Hey there!!!!
I’ve returned with even more alarming thoughts on celebrity fashion to share with you all. How does she do it!!! I like to imagine that’s what you’re all asking yourselves right now, but it’s probably more like, why does she do it!!!!! Either way, steel yourselves accordingly.
The primary update I have to share with you is that it was Fran’s third birthday on Sunday, and after spending that many years bribing her to sit in bed with me and forcing my affections upon her, it seems like she has finally started to figure out what cuddles are and that she actually likes them. It’s seriously the best. At the moment, that means she just sits her butt on me and kind of stares off into the distance, refusing to make eye contact but allowing me to pet her at length. I’ll take it! Progress is progress, and she only just figured out she loves petting and can demand it at any given moment in like the last six months, so I understand this is still all very new to her.
As an office supply enthusiast/hoarder, I’ve also been loving the big back-to-school energy of the first week of September, and the mid-70s temps and gentle breezes outside have been playing their role perfectly. Because of this and vague concepts of “the great lock in” (which I am not actually participating in but feel spiritually aligned with), I’ve tentatively re-embarked on my jogging ambitions from last spring. As I’ve divulged in the past, I am quite literally a fair-weather runner. As in, when the weather is fair, I run — and that is seriously the only time I run. Given this heavily seasonally-dependent cardio schedule, as you can probably imagine, I am not exactly making remarkable progress or sprinting away the miles. But I actually enjoy being the most lackadaisical runner alive, and there is something about rhythmically pounding my body against the pavement to the point of exhaustion, no matter the pace, that is very soothing to my psyche.
In the last 24 hours, I’ve also developed a complete musical fixation on Audrey Hobert. I typically only listen to rap and corny millennial music from my youth, so this revelation has truly struck me out of left field, but this is exactly the white girl pop music I crave. Overnight, Audrey’s album Who’s the Clown? has changed the entire tenor of my autumn. I am suddenly 22 again and feeling vaguely emo. She is so weird and funny and perfectly articulate about such hyper-specific experiences of being a young woman. I imagine that this has got to be how Taylor Swift super fans feel. I was addicted from the first 30-second TikTok clip I saw of her awkwardly new boot goofin’ around her kitchen to her own music, and the acoustic performance she did on Zane Lowe has only taken that to new heights. I also now finally understand why Gracie Abrams’s song “That’s So True” is so addictive and implants itself in my brain despite the fact that I generally hate her music, and that’s because Audrey wrote it!!! Prepare for me to become an insufferable Hobert-head over the next couple of months. Apologies in advance, but I mean, she’s wearing Dansko clogs on her album cover. How can I not stan???
Anyway, when not spending my entire day scream-singing “CAUSE HE’S PERFECT, HE TREATS ME LIKE SHIT BUT I PROMISE YOU, BABY, IT’S WORTH IT,” I also launched the
with this week, and I can’t wait to discuss Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom with you all at the end of the month! If you want to find out more about that, check out our first newsletter and livestream about why we chose it as our inaugural book:
Like I said on Wednesday, we’re also throwing a party to celebrate on September 10 at St. Dymphna’s bar. There are a teeny tiny number of tickets still left for that, so if you have even the vaguest inclination that you’d like to go, I would buy one of those sooner rather than later:
In very classic me fashion, the exact day and time that we chose to throw this event is also the exact day and time of a Balenciaga cocktail party that I’ve been invited to attend……the first contact the brand has ever officially made with me. Lol. Nothing has ever felt more Mess coded than this scheduling clusterfuck. I’ve spent all week debating: do I nip out for a tight 15 from my own party to show face? Or do I play hard to get with one of the biggest luxury brands in the world? Only time will tell!
And, once again, the VMAs are on Sunday and I will be livestreaming my reactions to that red carpet on Substack and YouTube, and will follow that up with a special newsletter replete with my myriad musings for paid subs. I’m also planning on filming a new YouTube video for your viewing pleasure this weekend and getting that out your way real, real soon.
As for Dolly Parton’s Taco Bell order, it’s nothing particularly shocking (a taco supreme in a soft shell so she can eat it with one hand while driving), but unironically, these are exactly the types of quotidian questions I want mega-famous people to answer.
Welp.
To begin with, this is neither here nor there, but I just need to speak my truth into the universe, which is: Taylor Swift’s passion for placing various objects upon her friends’ heads in photographs needs to be studied. She can’t stop, won’t stop, and for the life of me I do not understand this modeling peccadillo. And don’t you dare say this is a tall person standing next to short people thing because I am an even taller person and I have never once felt the impulse to balance a martini glass upon a pal’s cranium. I can’t prove it, but I feel almost 100% certain this is (Taylor’s Version) of the “She's So Crazzzzzzzy Love Her” meme.
Cowpoke in Paris
Anyway. As I said the other week, we’re not all fashion experts and that’s ok. Now if only these non-experts would realize that it’s also ok — nay, necessary — to leave the making of those fashions to the authorities on the subject.
Post Malone decided like a week ago that it is no longer enough for him to simply wear clothes, he must now also make the clothes he wears himself as well as sell them to you. And while it is all perfectly adequate, if utterly generic, urban cowboy stuff, I am not sure why anyone needed Post Malone to make this brand at this particular juncture in time or who the actual consumer is... And does Post even move product like that in the year 2025 to warrant a whole Paris fashion show complete with horses clomping around where they shouldn’t be? I’m sorry but if Kanye, Beyoncé, and Rihanna can’t make the financials of a clothing brand make sense, why in the world should Posty be the exception to that rule?
On the flip side, I almost want to encourage more celebrities to launch even more ill-begotten luxury brands because it feels like we’re rapidly cruising towards a spon con total saturation point where every famous person is also the proprietor of a DTC business that sells their fans every type of product under the sun. And then what? What will the next flagrant cash grab be?? I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out. Perhaps a full circle pivot all the way back around to entertainment again?!? Dare to dream.
Anyway, another fun fact about this shindig is that it was held at Karl Lagerfeld’s former mansion, and I wish that piece of shit was alive to see this just so we could all treasure the vicious one-liner he would have dropped about these clothes.
Boots the House Down, or Whatever
Now I don’t usually speak like this because it is not my vernacular and I feel that such trite statements are wildly overused by the internet and misapplied 99% of the time. But in this case, it really is the case: My queens are slaying. Welcome to the field, my two all-star players of the Mess Fantasy Red Carpet League. This is precisely what I want to see every time I click through a slideshow of award ceremony fashions.
Wow, also it just occurred to me that there needs to be some way to do fashion fantasy football….do you know what I mean? Like where you could assemble a team of famous people who you think are going to be the best dressed at any given event and you could get more points for choosing more unknown or previously worst-dressed stars. Do I need to invent this myself? Because it sounds fun as hell.
Anyway, Chloë is wearing Saint Laurent and it’s perfect. This is a cool revamp of an iconic Yves Saint Laurent style from the 1990 Haute Couture collection that was also reinterpreted for Saint Laurent's Spring 2018 collection. It also feels fabulous in the hyper specific way that Chloë is fabulous and that would be impossible to replicate on anyone else.
Likewise, Greta Lee is effortlessly pulling off this custom Christian Dior mini, which is exactly the Jonathan Anderson Dior womenswear debut I want to see in the world. More on that below. But this was also the moment it clicked for me that Greta was a big time Loewe girl, which means she’s now going to be a big time Dior girl and I cannot wait to see it!
Weather Advisory System
Seeing those legends deliver so fiercely bolstered my spirits in innumerable ways, so I suppose I’ll share another random thing I liked at the Venice Film Festival. The bottoms of a bunch of celebrities’ gowns got totally soaked. Personally, I think it looks great. It creates narrative, it gives context, it grounds us in a place and time — hell, they’re overcoming adversity! All in one quick stroll down the step and repeat. There’s even a slight political angle here if you view it through the lens of being a commentary on climate change and the fact that the city where this is all happening is rapidly sinking into the ocean. It also reminds me of the Balenciaga Spring 2023 collection where the models had to stomp and drag their garments through that mud pit. Perhaps we should turn every red carpet into a Wipeout-style meteorological gauntlet that stars must navigate in order to receive their awards and accolades. It would certainly boost ratings!
And can someone please tell me why in every single picture from this premiere it looked like Amal Clooney had hired Beyoncé’s personal wind machine guy for the night?
Dior’s Bootylicious Debut
Now it’s time for something I liked a lot less, but I want to love — Jonathan Anderson’s official Dior Haute Couture debut on Alba Rohrwacher at the Venice Film Festival. At the very least, it’s certainly build-a-body inspired with that jumbo BBL caboose. I just wish something about it felt like a more modern take on that historical silhouette rather than simply a faithful recreation. I actually broke out my How to Read a Dress book specifically for this occasion because I needed to know exactly which historical decade this is harkening back to. Which is how I learned that this type of rear-bustled shape is actually a very short-lived trend from the 1870s.
As I am highly suspicious of any century-plus-old gown reference in modern times, especially given Christian Dior’s own penchant for “upholstering” women in Victorian garb in order to drag them out of the factories and back into the domestic sphere, I had to google what else was happening circa 1870. For starters, I learned it was the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the Gilded Age with all the extreme wealth inequality that entailed — something obviously resonant with today’s multi-billionaire ruling class — as well as a time of great technological progress with the invention of the telephone and the light bulb. But also, I was charmed to learn it was a time when the woman’s suffrage movement was beginning to take off in earnest with the founding of the National Woman Suffrage Association and American Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. Something else cool about this type of bustle in particular is, according to How to Read a Dress, the absurdity of it fueled the burgeoning rational dress movement of the time, which advocated for natural fabrics, simpler craftsmanship, and clothes that followed the “natural lines” of the body.
So it seems that, much like the Delft shorts, Anderson is finding ways to stay true to the Dior blueprint while simultaneously flipping the script on the more troubling symbolism of those designs and imbuing them with some thoroughly modern meaning. I remain intrigued and open-minded!!!
Where Have All the Irons Gone?
And now here’s something I liked even less than all of that. Upon first view, I was trying to be very generous with my assessment of Shailene Woodley’s Kallmeyer dress because I felt perhaps it was another Quinta Brunson at the Emmys situation where the wrinkles are actually intentionally baked into the garment. But then I saw the original lookbook photo of this dress and no they are not! Are the wrinkles this pronounced because it’s pulling across her torso from being a touch too tight, or was she just chilling too hard before hitting the red carpet and forgot about her trusted friend the steamer?
Ultimately, I feel like the slovenliness of the garment is saved by the fact that Shailene looks extremely beautiful in it regardless. It reminded me of the uproar Margaret Qualley wearing that custom Matthieu Blazy Chanel LBD caused the other week, like is it the garment or is it the gal wearing it? A question I think it’s important we all get much better at answering moving forward.
In any case, in general, it does feel like something is going on out there in Hollywood re: black mini dresses right now. I mean, I know something is always technically going on with black mini dresses, but we’ve got Shailene, Margaret, Margot, and somebody else I’m probably forgetting, all in a matter of weeks. Feels like a nice little moment that’s more supermodel on a go-see than quiet luxury redux.
Kinetic Suiting
Leave it to David Byrne to finally provide us with some genuinely innovative and fun menswear stylings. In this teaser for his new album Who Is The Sky? he’s wearing a spiky, elasticized outer layer atop his regular button-up and slacks that looks like a Nick Cave “Soundsuit” crossed with one of those expandable sphere kid toys or a muumuu made of K’NEX. I love it, and not just because I used to have one of those expandable sphere toys as a child and used to wear it like an astronaut helmet over my head in precisely this fashion. The suit feels like a piece of cybernetic ceremonial garb while the helmet looks like a Minesweeper bomb designed by Willy Wonka, which also feels like an accessory that would be right up Jaden Smith’s alley. I’m sure we’ll see Jaden in one of these barbed jelly bean bad boys by the Oscars.
Watch This Space
And I always forget to check in on this longtime pet fav of the newsletter — my Bella Hadid in Bella Hadid’s absence —Iris Law, who is once again casually sartorial trailblazing. Sure, we’ve seen the watch choker, the Rolex skirt, the old-timey pocket watch even, but what we have yet to see is a chunky plastic timepiece as anklet! I’m sure this image is sponsored by G-Shock or something, but I still think it’s a very fun idea and calls to mind those iconic photos of Lindsay Lohan in her bikini and an ankle monitor. A reference we should all be aspiring to invoke with our attire on the daily. Now, where was this concept when Taylor released Tortured Poets and so desperately needed it!
Ok, and I leave you all today with this positively gorgeous image from billionaire nepo baby Nicola Peltz Beckham’s new modeling campaign for…..Genny?….Images that appear to be deploying a lighting and airbrush technique the industry hasn’t seen the likes of since the days of White Diamonds. Iconic as always.
See you on the VMAs livestream or in its aftermath! Toodles!
Believe it or not, but even more award shows are right around the corner and you’re not going to want to miss out on a single one of these succulent style musings, so stop depriving yourself already:
If you need a confidante to help you unpack the deeply disturbing dress I subject you to here Clockwork Orange-style every week, why not enlist backup under the guise of a gift and get your biggest frenemy a subscription today:
If the budget simply won’t budge this month, no need to fudge the numbers. Just put your trust in our totally free Discord server where ~850 Messketeers would love to tell you where to invest your attention:
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.