Knicole Kidman For Your Consideration
Illegalize trillionaires.
Hiiii, Messketeers!
What’s happening, my friends? Have you succumb to Knicks in five fever yet?!! (I’m writing this to you from before the game, so don’t get mad at me if you read this later and we lost tonight.)
While I always find the sudden swarm of new celeb fans sitting court side to be a little cringey, I realized I need to check my attitude because their presence also produces the opportunity for impossible moments to transpire. Like the above image of Jose Alvarado landing in Michael Bloomberg’s lap much to that octogenarian’s immense terror. I have not been able to stop laughing at this photo all week long.
On Monday, I did a livestream with Jessica DeFino announcing our next book club pick for June which is Dekonstructing the Kardashians by MJ Corey! Get into it. As we said on the stream, whether you love the family or loathe them, MJ expertly uses them as a lens through which to better understand so much cultural theory and modernity at large. I promise, it’s going to be cool. Please join us!
Oh, and if you’re not a paid subscriber yet you missed out on my complete 2026 Pornhub Awards breakdown. It was a deeply informative red carpet experience that provided us with many an insight on Hollywood trends to come and inspiration for looks I hope to see on an A-lister in the very near future!!
This week at work, I’ve been having meetings about changing the actual design of the website, which is extremely cool and exiting. Things are already in flux and looking better than ever, but please go over there and take a look around and let me know what you think. What would you change? What do you want more of? No detail is too small. I would truly love your feedback to create the most idyllic user experience possible.
This week, we also published this interview between Mel and supermodel Hoyt Richards, the star of the HBO docuseries Bring Me the Beauties about escaping the Eternal Values cult filled with even more chiseled-cheeked-and-jawlined folks like him. The story is insane, but I also can’t get over what a sweetie Hoyt is and that he has actually only gotten hotter in the 40-odd years since his modeling heyday.
And most importantly, I finally figured out how to access the gym in our fancy new office building and you better believe it’s about to be a swole summer. I already told all my coworkers, if you see me in there struggling, no you didn’t.
Ok, here we go!
To kick things off, two stories that made me laugh recently. Every now and then Page Six will hit you with the most unhinged hot take headline out of left field and I know they’re clickbait, but they still get me every time. I live for the hyperbole and a good ol’ fashioned end-days fearmonger.
And you must go look at this collection of staged paparazzi images courtesy of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds posthaste. This might be the first time such digital imagery has actually caused me to physically recoil. The pair definitely intended this to appear lighthearted and flirty, and how it actually comes across to me is deeply TENSE. There is a black cloud of PR machinations hanging over these cheeky, overtly un-candid candids. There’s a palpable franticness to produce a good headline that isn’t lawsuit-related out of which no good choices can possibly come. Although, thankfully for us, many, many cursed paparazzi images certainly can.
Gisele Forever
Now this is obviously not Mess, but just to cleanse the timeline for a moment may I offer you this insanely gorgeous image of Gisele Bundchen in the new W magazine? Let us all recalibrate our glamour sensors to the proper settings. Because as I said on Notes, genuinely, who is giving it to you like this. This is why people get pissed when we throw around the word supermodel willy-nilly because for every nepo struggling to emote there is a catwalk veteran out there generating something transcendent. The way the line of the hip mirrors the line of the shoulder is so important to me. Tom Brady should be so embarrassed he ever dared set one shambling foot in Gisele’s world.
Chicken of the Sea
This week, Meg Stalter became the latest chick to join the Mess flock in this outfit she made herself for a pride performance. This set actually perfectly fuses the year’s poultry trend with the sea hag look I’ve been chronicling in these pages as there’s also something a little cloud-like to the whole affair. Now if some genius could just figure out a way to harness real mist into the rough concept of a bikini, we’d really be cooking.
But I actually wanted to bring up this outfit not to talk about the molt of it all, but rather the tiara which fulfills the type of extravagance I’ve long been requesting from the rich and famous. Look at the way it effortlessly pulls together this cross section of couch innards. I’d obviously prefer the crown be done in real jewels rather than glitter, but let this serve as a powerful blueprint for more serious class warfare-baiters of the future.
Ballooning Bottoms
And you all know this newsletter has been singlehandedly pushing the red carpet inflatables agenda forward, and it appears my early investment in this trend is beginning to pay off. After previously being featured in these pages for her adult baby clowncore garb, comedian Atsuko Okatsuka has once again presented a compelling case that she is in fact a reader of this newsletter in an inflatable skirt from this brand Tabbe that I’ve been loving lately. The whole look is excellent, even the deployment of the typically overdone opera glove is good! My only note here is that I want to take a bicycle pump to this skirt and give it a few more hearty squeezes. I need that thing to be as taught as a Kris Jenner facelift!
Censori Core
But not all inflatables are created equal. Because this, on the other hand, I find to be rather depressing. Doja Cat wore this to a MAC promotional event so it is intended to maximize PR and attention, and in that capacity, I suppose it is successful. But it just feels like it’s trying way too hard to make a lot of something out of nothing. It suffers from the same problem we discussed re: Lizzo’s Robert Wun dress at Cannes last month. It’s overwrought. Stunt layered atop stunt, I think it large part because no fashion stunts are really working that well anymore. The market is beyond saturated. This aesthetic also just feels straight up sex doll without any sort of real subversiveness to it, which has never been my bag. And I always hate when popular culture proves Kanye’s worst aesthetic impulses correct. After all, this is really just Censori core without the Ye minimalist edit before leaving the house.
In more uplifting news, literally, Julio Torres continues to inspire and delight. We’ve seen quite a few floating collars this year, but none that riffed on the very notion of floating. This extremely Flying Nun neckline does Sally Field proud, and I like the way it creates a sort of second, even wider shoulder span atop his own.
I’m of course likewise charmed by the very sculptural plunger updo. As I’ve been telling you, I’m clamoring for some actually novel beauty concepts and this hair periscope feels like it is very much of the Elena Lenina school of red carpet artistry.
No More QR Codes
The last thing I have to say before I let you go is simply that we must stop trying to make QR codes happen. Like, I understand they are happening and that they’ve been happening for quite awhile now, I just don’t understand why this 90s technological advancement is being marketed to me as though it is the bleeding edge of Jetsons living. No amount of rhinestone-ing this glitchy square will persuade me this is a convenient or chic way to exchange data. Plus, I feel these codes will forever carry the cursed aura of COVID menu policies and thus the fomenting rage that lies therein. There can be no real path forward here. I need Silicon Valley to stop shoving AI down our throats and start fixing actual problems like finding a less embarrassing way to airdrop links to strangers.
Ok, well, I’ve got to go worship at the altar of Lisa Rinna’s fitness DVD empire. I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey into the heart of fashion darkness today. I’ll be back again next week with a new YouTube video and a new newsletter for my treasured paid readers only. Until then, toodles!
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