Divas gonna diva
Hello, Messketeers!
Happy Friday! Well, as happy as it can be given the general catastrophic state of the world. At least it’s starting to officially feel like spring again outside so I can stand on the street corner staring into the sun pretending I’m on a tropical beach with a daiquiri in hand somewhere where everything is going swimmingly.
Speaking of, this week I had perhaps the wildest meeting of my life to date. A super surreal full-circle moment for anyone who knows the origin story of this newsletter. I know I am being incredibly vague, but I promise all will be revealed to you next week. But safe to say, Mess is about to enter a whole new era. If you thought my unhinged influence was palpable now, just you wait……
But what I can say about my adventures this week is that I left the house and during one, brief stroll through the streets of SoHo I saw Callum Turner, I saw girls whipping their heads around and shrieking at full volume over Callum Turner, and, most importantly, I saw an airedale puppy which is the breed Fran is and a type of dog I literally never see in New York! In other words, fortuitous synchronicities abounded!!
I then wandered into the Harley Davidson store on Broadway in a daze where I immediately impulse purchased a very foolish new t-shirt featuring both flaming skulls and eagles being struck by lightening bolts. No one understands more acutely what I want to be wearing on a tee than that brand. The store is also currently deep in its Ed Hardy bag, blinging the hell out of all sorts of weird tops and hoodies which was big news to me and a savvy new design strategy on their part as I was unbelievably tempted by every single rhinestoned item that came across my path. The prices are a touch insane, but the Jersey Shore glamour is undeniable.
When not acting like a poser trying to get into a Hell’s Angels club, I spent my time busily blowing the dust bunnies off my shoe collection as part of a major seasonal closet purge. An activity that has made me come to realize just how few of my shoes I am actually wearing on a regular basis and just how many pairs that have absolutely devastated my feet I have continued to hold onto for years and years. I am about to give some Real Real sales associate the thrill of a lifetime with the pristine designer footwear I’m selling off. Footwear that I feel is a sure sign of my temporary insanity considering I, a 6’2” woman, ever thought a 3” heel would see the light of day in my closet. And I definitely haven’t learned my lesson either because I can already foresee the commission I make off of those going right back into the next round of extremely foolish fancy shoes that I will never wear but drag around with me for the rest of my life. What can I say, I’m clearly a glutton for punishment.
As for today’s newsletter, I found this week to be a little uninspiring on the Mess front, especially after the high highs of the Academy Awards. But, as always, I still have plenty of deeply silly stuff to show you, so let’s dig in!
To begin, a crucial update on my favorite lackluster nepos the Beckham-Peltzs and the extreme boredom they bring to the function. I was already sucked back into their orbit this week because, as we discussed on Monday’s livestream with paid readers, the couple are in talks with Hulu about doing a little docu-series ostensibly about Brooklyn’s culinary ambitions but obviously not about that at all because who wants to watch that. The bad cooking is merely a springboard into further discussion of his family beef. As I’ve been saying since Brooklyn officially dropped this lore on Instagram, if they want to leverage this modicum of interest society suddenly has in them they need to act FAST. As in, I need the TV show next week and the tell-all book the month after that because this is not gossip with any longevity. The only way I can see them reeling us back in is if they decide to drop video footage of the “inappropriate” mother-son dance. And let’s pray for their irrelevancy that they do. Although, to be honest, as a great lover of their mediocrity, I also wouldn’t be mad if Brooklyn decided to parlay all of this into releasing a cookbook with the same “elephants are hard to photograph” energy as his first coffee table tome.
But like I said, whatever they decide to do they need to do it fast to capitalize on this fleeting moment in the headlines because the other Beckham brothers have already proven how much better they are at using this tabloid scuffle to their own advantage. First with their many cheeky, vaguely antagonistic social media posts towards their brother, and now Cruz has gone ahead and thrust his own music career into the conversation by writing a not at all ambiguous song about Brooklyn. I thought perhaps the headlines were overstating the matter, but if anything I think they’re wildly playing it down! I mean, just get a load of these lyrics:
“Loneliest boy, I hope that you’re listening / Don’t push all your friends away, when we’re tryna show you love / Loneliest boy, mama don’t talk too much / It’s breaking hеr heart / It shows in the small things that you don’t do / I guess in thе end that it’s you, yourself, and you / Tell me how do you live, when you’ve got nobody to lose?”
Brooklyn needs to get on his brothers’ PR wavelength and STAT.
Feeling Cheeky
I’m a little tardy to this party, but I just rediscovered this image I saved from Jess’s newsletter the other week of the butt blush on the Diesel Fall 2026 runway and I wanted to mention it as I feel it’s very pertinent to our interests and an important addition to the cheek-centric year we’re currently having.
As I’ve been saying since Jan 1, I remain highly skeptical that 2026 is the year of butt crack as Vogue proclaimed it to be as all I have seen is definitive proof that it is the year of everything but the exposed intergluteal cleft. And here again, we have crack concealment with a renewed emphasis placed upon the cheek, specifically its’ corporeal punishment.
This feels like another way to bring fetish iconography into the mainstream, but also it immediately made me think of what Vivienne Westwood once told me about distressed denim, which is that rich people want to pay for clothing that gives them the appearance of a life fully lived. They want to pay a premium to look like they labor and have interesting experiences while actually living a life that is completely devoid of both. And what could be more indicative of that sentiment than butt blush? You want to look freshly spanked without the pain or the bad behavior worthy of such punishment. Publicly kinky without the private FetLife account and a dom on speed dial. Its the performance of living an interesting/sexy/dangerous life, without taking any of the risk, the connection and rejection necessary, to actually make that happen. In other words, a perfect allegory for our modern era.
The T.Chal Formula Strikes Again
Alexander Skarsgard continued his solid fashion freak streak in promotion of Pillion in this Dior Men Fall 2026 outfit. As longtime Mess readers know, this is the tried-and-true Timothée Chalamet quirky red carpet dressing formula to a T — a funky, vaguely feminine top paired with a plain black trouser. It’s also very Harry Styles in that Egonlab harlequin singlet at the 2023 Grammys, and weirdly tame for the Berlin premiere of a film about S&M imo. Where’s Julio Torres’s ashtray gag when you need it?
Clearly, the impact of the T.Chal uniform is waning, however, as I heard nary a peep about Alex’s surprise gun show compared to the online pandemonium once induced by Timmy in a halter top. I think that’s partly because we’ve grown extremely accustomed to this type of male sartorial stunt, but also largely because this top does not fit him! I think it’s way too tight and not in a fun, tarty way. You can see it straining across his armpits and pectorals because this is likely a runway sample designed for a size zero male model not an action hero physique.
In a parallel universe where everything wasn’t simultaneously going to shit and we didn’t have a hundred more pressing matters to attend to, I feel like this ill-fitting top could have kicked off an interesting dialogue about the absurdity of runway sizing and the utter lack of body diversity we’ve been seeing on that front. But putting aside that industry-wide issue made manifest, I also think this top would be wayyy better on Alex if they could have sized up and cropped it. Pair these sequins with a sliver of rippling abdomen and then we’d really be cooking.
Aughts Authenticity Guaranteed
In a shocking turn of events, nothing has ever made me feel older than these two outfits. And no, it’s not because my millennial culture is now fully a costume. After all, Y2K has been used and abused in this manner for at least six years now. At this point, I am fully desensitized to the revival of all of the worst trends I was wearing in eighth grade. What is actually devastating to me about these particular ensembles is that they made me realize that my aged eye can immediately discern which of these is authentic aughts and which is a facsimile, and I find that sensitivity to the nuances of 25-year-old clothing to be slightly terrifying.
For those who still have youth on their side, to me, it is exceedingly obvious that Keke Palmer is wearing a head to toe ensemble that walked the runway in 2001 (specifically Dior by John Galliano’s Fall 2001 collection), while Alex Cooper has done her best to recreate the aura of that era with items assembled from modern fashion purveyors. Don’t ask me how I am deciphering between the two, my only answer is decades of boots-on-the-ground retail experience. And that said, I’m ready for all aughts outfits, both authentic and inauthentic, to be put to rest now for at least another two decades.
Coming Apart at the Seams
I want to briefly touch on this image of Maddie Ziegler attending a screening of her new film Pretty Lethal as I feel it lends further credence to the disintegrating clothing trend we’ve been closely documenting in these pages. This profoundly frayed fuchsia top looks like that armchair your grandma’s cat has been steadily scratching away at for the last decade. The shirt is unraveling before our very eyes, just like I like it. It’s slow-motion deconstruction instantly reminded me of the Simon Carle temporary tattoo tops I’ve been showing you, as well as those evaporating Sea Hag gowns from Teyana Taylor, Margot Robbie, and Charli XCX. All of which are getting my hopes up that a truly transitory garment is about to hit a red carpet in the very near future, one that actually falls apart before our very eyes. Fingers crossed someone famous finally gets on my Andy Goldsworthy level!!
DIY Doily Couture
Ok, and speaking of disappearing clothing, this is deeply random but this image of Shanina Shaik and Emily Ratajkowski introduced me to a brand new star on the Mess horizon, Durana Elmi, who is apparently the COO of Cymbiotika, some brand that launched at Ulta this week and lured all the D-listers out with promises of swag bags.
But most importantly for our purposes, Durana appears to be a lover of highly conceptual plaster of Paris tops. It’s like a shirt-shaped piece of coral reef, or a very slutty doily slowly unraveling around her torso. It reminds me of a DIY version of those Tom Ford boob armor tops we’ve talked about a couple times in these letters, or that Cabbage Patch Doll dunked in a bucket of white paint fit that Eva Gutowski wore to the Victoria’s Secret runway show last year. Although, I think Durana could’ve adhered a little more closely to that Tom Ford blueprint as I’m a firm believer that everything is better with an articulated nipple. Regardless, just your periodic reminder that the people doing the most interesting dressing are literally never celebrities.
Saint Princess Peach
The final outfit I’d like to discuss with you today is Anya Taylor-Joy in custom Jacquemus at the Super Mario Galaxy photo call in Tokyo. I feel completely ambivalent about this suede matching set, although I will say she has managed to pull off the seemingly impossible feat in Hollywood of finding the rare shade of pale pink that doesn’t make her look positively jaundiced and ailing. But what I really came here to talk to you about is this fabulous choice in hat. I have long been egging on famous people to wear huge, crazy fascinators like this one that feels like a cross between La Bomba and a Byzantine nimbus halo. Reddit users have informed me that the look seems to be an homage to Princess Peach’s outfit from Super Mario Odyssey’s New Donk City, which is cute. But personally, I prefer to imagine this as what Princess Peach would look like if she wandered into the world of Holy Mountain.
Beware the Beast
And the last thing I have to say is simply, SAME GIRL. Piggybacking on Liz’s consternation over the YouTube behemoths pivot into crypto banking, I have only ever had questions for MrBeast who is very obviously angling to become our “beneficent” tech overlord. Stay vigilant, my friends!
Ok! Well I have a mountain of paperwork and two laptop screens to studiously ignore, so I gotta run. But I hope you reveled in this random smattering of stuff I foisted upon you this week and I’ll be back in your inbox real, real soon with even more of my supercilious thoughts and unremarkable revelations. Until then, have a sumptuous weekend, my friends!
Indulge in the finer things in life, and then plunge yourself right back into the muck and the mire by upgrading to a paid subscription to Mess today:
Then give your friends and family a taste of the G-L-A-M-O-R-OUS life by gifting them access to this traveling circus of fashion travesties:
Or yuck it up with the who’s who of Messketeers in our private chatroom today!:
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.