Cold plunging with Kid Rock
Does no one else find Elena Velez's edgelord schtick exhausting?
Hiya, Messketeers!!
Hope you’ve had a splendid week since we last spoke. I’ve missed you all dearly.
This week, I experienced my bi-monthly re-remembering that the app Too Good To Go exists and that I should be using it more. A realization that explains how I accidentally found myself the proud owner of a brown paper grocery bag filled to the brim with bagels. Easily enough bagels to keep me in my daily bread quota for the rest of the month, and they are currently taking over my tiny freezer so I can do just that. While the sheer quantity is overwhelming, knowing I have a surplus of bagel in my home at all times has actually been an incredible mental palliative to my eternal “what the hell am I going to eat for lunch” quandary.
Now that I’m all-aboard the carbo-loading caboose, this week I also decided to put my extremely lackadaisical relationship with running to the ultimate test and attend a Barry’s Bootcamp class. A place I realized I have not entered since pre-pandemic times. Don’t worry though! It’s still filled with the exact same agro finance bro masochists that populated the class way back when, micromanaging their customized smoothie orders before they’ve even so much as set Hoka to tread. Anyway, my main takeaway is that it’s still very hard, but not as utterly devastating as I remember. A fact I credit entirely to pilates. I know it’s like a TikTok fad now or whatever, but I genuinely cannot recommend pilates enough for getting stronger and fixing your shit. Doing it regularly over these last couple of years has made me strong in a way I’ve literally never been strong in my entire life.
The only other thing of note I did this week was attend a re-see of the new Proenza Schouler collection at the brand’s showroom, and man, I wish more brands would invite me to those things because I really do love touching fancy stuff. Honestly, I often prefer them them to the runway show as it’s way more low key — no shoving, no street style photos — and you get to really take a gander at everything up close and manhandle it to your satisfaction.
Oh! And I have a new January roundup out on YouTube today if you’re so inclined:
On Monday at 6:30 pm est, I’ll be going live with paid subs to chat about all my various musings, including the absolutely iconic names and juicy tidbits I dropped in this week’s email replete with screenshots of celebs behaving shadily upon my Instagram account. The Mess public was shocked and awed by what I had to show them!!! As I revealed on Notes the other day, Minnie Driver is officially a ride-or-die Messketeer, and that’s not even close to the most surprising name you’ll find in that email. So if you’re curious, consider upgrading to check it out
And finally, on Sunday, it’s the BAFTAs and I was thinking about livestreaming it. Especially now that Substack has that screen-sharing feature so we could actually watch together. However, I realized the carpet starts at 2:30 in the UK which means it will start at 9:30 EST……..and is that really how y’all want to kick off your Sunday? Does that not cut into primo brunching hours?? I leave it at your discretion. I am available if you are! Check the poll Saturday night I guess to see if we’ll be chatting Brit fashions Sunday morn or sleeping in!
Ok enough yapping, let’s do this thing!
For starters, I have to point out the insanity of Deuxmoi posting AI-generated celebrity content not once but twice now, for the second week in a row! That’s right. She once again got caught sharing completely fabricated content. This time a video of Lily-Rose Depp and some singer, both of whom commented on the post to say the clip is fake, creepy, and deeply weird of her to post. Deuxmoi then tried to pawn off her decision to share AI slop with her two million followers without any vetting whatsoever by blaming Aliyah for making AI videos in the first place…..ok.
At least this time, DM actually deleted the post after being called out by everyone, which is more than she can say for the completely fictional photograph she posted of Kim Kardashian and Lewis Hamilton. A post that is still up with merely a sheepish caption update admitting it’s AI. Deuxmoi has always been hilariously susceptible to fake information and trolling, but AI is clearly about to take that malicious gullibility to all-new heights. I feel like she’s about to trip backwards into setting a legal precedent about AI misuse on social media any day now.
The Moment
Also, as I warned you last week, the famous women clamor to be phantoms upon the seven seas!!!! Another poor, unfortunate soul discovered washed ashore and forced to haunt the red carpet forevermore. But that fact aside, I actually like that this Lou de Bètoly Fall 2026 dress is also a little bit moth-eaten and the tendrils look like clumps of hair pulled from the shower drain, even if the idea of those tendrils touching my legs makes my skin crawl.
And I just wanted to give a quick shoutout to the screenwriter of The Moment, Bertie Brandes, who chose to wear these very fabulous harlequin tights and hand-painted heels to the film’s UK premiere. An outfit that put Charli’s to shame that night. Alpha jester behavior.
Décolletage Is For the Boys
And at that very same premiere, Alexander Skarsgard definitively proved something I’ve been saying in these emails since the dawn of time: men need to be thoroughly investigating cleavage-baring tops. I know we were all collectively traumatized by the navel-grazing depths of the American Apparel V-neck back in the aughts, but there is clearly a tasteful way to do it and you’re currently looking at it. Décolletage is for the boys.
Baby’s First Spon Con
Now, I’m not a fan of discussing pre-teen children, so I’ve largely left North’s various goings-on out of this email. However, I do find it very intriguing that her family is outsourcing this particular piece of problematic spon con to her and her friends. And as I asked back when Kylie first started trying to rehabilitate this man’s image circa 2022, is this family financially invested in the brand or something? Because why the hell are they throwing so much manpower behind bringing Wang back? Can the checks really be that good? Then again, I am talking about a woman who just did a deeply bizarre piece of advertising for “trimming jelly,” so clearly I’m holding these billionaires to entirely unreasonable standards.
But, as a side note, I did enjoy that North and all of her heiress friends showed up to this PR stunt shopping spree dressed head-to-toe in Balenciaga which I feel speaks volumes.
Wuthering Hot Topic
Speaking of fledgling goths, I don’t know, you guys. While I, too, have a great fondness for Kate Moss and the indie sleaze era when this scarf print unironically ruled Hollywood with an iron fist, this dress, especially when paired with the heavy under-eye liner, just feels a little try-hard, middle-aged Hot Topic rebellion to me. It’s the Punk Met Gala all over again.
Hip-Hip-Hooray!
This Calvin Klein Collection look also reads a little goth to me, but in a Raf Simons’s dark twist on high school Americana kind of way. With a splash of our beloved clown-core, of course.
I think these pom-poms gartered onto the skirt are a stroke of genius. They give texture, volume, and movement to this otherwise staid office-dress-code-approved, Banana Republic-ass slip. This is the promise of the Alix Earle detachable bed ruffle mini dress realized!
That said, I do wish the top of this dress fit Myha’la a lot better and, much as with the lucite pleasers, we’ve got to figure out something fresh to do with PVC. I just feel it is a material imbued with the promise of futurism, and yet is only ever applied to styles of the past. But again, the pom-poms are very, very good!
Waistline Musings
Ok, and I know this is about to sound as vague and pointless as my previous declaration that I’m noticing an uptick in blocky silhouettes and scaled-up proportions, but it simply must be said. There’s also something happening with waistlines — and no, I don’t just mean belts!!!!
I feel like in each of these examples the eye is intentionally drawn to this bifurcation of the body. The emphasis is squarly upon the midriff, but in a completely clinical, non-sexy way. There is not a curve in sight. No G-string to be seen. Nothing even vaguely titillating about this underscoring of the abdomen. It is simply a statement of fact. A pure declaration of where on the body the midpoint lies.
My impulse is to say that there’s something Ozempic-y afoot here, but the Marc Jacobs look with the hands tucked into the sized-up skirt is the only one that I think arguably gives that vibe. All of these waistbands seem interested in rendering the wearer rectangular more so than thin…..I’m still ruminating!! Please sound off in the comments if you have any theories!
V. Stiviano Strikes Again!
And I’d like to close out today’s newsletter with the return of one of my all-time favorite accessories that nowhere close to enough famous people are leveraging to their paparazzi’d advantage — The V. Stiviano face shield. Obsessed.
Longtime readers know the place all things V hold in my heart, but this silly little rabbit reflective visor has got to be number one. It’s like a pair of Pit Vipers run amok. An inspired way to make sure everyone is paying attention to you while pretending that you want none of this to be happening. And obviously, it dovetails gorgeously with this year’s broader trend of famous faces being for paying customers only. I truly love to see it.
Ok, I gotta go try out for Australia’s Olympic breakdancing team, so I’m going to call it there. I hope you’ve treasured every second we spent together, and I’ll either be back streaming to you live over coffee and crumpets Sunday morning to talk all things BAFTA, or I’ll see my beloved paywalled Messketeers on Monday night for a serious dish sesh. Until then!!!!
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This Messy Brit would love to be able to do a red carpet with you! I'm normally asleep...
Random thought but the Marc Jacob’s hand in waist look reminded me of being in sensory overload and tucking my hands in my waistband to stim lol