Bunny hopping with Justin Trudeau
Deliver me from Taylor Swift's wedding dress reveal.
Ciao!
A slightly briefer letter today as I am currently en route to my DEAR friend Rosie’s gorgeous wedding weekend and there is still much left to do in preparation, including about an hour of hammering in order to complete her DIY gift. Maybe I’ll tell you more about that next week once my poor hands recover from the trauma of all this manual labor, but for now it’s still too fresh.
Last week, I chatted with some choice Messketeers behind the paywall about JLo’s faux FUPA tattoo, another famous man in lace-up pants, the fashions that transpired at the BET Awards, and what is perhaps the ugliest outfit I’ve seen all year. And next week, I’m sure we’ll get up to even more of those same shenanigans. So make sure to upgrade today so you can catch up on all the latest in mildly entertaining and highly alarming celebrity detritus.
We also had our Dekonstructing the Kardashians Lowbrow Book Club meeting this week, which was so fun and interesting. As we just announced, we’re taking July off in celebration of our double Leo birthdays. But we will be back in August reading our eternal fave Ways of Seeing and we hope you’ll join us then!
Now, I’m off to go vociferously celebrate the bride and groom, but not before treating you all to some choice thoughts from the darkest recesses of my noggin. Let’s do it.
To begin, I am NOT going to talk about that wedding. But I do just need to express to you all that every single new detail I learn about those nuptials hurts me deeply. Every choice that was made is so completely antithetical to my conception of good taste, I simply refuse to take it in. Tacky, honestly, isn’t even a strong enough word for the things I’m seeing leak in the tabloids. As I said last week in regards to the “JUST&T,” the billionaire’s graphic design alone leaves so much to be desired. And just when I thought the discovery of the mid-ceremony raffling off of door prizes was the lowest this night could sink in my estimations, my boss then described to me what he has heard the couple’s wedding attire looked like, and I was deflated to levels of couture depression I didn’t previously know existed. As the subtitle of today’s email states, I am prone before the altar of Tree Paine, begging all that is holy to please never let a singular image of this Disney princess-ass gown be inflicted upon me. I don’t know that my impossibly chic, yet fragile psyche can withstand that discourse.
A Dina Lohan Protégée Emerges
Now, as a palette cleanser for those cruel details I just inflicted upon you, here’s a truly remarkable new photograph that crossed my desk this week of Brad Pitt and his girlfriend Ines de Ramon on their way to that aforementioned function. A new addition to the pantheon of exceptionally executed photoshop wizardry. As I wrote on Notes, Brad—and to a much lesser degree, Ines—is swiftly approaching Kris Jenner levels of FaceTune retouching. I actually can’t decide if he’s a faithful student in the Dina Lohan self-portraiture fine arts, or if he’s currently gunning for her crown as the feature-less monarch of the blur tool. Personally, I think an A-list male celeb entering the fictional digital avatar game is exactly what our current anti-aging discourse needed. I look forward to seeing just how much smoother and more unidentifiable he can get!
Poultry in Par-ee
Do I even need to say it at this point? To put it quite plainly, bawk-bawk.
Hyperreal Bodies and Archival Holy Grails
And as always, nothing Zendaya has ever worn should land her in these pages. But I must discuss both of these outfits with you, so I am dragging her down into the muck and the mire of my newsletter regardless.
The first thing I wanted to share is just that this Givenchy Spring 1997 Couture dress designed by Alexander McQueen is already an iconic archival pull, but pairing it with the designer’s Philip Treacy gold filagree mask is a massive flex upon a massive flex, even by Zendaya’s standards. Insane, Isabella Blow-caliber business. I do find wearing this headpiece while standing directly in front of the Eiffel Tower to be a touch corny, but in the face of such a massive slay, I must forgive this minor transgression. Also, I am not hearing nearly enough people talking about the mask’s built-in Cro-Magnon forehead ridge, which I find to be stunning. Could the neanderthal heavy brow be the new upper bleph? Fingers crossed!!!!
As for the gown on the right, it is the closing look from Schiaparelli Fall 2026 Haute Couture and had to be teleported across the planet directly from that show on to Zendaya’s body. While I do think the dress is gorgeous and I certainly understand its thematic connection to The Odyssey given that it looks like a Greek statue crossed with body armor, it seems that with each iteration of these molded metal bodices they are becoming increasingly detailed and realistic in a way that makes my skin crawl a little. I think I talked about this before when Kendall wore that Gap Studio dress to the Met Gala afterparties that had every visible rib and protruding hip bone carefully etched into the molded leather corset. It’s the same story here, except somehow even more realistically detailed and I don’t know if it’s just the automatonophobia in me talking, but this uncanny valley six-pack gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Regardless, it feels like the very simulacrum Baudrillard warned us about—the map that becomes so large and detailed it ends up corresponding 1:1 with the actual landscape its delineating, eventually covering it completely and subsuming the real. We are crafting increasingly faithful recreations of the body that follow the landscape of the wearer’s physique so precisely that the real body is ultimately rendered extraneous. It’s almost enough to make you miss the extreme public nudity of yesteryear!
Cardi’s Couture Armor
Of course, it wouldn’t be Paris Couture Week without a brief examination of the many extravagant looks Cardi B found herself swanning around that city in. My least favorite of the week was probably this Rahul Mishra couture gown she wore to the designer’s show (left). I mostly just included it to point out yet another hyperreal body etched into a gown and yet another set of trompe l’oeil articulated nipples despite the fact that I do believe I expressly forbade this type of fictional areolae a few weeks ago.
She also stepped out in this totally shredded hot pink set (center), which seems to be the same top I previously showed you on Maddie Ziegler and said it looks like a cat absolutely went to town sharpening its claws on this garment. Yet another piece of evidence to add to our growing file of disintegrating designs.
But most fabulous to my eye was the Robert Wun couture look she wore to the designer’s show that also appeared on the runway as part of the new collection. It’s like if you tried to make that iconic Divine dress using only a drafting compass. I do wish though that Cardi had pushed the styling all the way to the max like it was on the catwalk, popping the cherry-esque fascinator upon her head and walking the step-and-repeat while blowing a perfect, red bubble. But I’m also biased, as I think this mermaid skirt would be better off as a rock-hard semicircle dome as well.
Princess of Pants
Vera Wang attended the Dior Couture show in this absolutely enormous pair of lightly distressed dungarees. An elegant Delft Bermuda short they are not, but they definitely do Justin Bieber and his gathered princess train hems proud. This is the future House of Drew/Juggalos want. But while the width is exceptional with all this extra yardage absolutely waterfall-ing off the hips, I do believe the Biebz would have rocked this trouser with double the inseam as well.
Birds of a Feather
We opened this email with a chicken and thus we must end today with a tropical parrot. Emma Corrin wore this technicolor feathered jacket with beaked nipples and a high, seriously stiff collar to the Schiaparelli Couture show. And yes, I have received all of your comments, messages, and tags alerting to me to how deeply Mess-coded that new collection was, to which I say, ISN’T IT ALWAYS……jk, but also, a lot of collections this season did feel weirdly tailored to my hyper-specific peccadilloes, from the latex tentacle arms swirling off the torso of one of the models in this show to Robert Wun’s weirdly haunting Balloon Saloon confections that take my red carpet inflatables trend to all-new heights.
Anyway, I bring up Emma’s jacket because, yes, bird, obviously. But also, their complete inability to turn their head in this look got me thinking again about high-fashion medical accoutrement and my recent requests for Issey Miyake cervical collars. And in many ways, this very much feels like the forthcoming dog e-collar that was promised. Or like those blinders they put on carriage horses. I still think we could go a little larger, stiffer, and blinder with it, but this is exactly the level of stupid opulence I crave.
(Also, I still need to catch up on all the couture shows, but I was thinking we could have a little exclusive subscriber Substack chat about them next week once I do!)
Ok, my friends! That’s been my brief, but essential bombardment of bad ideas. I’ll see all you gorgeous paid Messketeers back here next week for another rundown of shocking red carpet attire, or over in the chat yapping about these Mess-coded runway show. Have a great weekend, you cuties!!! <3
If you’re already living la vida Messy, it’s time to turn the dial up to max Mess by upgrading your subscription and taking your friends along for that wild ride:
Then, go share your vast expertise on all things hideous with your fellow connoisseurs of sartorial swill in the Mess chat room:
And as always, if you can’t afford to pay for more, just ask me about getting a complimentary subscription. I promise, it’s no big deal. I do it all the time. And if you send over a screenshot of your donation to any abortion fund, bail fund, Gaza relief fund, or honestly anything that helps stymie Trump’s agenda in any capacity, your next month of Mess is on me.