Anna Wintour's Heir
Condé Nast has the opportunity to do the funniest thing possible...
Buongiorno!
The solid month of hellacious, churning construction noises transpiring directly outside of my apartment building has finally come to a close. And in its place, my whole neighborhood now reeks of industrial spray paint. It seems this is the price we must pay to finally have a moment of peace again during the work week. At least, from what I understand, this is supposed to be the final stage of the lead paint removal process and then everything should return to business as usual, by which I mean normal levels of not-so-quiet and stinky.
As I mentioned on Wednesday, it’s not just the fumes I’ve been trying to escape this week but also the 100-degree weather. So I’ve been bravely venturing out to partake in some of the great industrial air conditioning units this fine city has to offer. These excursions led me to get my haircut this week at a new salon that was recommended to me by reddit and I have to say it was very solid and the price was right. I’ll write about that experience in greater detail in next month’s Mess Recommends, but I will say that they taught me how to actually make my hair curly for the first time. I had a head full of perfectly constructed waves like I have never seen them before. I have never in my life used hair gel and apparently that’s what all the curly gurlies are doing??? This revelation rocked me to my core. Now it just remains to be seen if I’ll be able to replicate those results for myself at home.
In regards to today’s title, Anna Wintour is finally stepping down from being Editor-in-Chief of Vogue after 37 years at the helm. Well, sort of. She’s technically stepping down as EIC but will continue on as Condé Nast’s global chief content officer and global editorial director at Vogue, meaning that basically she’s just the EIC of every publication now without having to deal with any of the annoying day-to-day stuff. Not exactly a retirement and it seems like whoever takes on that head of editorial job might find themselves a bit…..constricted by her oversight.
But when I say Condé Nast has the opportunity to do the funniest thing possible, I of course mean hiring me. I feel like dreaming up all new ways to antagonize Anna with her own publication would stoke a serious creative fire within me. A fire I would love to use to burn Vogue to the ground and start all over again. But Condé corporate’s desire to protect their precious IP aside, it could never be me to step into those hallowed Prada slingbacks because I’m not Hollywood royalty, proper royalty, or even friends with Anna’s daughter. Their loss, I say!!!
But who needs Vogue when I’ve got a new podcast episode coming your way on Monday and some big announcements about the future of this newsletter (and you) next week!
Well, then!
Let us begin today on a stunning and uplifting sartorial note. A look that embodies the true spirit of this email — Cate Blanchett in an absolutely divine Dilara Findikoglu Fall 2025 top composed of shells, pearls, and safety pins. Insane, McQueen-caliber stuff happening here, and its even got trompe l’oeil shell nipples! Of course, this is not a surprising pick for Cate as her many appearances in this newsletter have proven that she’s a woman with a serious passion for funky tops, from her spoon tank to that self-flagellating hair shirt. My one minor note is that I feel like the bottom half of this outfit has no relationship to the top. I either want to extend the shirt into a full mini dress or pair it with some simpler, silky thing. Regardless, this feat of couture is all anyone’s looking at anyway.
Slime Style
At long last, it seems people are finally discovering the appeal of the time-based fashions I’ve been pushing on famous people since January. Influencer Haley Kalil attended the Kids’ Choice Awards in this beaded headpiece, choker, and shoulder accent designed to look like the show’s iconic green slime pouring down her body.
The only thing I know about Haley is that tone deaf “let them eat cake” TikTok she did at the 2024 Met Gala. So you would think given that she’s someone who enjoys cosplaying as the 1%, the level of execution on this ensemble would be much higher. I obviously love the concept as it feeds into my Andy Goldsworthy couture fantasy, but its rendering leaves much to be desired. Why was Susan Alexandra not consulted on this. The beading needs to be fuller and more integrated into the Marc Bouwer dress because, as is, it just feels like a DIY version of Kim K’s Thierry Mugler Met Gala look.
And I understand that this was Haley’s attempt at evading this happening to her in real life, but I think the outfit would’ve been a lot cooler and more impactful if she’d shown up pre-slimed, or at least drenched in some sort of more viscous, slowly oozing material, like Gak. The ultimate version of this ensemble needs to drip and transform as she moves herself down the step-and-repeat.
The Foot Fetish Business Is Booming
This week in general felt like a big win for the Mess agenda. The culture at-large is finally bending to my sick and twisted will. Now if only people would just listen to me a lot sooner because I could’ve had Rick on OnlyFans doing foot fetish content a full calendar year ago. (His account looks amazing, btw.) As I’ve BEEN saying — and in fact reiterated on next week’s pod! — everyone needs to be paywalling those dogs. Alas. Perhaps Rick’s recent foray into digital kink content also explains Tom Brady’s no-show socks last week. That would honestly be the most exciting thing that man has ever done and it would certainly make him more money than that Skims spinoff line ever did!
Simone Ashley is a stronger woman than I because if I had dedicated months to filming something only to be removed completely from the final edit, there is no way in hell I’d put my ass through hair, makeup, and stilettos to promote that movie all over the world. She is either the most beneficent person in Hollywood or is locked into some unbelievably iron-clad contractual agreement.
Anyway, I bring up Simone not to discuss the various F1 NDAs she’s signed, but rather this Balmain Fall 2025 dress that looks like it’s made out of a giant’s watch band. I have not been a big fan of Olivier Rousteing’s work since he first took over the house, but in recent years I feel like he’s been carving out a cool niche for himself with these types of textural, sculptural gowns made out of unusual materials. At this year’s Met Gala, he had Jenna Ortega in metal rulers, the year before that he cast Tyla in sand and had Elle Fanning encased in glass. I think the more he pursues this tact of unusual fabrication, the better.
But also, the horological influence on this dress immediately made me think of that Marine Serre mini dress Hailey Bieber wore composed entirely out of watch straps. And with both dresses, I am wondering why no high-end watch brands are sponsoring red carpet looks like this? Why not have a dress made entirely out of one brand’s straps or designed to look like a blow-up version of a singular iconic band? It just seems like such an easy slam dunk to maximize the returns on one of these celeb PR moments.
Cowboy Cardi
While I typically love a high-fashion Cardi fit, she lost me with this Wild West ensemble she concocted for Beyoncé’s Paris concert. Even so, I felt I had to bring it to your attention as it touches on two trends I’ve talked about recently in these pages. The first being this furry cowboy hat pilfered fresh off the Pornhub Awards red carpet, and the other these Christian Louboutin elven booties that are two-stepping us ever deeper into the realm of mythical beasts. They look like antelope butts that were turned into shoes. A style I think Cardi could honestly really pull off in any other context, but not when the rest of the outfit is this costumey. There also appears to be an epidemic of too light, shiny, opaque dancer tights sweeping through Hollywood and Cardi has become that hosiery’s latest victim. But I think the biggest thing this outfit suffers from is its matchy-matchy-ness. Not everything needs to be done in the same buckskin palette.
The Wedding of the Century
Wowowow. Now, the time has finally come for me to briefly address the cheugiest wedding of all time. That’s right, hot on the heels of their star-studded jaunt to the upper stratosphere, it’s the Bezos-Sánchez wedding extravaganza! This thing has completely taken over the city of Venice and already seems poised to go down in history books as the final straw, the 21st-century catalyst to all-out class warfare. I must say, the various artistic forms of protest those Venetians have been getting up to during this media spectacle have been pretty inspiring. My personal favorite was the sculpture of Jeff clinging to an Amazon package they set afloat down the canals.
As for the festivities themselves, just the mental image of this particular group of rich and famous individuals partaking in an adult pajama party is grotesque enough, but the photos from this foam party have really pushed me to my limit. When I said I wanted foam couture, this is absolutely not what I meant. However, this cheap and tacky diversion transpiring aboard a $500-million-dollar yacht does feel like some sort of perfect encapsulation of our late capitalist American society. To say nothing of the crassness of putting on such an obscene spectacle of wealth in the midst of everything else going on right now. But that is also extremely Jeff and Lauren!
As is this wedding invitation on the right. It could truly belong to no one else. I feel like I understand Lauren’s Real Housewives of New Jersey HomeGoods taste in my bones. My steel-trap mind for garbage also instantly remembered that she has a thing for feathers because as a wrap gift for that 2023 Vogue profile she gave the whole crew necklaces with a silver feather pendant that was inscribed “Gradatim Ferociter,” which means “step by step, ferociously” and is also the Blue Origin motto. Lol!
And now that I’ve brought this up again, I must reiterate, why are these people so bad at being rich?! Like spare me the promotional corporate swag and just give me $10K as a parting gift. That’s literally chump change to a multi-billionaire and would instantly make them more beloved. Hell, $10K is probably significantly less than it costs them to throw a singular foam party!
A-List Blinkers
Given everything we know about the newlyweds and the folks in their orbit, it should come as no surprise that I’ve been utterly unmoved by the many fashions I’ve witnessed at those celebrations thus far. But one intriguing piece of attire did emerge out of these hideously opulent theatrics and that’s Leonardo DiCaprio’s incredibly low-slung baseball cap. I know this is his anti-paparazzi MO, but this angle felt extreme even for him. He has chopped the proportions of his dome in half with this styling, it makes him look like a cartoon character. At this point, why not just wear a set of those horse blinkers and call it a day? Or better yet, pull a post-divorce Kim K and throw on a full-blown gimp mask so that the public can never lay eyes on your face flesh ever again!
The Future’s So Bright…
Since recapping the extremely wild romp that is Mannequin for paid subs this week, I’ve been feeling seriously inspired by one of the film’s stars Hollywood Montrose and his incredible collection of gaudy 80s sunglasses.
So going into this week, I’ve been trying to be more open-minded when it comes to all sorts of far-fetched shades, but I’m already facing some serious road blocks in my pursuit of spectacle whimsy. To be fair, Taraji P. Henson’s offset star frames are something I could absolutely see Montrose sporting with a neon-colored brocade smock. But unfortunately, judging from the single buckled strap of this halter top alone, I can already tell that these frames are not being leveraged to sartorial advantage.
As for Kim, I know they’re Balenciaga, but these sunglasses are also exactly the type of voluminous, octogenarian sunshade currently available for sale at your local CVS for $4. And I know this because trying on every version of these wraparound blackout visors is how I would while away the hours as a child waiting for my mom’s prescriptions to be filled. In fact, them being Balenciaga really only serves to underscore this observation because you should all know by now Demna’s penchant for pilfering from the quotidian to sell back at obscene prices to the uber rich. Anyway, they look awful, as does the rest of this deconstructed t-shirt outfit she wore to arrive at the Bezos-Sánchez nuptials.
An outfit that caused me to wonder, do you think the Balenciaga contract will persist after Demna’s official debut at Gucci? I feel like she has to jump ship with him, but I don’t know that Gucci has ever been a good fit for her. And as this newsletter has proven over the years, Kim’s not exactly open to a full aesthetic revamp, no matter what her recent employment of Rihanna’s old stylist may imply.
Ok, that’s all the sights I have to show you today. Circle back to me next week for a delightful new episode of the pod and a thrilling new installment of Mess with some radical updates you won’t want to miss. Goodbye, you brave travelers of antiquity!
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all the outfits I've seen from that wedding were indicative of how boring wealthy people are. A famine of beauty! A dearth of beguilingness!