Drake's Freshly-Etched Abs

A dispatch from airport limbo.

A visual depiction of what i do in this email every week.

Hi! Happy Independence Day, I guess.

Today’s letter is a short one and extremely late due both to the holiday weekend and the fact that I’ve spent the last two days on one endlessly delayed flight after the next. And no matter how much work I believe I will get done under such supposedly “ideal” writing conditions, all of my best laid plans are immediately for naught as soon as I find myself trapped in such a tedious limbo space. It certainly doesn’t help that I somehow always get stuck in a middle seat with my arms pinioned to my sides feeling the judgmental sidelong stares of my seat mates as I wax poetic about Julia Fox.

All of this travel is to eventually, hopefully, one day make it to Oregon where my college friend and I are going to meet my other college friend’s baby who I last hung out with in utero. And from there, we will be embarking on a little girl’s trip. No, you aren’t currently experiencing a bad case of Mess déjà vu, I did in fact just return from a different girl’s trip with a different pregnant friend. What can I say, it’s been a real besties and babies summer over here. And while the days full of delays may suck ass, the reason why I’m embarking on these sojourns most certainly does not.

But most importantly, I’m sending you this email today because I have a serious update about Mess to share with you all. Over the last five years of writing this newsletter it has shockingly, unexpectedly, grown from a means of entertaining myself in the midst of a pandemic and not annoying my friends with 1000 pictures of celebrities they know nothing about into my full-time job. And it’s by far, easily, my favorite job I’ve ever had. So out of respect for that transformation and all these years of toiling away in the content mines, I decided that I’m going to increase my prices for the first time ever.

If you are already a paying subscriber or you sign up before my birthday July 28, you will be locked in at the current unbelievable savings of $5/month or $45/year. I know I’m going full used car salesman on you here, but that’s a helluva bargain.

This change in price is also going to come with a pretty serious change in publishing cadence which I have laid out for you below.

Free subscribers get:

• 2 regular Friday emails a month

• 1 monthly recap YouTube video

• 1 episode of The Review of Mess podcast

Paid subscribers will get all of the above PLUS:

• A bonus Friday email

• A bonus YouTube video

• Special coverage of major award shows like the Oscars and Met Gala

• Mess Recommends

• Occasional essays, movie recaps, and red carpet throwbacks.

• A monthly Substack livestream where we can all chit-chat about the most pressing fashion and pop culture issues. The Substack team also recently informed me that I can invite you guys to join the livestream on the fly so I thought it could also be fun to do a live call-in situation if there’s interest! Otherwise I will just as happily soliloquy on the Daily Mail sidebar for an hour straight.

• You can also leave comments!!!

Due to this glut of hot and fresh content, the new prices will be as follows: $6/month or $60/year. Unless you sign up before July 28, of course!

I’m also going to change the “founding tier” to something preposterous like a grand because I have nothing additional to offer you at that level and so it shall henceforth be reserved for those singular maniacs with a profound appreciation for the dark arts of high fashion and money to burn. In the future, maybe I’ll have some special high-roller merch for you or something. We’ll talk.

I’m also always more than happy to make individual arrangements with people including comping your subscription entirely. No shame! You are legion and I love that you all love Mess!

Thanks a million for all your support in everything I do, now it’s time for me to make you question why you give it to me. Let’s go!

Charli XCX enjoys the discourse.

I wanted to begin today with these inspiring words from Charli XCX after some festival goers panned her performance at Glastonbury on social media. This is literally the thesis of not only this entire newsletter, but my entire outlook on fashion and culture and probably life. It is why I look at the D-listers, the ugly clothes, the bare naked bodies, and all things classically considered a faux pas. It is the divisive and controversial that is always the most interesting. It is the divisive and controversial that pushes culture forward. At the very least, you can never accuse them of being boring. Also, have I or have I not said the exact phrase “I enjoy the discourse” to you in the past?!? So I guess what I’m saying is, Mess is officially a brat-sanctioned product. Congrats to all of you on being such early adopters to this cool girl mindset.

Satanic Panic Strikes Back

A demonic Labubu in the wild.

This is just a note to say that America’s satanic panic rages on and this time it’s coming for your beloved bagmaxxing baubles. That’s right! It turns out Labubus are actually universally possessed by a demonic spirit, I’m so sorry to report. This couldn’t possibly be a piece of fear-mongering propaganda, I’m sure that these plush toys really are cursed and come alive Gremlins style if you put a Rhode peptide lip tint on them. According to the geniuses at the Daily Mail, this “chilling theory” is that the dolls are inspired by Pazuzu, a demon from Mesopotamian mythology and have thus become vessels for this evil to enter the world once again. And honestly……slay. Sounds fun! Certainly more exciting than the boring old secular Beanie Babies back in my day. I was trying to remember though if we had this same sort of conspiracy theorizing around Furbies because if any toy from my millennial youth had demonic energy, it was most definitely the animatronic hamster that would suddenly start babbling from the depths of your closet after years of dormancy.

Splitsville Spon Con

Three of Orlando Bloom’s recent Instagram Stories in the exact order I received them.

My new Tom Brady Orlando Bloom most certainly is not. This week, I saw a tabloid headline about how Orlando was morosely posting on social media after his newly announced breakup from Katy Perry (which apparently actually happened MONTHS ago), and given my love of an A-list divorcé wielding sappy self-help Pinterest quotes, I obviously immediately sprinted to this man’s Instagram account to see what perverse joy I could wring from it.

What I found there, however, was a crappy facsimile of true corny heartbreak. Because from that first slide proclaiming that “each day is a new beginning” Bloom’s social media pity party immediately struck me as hollow, and not hollow in the classic platitudinal way all such Instagram posts are. Rather, I thought to myself, this is a man who is capitalizing off the sudden spate of media attention this divorce announcement has afforded him. This feeling in the pit of my stomach only grew as I tapped forward to the next slide which even more vaguely informed me that “the important thing is to take that first step.” Now, I was sure these were PR traps, but laid to what end??

And then I tapped through to the third image you see above and it all coalesced into a perfect spon con supernova because it turns out Orlando clickbaited being sad over his breakup to plug his new Amazon TV show. This also certainly explains his insistence on showing up to the Bezos wedding with or without his pop star wife in tow. My ability to sniff out advertorial celebrity behavior is truly a sick gift I cannot explain. Now if I could just swap it out for any actually useful, monetizable skill set……

Marc Jacobs Shoe Cam

Julia Fox and Ego Nwodim at the Marc Jacobs show.

It was the Marc Jacobs runway show this week and everyone looked exactly as plush and rotund as you would expect. I don’t have much to say about the apparel that I haven’t said before. I mostly just wanted to share that as someone who is currently rewatching True Blood (one of the worst, most compulsively watchable television programs ever made), Julia’s living dead makeup is really speaking to me.

Also, I’m obviously obsessed with this door stopper footwear. It’s a Mexican pointy boot silhouette applied to a sensible pump. And this photo of Ego Nwodim attempting to navigate down a flight of stairs in the footwear made me realize that what fashion week really needs is a livestream of all the people in outlandish attire attempting to weeble-wobble in and out of those shows. Especially in inclement weather, can you imagine!!!! Charge pay-per-view style and the runway show will practically pay for itself.

Kevlar Waist Trainer

ASAP Rocky feeling self-protective in Louis Vuitton.

As I’ve said from the first day ASAP Rocky and Rihanna got together, receiving the unconditional love and support of such a natural fashion plate has made the rapper believe he possesses that same innate trendsetting ability himself and he simply does not. While he is certainly an experimental dresser and unafraid of taking fashion risks, sometimes I wish he had a touch more fear in his heart and this outfit is a perfect example of why. These chinos have an inseam only Justin Bieber could love. And there was a lot of speculation online as to what Rocky is wearing atop his t-shirt ranging from a back brace to a waist trainer, but I’m almost positive it’s just a bulletproof vest which he’s been known to wear in the past. Although, this one feels a touch too slovenly for such a serious piece of militaristic garb.

But I really wanted to bring this photo to your attention because the moment I saw Rocky carrying this vintage Louis Vuitton suitcase under his arm like a jumbo clutch, I thought to myself, now why is this cooler and a more persuasive piece of advertising for that brand than anything I’ve seen Pharrell produce thus far? Time for a Fenty family capsule collection, if you ask me.

Goo Goo Gaga Alert

Emma Chamberlain in adult baby mode.

And I will wrap up this brief fashion compendium with this latest adult baby sighting which is even more babyish than anything I could’ve ever dreamed of when I first started writing about this fetishistic trend. If you told me Emma Chamberlain’s romper was straight from the plus-size toddler section, I wouldn’t bat an eye. To be fair, the look is admittedly cute, I’m just saying it’s also circling dangerously close to Fred Armisen on Broad City territory. That Peter Pan collar combined with the puff sleeve on this romper are also giving me serious twee flashbacks. Somewhere Zooey Deschanel’s powers are growing stronger.

Gillian Anderson pretending she’s literally anywhere else besides sandwiched between Matthew McConaughey and Emma Roberts.

Ok, well, here’s live footage of my 6’2” ass on this flight as the folks on either side of me spill their life stories to one another, so I’m gonna go ahead and call it right there.

Jonathan Bailey

I love you! Let me know if you want a souvenir from Oregon! I’ll see you all next week with a fresh Mess Recommends and a new video recapping June!!!

• As I said up top, you’re going want to scoop up this bargain basement subscriber pricing before it’s gone for good!:

• Why not pick one up for your bestie while you’re at it?:

• Or psychically invest in the totally free Discord server where ~850 Messketeers will keep you rich in pop culture nonsense:

As always, if you can’t afford to pay for more, just ask me about getting a comped 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, 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.