Maybe the UFOs are just huge Rihanna stans
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Maybe the UFOs are just huge Rihanna stans
Leo should date a teen alien next!
Howdy!
I hope everyone’s doing well and making the most out of this very creepy warm weather which is now being followed by a whole bunch of rain that TikTok tells me may or may not be chock full of Ohio chemicals. Charming.
I was thinking this week about how one of my favorite things about taking Fran on a walk every day has been getting to witness other people’s reactions to her. There’s nothing like seeing someone break into a big smile as she shambles towards them in that loping, dopey way puppies do, or witnessing a little kid’s face light up in glee as they stalk her down from a block away while she does her elaborate wiggle worm dance trying to lure them in so she can snap at their little fingers and lick the crumbs off their faces.
The best though is when Fran does her own choosing. Periodically, she’ll spot someone from a distance, freeze dead in her tracks, and wait for them to approach as her tail wags grow bigger and bigger until her whole butt is wobbling side to side. The choice is always completely inexplicable, but selected with incredible certainty. A tall, skinny punk dude crossing the road was her most recent conquest, but she’s also stopped for any number of elderly women who immediately start cooing over her great beauty, couples in the midst of all-out arguments wiping tears from their eyes as they whisper “Aw, puppy.” She’s also halted more than a handful of guys doing drug deals, and way too many people struggling to carry their laundry down the street to count.
I bring all of this up because it’s cute, yes, but also because something very odd happened this week that I need to hear everyone’s thoughts on immediately. As you might be able to tell from the above paragraph, Fran has never met a person, animal, or thing that she didn’t like. She even has an alarming affinity for fast-moving cars and dogs growling in a way that implies they are about to disembowel her. In fact, the only things that have ever struck any fear into her heart are subway grates and the metal scale at the vet. And yet, the other day we were out for a stroll when I went to walk past this lady standing quietly on the sidewalk and Fran came to an abrupt halt. I mean she absolutely refused to take another step forward and cowered in a way usually reserved for when I drag her onto that aforementioned weighing machine.
I looked around to see what she could possible be reacting to. A rogue pigeon? A particularly flappy bag of trash? A traffic cone out of context (she doesn’t trust them)? Nothing. Just this completely nondescript lady. Even her outfit was totally nondescript, grey leggings and a sweatshirt, and she never looked up once from her phone the entire time Fran did this big, dramatic production around her. Once I finally got Fran to move she stayed in her little crunched up fetal position scuttling around this lady while keeping as wide of a berth as her leash and the sidewalk would allow. And then once she was past this troubling individual, she merrily trotted along like nothing had ever happened. It was incredibly odd and my immediate thought was Men In Black. I don’t know why, but my brain has never been so confident that someone is an alien wearing a human suit radiating bad vibes. If you have any theories as to what happened there aside from an encounter with a city-dwelling skin-walker please let me know ASAP because my imagination is running amok.
I also just need to brag that I hung some shelves all by myself this week and not only are they 100% level, but they still haven’t fallen out of the wall even after I loaded them up to the max with all of my heaviest tomes. I’m officially a handyman. Please clap.
And last but not least, I’ve been having a grand ol’ time yucking it up in the Mess Discord with all of you this week, so if you haven’t checked in on what’s going on over there yet, please go treat yourself to that little slice of digital heaven. And if you haven’t already, please consider getting a paid subscription. Every $1 helps me get one step closer to doing this insane thing for you all as my full-time job and it keeps Fran ear-deep in beef liver treats. And are you really going to deny Fran more treats?!
Let’s get it.
To set the mood for today’s edition, I wanted to share this genuinely fun fact. We need to give this man his own Bravo reality show immediately. Papal couture and Grinder dates is a winning combination if I’ve ever heard one.
Also, it’s just nice to see that Rihanna and Rocky’s child is exponentially cuter than any of us could’ve ever imagined. After years of psychotic rich dudes like Elon Musk, Nick Cannon, and Jeffrey Epstein proclaiming that they’ve been chosen to repopulate the planet, I never thought I’d see the day when I would agree that a couple of billionaires probably should keep spreading their gene pool around as much as possible.
And while this cover didn’t get quite as much attention as the official baby Rocky reveal, I am obsessed with Gigi Hadid’s toe ring moment. I didn’t know I felt this was until right now, but I need infinitely more toe ring cover credits. As if this wasn’t already exciting enough, I bet it’s preposterously expensive too.
I also had to share this very wild story Leo DiCaprio’s camp planted following his failed Gigi showmance in which they attempt to paint him as the victim of these terrible, no good “rumors” that he only dates girls aged 25 and under that couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the actual ages of all of his ex-girlfriends. I love that he is trying every way to spin this reputation aside from actually just going on a date with someone vaguely age appropriate. Hell, I’d even take 25 1/2 at this point. Just give me someone whose schooling wasn’t majorly interrupted by COVID-19. I still think he and Timmy could really have something.
Now on to the actual good stuff. I cannot tell you how many of you messaged me the moment this news broke. I wasn’t aware that I am the foremost MGK hater in the universe, but it’s a title that I’ll gladly take on. I’m thrilled. Absolutely thrilled that the worst couple in Hollywood is having this very public fallout. Although my thrill has been tempered somewhat as they were also seen exiting a therapist’s office the other day and appear to still be very much together in some shape or form. I think judging by the reaction to her breakup Instagram post, it’s clear we all need a break from this relationship and part of me hoped Megan would see the public’s outsized response to this news and realize how much support she has to move on. On the Discord, someone also pointed out that she appears to be standing in front of a poster about escaping sex trafficking which is obviously just a coincidence as it happened to be hanging in the airport bathroom she was changing in, but there’s still something kind of eerie about that coincidence? We’ve also decided as a Discord that after all the jokes about looking for a girlfriend and cheating on MGK with his guitarist Sophie, Megan deserves to settle down with a nice lady who will treat her like the princess she is. Can we get this woman a G-Flip of her very own?? For now, I’m just happy to see her wrist cast is back on and I even think this outfit is kind of compelling for once. My one quibble is that it should have been a jumpsuit rather than a matching set, but we all know Maeve only knows one styling hack so this is the best we’re ever going to get. Let’s pray MGK also wins their stylist in the breakup.
Because the one thing I do know for sure is that I never want to see this man and his dumb little outfits ever again. But I am thankful that I at least got to see him get electrocuted and his hair stand on end like a cartoon character before we officially push him out to Daily Mail sea.
In other headline-obsessed couple news, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez celebrated Valentine’s Day like a coupla crazy teenagers in love by getting two of the corniest relationship tattoos I’ve ever seen. I feel like these are the first image results that pop up when you google “romantic tattoos.” If you are surprised by the very college freshman nature of this body art, please recall some of the other imagery Ben has permanently inked on his body. Also, in light of this couple’s extremely HomeGoods “Live, Laugh, Love” wedding in Georgia last summer, I think these tattoos actually make perfect sense. Happy for these Pinterest girlies and their infinite love.
We also got this Valentine’s Day “confirmation” of EmRata and Eric Andre’s “relationship” and I feel like I’m the only person on the internet who’s still not buying it at all….I don’t know, maybe it’s just because I’ve been burned so many times before— especially by Emily and her many Raya dates—or the fact that I’m a longtime Eric Andre fan who has seen this man casually get nude a billion times over, but it still feels very much like a gag. The energy in every pap shot I’ve seen is good pals who see an easy, funny pr opportunity and I just think it’s weird how gung-ho all the media coverage has been to accept this staged situation as absolute fact. I found Page Six’s breathless coverage of their “makeout” sesh (they’ve since softened the language to “canoodle”) in which the two stars never once actually touch lips to be particularly odd as what do they have to gain from fully lying about what their audience can clearly see for themselves? All that said, I hope to be proven wrong. I think they’d be a very fun couple, I’m just not seeing the chemistry so far.
On a very different note, Vivienne Westwood’s funeral was held on Thursday and Richard E. Grant wore this tiny little tricorn with a veil and I just think everything about it is gorgeous and perfect. As I said last week, more weird hats! More fun veils!!!
Equally perfect was the way rapper Lil Durk had to hold his arms akimbo in order to be able to text while sitting down in this sweater with built-in broken skateboard holster. I’m completely fascinated by this garment and the decision to try to wear it in any sort of serious way. The piece is by JW Anderson, the man who also recently brought you the pigeon clutch and the frog clog so this is pretty much par for the course, and yes it does comes with broken skateboard pre-attached. While I want to continue to support famous people wearing the wildest possible runway looks IRL, I do feel like we’re slipping into pure meme territory rather than a genuine passion for outlandish attire. A fine line that perhaps the internet obliterated long ago.
Then again, this is utterly foolish meme-fodder in the best possible way. Sam Smith attempted to garner as much attention as humanly possible at the Brit Awards by donning this inflatable bondage suit built for Popeye on a particularly swole day. I can’t tell you how much I would love to see this things when deflated on the body. Like someone who rapidly lost hundreds of pounds pre-abdominoplasty, just loose sheaths of latex dangling off of everywhere.
Ok, and much like the alien lady Fran and I encountered this week, something very strange is also going on with this picture above and, no I am not talking about Kendall’s hand. I actually think that her hand really is just that weird looking without retouching, although I think she should’ve made it even bigger Jack Kelly-style. But that said, it really gets my goat when celebs gaslight the public over photoshop callouts like it’s an insane idea for anyone to have, especially when Kendall’s family has spent the last decade+ training all of us to hyper-focus on this type of visual sorcery because they are warping things to such extremes it’s negatively impacting entire generations of women’s mental health.
Anyway, as I said, something extremely odd is going on because I took the above picture from Page Six’s article on the subject and as you can see there is a very clear photoshop gaffe in the middle of the left wall where the landscape goes into the concrete, thus adding credence to the theory she photoshopped her fingies. HOWEVER, that mistake is not present in the version she posted, nor the version on any other website, nor even the version Page Six posted in their update story where she responded to the claims……what the hell is going on. Did someone on their team photoshop this? And if so, why??? Or even worse, is this some fragment left over from an alternate reality timeline? And does that mean I just Mandela effected everyone reading this?! Help.
As I’ve talked about before, I’m also very interested in the way this family appropriates aesthetics and then creates knock offs of the very brands they have big deals with. And it’s happened once again. Believe it or not, this is the new Good American collection, but it is also just Balenciaga and Valentino’s old ideas and colorway mashed together and then fabricated out of cheap spandex.
As for Kylie, with Travis still mysteriously, silently out of the picture, she went back to her usual gay-baiting tactics with her twin aka Stassie Baby and as always I say to these two girls who have matching tattoos dedicated to Kylie’s daughter Stormi, be who you are. She’s also back to doing free Wang promotion for no ostensible reason, calling him out by name in this TikTok and once again making me think there’s gotta be some sort of financial investment involved here. Because on top of everything else, it’s also just a bad outfit that could have easily come from any other brand. My favorite part of all of this though it that the context for this bikini cover-up ensemble was a family dinner. But I suppose there is a certain genius to wearing a onesie that allows full belly expansion while chowing down.
And Kristen Stewart has once again done something to inspire the Chanel gods’ wrath because they’ve not only subjected a woman with this mullet haircut to a Sound of Music suspender-ed prom dress, but they tacked on a spat boot and a little diamond bow tie. They’re always bad, but this one feels particularly cruel and unusual.
I was initially intrigued by Kim’s Little House on the Prairie moment for CR Fashion Book on face value as it’s a breath of fresh for the reality star, more in line with my original post-divorce vision for her of minimal hair and makeup paired with maximal slutty garb. However, much of the internet was not a fan, calling it Gone With the Wind attire and condemning her for reviving a plantation aesthetic as the mother of Black children. I feel like I approached the pictures a little differently because I saw that the title of this spread is “Pioneer Woman,” but with or without that title I can obviously see why these negative comparisons are being drawn. But it did get me wondering…..should fashion just give up on these types of references altogether in an American context? Sincerely. Because I’m no fashion historian and I have never purported to be an expert on these things, but I feel like technically this is not Civil War-era Southern Belle dressing and the styling choices lean far more Manifest Destiny than Blake Lively’s Preserve to my eye. But I’m not sure there’s a way to reference America’s historical fashion from any era without also drawing upon the slavery and colonialism and white supremacy embedded within it, but especially when you’re speaking to an audience that doesn’t necessary have the design vocabulary to differentiate between antebellum and Oregon trail. Or is it just Kim that needs to be banned from this type of historical cosplay? I don’t know. But I do think there’s an interesting conversation to be had whether or not we can reference these historical aesthetics in a way that still feels more responsible and transparent.
I’m also starting to think it was Kris who was shooting all those UFOs down not the government. She found a way to get extras for Kim’s Skims shoot on the cheap. Because clearly no budget was spent on the production of these images. Sometimes covering this family makes me feel like the “There is no such thing as a coincidence” guy because you have to admit it’s weird to drop this extensive alien-themed photo shoot in the midst of what’s going on in the news. Also extremely weird to make all of the aliens have Kim’s exact mouth, but here we are. And what any of this has to do with swimwear still remains to be seen.
And clearly there’s no need to shoot down UFOs when they are already here walking amongst us. Ashnikko, a singer I’ve never heard of, attended the BAFTAs in some very Lady Gaga egg-approved garb. Something about this color latex always feels medical to me, but I do appreciate this innovative take on the whale tale trend, offering absolutely no crack coverage whatsoever. I think the prosthetics are a touch overkill given the attire, but likewise something we’re not seeing enough creative usage of in general on the red carpet, so I’ll allow it.
You know, after last week’s defense of the indefensible, I was ready to put Julia Fox on semi-permanent Mess hiatus. And then she came out in this barrage of fashion week ensembles that I could not in good conscious let pass us by without mention. The only good one in the bunch was this lax bro apparel in the center. I actually love the idea of a giant men’s short worn as a culotte with a fancy knee-high boot. And while I’m obviously pro tits out, there’s something about the double oversized silhouette that doesn’t totally do it for me. This is actually a case when I feel like a quick crop right around the bust line could have really worked wonders. As for the poodle dress and the life-size body bag right after I gave her my first ever compliment on her accessories, these looks actually perfectly incapsulate my problem with headline-focused dressers like Julia and why I tend to lose interest in them after a couple of months of these shenanigans. We quickly go from actual fashion to straight up costume. This is pure stunt, not style. When celebs start dressing to generate outrage bait versus genuinely being outrageous, I always feel like it’s time to let them drift back into the D-list until they can come up with a fresh scandal to sell me on.
And of course, after defending a predator last week, Julia showed her ass for a second time in these cheek cutout trousers. While this is a natural extension of celeb’s current attempts to figure out just how much of their nether regions they can legally expose in public, the tail feels like we’re veering dangerously into the realm of pony play.
After last week’s late addition to the newsletter, Chiara Ferragni returned with another boob-centric ensemble at the Sanremo Festival custom made by Schiaparelli. This is exactly how I’ve always wanted to see that brand’s metal plating used and I think the drooping slip over top is the perfect addition. And thank god she ditched the golden baby that was supposed to be suckling on her teat before hitting the stage (that’s not even a joke, you can see a photo of it right here). Ellie Goulding tried something very similar at the Brit Awards, although her top looks more like the high school art class paper maché cousin of Chiara’s.
The creative nipple covers also continue to roll in, this time courtesy of Billie Piper in this hypnotic swirl. For as much as I rail against sheer illusion mesh, if you have to do it, this is how you do it right. While you can never quite eliminate the appearance of wearing sheer hose all over your body, at the very least I shouldn’t be able to see any points where it begins or ends. And however they concealed these modesty pasties within the spirals is truly artisanal.
But as always, it’s Aubrey O’Day who is the blueprint, giving you what the other girls are too afraid to give i.e. slapping a strip of duck tape over her breasts and ditching the torso-coverings altogether in favor of just the sleeve and pant leg portions. A perfect synergy of all the trends we’ve been mulling over for the last two years in one look. I also just realized that her bio says “World Traveler-Sapiosexual-Content Queen,” and I couldn’t agree more. She should really add photoshop savant in there as well.
Before I get out of here, I also just wanted to highlight these two trends. As I said last week, peplum’s are back, baby, as evidenced here by Harry Styles dramatic waist flare. Also after Eddie Redmayne at the Globes, Harry has now also emerged as a self-identified Carrie with this massive neck corsage. Personally, I think the corsage should’ve been even bigger, totally face obscuring, ideally.
And another little design quirk that I’m hoping will catch on with the masses is Georgia May Jagger’s butt ruffle at the Brits. This one is a little too small and a little oddly placed at the end of this microscopic mini skirt, but I see a lot of promise for this adornment in other contexts. We already inexplicably managed to bring panniers back into the mainstream, you’re telling me the girls wouldn’t be able to get down with a little faux-BBL bustle? The 1820s fashion revival is still going strong.
And before I skedaddle, you know a Mess rundown wouldn’t be complete without a brief check-in with out top Gen Z star Addison Rae just to confirm she still very much gets it. The look is good, the vibe is fun, and everything is extremely Y2K Doll Palace. Just as it should be.
I’ve also been thinking a lot lately about the fact that Madonna’s eldest daughter Lourdes Leon really should’ve been an It-girl ten times over by now. She’s been percolating around the edges for years now, but has never quite struck it big in the mainstream yet. You see, she’s unfortunately from a generation just ever so slightly before we as a society started nepo-ing all of the Hollywood babies out of a deep-rooted fear of the unknown. That whole Material Girl Macy’s fashion line was a decade ahead of its time. However, as many jump ship from Julia amidst the Wang of it all, I can see Lourdes becoming our new Bushwick internet darling, even if she recently called the neighborhood “disgusting.” Now all she needs is something to push her hard into the headlines. A shame Pete’s all coupled up, but maybe she and EmRata could team up on this….
Alas. This video is how I feel knowing that this newsletter has come to an end yet again.
See you around, you duck-faced rebels!
Now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain. If you too find yourself wishing for an encore during the final bow of this newsletter, then please sign yourself up for a paid subscription and then sign up all of your pals for a subscription as well so you can start a support group to discuss all the horrors I subject you to here on the regular. And if you’re newly-formed posse is in need of a uniform, then look no further than this chilling collection of Mess Merch. And while you’re out there scouring the internet for fresh pop culture factoids, should an alarming look freeze you in your tracks like Fran spotting that alien on our block, then please hop in the ~ MESS DISCORD ~ where I and 500+ of your fellow Messketeers can share in your fear and delight.
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Until next time, I’m livin’ la vida loca!
Maybe the UFOs are just huge Rihanna stans
Richard E. Grant’s hat was a gift from Vivienne Westwood when they did a film together 😍 https://twitter.com/RichardEGrant/status/1626252899129991169