Bill Hader is Gen X Pete Davidson
Bill Hader is Gen X Pete Davidson
Mariah Carey needs to revoke Andrew Tate's Lambily membership immediately.
Hey!
Happy 4/20 to all those who partake. And I hope everyone had a thriving and prosperous week otherwise, or at least got to go outside in the sun for a minute.
I feel like I spent most of this week escorting my dog Fran to and from my building’s backyard as she’s currently going through a period of great potty time fakery. She is fully housebroken, but the problem is that means she also now knows the trick to accessing outside and is dead set on abusing it.
On the bright side, my neighbor’s toddler left her giant bubble blowing kit out there. So I spent some of that time lingering around outside blowing bubbles, and I feel like the technology has somehow been revolutionized since I was a child. This thing’s blowing the biggest, craziest profusion of bubbles I’ve ever seen with barely a flick of the wrist. I highly recommend you find a way to incorporate some of these wands into your life in the near future. I will say from experience, it’s also a particularly fun activity to do in a city environment where no one can identify where the bubbles are coming from.
The only other notable thing I did this week was I finally went and picked up my grandfather’s fancy watch that I had to send away to Switzerland to get fixed. It took about a year and a half due to a covid backlog and the general pomp and circumstance of the entire process, but it really does look beautiful and completely brand new. Because of this watch coming back into my life, I’ve been thinking a lot about family heirlooms and how weird it is that just by wearing this object I can feel so connected to someone I never even had the chance to meet. During a time in my life when modernity is succeeding at making me feel isolated and cut off from everyone, it was a nice reminder that I’m always surrounded by these types of tangible connections to real family — my grandmother’s wedding trunk, my other grandma’s favorite Virgin Mary, my mom’s paintings that she insists are “no good.” Sentimentality always makes me feel corny, but I also think it’s important.
Oh, and by the way, if you want an extra little treat today, please go look at the full photo set of Baz Luhrmann interacting with this robot at some Bombay Gin event. He took his gig so, so seriously. He pretended to have conversations with her from every possible angle, listened to her say absolutely nothing at all, and he even split a martini with “Ai-Da.” Honestly, if you’re going to hire a celeb to promote your product, let Baz set the bar for the caliber of performance they have to deliver.
Your eternal reminder before we begin that 1. if you are an I <3 Mess stan, you can always pay me for what I do here and get access to even more content in the process. 2. We have a Mess Discord where we chit-chat about this type of shit all week long, so please join that if you’re interested. 3. Chanel continues to Flop over on Instagram and I also made an account for this newsletter although I have yet to figure out what exactly I’m going to post there aside from this clip of Ann-Margret writhing around in baked beans.
Ok.
What if we just took a peek?
To begin, a Messketeer knowing my deep, abiding love for medical accessories made eleganza submitted this stunning image in the Discord this week of Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank. Apparently, she was in a car accident, but she turned that lemon of a neck brace into chic lemonade simply by affixing a statement brooch. We applaud a well-accessorized trailblazer.
Now in regards to today’s newsletter title, I’m just saying, the man gets around. And thanks to Rachel Bilson’s near-constant dickmatized comments about this man on her podcast over the last year or so, I think I’ve got a pretty clear picture of what the appeal is.
Now, despite the fact that I am the queen of calling everything a showmance, I’m not denying that these two are dating. I do actually believe this situation-ship is authentic. I mean, come on, did you guys not see the photos of them taking selfies on a horseback ride built for two? I mostly just bring this up because I would like to once again point out that we’re playing veryyyyy fast and loose with the word PDA these days. Between this Coachella “PDA” and the photos of Emily Ratajkowski and Eric Andre “making out,” I think we’ve all got to start adhering a little more strictly to the dictionary from now on.
Now OG readers will remember that during the dawn of the pandemic in this newsletter’s infancy, I was the target of a Camila Cabello stan hate crime for 24 hours because I dared to suggest on Twitter that she and Shawn Mendes might intentionally be taking daily strolls around their Miami neighborhood to get photographed as no other celebrities aside from BenAna were being papped at the time. But despite the Camilizers telling me my whole family should die of covid for expressing such a sentiment, honestly, I’m happy for these two. And wouldn’t you know it, just in time for a Met Gala rekindled relationship reveal. Who else would tell Camila she’s giving Cher? Who else would be able to watch this man dive ass-last into the ocean and still not get the ick? A devastating blow to Shawn’s 50-year-old chiropractor lover, but I can’t wait until they drop “Señorita Part Dos.”
In continued Baby Bad Guy watch, yes, he is still the best dressed of all the celebrity children in this custom Fendi velvet jacket. But more important, why is no one talking about the fact that it is 100% possible they actually named this baby Trouble? I’m seeing a lot of reporting on this photo and not a single query as to whether or not this is a name reveal. I, for one, believe it. And the more I think about Trouble….I gotta say, the more I like it. I mean, I would be scared of the self-fulfilling prophesy of a name like that, but it is incredible branding. Instantly amongst the pantheon of mononymous icons. And if it’s the right fit for anyone, it’s the child of A$AP and Rihanna.
Meanwhile, deep in Rihanna’s ex-files, something is actually wrong with this man. Like in what world is this a cool thing to get embroidered on a leather jacket and wear around, particularly as a 36-year-old man. I know that I’m one of the foremost champions of bad taste, but Drake has something beyond bad taste, it’s like a total void of culture. He has the taste of a 16-year-old from Las Vegas who thinks car showrooms, casinos, and Supreme are the height of luxury. Maybe that’s just what happens when you’re an adult man who spends all his free time texting 16-year-old girls.
And I just don’t think this anniversary got nearly the amount of attention it deserves. I can’t tell you what a seminal pandemic moment this piñata was for me. I actually scheduled this tweet back when I was building the Best of Mess 2020 newsletters and then completely forgot about it. So to say I was shocked and delighted when these images popped back up on my feed after lo these many months would be a serious understatement. What a treat. This birthday piñata — which in my opinion could not look more like the WWE wrestler Chyna — was supposedly a gift from her children, but I feel like that boob and butt composition is pure Travis. They also really did not need to do her so dirty with the flounder eyes.
Now one thing about Mess, I am an unpredictable and fickle creature. Because while you would think both these images would fall into my usual category of extreme Instagram overshares, I actually have a different bone to pick with the proliferation of this imagery. Namely, why is it not behind a paywall?! Why are we giving this away for free??? This is quite literally what Only Fans is made for. These two could be making so much money for doing not much more than they already are. And the way they post feet pics, they might as well be setting a blank check on fire. It would certainly be a more lucrative endeavor than Lemme or Poosh, I’ll tell you that.
Anyways, in regards to the outfits, while I feel like we’ve already gotten all of the traction we’re going to get out of the sensationalism of the Gucci-logo thong, I do think a legging peek-a-boo butt window is an interesting and logical evolution of the bumster agenda.
I wanted to bring this headline up for two reasons. 1. Because this is a classic plastic surgery loophole this family uses in interviews all the time. They haven’t had “so much surgery” because all they do (allegedly) is injectables and fat transfers because there’s way less downtime and the tweaks can be built up and decreased incrementally. That way it’s not such a dramatic reveal of a whole new physique, just suddenly one day we’re lightyears away from where we started.
But 2. I actually kind of agree with her. I think she’s done much more to her body and wildly morphing its shape to suit the cultural zeitgeist than anything she’s done to her face. Obviously, that’s not to say there’s not ample amounts of filler and botox that have gone into the creation and maintenance of her appearance over the last decade, but I think she’s also helped make that completely the norm for 20 year olds in Hollywood.
I’ve long maintained, however, that between how young Kylie started doing this stuff before her face really had a chance to settle into adulthood and the pure experimental nature of all plastic surgery that uses women like cosmetic guinea pigs, it seems to me like things are not going to hold up well here in the longterm. I think the most fascinating thing about this family is going to be getting to watch them age over the decade to come.
Anyway, on to another proponent of the non-surgical surgery face. This week Kim Kardashian pulled a J.Lo and pivoted from trying to sell us her usual strips of spandex to trying to convince us to buy Seventy One Gin despite being another person who famously doesn’t drink. Unsurprisingly, she’s doing this ad because the brand is owned by her friend and longtime collaborator, photographer Mert Alas. But my favorite detail about all of this is that it appears that they shot this “campaign” during their downtime from shooting the Dolce & Gabbana campaign they were both actually being paid to shoot. Look at the wig. Look at that fresco. Tell me I’m wrong! I love the huckster-dom on top of huckster-dom. The ouroboros of product placement never stops!
Now that Kim is back in America, she’s apparently back to pretending like Balenciaga is still cancelled from her wardrobe despite wearing the brand all over Japan. That means in the absence of her beloved uniform, she’s also just gone back to recreating the same old catsuits out of stuff she already owns. In this case, her Skims knock off of those Balenciaga samples and a matching pair of Vetements x Manolo Blahnik boot. For those who don’t get just how uninspired that choice is, Vetements is the brand formerly designed by Demna………the creative director of Balenciaga. Anyway, while she’s still not actually tall enough to wear these shoes, at least she sort of listened to my previous critique of her attempt to style this boot and stopped letting the tops flop around all over the place.
And of course she wore the above outfit to take her eldest daughter North to a Katy Perry concert as clearly she is a huge Katy-Kat. North never makes it more clear she is her father’s daughter than in photos like this. You’ve gotta love it.
As always, I am delighted by Khloé Kardashian’s blue collar fantasies. After having her assistant pin her jeans around her knee cap the other week, now she’s giving us huge Fifth Harmony “Work From Home” energy to announce the construction of the first Good American brick and mortar store. They may not have any walls, but thank god they already have the big, glossy shopping bags ready to go! As always, I want to see the Kardashians cosplay all regular people jobs based exclusively off what they imagine that job entails. No one said being a girlboss was easy!
Also, thanks to the comment section on this Instagram post, I just learned that this is not in fact the “first” Good American store? The other one shut down???????? I love that. And in fact, after a quick google I confirmed that Khloé already tried this once before in 2019, putting a Good American store in the Aventura mall, and clearly it did not go well. Interested to hear why they think Los Angeles’s Westfield Century City mall is going to be a better fit for them.
I feel like I need to stop dipping into Khloé’s Instagram altogether because it almost feels unfair. This woman is already embroiled in an endless relationship with Tristan Thompson (yes, they’re back together, in my and McDonald’s opinion), is that not punishment enough? Of course she can’t focus on the creation of a non-hideous outfit when she’s got this tornado of infidelity in her life every day. That said, this is comically bad. And I’m saying that as someone who makes comedy out of bad outfits professionally. As I said on Twitter, this is a 19th-century financier’s going out top and you cannot convince be otherwise. At least, as someone commented, that probably means she can notarize stuff now. But as a woman who ostensibly runs a denim empire, I would hope she could’ve at least found a pair of jeans that hadn’t recently been put through a shredder.
Putting that aside. I just had to share this phenomenal promotional concept that Blizzard Entertainment came up with to promote……a video game? Unclear because I refuse to google what any of these “fiercely femme gamers” are spon-conning. But I do think it’s inspired to get an array of highly-photographed models with little-to-no name recognition to do medieval rave dress-up while posing with a giant demon skull. This is the out of the box thinking I crave.
As for Delilah Belle’s sister Amelia Gray and her continued Julia Fox-ification, I don’t have much to say about her DIY denim uniforms and permanently-lank locks, I mostly just bring her up to ask: do my fellow millennials remember these handcuff clutches?! That is some authentic Hot Topic nostalgia right there.
Similarly, here’s photographic evidence that Addison Rae truly is our Gen Z aughts revival princess because why are people actually upset about this. This is some real turn of the Willennium gay panic nonsense because this is beyond a nonevent. I thought we all got this out of our system after the Britney-Madonna-Christina VMAs three-way.
That said, the D’Amelio girls could really stand to steal just a thimble-full of Addison’s rizz and natural proclivity for controversy because they need to start more rapidly transitioning that TikTok clout into something of actual value as the app crumbles around them. But the real reason I bring up their Coachella appearance is to point out Charli’s giant belt and Dixie’s comic book hairstyle. Is Roy Lichtenstein responsible for this dye job?
And a reminder that associating yourself with Dolce & Gabbana is just asking for sartorial devastation. I felt it was particularly important to show you this side-by-side of how Kali Uchis outfit was supposed to look versus how it actually turned out because that is Dolce in a nutshell. You support bigots, you’re gonna end up looking like a clown. Simple as that, really.
We also got our first look at the new Mugler x H&M collection on real life bodies versus the press photos, and the results were….interesting. The quality is not exactly what was promised in those original images. I’m also very intrigued by the brand’s strategy here because, while of course it’s cool that the collection brings these designs to a whole new demographic who couldn’t otherwise afford them, it’s not exactly helping with Mugler’s over-exposure problem. Like I think many of us who even casually consume pop culture are already exhausted by the look of these semi-sheer catsuits on everyone and their mother. I would think they’d be concerned about exponentially increasing that brand fatigue by helping make them even more ubiquitous. It also kind of dilutes the higher-end stuff considering they’re almost exact replicas, and as I said when they originally announced this collaboration, Mugler made by H&M is just Fashion Nova.
I can’t tell if it’s just the Manifest Destiny energy of Coachella or if something Wild Wild West really is authentically brewing amongst the celeb set after a solid year of me mocking Kim K’s Wyoming pandemic pivot. Take Emily Ratajkowski’s chapped endorsement with a grain of salt as this is technically some sort of unmarked Heaven by Marc Jacobs ad, but Saweetie really did go full cowgirl with the fringe for her surprise Coachella appearance and, after I previously told Kim K we’re not going back to the days of suede thigh-highs, Shanina Shaik boldly sallied forth in this western-take on the above-the-knee footwear.
Pulling that picture of Saweetie off her Instagram also made me realize that I need to be checking in on this woman way more often because, once there, I uncovered a whole trove of Mess gems. Like this evening gown with plunging crack exposure, going perhaps the deepest I’ve seen anyone dip outside of Aubrey O’Day. And after previously giving us that bedazzled Hello Kitty bra, she made another custom top out of plastic barrettes and hair bobbles that could not be cuter. I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on her for future installments!
Likewise, I need to get Mia Khalifa back into my regular Instagram rotation because, as I’ve discussed many times before in this newsletter, Hollywood loves to pilfer its red carpet style from the trends of adult entertainment and Mia just happens to be a particularly fashionable figure in that world. I mean is this outfit not extremely cool? I also just wanted to share it because there’s something about putting the lime green knitwear under the giant chihuahua tee that is so obvious and yet still feels very fresh.
In other Revolve party news, Olivia Culpo is always doing too much, but this time it’s like she ran straight into the Claire’s accessory wall and never looked back. Do we really need three completely unrelated necklaces, hoops, aviators, a belt around the bust, and one around the waist? Let the clothes breathe, friend. Personally, I think she also could’ve ditched the jacket since the sleeves are way too long for her, but I understand that there was probably something contractual about wearing the full look. We’re once again getting Urban Cowboy whispers with the boots, and while at first I was uncertain about the double-wide fanny pack that is this Miu Miu mini skirt, it’s really grown on me. Although, Olivia did miss a golden opportunity to hide a red carpet snack in there.
As we wrap up, I just wanted to take a quick moment to celebrate the joyous return of the crone shoulder on Doechii at Coachella in what must surely be a custom Rick Owens stage costume. And keep an eye out for these exposed crotch zippers as I feel they’re also poised to be a powerful trend this summer as the weather heats up and we dip further into nether region exposure.
And last, but absolutely not least, Denise Richards went to the premiere of her new TV show and did some of the finest red carpet posing I’ve seen in ages. Someone please cast her as the new Mr. Jay on an America’s Next Top Model reboot.
That’s all I’ve got for you today. I hope you’re all able to find the same sense of peace Jake Gyllenhaal experiences when receiving a smooch from Jamie Lee Curtis.
Now, go treat yourself to a glass of wine…or three, like Joey King.
Well, shucks, I guess we’re all done here! Stay Fancy, friends!
Well, I’ve done my due diligence on designer detritus for the week. But if you find that this deep dive of street style infamy is never quite limitless enough for your liking, then please sign up for a paid subscription today where you can dine out on this poisonous feast for the senses until your stomach pops. And because meals are always better when shared with friends, please sign a few folks you know up for a free subscription to Mess. And for those on the hunt for their summer capsule wardrobe, look no further than the Mess Merch store.
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Bye, beauties!
I am SO glad I subscribed today (found you from Laura Reilly’s substack Magasin)
Trouble as a first name is a great theory!