Nicholas Sparks's Splenda Chicken Salad

Congrats to Lana Del Rey and her bayou fan boat tour guide husband!

Hi there, friends!

How’s it goin? It’s been a gloomy, rainy week in these parts and yet my casual twice-a-week run streak continues!!!! A small fitness miracle.

Perhaps due in part to this bad weather, Fran absolutely refused to poop all day yesterday. And this refusal turned her in to an absolute menace in the home, leading her to the very interesting, very out of character decision to bite a huge chunk out of my brand new Crocs…..Thankfully, the poop demon has been exorcised from her spirit today and she has returned to being my usual sweet, if deeply stubborn, girl.

Don’t let her restfulness fool you, she is feral.

Earlier this week, I went to a freelance writer mixer hosted by my pal

Lindy Segal

and beauty industry expert Erica Metzger and it was so nice. There was cheese! There were dips! I had a cocktail! I spilled a cocktail! I also finally got to meet a longtime coworker from Vanity Fair in person, as well as talk shop (and some shit) with new writer/editor/influencer friends and spread the gospel of the first couple of seasons of Love Island UK. And most importantly of all as a self-employed person, the evening provided me with the perfect excuse to put on real clothes, leave the house for a couple of hours, and have face-to-face conversations with various strangers. What more can you ask for. But it didn’t end there because I also need to highlight the fact that the event’s swag bag was truly out of control. This was some pro-level brand sponsorship. It made me feel like I’d won a contest or something, and there is no quicker way to my heart than showering me with little gifties.

When not mixing and mingling, I had a lovely zoom meeting with

Jessica DeFino

and

Cindy Gallop

in preparation for The Hole Debate next Thursday at Duane Park. Fortunately and unfortunately, the show sold out almost immediately. But I’m looking forward to seeing those of you who were able to snag a ticket in time there! We will be chatting all things Brazilian waxes and what they hath wrought upon the current state of sex. I’m also looking forward to this event as an opportunity to potentially corner a Substack employee and ask them about sponsoring our next Mess Live! event. Or perhaps even a live recording of The Review of Mess……

Speaking of, Jess and I recorded this week, so a new episode of the pod should be ready for your consumption and headed your way sometime early next week. Which is also when my faithful paid subscribers will at long last get to read my essay on fashion entering its alt-right edgelord era. This week, I delivered unto those same paid subs something I’m calling A Unified Theory of Bagmaxxing, or an explanation of luxury brands' attempt to sell us the Jane Birkin fantasy along with a pre-fab personality. Thanks to everyone who sent me a nice note about that post! I think that’s easily the most feedback I’ve ever gotten on something I’ve published on here. People really seemed to enjoy that essay style, so I’m going to keep offering that type of longform deep dive into a singular trend on a more regular basis for paid subs. I can’t promise what the publishing cadence will look like because I can never promise that I’ll ever have another interesting fashion thought again, but I’m thinking you’ll get one ~once a month. I’ve already got the topic and am ruminating on one for October! We’ll just have to see how it goes!!!

Ok, you get the idea!

I’m going to start off today on an incredibly difficult note, and that note is 16 packets of Splenda. 1…6……in a chicken salad…………I’m so sorry for this alarming revelation about beloved author Nicholas Sparks that I’ve cherrypicked from the New York Times profile on his North Carolina home this week, but everyone must now know the psychic burden I’ve been tasked to carry for the rest of my days. My friend Ferron actually sent me this little tidbit directly, so bless you, Ferron, but also how dare you. I genuinely can’t even imagine what this tastes like. The sweetness has got to be off the charts bonkers. One splenda does not equal one sugar, by the way. According to the FDA, Splenda is 600 TIMES SWEETER. And then, to go on to combine the most cloying chemically saccharine flavor ever concocted with a bunch of normal savory spices — I’m dumbstruck! But this is also why we MUST continue interviewing hugely popular, blockbuster authors of airport novels because they are always, without fail, the strangest individuals in the most hyper specific of ways. If you don’t believe me, please go read this Glamour profile on Danielle Steel and her stack of books-shaped desk. Or go watch any of James Patterson’s fabulous method acting book commercials. They’re all little freaks and I love them so, so much. Never change.

Ok, and I know I said no more Deuxmoi bashing, but just here me out for a second. I understand that my coverage of her various borderline illegal social media ad activity makes it seem as though I am monitoring the various goings-on of her page very closely, but I swear I just stumble across this stuff by accident every single time. I do not care about her dumb ass like that. So my latest little discovery came about because I noticed the account posted Noah Centineo to the grid two days in a row and I thought to myself, wow, do people really care about Noah like that in the year 2024??? Because foolishly I just assumed, like any good media company, the choice in celebrities Deuxmoi covers is largely driven by her audience’s interests. And so being the extremely nosy individual I am and forever wanting to take the cultural pulse on any given topic, I decided to take a look at the comment section of Deux’s second photo (left) to see what the people were saying…..¹

Which immediately led me to this comment by @grnbae94 on the top left. Instagram had highlighted it because Deuxmoi responded to her in the exact same flippant tone that she responded to me about being held to the same journalistic standards as traditional media…….anyone noticing a pattern yet? So I read on and saw that both the OG poster and another commenter were both accusing Deux of shilling for some Noah Centineo movie. And I thought surely she is not once again doing weird under the radar spon con. So I went back to the original exclusive Backgrid paparazzi photo she posted of Noah on a “date” with Stassiebaby and noticed that Deux had pinned that comment on the top right plugging his TV show. And not just plugging his TV show, but making sure you know it’s available on Netflix. Ok! What movie, indeed. She is so funny for this shit! So flagrant with it and yet so indignant when anyone dares to call her out.

But anyway, at this point, I’m obviously extremely invested, so now I start reading through the comments on this first Noah post and I see Deux liking all these comments about what a good show it is, what a good actor Noah is, and leaving comments encouraging others to go watch it. But my favorite, and I think the real spon con smoking gun of this whole affair, is her response to a commenter who rightfully points out this TV show came out two years ago so like….why are we talking about it or Noah right now. To which she responds, “there’s a season 2.” Which there is……but it’s not out yet and no one knows when it’s coming out. Shooting just wrapped in April. Hm. Big old weirdo advertorial behavior from Deuxmoi, once again! Or should I say, another ~real~ celebrity Instagram journalist hard at work!!!!

Speaking of ad disclosure loopholes, this is the much dumber, analog version of what is transpiring above, but you all know I can’t resist a celebrity poorly imitating real life on behalf of a brand deal. In this case, Katie Holmes strolling through Manhattan as sponsored by Land’s End. Together they produced this very stock image paparazzi photo series in which — by happenstance, of course!!!! — Katie’s tote and the brand logo upon it are very clearly angled towards the camera at all times. How do brands remain so bad at orchestrating these things, especially considering how often and for how long they’ve been doing them! It’s actually incredible. I am genuinely obsessed with these true PR flops. I especially like that in this one it seems like at one point Katie started to overthink how normal human beings walk. And perhaps most remarkable of all, they somehow even managed to make the outdoor lighting look weird??!! You cannot convince me someone is not just out of frame holding one of those reflector discs. Brands, I’m begging. you, just lean harder in to the insanity of what you’re doing here anyway! Turn the camp up to 11! Let the reflector disc guy stay in the shot! I promise it will be so much better and more viral than any of this sad generic spon con.

Now, on the opposite end of the fashion spectrum. Um, hello! this ad? This show?? This walk???? Fabulous. I particularly love this campaign photo though. It’s at once an homage to both the real Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking tuxedo jacket design and “Woman Examining Man” by Helmut Newton — who also photographed that original suit for Vogue Paris in 1975 — while still being very now, very powerful, and weirdly very Jenna Lyons-esque. Also incredible evidence that, of all the nepo babies who get the word thrown around about them wayyy too often, Bella is the one true Supermodel amongst them in the classical sense of the word. She has transcended the industry to become a bonafide celebrity, sure, but more importantly when she does work she really turns it the fuck out at a caliber very few of her peers can rival. The OG Mess Muse has done it again! This show also marked her first return to the runway in two years, and I thought all the buzz around that was really testament to how powerful pulling back from fame and the public eye can be and how moving with more intention can actually take your fame to all new heights. Something I’ve been outright begging Kim Kardashian to do for years. There’s still time yet!

Now, if there’s one thing we all know Cardi is going to do at Paris Fashion Week, it’s turn a major look or two. This is a huge yes for me. The Dwight Schrute meets Danzig hair is perfection, and the way it replicates the point of the collar is so, so satisfying. The black lip liner with minimal makeup was also exactly the right graphic choice. And given my passion for crone shoulders and panniers in the past, you already know I’m extremely into those trends’ love child — the hip horn. Now here’s my one big complaint with this fit…it doesn’t fit. I feel like maybe it just wasn’t designed with boobs in mind because in every single shot on Getty Cardi is clutching this blazer to her torso, as you can see above. And when you can tell someone’s uncomfortable in a garment, it ruins the overall effect of said garment no matter how technically cool it may be. The suit is supposed to radiate power and it’s impossible for Cardi to do that when she feels like her bits are about to tumble out of the front of it. But regardless of whatever design flaw is going on here, I do think it looks fantastic. Just maybe better suited for an editorial where all of that can be controlled for versus a step-and-repeat.

My friends. This is what I’m talking about. THIS IS EVERYTHING I’VE BEEN SAYING SHE SHOULD DO THIS WHOLE GODDAMN TIME. Ladygunn, are you Mess readers……because this is a suspiciously on-brand image for a Messketeer. As I said, the first magazine that can figure out how to portray JoJo in a totally different light will reap enormous rewards in the form of a majorly viral press moment, and that is precisely what this cover has achieved. This photo is sensational. I really don’t care as much for the rest of the editorial, there’s a little too much classic Siwa goofiness for my taste, but who cares when you’ve got an image like this to lead with. I also do not like these gold boots, especially when I feel like a classic Timb could’ve really set it off right, but I’m just nitpicking now. The undone hair, the real, artfully applied makeup instead of her usual KISS drag, and the bejeweled chestplate and codpiece are all chef’s kiss. And I’m not just saying that because yet another magazine cover has validated my unflagging support for famous people wearing fake muscle suits. This is exactly how you deliver a nuclear blast to any child star persona.

In other news of frightening fashion trends I’ve foretold, the compression hose have once again found new purpose. The Bianca Censori fetishwear movement marches on. Just when I thought we’d finished messing around with grandma’s hosiery drawer, Charli XCX decided to take one more dip in the medical grade garment pond, refashioning this nude tube of semi-sheer nylon fabric into the mere suggestion of a dress. It’s quite post-surgery faja adjacent. As I mentioned on the podcast months ago, it is very unnerving to see the way that Kanye is still weirdly dictating the direction of modern fashion even from far beyond the cancellation grave. And, again, where is the Skims in all of this? Why is Charli doing brand campaigns without also doing a little brand ambassadorship?? Especially as part of the tour costumes! Are those girls trying to run a business empire here or what. Maybe a few less gigs with Ryan Murphy, a little more VIP product integration oversight, huh.

As we wind down today’s exposé on D-list sartorial shenanigans, let’s do a quick check-in on a few of our other simmering trends of the moment. Dua Lipa furthered the blast from the past that is Renaissance Fayre Fall in a chainmail bralette worn beneath this very wench-approved velvet vest thing. Katy Perry’s best, most cohesive looks continue to be those she wears on stage. She brought back the same flesh-tone latex bodysuit I thought worked so well in her VMAs costume, tacking on these Princess Leia meets O-Town liquid metal accents. And longtime readers know how passionate I am about an outfit with an amorphous reflective element. Finally, if you were a paid subscriber then you would already know allll about the funeral veil trend I clocked at the Venice Film Festival which Aubrey Plaza revived here in this slutty widow ensemble at the premiere of Megalopolis. A movie that looks so bad I just might have to go sit through all 2 hours and 18 minutes of it.

And I only bring up Iris Law to say that in the extreme nudity of it all and the reign of terror that has been Pleaser lucite platforms, I feel that we’ve completely forgotten about fun and funky shoes as an option. Where is the conceptual footwear. Where is the fresh take on all these clunker platforms. Give me more of the Lana Del Rey Met Gala horse hooves please. At the very least, some boots with the fur!!!

Alas and alack. As the time has now come for me to let you go on your merry way, if I can impart just one word of wisdom upon you all, please let it be the above! If Nicole’s wigs become too realistic, we risk losing her in that role entirely and then we’ll never get another deranged AMC monologue again! Consider these hard fronts a gift!!!

Ok. Time for me to shove off like Jeffrey Dean Morgan down this canal of life! Goodbye!!

Lo and behold:

• Yes. I know I’ve asked a lot of you today simply by setting before you a litany of the most troubling images the Daily Mail has to offer. But should you find the strength within yourself to live to see another day of Mess, I would be eternally grateful if you showed your support for me and this newsletter by becoming a paid subscriber.

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Remember, my friends, time is money!!!!

1. Also, please note that “EXCLUSIVE” demarcation on the image on the right which was the first one Deuxmoi posted. Once again, blurring the lines between real tabloid journalism and fan fiction.