Chloe Cherry's lips as social experiment
Keke Palmer and Sean Evans stop playing with our hearts.
Howdy, Messketeers!
I’m back from a weekend chillaxing in the wilds of Vermont with baby and friends where I ate an insanely good pancake, visited a miniatures exhibit, and earned my keep as a backseat entertainer par excellence. We visited the Eric Carle museum and I found his work to be even more beautiful than I remembered it. And I will now be sending all my friends Very Hungry Caterpillar cards for the foreseeable future. I recommend making the trip, even if the whole place does smell vaguely of diaper. We also caught a show of Jude Griebel’s sculptures and I was very taken with the things that man is getting up to with ceramic foodstuffs. And as is our wont, we fell into the reality wormhole that is Married At First Sight, a television program that I find impossible to believe that it’s real and yet absolutely could never be scripted. It is a surreal microcosm of humanity, a slow motion car crash filled with iconic divas and absolutely sinister characters alike. I love it.
Work this week has also been a very strange dichotomy of being told by everyone in the mediaverse that our publication is collapsing, meanwhile in reality everything is so chill and going really great actually. If you haven’t heard, someone made up a rumor that Interview is in shambles and Mel even had to talk to Page Six about it! Scandalous! And like I said, low key we’ve never been better. We are moving to a way fancier office next week that has a gym so I can finally cancel my Classpass membership. We have an insane cover coming out like two weeks after that. We are making serious investments in improving the website. And we actually just had our best traffic week since I started! Fingers crossed this flop of a publication can make it!
I better milk it for all it’s worth in the meantime. So here are some fun things I published this week:
Meet Michael Klokouzas, Your New Hair Guru - I’m obsessed with Michael. I think everyone in the office is. I love his content and he genuinely gives great advice.
Belmont Cameli Is Your New Fake Hockey Heartthrob - I’m just proud of myself for watching the screeners of this show and being like yes, the youth will be feral for this program, and I was actually right! I saw a headline that Off Campus is the third most watched Amazon series of all time.
6-Foot-7 OnlyFans Model Amira Evans Is Getting Rich Humiliating Men - Amira and I had a really interesting conversation about being tall and how it affects gender and power dynamics. Also, the pictures of her are out of this world.
5783 Photographs Peter Hujar Thought No One Would Ever See - Just a ton of really gorgeous photographs.
Also, I have somehow once again missed this year’s Pornhub Awards despite emailing their press contact obsessively for the last three months to no avail…..So I will most likely be rounding up what they were wearing in next Friday’s newsletter. That email will be paywalled, so make sure to sign up now if you care about accessing such salacious content!
Okie-dokie, my dudes!
To begin, I just need to express my ongoing concern that we as gluttonous celebrity content consumers are incapable of recognizing spon con when it smacks us across the face. I am doing my damndest to train the masses to spot a covert advertorial image from a mile away, but it seems I am championing a losing cause because I continue to be shocked by the number of people I see still trafficking such brand-forward photos as authentically candid.
Case in point, Bella Hadid sitting aboard this yacht tucking into a pint of David’s protein ice cream. Please tell me you understand this is a paid placement. As in, I received a press release from the brand about this staged moment. We all need to turn our skepticism dial up to 11. Why would a long-distance pap shot of a celeb on a boat be so absurdly clear and uninterrupted. Why would Bella step out in a different perfectly curated look, in the same spot she keeps getting pap’d, carrying a different new-to-market product from the same brand every. single. day. she’s at Cannes. We gotta get hip to these tired PR tricks fast. But listen, if the con must be sponned, at least she does it gorgeously.
Dadcore at Cannes
And I just have to show you further evidence of why Renate Reinsve is one of the best famous people we currently have going for us. I love her. Her acting is already exceptional, as are her curiously nude Louis Vuitton gowns, but her various press stunts might be even more superb yet. First, she provided us with yet another installment in her photo series of her smoking a cigarette alongside the Palme D’or the film she’s in won that year , which is absolutely the flex she thinks it is. And now, she’s concocted this powerhouse of a fit pic, rewearing Stellan Skarsgard’s suit a few days after he wore it to the festival, and sharing both photos with the caption, “Still smells like daddy.” EXCEPTIONAL celebrity behavior. She gets it. This is precisely what I want from my stars. I’m currently giving this social media post a one-woman, 20-minute standing ovation.
Glamorous Decay
Ok, and sorry for this weird photo, but it’s the only one of reasonable quality that I can find of Charli XCX wearing this Ann Demeulemeester sweater during fittings for her “Rock Music” music video. But I needed to show you this choice in distressed jumper as I feel it supports everything we’ve been talking about this year in regards to disintegrating clothing. The only way I think it could be more on trend is if the weight of those metal chains were actively unraveling the knitwear with every twist of the pop star’s torso.
But not only does this embody my coveted Andy Goldsworthy design mentality, but it also demonstrates the persistence of the dangly bits and bobs agenda that first surfaced at this year’s Met Gala that I found to be so infuriating. Here, it’s a much more natural, punk-inspired embellishment than the nonsensical beaded arm flourishes we saw on that red carpet, but even so. Most intriguing. I feel like these ladies are all way too confident they’re not going to run into a very playful kitten in these ensembles.
This look also immediately reminded me of those ornately distressed jeans that were shown as part of the Dior 2027 Resort collection where the frayed portions were actually embellished with pearls and gilded threads. That line Vivienne Westwood once told me also came to mind again, but it seems to me that we’ve transcended her perspective on these designs being about blue collar cosplay. The rich no longer aspire to replicate the experience of a life fully lived, they are purchasing clothing built for a life that no one actually lives. It is the full simulacrum of labor and experience, even the wear and tear is artisanal. We’re entering the realm of the threadbare hyperreal. I may be partial, but I would even call this performance of labor extremely ZANY.
Monkey Bar Matching Set
At the American Music Awards, Glorilla provided me with a much needed fresh take on the bumper car bodies trend we’ve been documenting this year. I like the replacement of the usual inflatable or padded edges with these hard metal curves of a jungle gym. As I wrote about last week, I feel like there’s a subtle shift happening out there towards hard, shiny veneers—the allure of the impenetrable. The aesthetic of automaton as embodied by Metropolis’s Maria, fusing the human with the automotive.
Speed Bumps Ahead
While poking around the AMAs red carpet, I also stumbled upon the musician Esty, who I am not familiar with but I feel like has got to be fighting the good fight against google autocorrecting her search results to Etsy every single time.
Anyway, she wore this Bailey Prado number that features a whole smattering of our most beloved trending topics as of late. First of all, this neckline is almost the same neckline as that one on the Tom Ford dress Teyana Taylor wore to Time 100 Gala last year. And as I said back then, I still think the far more interesting and visually balanced choice is to go full tit out providing a yin to this yang of fabric. But so far no brave soul has stepped forward to test out my theory. And this skirt is the aforementioned bolster fashion 101. A garment meant to cocoon the wearer while simultaneously keeping others politely at bay.
And given that you’ve been tromping around in the muck and the mire of Mess for a minute now, you should not be surprised in the slightest to see another major trend from the AVN Awards pop up on an award show red carpet. Of course I’m talking about these coordinated knit arm warmers, one of the most persistent accessories of that evening. And what did I tell you when Lisa Vanderpump wore the same last month? Watch this space.
Tie One On
Ok, sorry, but this is so good. Like, I’m actually mad. This photo should be in Interview. Although I do wish they had actually walked the red carpet like this instead of just doing it in the studio. Longtime Messketeers know I’ve always been obsessed with a high-concept shirt fashioned out of a random household object. The Loewe anthurium collection was a huge boon for me. And between this necktie modesty panel and the hair extension chemise below, I am sensing a return of that trend on the horizon and I cannot wait.
Hacks Forever
And finally, I must apologize again as I know a lot of people do not feel this way, but I have a serious soft spot for these Meg Stalter and Paul Downs red carpet couple bits. I think it’s important to remember that easily 90% of Americans do not know who the hell these two are and think that they are being completely sincere when they dress up this way, which I think makes everything going on here infinitely more fun. For the American Music Awards, they gave us this gorgeous pastiche of Matty Healy/Billy Bob Thornton and Gabriette/Angelina Jolie.
We’ll get into it more in next week’s Pornhub Awards recap, but I’ve been seeing quite a few gentlemen in lace-up trousers out there this week, and I’m digging it. I also think Paul should seriously consider making this Meg belt buckle a permanent part of his sartorial repertoire. And while Meg is very much doing Gabriette/Angelina justice, she is also reminding me so much of someone else I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s giving Genesis P-Orridge crossed with Michele Lamy and just a splash of Jigsaw…….
Ok, well, much like Susan Boyle, my new era is currently loading. So I’m gonna hop in the back of the closest luxury vehicle I can find and let it sweep me away into the night. I hope you enjoyed today’s random assemblage of attire and I’ll see you back here next week with a Pornhub Awards red carpet breakdown and more! Toodles! <3
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