Putting the "Ass" in Astronaut
Did you know they're technically not even astronauts?
Hi!
Welcome back to another week of utter hell and incompetency. The world may be burning, but I do need to share with you these images of Fran immediately because since we last spoke she got a blowout and it simply demands to be seen:
I hope this mountain of floof and this stupidly gorgeous ear bow brighten your day a little bit.
To cope with reality, I decided to kick of my week in a truly decadent fashion. I went and got a massage at my favorite Chinatown massage place and it was just as brutal and life-changing as always. I then took a stroll up to Librae, home of my favorite croissant. This time, however, I was feeling adventurous and got a feta and dill scone and a rhubarb and labneh danish, both of which were just as phenomenal as I thought they would be. From there, I wandered over to the Union Square farmer’s market where I purchased the ultimate indulgence — eggs. A truly glorious use of my free time and a good reminder that days like that are the whole point of being freelance. Even if the next day my body was utterly devastated from both the physical pummeling and the injection of 8 pounds of butter straight into my veins.
Myself and this newsletter were name dropped in British Vogue this week, and all I have to say about that is bless you Messketeer Daniel Rodgers for shoehorning me into all sorts of fashion content on that website where I do not belong. Your institutional stamp of approval means the world to me.
As foretold, my digital cover story with Margaret Qualley for i-D officially went up online! Check it out, everything looks absolutely gorge. I can’t believe what a cool group of creative people that magazine has assembled for this issue and that I get to be a part of it!
Likewise foretold, my new YouTube video recapping my favorite looks from the month of March is out!
People have given me a bunch of great ideas for members only videos, like Drag Race recaps and deep dives into different fashion photographers, so I’m excited to start working on those. There’s also been a lot of demand for Coachella coverage so I’m going to talk about that behind the paywall today and then probably do a little more yapping in a video on the subject next week. Stay tuned!
And finally, next week, paid subs can look forward to a new podcast episode with special guest
! It was such a delight to chat with him about everything from proper sunscreen application to the beloved New England diner I worked at as a teenager. Can’t wait to share more of that with you next week.But in the meantime……
Wendy’s Has Beef
Given that you’re a reader of this newsletter, I already know you’re acutely aware of what is so abhorrent and stupid about the trip to “space” that transpired this week. Personally, I had to tap out after learning that Katy Perry sang “What A Wonderful World” to her fellow Amazon-sponsored lady adventurers. It gave me big JT serenading passengers against their will over the airplane’s PA system energy. Please know that if I was aboard either vessel, emergency exit latches would be pulled without a moment’s hesitation.
However, there were two aspects of this pointless billionaires’ jaunt that I have greatly enjoyed witnessing that I must share with you now. The first being all of the flabbergasted and defensive responses given by these famous ladies since reentry because the public didn’t meet their ascent to the upper stratosphere with rapturous applause. This has led to spectacular sound bites such as Katy saying, “We weren't just taking up space, we were making space.” (How. For whom…….) And Gayle King inquiring indignantly, “Have you been to space? Go to space or go to Blue Origin and see what they do and then come back and say, ‘This is a terrible thing.’” Ok??? Or you could just give me the $28 million one seat on one of these flights costs and I’ll never speak to or about you ever again, how about that? Imagine being so rich you can’t even imagine why people who can’t afford eggs might not think your 11-minute LARP as an astronaut was super cool.
Anyway, my other favorite thing about this “Let them eat cake” moment, was that the Wendy’s Twitter account for some reason decided to come out swinging. The fast food purveyor announced its beef with Perry by asking PopCrave if we can send her back into orbit, adding “now she knows what it’s like to be a plastic bag floating in the wind.” A very solid troll and I absolutely adore that the social team running this account read the room, weighed the pros and cons, and decided that humorously shitting on Katy in this manner would be well received by the majority of their customers.
One person it was not well received by, however, was the pop star herself. Because yesterday we got exclusive quotes in Page Six from “a source familiar with Perry and the space team” which I can almost guarantee you is her PR team, if not Amazon’s. They told the outlet, “We understand the internet loves a joke, but there’s a clear difference between humor and targeted hostility and this wasn’t harmless banter. This was a billion dollar brand using its platform to publicly demean a woman…They’re not adding to the conversation, they’re dragging it down and this kind of behavior contributes to a culture where women are punished for standing out or a woman daring to do something different is a target.” lol
I LOVE when celebrity PR people try to make anyone critiquing their client’s bad behavior out to be anti-feminist. Yes! Of course not liking anything a rich and famous woman does is actually a condemnation of all women everywhere!!! This is what Gloria Steinem is always trying to tell us. A pop star in space is exactly what Valentina Tereshkova would have wanted.
But Katy’s PR would be wise to stop attacking this sexist strawman and start tackling the brand damage that tweet is alerting them to. Because Wendy’s only felt safe enough to say that and not apologize for it after seeing real people’s reactions to the environmental damage, the grotesque wealth, and the extreme narcissism of this entire spectacle perpetrated by a group of individuals who also aren’t doing anything to improve the quality of life here on earth, especially not with the release of 143.
Latex Warning Signs
Of course, the celebs not in orbit have been doing their best to pacify us from full class warfare with a steady stream of Coachella fits and products to buy and, in Kylie Jenner’s case, both simultaneously. I know the words “recession indicator” are getting bandied about a lot these days, and with good reason, but for me there is no bigger, clearer fashion recession indicator than a member of this family baby powdering themselves back into this very specific style of scoopneck latex mini dress. I thought Kim had locked every iteration of this garment away in the archives for North to wear to her 18th birthday party. This dress is a relic. An incredibly dated throwback to a Yeezy-fied era of KarJenner supremacy. Something I would think these gals would be wary of evoking considering not only the Kanye of it all, but also the fact that much of their fame is built on constant aesthetic evolution lest they get drowned in the ocean of Instagram clones they’ve spawned. Perhaps they think reverting to the fashions from the height of their popularity might restore some of that cultural hegemony as well. Alas!
Satanic Panic 2.0
On the bright side, an economic downturn and a conservative administration also means we’re once again backsliding into a good old fashioned satanic panic. And that, I’m all for. I love when this nation rediscovers its puritanical roots and starts interpolating satan into the same old visuals we’ve been looking at for the last ~60 years. Everything is going to shit which means it’s time to blame a mythological fallen angel-cum-satyr for all of our problems.
There was also a line I kept hearing repeated in all of the Christian social media commentary on this Gaga Coachella performance which was “she never would’ve gotten away with this even a decade ago.”…..a decade? You mean in 2015. A year before the release of her seminal album Joanne??? Babe, I think she would’ve! In fact, not only has she been getting away with this for the last TWO decades, I think this behavior is foundational to why she’s one of the biggest pop stars in the world to begin with.
In any case, at a time in history when it feels like truly anything goes and there’s no moral outrage over anything anymore, it’s just exciting to feel like there’s still one genuinely transgressive route you can take out there. Time to break out the pentacles and black robes, my friends.
Activist Attire
Something else I love is the way Cynthia Nixon managed to incorporate her activism into her promotional look for the new season of And Just Like That…Now, how the hell did she get away with this. Is Warner Bros chill like that?? I can’t imagine they are, which means that the suits on set did not clock this top as the Palestinian flag. That or Cynthia made a persuasive argument on behalf of color-blocking. I think this is a powerful reminder that corporations are typically not very savvy to symbolism. With the tiniest application of creativity, I think famous people would be shocked by what they could be getting away with on a major network. I also love this top because I feel like the usual form of fashion protest in Hollywood is always a pin, which is fine but also very easy to overlook and quickly sidelined when seen over and over again on a red carpet. A beautiful silk shirt, on the other hand, is not only much more in your face, but also looks good enough to be replicated.
The New Supreme
And now I’d just like to take a moment to say that I believe Gabby Windey is the It-girl I’ve been waiting for lo these many years. Sure, as a newly devoted Long Winded listener, I’m extremely partial, but I feel her choice in wedding gowns are prefect testament to the appropriateness of that moniker. These nuptial fits inspire me in a way I’ve only ever felt about Chloe Sevigny’s street style images. Gabby has ascended to my rarest realm of compliments and the fact that she’s done so with bridal looks — a category I’ve historically found to be incredibly uninspired — is absolutely shocking to me. Both dresses are perfectly chic, yet also completely unique to her personality. A nip out at the courthouse? Don’t mind if I do. And the lacy, skintight Paco Rabanne turtleneck gown she chose for their elopement is also just the right note of sexy, scandalous, yet demurely newly betrothed. Get Robby and Gabby on that Met Gala steps ASAP.
Disco Dystopia
All of a sudden, all of the girls are wearing the Spring 2025 Prada scarf goggles and I’m loving this sudden high fashion steampunk about-face. Lori Harvey and Teyana Taylor wore coordinated luxury face shields to Neon Carnival and I also saw JT wearing a pair on Instagram the other day. While I love an all-in-one hair and eye accessory, there’s something about them that’s very Mad Max if Mad Max took place in the swinging 60s. It’s Polly Maggoo’s take on how to chicly cope with climate catastrophe. A glammed up spin on PPE that feels a little too appropriate for our current apocalyptic era. That said, they do look great. Looking forward to tip-toeing glamorously towards the end of days.
Ass-vertising
And I’m saving the bulk of Coachella for behind the paywall, but I just had to include Addison Rae announcing her album release date via her underwear to alert you all to the fact that butt writing is sooo back! After I pointed out to you in February that Bella Hadid was shockingly the first celeb to dabble in the butt as billboard phenomenon in this decade, it seems Addison has now picked up what the supermodel was putting down. And it should come as no surprise that she was the one to finally bring this Y2K classic to the masses as Addison’s outfits have proven time and time again that she has closely studied the sacred ancient Us Weekly scrolls. I have to admit, I haven’t liked her subsequent releases as much as I like “Diet Pepsi” (and the Arca remix of “Aquamarine”), but the visuals have been a treat nonetheless and I look forward to what’s sure to be a Rae-filled summer.
Well, sorry to be a flake, but if you’re a free reader, that’s the end of this disastrous journey into the heart of Mess for today. The rest of my musings on all things Coachella will be tucked away safely beyond the paywall. I hope to see you there. Otherwise…
Bye-bye, my bathing beauties!
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