk scream-singing spot in Colombians’ party routine, Pedro el Escamoso  broke new ground for cowboy boots. This 2001-2003 Caracol Televisión telenovela follows disgraced Pedro, who leaves his small town to escape a “skirts scandal,” and arrives in Bogotá with no money, and more importantly, no style. He is known for his funky, atypical dancing,  which he can do thanks to his dancing boots, a pair of well-loved, brown, Texan-style ones. Unlike in Pasión de Gavilanes , Pedro’s boots are part of what makes him an outcast. His story is one of an outsider who manages to win the hearts of a family — and of the country. While in the early 2000s, cowboy boots in Colombia were mainly confined to telenovelas (and telenovela-inspired Halloween costumes), in 2018, shoe designer Patricia Mejía collaborated with gallerist and fashionista Gloria Saldarriaga  to launch  a wildly popular line of cowboy boots, which were featured in Vogue  Mexico  and coveted by trend-chasers and collectors. But westernwear didn’t always have positive or fashion-forward associations in Colombian culture. In the ‘90s, westernwear in Colombia was mainly associated with narco-esthetics : the ostentatious display of wealth that became common as drug lords made millions and became part of the ruling class. Owning land and having horses were part of that aesthetic, and so participating in that culture was, in some sentiments, seen as trashy. Due to the proliferation of pop culture, a big portion of what was frowned upon then has now been absorbed as mainstream, or, at least, as a modish fashion statement.  A decade ago, I wouldn’t have gleefully strutted down to Cocodrilo and given them my hard-earned money for a pair of Texan boots; I also wouldn’t have appreciated the high-quality craftsmanship for such an unbelievable price. Many things had to fall into place to get me to the land of three-pair ownership, including a growing appreciation for my uncle’s collection, the freedom of wearing what I want that comes from living in New York, and an urge to embrace my dramatic tendencies. Wearing my Colombian boots in New York is similar to when I pick one of my Wayuu mochilas  as my bag for the day: I’m carrying craftsmanship with me, choosing items made with patience and care and bought from artisans who strive daily to keep traditions alive. I feel fashionable, strutting the streets alongside women in Tecovas, and I feel at home. 🌀 Laura Rocha-Rueda  is a Colombian fashion and fiction writer based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in HALOSCOPE, Vestoj, The Inquisitive Eater, and The Territorie. She covers runway, trends, and pop culture, and will gladly chat about why dismissing these themes as frivolous is misguided and sad. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School.

At the historic Parisian edifice on the Place de la Concorde, a new exhibit does something radical — it treats perfume as an art in itself. On a gloriously sunny September afternoon, I went to the Hôtel de la Marine  — a large, recently renovated, neoclassical building in the center of Paris, overlooking Place de la Concorde and its gold-capped obelisk (also known as the site where Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were guillotined). The Hôtel de la Marine displays the Al Thani collection  in regular thematic exhibits — a collection which boasts thousands of artworks, artifacts, and jewelry pieces. The latest, entitled “Seven Heavenly Senses,” is an exhibit curated by art historian Olivier Berggruen. I was drawn by its premise: it was the first time an Al Thani exhibit juxtaposed contemporary and ancient artworks, and it focused on the seven  senses. Besides the five senses we all know about, the exhibit also puts forward two others: the vestibular sense (balance and movement) and proprioception (the ability of the body to perceive its own position in space).  Headphones on, accompanied by music composed by artist Zsela  for the exhibit, I entered a room filled with garlands of golden flowers hanging vertically from the ceiling and surrounding the artworks like butterflies. Shining over a black background, those minuscule flowers created an agreeable feeling of suspension. This room seemed to function as an antechamber, meant to destabilize our sense of scale — indeed, the works of art were minuscule too: small scenes and portraits (in watercolor or enamel on copper), melancholic gazes and porcelain skin. A basket offered chocolates to enhance the experience and awaken the senses.  A perfume diffuser was placed at the entrance of the second room — or, rather, a corridor leading to the largest room, thus marking our passage into another space. This configuration turned perfume into an experience of transition; the etymology of perfume alludes to such a passage, through the smoke . A reminder, too, that scent always informs our sense of place and time, and compartmentalizes our memories. The perfume chosen to highlight this passage was Jean-Claude Ellena’s 2023 perfume Heaven Can Wait  for the brand Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle.  If, like me, you associate the phrase “heaven can wait” with the film by Lubitsch  — whimsical, colorful (Gene Tierney’s hypnotizing eyes!), nostalgic — you might be surprised: Ellena’s perfume is powdery, soothing, impressionistic, airy. The iris infuses the perfume with melancholia, but it is also a comfortable, timeless scent in its powderiness, as the intensity of cloves finds itself suspended by musks and the harmonious blend of ambrette and carrot seeds. I later got a sample from the Frédéric Malle store, and tried it directly on my skin: at first whiff, a burst of iris, almost plasticky; then, cloves and vetiver quickly overtook the iris and gave it an ethereal quality. The drydown on my skin was very much centered on cloves and a hint of nutmeg, as if I had just crushed spices for my daily cup of masala chai, but it never turned Christmas-y. It was cold, rather, and sharp, elegant, meditative, and made me think of being on a plane, breathing its dry recycled air, suspended in a sea of white-gray clouds. In the corridor, my eyes fell on Monocarp  by Eli Ping , a white, lanky, aerial structure made of canvas and resin; next to Monocarp ’s delicate silhouette, Salman Toor’s 2019 oil painting entitled After Party  showed three characters in a drunken embrace, and one man sitting on the floor next to them, scrolling on his phone. Toor’s characteristic greens filled the scene with melancholia — his work focuses on queer South Asian characters and their experiences of collective spaces, solitude, and new or renewed forms of community.  The corridor was still imbued with a sense of suspension and opened on the largest room of the exhibit, a space of juxtapositional aesthetics in its seemingly haphazard arrangement of objects, contemporary paintings, and ancient, intricate statuettes and glassware. The sense of taste also reappeared in a striking painting of a family eating together — a non-estheticized meal, focused on the material, primal act of feeding oneself and others.  The works of American contemporary artist Naudline Pierre — a triptych and a large painting — left a lasting impression. Those two paintings managed to capture the eeriness of dreams, the wonder and horror of their unpredictable composition. The triptych, entitled In the After  (2025) , was an altar piece commissioned by the exhibit and showed reddish-orange winged beings in movement, inspired by medieval iconography, both angelic and demonic.  Close by, round sandstone accretions (called “gogottes,” often found in the Fontainebleau forest) were also a reminder of the formal beauty of natural structures, and their eerie resemblance to abstract, manmade sculptures. The last piece in the exhibit was the picture of a multicolored curtain, at the end of a corridor, bringing us back to the first room, parallel to the entrance through the invisible curtain of perfume.  Other exhibits have fruitfully showcased perfumes and collaborated with olfactive studios to diffuse scents (without turning the space into a migraine-inducing cloud of smells). My favorite one is “Parfums d’Orient” at the Institut du monde arabe  in 2023-2024, which gave an overview of different scent categories and their geographical and cultural origins in the Arabic world, but also featured original creations by Christopher Sheldrake (the perfumer behind many Serge Lutens fragrances). By comparison, the one Ellena perfume in this exhibit was a bit of a disappointment. And yet, perfume was omnipresent in the Hôtel de la Marine; our exploration of the apartments was accompanied by the cozy scent of Carine Roitfeld candles, which were juxtaposed with contemporary interior design pieces. Those pieces were part of Jérémy Pradier-Jeauneau’s installation entitled “Labyrinth,”  in collaboration with several artists and brands. The Hôtel de la Marine also boasts another olfactive experience created by Chantal Sanier , in which seemingly innocuous scented artworks associate specific scents to different spaces within the Hôtel.  On the balcony overlooking the Place de la Concorde, part of the “Labyrinth” installation, featured “C & Cx”: large stone seats mounted on a square wooden base, created by Antoine Bouillot and Marc-Antoine Barrois, inspired by the beaches of Belle-Île-en-mer. This particular collaboration between Barrois and Bouillot, entitled “Mission Aldebaran,” was first presented in April 2025  at Milan Design Week and functioned as a journey through darkness towards the luminous aura of Aldebaran , a tuberose perfume whose namesake is one of the brightest stars we can see. Next to the stones, a QR code link told us to head out of the Hôtel de la Marine and claim a 10ml bottle of Aldebaran , the latest perfume by Marc-Antoine Barrois. His store was only five minutes away, in a neighborhood where one can find the highest concentration of niche perfumery brands in Paris (new stores are set to open this fall on rue Saint-Honoré, including Maison Crivelli ).  Aldebaran , created by Quentin Bisch in 2025 for designer Marc-Antoine Barrois, is an original (and polarizing) take on an elegant, creamy tuberose, with a bit of an edge, i.e. paprika and mate, which both spice up and soften the fragrance; its floral and slightly medicinal exuberance is toned down, and the scent becomes less sensual, slightly earthy and leathery. I had already smelled paprika in a floral fragrance, Paprika Brasil (incidentally, a Jean-Claude Ellena creation, a little reminiscent of Heaven Can Wait  in its focus on iris and cloves, but much more powdery, rounder and softer), and the spice seemed to have the same role: it made the scent less fluffy, and gave it substance — a hint of gravitas. If tuberose can feel sunny, sexy, and a little bubble-gummy, Aldebaran ’s tuberose is like dappled sunlight in the woods, as summer ends and the air starts to cool. Bisch had already created beautiful tuberose and white flower fragrances ( Tubéreuse Astrale  by Maison Crivelli, or Fleur Narcotique   by Ex Nihilo), but also often ventures into spicy and woody territory — my favorite of his is the cistus-centered Attaquer le Soleil  by Etat Libre d’Orange, which came out in 2016, the same year as B683 , his first of seven creations for Marc-Antoine Barrois.  The market of niche perfumery may seem simultaneously oversaturated and constantly renewing itself with unexpected combinations of notes and accords — but even if I’m always on the hunt for new exciting olfactory creations, I gained a different appreciation for the peaceful and introspective atmosphere of the Hôtel de la Marine, its golden galleries scented with candles, hinting that perfume can be  architecture.  The sense of smell is primal, uniquely able to bring us back to a forgotten past, to reorient our bodies, displace us, and make us experience transitory states. The exhibit left me eager to discover new transdisciplinary explorations of scents and visual or musical art forms — for now, I’ll keep exploring more niche perfumery stores, where mass appeal meets the weird and the conceptual, and where a few droplets can conjure up unexpected memories or reconfigure perception itself. 🌀 Neela Cathelain is a writer, critic, and translator based in Paris.

My five favorite episodes of HBO's Girls , reviewed. Lena Dunham’s serialized millennial magnum opus Girls  entered into my life suddenly, like an awkward two-month fling filled with messy mutual obsession, slow eye-contact sex, and one person ghosting the other at the end of the summer. I didn’t really know what I was getting into when my roommate and I watched the pilot, only that Marnie’s character had given rise to a number of really funny   internet memes , and that most people either loved it or hated it. As someone well-versed in loving  twee media that catches ire for being too navel-gazing and unrealistic , it didn’t take me long to be won over.  As a creative, Dunham’s career was irrevocably marked by her extremely intimate, often cringe-worthy commitment to exhibitionism, and the national smear campaign by what would become the nascent Pizzagate conservative young male Internet mafia, whose knee-jerk disgust reaction to a fat white woman talking about her sex life candidly was to throw death threats as liberally as a drunk guy in Appleton, Wisconsin throws darts trying to impress his Hinge date at TGI Fridays. I don’t always feel as connected to Dunham’s later work, and I completely understand why, as a public figure, she is just as divisive and controversial as her on-screen counterpart Hannah — but, if nothing else, it is undeniable that galvanized by the success of Tiny Furniture   (2010) , Girls  was her closest and most triumphant attempt at capturing the cultural zeitgeist of young American women in the nascent 2012 Obama era. It’s a time that’s definitely too easy to romanticize: the end of the nation’s brutal terrorization of Iraq was bleeding into a general spirit of innocent, sheltered progressivism that grew into the peak prevalence of hipster electroswing mania. I think of lighting-in-a-bottle, early-career  MGMT playing “Time to Pretend"  to a tiny audience on a grainy digital camera. If you put on a dangly owl necklace and distressed skinny jeans in Brooklyn, in the rosy visage of nostalgia, they practically handed you the keys to the city. Needless to say, I blew through the show and was left extremely touched, and often ashamedly infuriated, at the immature, awful behavior of the characters, coupled with how I secretly saw my worst impulses in response to the challenges of young adulthood reflected in them. If   my beloved Sex and the City  is about positively identifying your journey to maturity in a gang of four hilarious thirty-somethings, Girls  is very consciously about negatively identifying your regression into impulsiveness in four emotionally stunted twenty-somethings. Some things are exaggerated, yes, but Girls  sees Dunham’s shocking and characteristic candor turned onto the rites of passage of American, decisively upper-middle-class white girls navigating life in NYC on their own. I could write an entirely different thinkpiece on whether Girls  should be called a “post-feminist” work of television, and more so, what that descriptor means for art made in the 21st century. This problem exists with S ex and the City,  too, but I do think Girls  is more intentionally engaging with the social reality won for young women by the tooth-and-nail advances of the Second Wave, and neither rejects nor confirms any of those progressive tenets wholesale. At its best, however, the show is unflinchingly bleak and merits value by connecting to embarrassing, awkward, and shameful snippets of how women use a relatively newfound generational independence. There are many episodes I love that didn’t make the cut, but in short, I think the set of these five episodes embodies how hilarious, upsetting, and tender Girls  can be. 005: "Welcome to Bushwick A.K.A The Crackcident" (S1E7) This was the exact moment I began to understand the cosmic forces that hold this show together. Sex and the City ’s action is predicated on routine. There is a standing brunch date the girls can use to expound on the current monster-of-the-week guy that’s entered one of their lives, Carrie will always be overspending at Barney’s, they all have relatively stable jobs, etc. It is exactly the opposite in Girls . The only thing these four have in common is that their lives are all a complete mess. The first time we see them together in one place is here, at a grimy warehouse party in Bushwick — where Shoshanna accidentally does crack, Marnie pines over the boy she dumped a few weeks ago, Adam adorably dances with his lesbian friends, and Jessa is loosely involved with a lonely older man for the first of many times. This episode is also notable as the inception of arguably the best relationship in the series, where Ray takes Shoshanna’s virginity after wrangling her home safely. I could say a lot about their trajectory throughout the show as a “the one who got away” couple, but it’s safe to say that in Season One, they’re still very sweet together, and it makes me happy.  The wider storyline comes to a head at the end of the episode, with the revelation of a key piece of Adam’s character: Hannah had no idea he was a teenage alcoholic, and has been working hard in AA for years. In many ways, early to mid-season Adam is the moral center of the show, because he is consistently the only person who makes an active effort to get better, and is the only person who can recognize the thinly veiled cries for help in a mutual bucket of crabs environment in which everyone is content to let everyone else around themselves flounder in dysfunction. I think a tiny but meaningful glimpse of Adam’s character at his best is when he drives Shosh and Hannah to pick up Jessa prematurely from rehab, and is the only one to matter-of-factly remark that it is absolutely a bad idea to enable your close friend to jump ship on treatment and fall back into life as an addict. Adam is absolutely messed up in his own special ways — he’s violent, he’s troubled — but he has a history . Much like Jessa, these points don’t necessarily excuse his behavior, but they ring a far cry away from the very privileged and supportive household environment that bred neuroses like Hannah’s. The episode ends with maybe the best jump cut of the series. During an explosive fight in which Adam gets hit by a car, he shouts, “What do you want? Me to be your fucking boyfriend?” — cut to Hannah and an injured Adam in the cab home, Adam covered in bruises, and Hannah with a childish smile. Thus begins one of the most storied relationships in the show. Adam and Hannah are officially a couple. 004: "Japan" (S5E3) I don’t think you could make this episode today. Not because there isn’t an easily lampooned market for American-oriented “cool Japan travel,”, but because Japan in the American imagination was such a different kind of Orientalism in 2015 than it is today. Both are rooted in a similar infantilization and techno-futurist idealization, but now everyone is obsessed with pretending they’re somehow getting the inside scoop on what’s “really traditional” — as if to seemingly all dunk on each other for their lack of cultural literacy. This episode, which mostly devotes itself to Shoshanna’s chaotic life after moving for a marketing job in Tokyo, has all the explosive superflat-meets-Funko-Pop design stylings of the early Internet. Shoshanna is patient zero for   the Tokidoki Girl renaissance , which was maybe the first thing to loop cooler American girls who turned their nose up at the actually nerdy Vocaloid-tuning fujoshi into the realm of global Japanese culture.  I’m not shy about the fact that Shoshanna is my favorite character in Girls , and her characteristic peppy but wry social Machiavellianism is on full display in a city very accustomed to office ladies working long hours and dishing out bright pink, overly insincere greetings. The main point of note here: the flowering romance with Yoshi, her protective and innocent coworker, who rescues her from a seedy sex bar in the Ginza district. They all but share their first kiss with Shoshanna in programmer socks and a maid outfit, and wrapped up in the fantasy of living abroad, she virtually abandons her upwardly mobile and utterly boring long-distance boyfriend back home. What makes the Japan episode fun is not that it showcases a complete departure from the show’s routine, but rather that, immersed in a culture she only seems to engage with at a surface level, Shoshanna seems most like herself  here. Like many Americans, she went to Japan in search of fantasy, and in doing so, only pushed herself closer to the parts of her life she was trying to avoid. Like   Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku Lovers  perfume line, the glimpse we get at Shoshanna’s life in Japan is bright, mass-produced, and extremely disorienting to look back at in hindsight. Bonus points for watching her Japanese slowly get better over the course of the episode. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!! 003: " Video Games" (S2E7) Jessa is a difficult problem for this show to solve. At times, she’s been on the brink of dangerously manic overactivity that holds lasting consequences for the entire show, and sometimes she’s completely absent from the narrative with very little explanation. Jemima Kirke’s character acting (and sublimation of her own personality into her character) is second to none, save for perhaps Adam Driver. Season Two, Episode Seven, “Video Games” ( Lana reference? ) is among the most vulnerable moments for Jessa on screen. Prompted by an unexpected invitation from Jessa’s estranged father, she brings Hannah on a train upstate to meet his present-day dysfunctional family. It is immediately clear that Jessa’s hyper-independence was a forced consequence of just how immature her father is. He frequently leaves them to walk back from various locations with no indication of when he will return. He is emotional, vengeful, and tied to the whims of his new, completely insane, but well-meaning New Age-devotee wife. Strangely, this is kind of an episode about Hannah, in which her sheltered and very much coddled sensibilities conflict with a home environment that is not built to revolve around her upper-middle-class, only-child whims. I think about her, in a moment of clarity, reaching out to her parents to express an awkward appreciation, only for her mom to blow her off, presuming she’s leading up to asking for money again.  The crux of this episode is Jessa and her father’s conversation on the swingsets, where, after turning back her accusation of not being someone she can rely on, Jessa snaps back: “You shouldn’t have to. I’m the child. I’m the child!” It relies on one of the central theses of the show: everyone is just a scared little kid doing their best to cope with uncertainty, and yet the people these people haphazardly choose to bring into the world deserve so much better than what they get. While Hannah is busy kind-of-having sex with an off-putting high schooler, because that’s just the kind of person she is, we’re left stuck with the weight of Jessa’s knee-jerk avoidance. Just like her father, she chooses to leave the people she loves without a trace. Only later on do we learn she had brought herself to rehab. It’s a bittersweet choice. She assumes the role of the people who hurt her in order to make a genuine attempt at healing. It was a show decision no doubt informed by Jemima Kirke’s IRL pregnancy, but one that really does make sense. The episode itself is as funny as any other, but has this very specific grown-up ennui that makes it one of the defining moments in Jessa’s character arc — one that, ultimately, I do think gets one of the more conclusive and satisfying endings, especially with regard to her relationship with Hannah. 002: "American Bitch" (S6E3) I do think this is probably the most important episode of Girls , and the one that is best regarded as a standalone work of television. My own personal reaction aside, it’s insane that this was released mere months before the infamous exposé of Harvey Weinstein in 2017. “American Bitch,” another one-character focus, this time on Hannah, begins in media res,  with Hannah having written a disparaging op-ed about a very important writer named Chuck Palmer for what is implied to have been a pretty unimportant Internet magazine. Having invited her to his ritzy city condo personally — under the air of transparency to settle her misgivings about his character — the entire episode is essentially an exchange of dialogue between the two.  What is so brilliant about the episode’s structure is how the audience’s own prevailing feelings are manipulated via Hannah’s subtly shifting opinions on this well-read, manipulative, and pathetically charming man. We begin in explicit tension: Hannah sees him as a creep and a sellout, and Palmer acts as if he sees Hannah as a spunky but naive younger writer, blissfully unaware of the familial strife Hannah has brought into his charmed life by spotlighting multiple allegations of grooming from younger fans of his work. In the present-day political climate, we go into this dynamic already expecting a conclusion. He’s an asshole, Hannah won’t budge on her condemnation of him, and we are just here to watch the comedy produced from rubbing these two diametrically and equally narcissistic characters against each other. But 15 minutes in, that isn’t what happens. Hannah, rarely at her most astute and empathetic, wanders around hypothetical corners with him and falls into a broken camaraderie built on two neurotic writers with abysmal self-esteem and an awkward sexual interest. Palmer makes his case (seemingly) clear. These women all threw themselves at him, and perhaps only a little bit knowing better, he briefly indulged their whims as intellectual equals — taking them at their word and not digging deeper into any underlying power dynamic. It’s a defense that seems scarily familiar to anyone who runs in any close-knit, contemporary subculture. And all of Hannah’s initial doubts about this narrative are gently eased by cheeky exchanges of first-edition, signed Philip Roth books ( get it? ) and pejoratively negging praise.  What’s scary about this episode is how good this gambit gets you. You really do begin to think about this episode as a redemption arc for the flawed-older-man writer archetype. You think that Dunham might indeed be arguing for a rehabilitative inclusion of so-called “cancellations” into public life, following lofty leftist standards like restorative justice. And then, so smoothly you barely even notice it, his penis is poking out of his jeans. Hannah is shocked back to reality and immediately disgusted with how subtly she had allowed herself to be manipulated. Like a cartoon villain, Chuck Palmer smiles. Having now tentatively touched him, lying in bed together, she has allowed him to place her into this strange gray area he’s unwittingly used against young women for years. Any future recounting of this incident would immediately make this story about her. She would be the clout-chaser, the wide-eyed ingenue, only ever loosely credible and only capable of wielding any real power against this man at the cost of driving her own cultural reputation completely into the dirt.  Just like that, his daughter is home for music practice, and Hannah sits frigidly next to his ex-wife. Awkwardly defeated in the mental game of chess and present now as simply one of many women in such a scenario, Hannah’s character feels utterly flattened; collapsing, even, the longstanding gray area between Hannah as a fictitious character and Lena Dunham’s own history as a woman. It’s a hollow and eerie ending to an episode drenched in subtlety. It’s crazy to watch this episode in the wake of how violently a similar modern-day Gen Z intellectual counterculture seems to have turned against this era’s #MeToo movement. I think what many of these women who derail the so-called cultural consequences of mass market cancellations seem to gloss over is just how much damage this very specific gray area is capable of doing to the minds of young women. It’s a list of priorities that, to me, feels profoundly selfish, as would befit a scene that attempted to make the “scary uncle at the family reunion”-type of alt-right beliefs chic and for hot girls. Needless to say, as a woman, you can only watch so many Woody Allen reruns until the penis is pointed at you. And like Sleeping Beauty’s cursed spinning wheel, it’s going to be harder than you think to stand firmly with your common sense, and not prick your finger on something that will lock you in a deep, dreary, prince-charming-dependent sleep forever. 001: " Flo" (S3E9) This is definitely not the best episode of Girls , but I do think it’s my favorite. Its main plot point concerns a very common scenario in the emotional lives of twenty-something women: Hannah’s grandmother is dying, and the women of her family have to pick up the pieces of a woman they only knew to varying degrees of familiarity, all while navigating the difficulty of their own distant relationships with each other. Fun cameos are Hannah’s cousin, who aspires to med school greatness and clearly sees Hannah as a black sheep fuckup, and her religious aunt, who never married, taking on much of Flo’s care and advocating contentiously for her belongings. We get great one-liners from Hannah, darkly wishing her cousins could have been the kind of close relationship that stems from all being molested by the same person. She and her cousin Rebecca don’t ever really come to understand each other, but rather are simply able to acknowledge the shared necessity of working alongside each other in a moment of acute crisis. The scenes of Hannah’s mom, Lorraine, arguing with her two sisters function in a similar manner. The episode is ultimately brought to a head with Rebecca crashing her car while texting and driving, and Adam heroically rushing into the hospital when a fine-but-bruised Hannah hilariously texts him only “CAR CRASH.”  Lorraine, a profoundly underrated character, then gives Hannah one of the most infamous lectures of the entire show. After Adam selflessly lies about an engagement to Hannah on her grandmother’s deathbed, Lorraine takes Hannah aside and muses, “I don’t know him very well. But I see certain things. He’s odd. He’s angry. He’s uncomfortable in his own skin. He bounces around from thing to thing… I don’t want you to spend your whole life socializing him like he’s a stray dog. Making the world a friendlier place for him. It’s not easy being married to an odd man. It isn’t.” It’s a dour moment in what seems like a pretty good stretch for Hannah and Adam’s relationship. As someone who really did think they were going to be endgame for most of the first three seasons, this was the exact moment I began to see the grand arc of their ill-fated dynamic. After all is said and done, and the family reaches something close to closure with the end of Flo’s life, Hannah gets a call on her way back to New York. Her condition has miraculously improved, and she’s going to be discharged the next day. It’s a jarring comedic ending that speaks to just how confusing real life can be. Hannah gives a half-smile and walks into the city crowd as a bare-bones twee girl cover of Warren Zevon’s  “ Don’t Let Us Get Sick ” plays us out. As emotionally intense as this show can be, it’s only made me cry once — and weirdly, for reasons I don’t completely understand, it was right here.  At its best, HBO’s Girls  reflected a very messy truth about my own life back to me — that growing older was a far cry from the linear progression I assumed it would be, and that ultimately, we’re all just fragile, sniffly, blubbering, hurt little creatures trying and frequently failing to love and be loved in return. It would feel deeply embarrassing to end with a reference to AJJ, a crust punk band with a now-retired racially insensitive name, if it weren’t so on theme for the characters in the show. Both as this band fits their novel hipster taste, and   this specific song , “American Garbage,” describes the way in which their young female and female-adjacent audiences have used these characters to identify the gross, ugly human parts of themselves at their worst. If there is going to be   a long-foretold indie sleaze revival , it must come at the cost of completely eliminating the novel concept of cringe from our cultural and interpersonal vocabulary. “If I were one of the girls,”   the song goes,   “ I would be Shoshanna. Confused and rude, such a special kind of way to be cruel. Confused and rude, confused and rude .” 🌀 Audrey Robinovitz is a multidisciplinary artist, scholar, and self-professed perfume critic. Her work intersects with the continued traditions of fiber and olfactory arts, post-structural feminism, and media studies. At this very moment, she is most likely either smelling perfume or taking pictures of flowers.

Time to smother your toes in plastic. L-R: Kim Kardashian via Instagram; Chloé SS26; Maison Margiela SS26 A well-shod (or barely -there) foot is all the rage. Just a few months ago, the slapping of thick thong flip-flops  echoed the streets of every major fashion capital. This was partly thanks to the Brazilian brand Havaianas (pioneers of rubber thongs since 1966), who partnered with Gigi Hadid in a delightful move to boost their MIV. Despite the urge to wrap up in fur coats and cozy into hibernation, the phalangeal freak show is far from over. In Spring/Summer 2026, we are going utterly nude .  Unlike the hoist of a flip-flop strap, a PVC heel clings to the metatarsals and emboldens the piggies. An open-toed plastic monster can be wriggled into with bunions galore — forget the sartorial panic of an ill-fitting kitten heel. But this raunchy shoe requires taming. There is the oppressive clack in the Underground to be reckoned with (HALOSCOPE recommends you lacquer up to hide the below-the-nail city grime). Sliding around in foggy, sweat-soaked insoles tempts a kind of voyeuristic humiliation. Once on foot, all go-getting gumption must be channeled into slicked-back confidence. Smothering your trotters in vinylite would be disgusting if only it weren’t so good. Scantily clad feet have teased the conventions of popular culture for almost a century. Following its utility in World War II, PVC soon covered women’s feet worldwide. In a 1955 style dispatch for the New York Times , editor Dorothy Hawkins termed the rise of “a barefoot chic,” picking the nastiest pair of peekaboo vinylite vamps for the cut. During this time, vanguard shoe designer Beth Levine propelled the Herbert Levine repertoire into the nudes. Her most provocative creation was the No Shoe   in the late ‘50s, an elongated, heeled sole fixed by two strips of adhesive that welded to the feet. Sex workers and dancers of the ‘90s spotlighted Pleaser heels — strappy, transparent platforms — for their utilitarianism, which were later commercialised by lingerie giant Frederick’s of Hollywood. For a 1995 Vanity Fair  double spread , Nicole Kidman was shot by Herb Ritts, curls piled high and smouldering in a pink bubble bath — lest we forget the Pleasers draped over the side.  Resurgences of see-through shoes have been peppered across the media sphere for the last 20 years. A slew of A-listers like Ashley Olsen, Hailey Bieber, and Kim K have sported pairs, including those from cult brands Amina Muaddi  and Gianvito Rossi . Former Senior Fashion Writer at Vogue  and NEVERWORNS Newscaster Liana Satenstein reported on the dangers afflicting plastic-covered feet in 2018, namely the repulsive “ petri dish pedicure .” Despite the threat of infectious disease, this genre of shoe is an enduring charmer. Its perennial sheen made a timely and indefinite return in a slam-dunk September showing. The harbinger of perverse fashion, Simone Rocha, showed the gratifying vulgarity that comes with subverting a traditional shoe in her SS26 collection . Brogues were sliced with lapping plastic tongues, evoking that naughty, childish glint Rocha seeks to capture with her gaudy drop-waists and crinkled organza. Similarly, TOGA Archives  warped the classic ballet flat, often worn by a clutch of The Row acolytes, with phalangeal windows across the vamp. Dilara Findikoglu’s strappy heels nipped at the Achilles of medieval goddesses. From afar, cubes of resin became a whisper of a heel.  Although the Chloé SS26 collection  was rooted in springtime pragmatism (think bunching saccharine floral dresses and taffeta coats), it was still anchored in fantasy by the gelatinous peeptoes and boat-neck vamps. Maison Margiela , too, took the PVC trend a step further. In addition to the knee-high split-sole boots fitted with lucite blocks to contort the feet into a glassy hoof, a process of “plasticisation” was used to vacuum-pack garments. Jewellery lay sequestered in bodices and silk jackets shellacked into makeshift raincoats. Loewe’s kooky design lexicon  saw translucent ankle boots attached to the tiniest nub of a heel and lined with colorful knit socks. The most daring iteration was courtesy of Valentino . Stilettos were cut in a salacious “V,” exposing a glimpse of toe cleavage restrained by a sliver of PVC. The heels were paired with knee-length satin skirts, a cinched purple embossed coat, and a ruched fuchsia mini-dress. The industry-wide valley between ludicrous footwear styles (Tabis, Vibram FiveFingers, and flip-flops, to name a few) has spliced, animalised, and exposed the feet. Only the PVC heel offers a cheeky, barely-there shield. The plastic wicks away at naivety and douses the wearer in non-conformity. Better yet if you dig the hunt for a sleazy pair of second-handers.  The foray of topless shoes on the September runways is sure to beckon the sartorially inclined. After all, the fashion moguls have decided: maybe it is  time to let the dogs out. 🌀 Flora Ivins  is a writer and armchair critic based in London. You can often find her plumbing the depths of eBay or online @flosivie .

Our collective reverence of Margiela’s tabi both erases the style’s Japanese origins and contravenes the original ethos of a maison that treated the commodity as an object of suspicion. Looming large over the tabi’s entrance into popular culture is one rather reclusive Belgian designer. Martin Margiela’s version of the split-toe has come to stand for the style at large, in spite of its Japanese roots. As Female Menace writes , the conversation around the tabi is firmly centered on Maison Margiela; instead of asking Where are your tabis from? , the question is more likely to be Are those real or fake Margiela tabis? This happens as fashion continues to contend with the afterlives of Western cultural imperialism. The refashioning of the South Asian dupatta as the "Scandinavian scarf" by certain trend-addled quadrants of the internet prompted discussions about British colonialism in India . A similar reckoning took place with the Afghan coat, whose origins in the Ghazni region of Afghanistan were momentarily usurped by the stylish proto-stan Penny Lane, portrayed on-screen by Kate Hudson in Almost Famous  (2000). In the fashion industry, exoticism and erasure occur simultaneously. Items are made attractive by their difference or foreignness — that slight indication that they come from somewhere else. This doesn’t guarantee that their creators will be properly credited. There has been a similar resistance to the appropriation of the tabi. Female Menace writes on Substack that the uptake of the split-toe amongst the trendy residents of Western capitals is accompanied by a fundamental ignorance of the Japanese history of the style. Once intended to keep samurais' feet planted firmly on the ground, the tabi has been transformed into an elitist signifier of cultural capital, distinguishing those who’ve been privileged with taste and money ( a pair of tabi flats will set you back over £800 in 2025 ). The transformation of the Margiela tabi into a tool of conspicuous consumption is regarded as an odd reversal of Martin Margiela’s ‘anti-fashion’ approach. Margiela, the man, represents the iconoclasm of the '90s. He staged runways in the Parisian banlieues , where fashion press were not treated with the usual deference but made to stand or — heaven forbid — sit in the second row. He complicated the traditional repertoire of haute couture techniques, eschewing even a label in favour of four single, looped stitches. Like his clothing, his public image defied the glossy sheen of celebrity — to this day, we only have a handful of photographs of him.  Margiela’s FW02 runway show had models dressed up in white lab coats, holding transparent plexiglass boxes with vintage handbags encased. Kaat Debo, curator and director of MoMu in Antwerp, describes this spectacle  as a specifically Margelian critique of commodity fetishism. Similarly, Debo reads Margiela’s artisanal collections as a Marxist critique. (It was not unlike Margiela to observe capitalist relations and respond to them in his art. He designed his first tabi after a trip to Japan in the 1980s, during which he noticed split-toe shoes on the feet of factory workers.) Dupe culture certainly resembles fetish, embodying in new ways those "metaphysical subtleties and theological quirks" of the commodity that Marx once puzzled over. Editor Alexandra Hildreth writes  that with dupe culture, "the stigma of trying and failing dissipates". This is as true for designer fashion as it is for overpriced water bottles. Once upon a time, wearing a fake was a fashion faux pas that one would only admit to under the most pressing circumstances. (Think Samantha Jones's mortification — while admitting to Hugh Hefner — that she was carrying a fake Fendi baguette in season 3 of Sex and the City ). Now, as living costs skyrocket and luxury brands continue to hike prices, new consumption patterns challenge hierarchies of taste. Amazon storefronts and TikTok shopping are abounding with replicas, which are not just tolerated but frequently celebrated as the democratisation of high fashion. Participation in dupe culture has become the mark of a savvy, discerning consumer. From amongst the Bottega Jodies and Goyard totes, the Margiela tabi has emerged as one of dupe culture’s darlings. (In a culture so averse to feet, the rise of toe-forward footwear has been something to behold.) Margiela dupes are now widely available, most notably from the veteran Woodchuck Sato and, infamously, AliExpress. But unlike other it-items, dupes of the Margiela tabi are defended for more than just their economic accessibility. Dupe culture has been put forward as a tool to recentre the Japanese origins of the tabi and prevent further instances of Western appropriation. The crux of this argument is that it is not possible to dupe the Margiela tabi, because it is a Japanese style that never belonged to Martin Margiela in the first place. From this perspective, the Margiela tabi is already the dupe, and any attempt to replicate it is a morally neutral, if not positive, anti-monopolistic undertaking that Margiela himself would have approved of. This line of thinking proposes that by removing the split-toe from the domain of Margiela and reintroducing it to the world on its own terms, we can destabilise the monopoly of one brand and the hierarchy of high fashion that underpins it. This claim makes sense in our current political culture. Ownership is a fraught thing, being so bound up with the uneven cultural exchanges that have directed life on Earth since European expansionism began in the 15th century. As minority groups across the West — and in much of the global South — fight to make political claims, the desire to underscore the rightful ownership of cultural objects is an important political impulse.  But it is not clear that participating in dupe culture actually addresses the cultural grievances that surround the split-toe. The suggestion that the Margiela tabi cannot be duped because it is itself a dupe certainly does not account for the dynamic processes of cultural exchange that are at play in its design. When we treat the Margiela tabi as an expropriated item that belongs solely to Japan, we lose sight of the cultural complexity that drives fashion and other art forms. As new nationalisms informed by ideas of cultural purity spring up all around us, why deny the deeply human tendency to mix? The tabi was born as a sock worn with sandals ( Geta ) by Japanese elites in the 15th century. Later, in the 17th century, the introduction of trade with China allowed commoners to take up the split-toe style, albeit in limited colours and fabrics. In a later innovation, the tabi sock was attached to a rubber sole and became the Jika-Tabi , worn by construction and factory workers. These shifts in political economy shaped the development of the tabi and delivered it to new audiences domestically. Some time later, the shrinking of the world created an international audience for the tabi, and the shoe was once again reinterpreted by Martin Margiela in the 1980s. His interpretation was not a straightforward facsimile of its Japanese predecessor. In their designs, Martin Margiela and his successors have married the split-toe to various other styles of shoe, some of which have contested origins. Norway, the USA, and England all vie for ownership of the loafer. The ballet flat began its ascent to the pinnacle of French-girl chic in the Renaissance-era royal courts. Mary-Janes were popularised in the United States, their namesake being a character in Richard Felton Outcault’s Buster Brown comic series. When these Western canonical styles were combined with the Japanese split-toe, they became something of a novelty: an "East-meets-West" fashion intervention, deliciously characteristic of our globalising world. This process of hybridisation is not unfamiliar to any of us; virtually every aspect of culture in the Americas has been born out of the mixing of different traditions. No matter how much one sitting president would like it to be true, we are not siloed into individual nations, producing for ourselves by ourselves, using only the natural materials that occur in the territory between our borders. Martin Margiela was open to witnessing and ushering in these moments of synergy. He was fundamentally anti-purity, dedicated to refitting and transforming existing collections through techniques like décortiqué and assemblage that we continued to associate with the house under Galliano and Glenn Martens. In the exhibition notes for"‘Maison Martin Margiela 20," Kaat Debo writes that Martin Margiela’s garments “do not hide the course of time, but carry along the traces of a garment’s previous life and incorporate it into the new item – they are the silent witnesses of durée.” In the design of the Margiela tabi, we see multiple different lives and multiple different cultural traditions interacting together with the Japanese split-toe at their helm. The shoe itself is a testament to the durée of global fashion history. The question then becomes how we account for both the very real erasure of the tabi’s Japanese roots and the inherent hybridity of Margiela’s design. Dupe culture may not be the correct vehicle for inviting in this complexity. Overzealous endorsement of Margiela dupes may risk eclipsing the tabi’s Japanese origins entirely. The tabi dupes in question are quite clearly replicas of the various interpretations of the tabi designed by Margiela, not the original Jika-Tabi boot. They feature that '70s-style cylindrical heel and, up until recently, Woodchuck Sato’s shoe included the single-stitch logo that Maison Margiela is known for. Another observation of Hildreth’s rings true here: there is a fine line between a dupe and a counterfeit. Placing Margiela’s specific design front and centre to be replicated ad infinitum narrows our imaginations as to what the tabi is, has been, and can be; it only strengthens the brand’s monopoly. If authenticity is important, it is because it invites us to learn about the historical and creative foundations of our garments. 🌀 Soraya Odubeko is a writer from London whose work explores the intersection of identity and the arts. Her words have appeared in publications like DAZED , Schön! , and TANK. Follow her on Instagram @sorayaodubeko .

The eccentric French indie perfumer talks about her beginnings in opera, her cult-favorite scent Milky Dragon, and what happens when fragrances hold distant melodies. Isabelle Larignon photographed by Laura Stevens for Télérama Two words come to mind when describing French indie perfumer Isabelle Larignon : – renaissance woman. Before apprenticing under celebrated perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour  and debuting her own fragrance collection in 2021, Larignon had already led many lives. A student of opera and lyrical singing for more than 10 years, a copywriter for luxury French brands that encompassed everything from high-end hotels to gastronomy, and a former dancer, Larignon’s passions are wide-ranging, surprising, and all border on the slightly obsessive. Her fragrance collection, which includes Milky Dragon   — a cult favorite within in-the-know fragrance circles — has been embraced for its scope and storytelling. How did these multiple lives lead to a collection that’s considered both eccentric and revelatory — and is this the final destination for a masterful perfumer who has only just arrived? This interview has been edited for length and clarity. BEATRIZ ZIMMERMANN:  I first met you at an event last year hosted by the Fragrance Alliance Network  in NYC, where you spoke about your work as a perfumer. I was so struck by your gift as a storyteller. Storytelling has pretty much become a marketing tool, but there was nothing strategic about your fragrance stories — and I mean that in the best way. They were so pure, intense, and even a little strange. The inspiration behind each fragrance seemed wildly different; all coming from a deep place of imagination. Everyone listening was clearly blown away. Do you see yourself as a born storyteller? Has anyone ever told you that you have a real gift for storytelling? ISABELLE LARIGNON:  Well, as a child, I used to write lovely letters to my friends, according to their mothers. Otherwise, I've always had a complicated relationship with writing and words, like a juggler weighing the weight of each ball — or word — their sound, their double meanings. And when I became a copywriter, I had to become more efficient about words and stories since it was my job, of course. There are always constraints when you’re writing for a client. I tried to turn that into a game to make it more enjoyable.   BZ: Did you like writing for others? IL:  I enjoyed it when the stories were real, and not just marketing-created stories, like you say. I think I was very good at interpreting what the essence of a product or a brand was or could be. I once worked with a coffee client, and instead of writing advertising copy for them, I wrote several poems about their coffee universe.  It wasn’t at all what they expected or wanted at first, but they trusted me. It became part of their press kit, and later, I even got calls from PR people who thought the poetry was amazing.   BZ: So, when creating a fragrance, do you tend to begin with the story and then build a fragrance to tell that story, or do you begin with a fragrance mood or ingredients that interest you, which then help to conjure a story? IL: It depends on the fragrance. For my first fragrance, Le Flocon de Johann K , I started with a pamphlet written in 1610 by the astronomer and mathematician, Johannes Kepler. He wrote about his fascination with a snowflake and decided he wanted to study its exact composition. He had an idea that the composition of the snowflake was a metaphor for the entire universe. The fact that he wanted to give this snowflake to his friend as a New Year’s gift made this story so interesting to me — and so poetic. I love the fact that Kepler mixed science and nature and poetry. I loved this idea of the entire universe embodied in a snowflake.   BZ: And so, your fragrance was inspired by the scent of snowflakes? IL: Yes, but that came years later when I was listening to a radio program in France where a scientist who specialized in glaciers and climate change was being interviewed.   The question came up about whether snowflakes have a scent. It was wintertime, and it also happened to be a few days before New Year’s Eve. I was thinking about my perfume project and looking for a sign about what to work on next. When the radio program host asked that question, I had my sign and my answer! So, I began my own quest for the scent of snowflakes. BZ: That strikes me as something so pure and simple but also quite abstract — almost like the idea of imagining the scent of nothingness. IL: Yes, this inspired me to try to capture something intangible. But however faint the scent of snow may seem, it’s actually rich in sensations and contradictions. It’s light, white, powdery, airy, and icy, yet it can burn the skin. It is fluffy, yet very hard when it settles. So, I clung to all these sensations, giving them olfactory equivalents. Then I also wanted to move away from the literal scent for the formula I was creating.  I had a vision of a Japanese rock garden contemplated by a Zen master surrounded by incense. I imagined this man listening to the silence enveloping his garden as the snow fell. This led me to what is now the Le Flocon de Johann K . When I created the scent, I got in touch with that scientist from the radio program to tell her what I was doing. It was amazing because she told me that she was, in fact, writing a book about the scent of snow.  We became friends, and later, when I shared my fragrance with her, I was so happy that she loved it very much. BZ: That’s amazing and like a full circle moment. The idea really came together over many years and in such an extraordinary way. IL:  Yes, there are many stories like this in my life. BZ: You followed this fragrance with what became a fragrance sensation that’s really gotten lots of attention in niche circles — Milky Dragon . It’s an unusual fragrance that centers around a milky-like tea note, and the inspiration is another magical and lovely story — this one about a lonely dragon that lives on a remote island. This is another example of your surprising storytelling. IL:  Yes, this is a nice story — also unusual. Yes.   BZ: For me, there’s something both strange yet comforting about both this story and the fragrance — almost like a soothing bedtime story. Tell me about this idea. IL: Well, I was inspired by a real Chinese legend, which is about a farmer who is afraid of losing his tea trees in a coming storm. The storm comes, but the next morning, the farmer finds that his trees are safe. He discovers that there is a dragon sleeping nearby, and he decides that it’s the dragon that has protected his trees. I loved this story, and I was also very interested in a tea note, so I created a different version of this story in my mind, focusing more on the dragon.  I imagined the misty, humid island where the dragon lives by himself. And I also imagined the dragon falling in love with the camellia flower, which he protects. Camelia sinensis  is the botanical name for the tea plant, so there is a nice play here. BZ: The part about protecting the flower and the delicateness of this makes me think of Saint-Exupéry and the flower that the little prince loves and protects. IL:  His rose. Yes! I never thought of this, but yes.   BZ: The name Milky Dragon  is so evocative.  How would you describe the scent?  IL: The inspiration comes from the Taiwanese oolong tea, which has a natural milky note.  It’s a gourmand and versatile tea. Depending on whether the leaves are dry or infused, its notes are fruity, floral, and woody. This was an opportunity to explore a gourmand experience that was far from vanilla and the sticky sweetness of maltol .   BZ:   To my mind, Milky Dragon  and Le Flocon de Johann K  share some similar elements conceptually. They share a feeling of intimacy and a deep sense of introspection. For me, there’s also a feeling of loneliness or solitude — in the most poetic way. I’m curious about this and wonder if that’s something you feel as well as a perfumer and a creative person?  IL:  A fragrance doesn’t hold just one truth. I am very critical of my work and don’t have the perspective or distance to be emotional about my perfumes. I tend to be more analytical and, yes, introspective. Before I even begin to write the formula, I take a long time creating the fragrance first in my mind — imagining it and trying to “catch” it, like a distant melody.  On a technical note, I do like there to be a common thread between each fragrance, through shared molecules. BZ: I have to ask you about your fragrance names. The name Milky Dragon  is pretty unusual, and Le Flocon de Johann K  may be one of the most unlikely fragrance names I’ve ever come across. As someone who has worked on fragrance and product names, I really admire your risk-taking, because I imagine someone along the way must have advised that perhaps these were challenging names or ideas? IL:  It's true that Le Flocon de Johann K  — which means Johann K’s snowflake  in French — is a little strange and also challenging for an English-speaking audience. But I never imagined I would ever edit it in any way. I love that the name sounds like the title of a movie or maybe a detective novel. I think that in terms of unpronounceable names, my third fragrance,  Bangla Yāsaman ,  is the worst. I remember my daughter repeating it over and over again before she said, “Yes, Mom, it's good, keep it.” And I did!   BZ: But it’s one of those names that you have to say out loud to realize it sounds so good!  There’s a real rhythm to the words. IL: Yes, I think so, too. BZ: Bangla Yāsaman  went in an entirely different direction. It’s richly aromatic and effusive and built around this heady experience of jasmine, but I want to ask you about your decision to create the fragrance without a drop of jasmine absolute, instead creating a fragrance accord that conjures an incredible impression of jasmine.  It’s a bit of a “trompe-nez” — kind of a spin on trompe l’oeil, if you will. You’ve said that you enjoyed taking this role as [an] illusionist. Can you talk a little about that? IL: It all started with an order for a client who wanted a custom-made jasmine/orange blossom perfume. I found the order rather boring, so to challenge myself, I decided to recreate the scent of jasmine flowers. I don’t particularly think that Sambac and Grandiflorum Jasmine absolutes are very faithful to the scent of the flower. Two years later, I reworked one of the proposals that the client had not chosen to make it my own. I expanded the jasmine accord from 10 molecules to 19 molecules. Then, to bring naturalness and animality to this accord, I added natural ingredients such as tobacco absolute and osmanthus.   BZ: Your latest fragrance, Mandi Rhubi ,  seems to be another departure or a new chapter in your collection. It’s greener, fresher, and yet quite bold. I’m struck by a story you’ve told about this launch and how you first shared your creation with Sarah Bouasse , who is a French fragrance journalist and your fellow contributor to Nez . She proclaimed your fragrance a modern-day Germaine Cellier . Cellier was, of course, a legendary perfumer who created such classics as Balmain’s Vent Vert , and Robert Piguet’s Bandit , and Fracas . What did you think of her assessment?  IL: Sarah was the first to try the fragrance, and she is a real connoisseur, so I was a little nervous. I think that the boldness of the Mandi Rhubi comes from the presence of galbanum and IBQ (isobutyl quinoline) — two molecules   that are characteristic of Germaine Cellier's work and very reminiscent of her world. Perhaps that was the reason for the comparison.  Since I use few molecules that are typical of current trends and fragrances, Mandi Rhubi  may also recall the fragrances of the 1970s. BZ: The fact that your fragrances are so eclectic shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering the many career paths you’ve travelled. Clearly, you’re a born creative and have lived many lives in the arts — as a writer, also a student of opera and lyrical singing, a dancer, and even a food writer. How do you think these experiences and past lives influence or inspire your work now as a perfumer? IL: The seventeen years I spent working for various players in the gastronomy sector (champagne, cheese, spirits, coffee, restaurants, etc.) clearly nourished my olfactory memory. As for other more artistic pursuits, such as ballet and opera singing, they are all part of the same quest: to create a beautiful gesture that connects to a sacred, universal, transcendent feeling that touches the soul.   BZ: What were your formative experiences as an artist? Could you share some of your influences?  IL: One of my most powerful experiences, both physically and mentally, was practicing opera singing. The vibration and energy released by the operatic voice are phenomenal. When technique is combined with vocal expression and artistic intention, the result is divine. One of my teachers explained to me that my voice should be like the eye of a storm: unchanging in the midst of movement. As far as other influences, I was inspired by the autobiography of a German philosopher who discovered the principles of zazen through the practice of archery.  Zazen is a meditative practice in Zen Buddhism. This concept places all the importance on the practice and repetition that’s necessary for learning and excelling at anything. It’s not the goal that matters as much as the practice and the path to the goal. This is very important, and it’s something I try to live every day. BZ: I’m thinking about the years you spent immersed in music. People have spoken about the parallels between music and perfumery. Apart from some shared language, like the idea of notes, accords, and the composition itself, how do you apply your musical knowledge to perfumery? The idea of an operatic voice and now a voice through perfume is fascinating to me. IL: Well, you know I never became a soloist, although my teachers told me that was what my voice was suited for. My voice was too powerful for a chorus, so I had to become a soloist — but I was very young and didn’t feel I was mature enough or prepared to do this. I wasn’t comfortable as a soloist at all.   BZ: Why do you think that it is? IL: Well, as a soloist, it is much more than the voice; it’s the entire body that is an instrument, and I think there is a certain psychology that’s needed, too. I don’t think I felt comfortable having such a strong voice.  I realized that I had the voice of the diva but not the spirit of the diva! BZ: This is so interesting. I can’t help but think that this preparation is a perfect foundation for your work now.  It’s like you’ve applied your voice to perfumery — and maybe you’re a diva now. IL: Well, it’s easier now. With the singing, that was a hard and beautiful path, but now, yes, I get to be the composer, and it’s the molecules that sing!   BZ: I have to ask what some of your favorite fragrances are and what you’re currently wearing. IL: For me, the absolute masterpiece is   Nuit de Bakelite   by   Isabelle Doyen for Naomi Goodsir. It has become my signature scent. I wear few perfumes because I'm very picky and easily overwhelmed. I’ve also worn   Dzonghka , Mont de Narcisse , and Acqua di Scandola  these last few years, but I don’t consider myself a perfumista. BZ: I’m curious also about fragrances that you love or that intrigue you, but you can’t necessarily wear. I consider myself a little bit of a Guerlain girl, and I’m a proud wearer of Jicky , but I can’t bring myself to wear Mitsouko , for example, a fragrance that’s almost unanimously revered by some of the best noses. I find it beautiful but somehow impossible to wear, though I’ve tried. IL: It's funny, I wore Mitsouko  when I was twenty because the adoptive mother of my first love told me, “You are Mitsouko .” But that perfume brought me bad luck, and everyone I met in my life who wore it was mean to me! Another fragrance I adore, Grey Flannel , has had an interesting journey in my life. Several of my lovers, starting with my ex-husband, to whom I gave it as a gift, have worn this fragrance. Recently, one of my clients, who has become a friend, gave it to me as a gift. I tried wearing it, but I just can't.   BZ: Our fragrance choices and loves really do mirror a great deal about our lives – and the chapters of our lives. IL: Yes, absolutely. BZ: You’ve had so many interesting chapters in your life, and I think of what you said earlier about it being about the practice of doing the thing you love and wanting to learn, not the end goal. IL: Yes, I think that if you are only thinking about the goal, you will be frustrated because everything takes a lot of time, but by taking each step every day, this is the journey. It’s also a humbling experience, but I think this may be the secret to happiness. I think we can say that?   BZ: I think we can… apart from finding the secret to happiness, we’re fascinated by anyone who has reinvented themselves so successfully as you have — crossing from one field of study or career to another. You’ve done so a few times with great dedication, while obviously applying that step-by-step journey you describe. And I also have to add — with great joie de vivre!  Can you talk a little about this urge to switch gears and how intentional it is — or is it more of a case of one path naturally leading to another? I wonder if you could offer advice to anyone who wants to expand their choices or make big changes but feels uncertain or afraid. IL: As a teenager, I wanted to be an opera singer, a tango dancer, and a nose. So, I always wanted to be a perfumer, or rather a nez  (nose), which in French sounds exactly the same as ‘ né ’, which literally means ‘to be born.’ It took me 40 years to finally come into my own and feel legitimate enough to live out this childhood dream! So, what I can say is that it's never too late, you're never too old, and creativity knows no age. However, we are not all equal when it comes to risk-taking, stress management, and fear. The hardest part is not committing to a path; it's persevering, holding on despite doubts, despite competition, despite a lack of money, and uncertainty about your financial future. Ultimately, you have to follow your deepest desires, remain consistent, and unique.          BZ: Isabelle, do you still sing? IL:  I do. I sing every day, and I love to sing with my daughter. 🌀 Beatriz Zimmermann is an award-nominated fragrance writer based in NYC. An incurable Francophile (and romantic), she loves to connect some of her favorite things in her writing whenever possible, like art, fashion, history, and literature. You can find more of her musings @luxemlove .

Zoe Messinger, founder of the cult-favorite edible art brand, is reimagining gelatin as a medium for nourishment, beauty, and spiritual connection. Gelée founder Zoe Messinger. Photo: Courtesy of Gelée There's a childlike magic in watching food sparkle, sweat, glisten, melt, break, and freeze, and there's arguably nothing more satisfying than watching something as simple as jelly tremble under kitchen light. For Zoe Messinger, founder of cult-favorite gelatin brand Gelée , that tremble is practically kinesiology. What began as a personal healing practice around food evolved into a full-fledged design philosophy ("There’s something so true about joy and play being a vital nutrient to both our body and soul," she told Vogue in 2024 ), and found root in the retro-whimsical properties of gelatin. In conversation with HALOSCOPE, Messinger opens up about the journey of starting Gelée, and how texture and taste can converge into something both intimate and transcendent — not unlike fashion. This interview has been edited for grammar and clarity. Photo: Courtesy of Gelée SAVANNAH EDEN BRADLEY: You’ve said before that Gelée was born during a time of personal healing for you — how did that experience shape the brand’s identity and the way you approach food as both nourishment and play and art? ZOE MESSINGER: I'm somebody [who's] always been on the journey, whatever that means to you, just a deeper journey. An inquisitive, curious one that can feel really raw and intense, and also really alive and awake. I think that I've had many profound experiences in my life, and I built Gelée as a tool and a brand to help people on the journey. In whatever way they need — but encompassing nourishment, play, light, joy, and all the things that can illuminate life and yourself from the inside out. SEB: What I love about your brand language is how deeply sensual and playful it can be. How do you see pleasure and play informing not just how we eat, but how we connect with each other? ZM: Pleasure and play are the two most important things to me. I'm a very sensorial person: taste, touch, sound, smell — energy. Living through my senses, while being aligned with my intuition and treating life like a playground, is the most direct way for me to connect to Spirit, which then connects me to those around me. Pleasure and play are at the core of how we connect with each other. I mean, you can trace it all the way back to Adam and Eve — intimacy, creation, connection all come from play and sensuality. "What can we do to make this earth, that is so wonderful and amazing and expansive, alive?" SEB: Going off of the sensory world, we have to talk about your collaboration with Caroline Zimbalist. The edible rose dress was such a delicious moment. How did that collaboration come about, and what excites you most about working at the intersection of food and fashion? ZM: Food and fashion are two of my greatest passions. They are both self expressions that play with the seasons, tones, textures, how they feel against your skin, in your mouth, how they interplay — it’s all sort of the same, the same thread and ingredients. When envisioning Gelée, before even launching, I imagined models walking down a runway at Fashion Week holding orbs of luminous, glowing Gelée, with jewels or accessories floating. So when Caroline and I were connected organically, it felt like the stars had aligned. We were and are fans of each other's work, and it was all very synergistic. We work and play from the same philosophy. Caroline's work is biodegradable, good for you, good for the planet, sustainable, regenerative. In fact, her closet of curiosities is pretty much the same as my pantry — natural fibers and natural food dyes that are made from fruits and vegetables like beets, chlorophyll, and spirulina. There's so much alignment, synergy, and electricity.  The dress was hand-painted, hand-constructed, and very tactile, sensorial, and playful. This piece was created with an organic, holistic philosophy, keeping every part of the ecosystem in mind.  SEB: Gelatin, as you’ve highlighted, can function as a biodegradable bioplastic. How do you imagine Gelée contributing to conversations around sustainability, both in food, fashion, and design? ZM: Gelée is rooted in ancient philosophy with a modern lens. Gelée is made from grass-fed pasture-raised beef gelatin — just bones, essentially. And so that’s already naturally regenerative and sustainable, because it's bones that would otherwise get discarded from the meat, and you're getting all of the collagen and the protein. It's a full-cycle food system philosophy.  I think that's just one conversation out of so many that are being had right now, falling in the intersection of food, fashion, and design, and all three separate of— What can we do to make this Earth, that is so wonderful and amazing and expansive, alive? What can we do to maintain it and make it thrive, make it healthy, treat it like we treat ourselves and other humans around us, and realize that it's a living, breathing organism? Earth is not a grid on a video game or a simulation; it's elemental, it's energy, it's spirit. When it thrives, we thrive.  SEB: Gelatin itself is also quite visual, tactile, sculptural. Do you see it as more of a culinary product, a design object, or a performance piece? Or is it all of the above? ZM: It's all of the above. It has a life force. It moves. Jiggles. It's porous, it breathes. It's multi-dimensional. Gelée is your muse.  SEB: What’s next for you and the brand? Do you see any other future collaborations across art, fashion, or even architecture? ZM: There’s a lot going on — some things that I can’t disclose, new flavors are launching that I’m really excited about, [and] my second collection. My language here mirrors a season of fashion or a painter’s collection because it's so much more than a new flavor to me.  It’s my Monet's Lilies, my Miro Bleu, my expression of the era, the moment, the season. Future collaborations [are] where I like to live. I love playing with others to create and redefine.  SEB: If you could serve Gelée in any dream setting — whether that’s a dinner party, a concert, a runway show — where would it be, and what form would it take? ZM: This is a tough question because I'm a dreamer. I have a lot of dreams, and many of them come true, like the edible dress, which is wild and powerful, and I don’t take that for granted. I think it’s because I say no a lot, and the big yes drops in. Everything is intentional. Something intergalactic inspires me (however you define that). I felt inspired by the latest Chanel collection and Paris runway show. I felt a connection to the brand in a way I hadn't before. I witnessed people starting to catch on to the cosmic wave — the understanding that we are energy, interconnected, part of a solar system. Gelée in space. I won’t go into detail; I’ll leave it there. Since we're dreaming, I have a vision of opening a Gelée window, partnering with local farms for seasonal flavor drops and beautiful takeaway boxes. New Yorkers, Parisians, [and] Californians walking home with a translucent, luminous case of Gelée reflecting the seasons for the community, full of collaboration, alive with spirit. 🌀 You can learn more about Gelée here or via Instagram . Savannah Eden Bradley  is a writer, fashion editor, gallerina, Gnostic scholar, reformed It Girl, and future beautiful ghost from the Carolina coast. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the fashion magazine HALOSCOPE. You can stalk her everywhere online @savbrads .

West, behind the looks for Dracula and The Bride of Frankenstein, birthed a new idiom in fashion horror — but was largely forgotten by history.  L-R: Helen Chandler in Dracula (1931); Lou Chaney and Peggy Moran in The Mummy’s Hand (1940); Elsa Lancaster in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Before horror had its icons — the Bride, the Mummy, Dracula’s countess — it had Vera West. The Universal Studios designer draped terror in beauty, crafting the silhouettes that would define monsters for generations and laid the visual language of the horror genre. Her work still haunts Halloween costumes to this day, even though her name and legacy have been eclipsed by her mysterious death. West was born in New York City in 1897. After graduating from the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design), she migrated to New York and designed dresses for a fashion salon on Fifth Avenue. After finding herself in Hollywood in the 1920s, for reasons that are as mysterious as the films she worked on, West rose to prominence and assumed the role of chief costume executive at Universal Pictures. It’s important to note, here, that many details of West’s life are lost to time — we may never know why she fled to Hollywood, nor the granular bits and pieces of her personal life, but we do know one thing for certain: how her spirit appeared in her indelible work.  During her time at Universal, West designed costumes for almost 400 films, a majority falling in the horror genre. From the 1930s to the 1940s, West’s work can be seen in Dracula  (1931), The Mummy  (1932), The Bride of Frankenstein  (1935), and Phantom of the Opera  (1943), among many other classics. West designed for the female principal roles while costuming for Universal, which included lots of “damsel in distress”-coded characters, who were often seen draped across the arms of a male actor, but also included dynamic female roles like the Bride of Frankenstein, made iconic by her striking bolt of white hair. Elsa Lancaster, the actress who played the Bride in 1935, was draped in white surgical gowns and bandaged opera gloves. This look is perhaps West’s most popular legacy on horror fashion, reminiscent of 1940s utility and wartime-inspired looks. It’s almost as if West’s costuming for Lancaster helped predict women’s fashion in the 1940s as the United States entered its wartime era. Although no one was walking around in surgical gowns and bandaged gloves, women were wearing structured, coordinated outfits that were sharp and utilitarian, accessorized by stylized gloves. The Bride of Frankenstein  costume has been replicated and referenced hundreds of times in popular culture, becoming synonymous with the character itself. In 2022, Kylie Jenner wore a copycat look  of West’s monster design for Halloween. The 1930s were defined by bias cuts and elongated silhouettes in women’s dresses. In the 1931 version of Frankenstein , Mae Clarke, who played Elizabeth, was exclusively dressed in white throughout the film. Her bridal gown in this film, designed by West, echoed these popular 1930s trends and drove the high-end bridal design, transitioning them into the shadowy corners of horror. Clarke’s dress was so popular and favored by audiences that it was replicated in department stores.  L-R: Martha O’Driscoll in House of Dracula (1945); Mae Clarke in Frankenstein (1931) Lots of West’s costumes could be categorized as glamorous formal dresses or silky lace-trimmed nightwear. Helen Chandler, who played Mina Seward in Dracula (1931) , is seen in one of West’s biggest successes in film sleepwear. Chandler’s costume is soft and romantic, a complete contrast to her monster co-star. The chemise slip lightly grazes the body, instead of constricting it. The dropped waistline and straight cut are distinct features of 1920s fashion elements. Her overlay jacket consists of long, flowy sleeves that emphasize a ghostly fluidity to Chandler’s role.  This boudoir-inspired costuming can be seen in more of West’s sleepwear, like The Wolf Man (1940)   and The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) . Although West didn’t have a defining, recognizable, overarching aesthetic to her designs like some other designers, sleepwear was definitely one of her strong suits. The She-Wolf of London (1946) is a prime example of West’s sleepwear expertise, featuring more modest sleeping attire than Dracula , but still expertly crafted and elegant.  West, along with makeup artist Jack Pierce, created what would become the blueprint for monster aesthetics — an intricate blend of the grotesque monster and the glamorous damsel. West’s costuming transformed archetypes of fear into icons of style, her use of draped fabrics and elegance lending the unsettling horror an unexpected beauty. Pierce’s transformative makeup techniques and hair styling completed the vision, fusing fashion and fantasy in a way that still resonates as inspiration today. Before the CGI era, Pierce was crafting monster features by hand out of cotton and putty, instead of latex, to create realistic and haunting monsters. He used yak hair and shoe polish on Frankenstein to enhance his gruesome nature, as well as putty across the skull to create a distinctive flat forehead. Although his techniques were later surpassed by newer methods, Pierce set the design standard for creating distinguishable characters by hand for the screen, leaving no detail untouched, making sure that the fantasy was as believable as possible. Modern brands like Christopher Kane and Viktor and Rolf have taken inspiration from West and Pierce on the runway, referencing the gothic romanticism and striking color and silhouette combinations. Viktor and Rolf’s FW13 Ready-to-Wear collection is filled with dark, gaunt looks, enhanced by distinct silhouettes and intentional draping. Christopher Kane’s SS13 collection features actual screen-printed images of Frankenstein on tops, jackets, and bottoms. Both brands have drawn from the original creators of horror monsters for inspiration. L-R: Viktor & Rolf FW13 Couture; Christopher Kane SS13; Viktor & Rolf FW13 Couture West’s story, once marked by the glimmer of ambition, took on a darker legend in its final chapter. One morning in June of 1947, she was found lifeless in her swimming pool on Bluebell Avenue by Robert Landry, a photographer living in West’s guest house. Scattered nearby were notes hinting at a secret that had shadowed her for decades: claims of blackmail that stretched across twenty years.  “This is the only way. I am tired of being blackmailed,” West wrote in a potential suicide note . “The fortune teller told me there was only one way to duck the blackmail I’ve paid for twenty-three years… death.” West was alone at the time of her death. Her husband, Jack West, was out of town, following a quarrel the couple had the night before West’s death. During this fight, West threatened her husband with a divorce. Decades later, the circumstances of West’s death remain a mystery. Conspiracy theories and whispered rumors persist, each attempting to explain what happened to such a prolific, though arcane Hollywood artist. In the fixation on her death, rather than her work, much of her legacy has been obscured — the artistry of the woman who dared to challenge her era’s sartorial definitions of power and femininity has been lost to time. The media coverage following West’s death was plentiful for a few days, but suddenly, the information on West, both pre- and post-death, seemed to stop. In 1947, West’s husband had their Bluebell Avenue home destroyed not long after his late wife’s death. After her time at Universal and shortly before her death, West opened her own boutique in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, catering to celebrities and the upper class. What could’ve been if West had lived? Maybe a new trend in wedding gowns, evening attire, or sleepwear, but, like West, that remains a mystery.  In many ways, Vera West was doing for horror what Schiaparelli and Vionnet were doing for couture — taking familiar silhouettes and pushing them into the realm of the surreal. Though her life ended in mystery, her designs endure, and her fingerprints show. She may be a ghost in the annals of fashion history, but her work remains vividly alive. 🌀 Macy Berendsen is a writer based in Chicago. More of her work can be found at macyberendsen.com .