Ron DeSantis's teeth grinding

6'3" 215 lbs, my ass!

I think we could all use a good night’s sleep.

A very happy Friday to you, my dearest Messketeers!

All of my free time this week has been completely devoted to my best friend’s impending nuptials. Because while they may still be about a month and a half away, we remain totally dress-less (!!!). Due to that fact, this Monday we went on a bridal shopping bonanza, over the course of which I met perhaps the rudest sales associate I’ve ever encountered, especially considering thousands of dollars were potentially on the line. I also got to pay a visit to my own personal Jesus - the Albright Fashion Library.

For those not familiar with Albright, to put it succinctly, it’s fashion heaven for the designer obsessed amongst us. It is just racks upon racks of some of the most iconic pieces of clothing ever made. I don’t think you can even understand how much designer history I got to hold in my hands that day and how many legendary editorial memories were pulled out of the dark recesses of my brain. I was first introduced to this holy land of couture about a decade ago when I was just a terrified stylist’s assistant. We used to do pulls from there all the time and I was always in awe at the archival gems they would let us futz about with. But at the time, Albright was strictly lending for editorial purposes. These days, they’ve opened up their luxury repository to the masses to borrow for special events, and considering a two-week rental complete with shoes, jewels, and accessories will cost you about the same as purchasing a single high-end dress, I personally think it’s an absolute steal of a deal. Of course, that is, as long as you are a sample size as the majority of things in that room came straight off the runway and are absolutely comically tiny.

And our week of matrimonial shenanigans didn’t end there because this weekend is the grand bachelorette party spectacular which will feature all your traditional bride-to-be activities and dick-themed paraphernalia. An event that I have been covertly coordinating with 13 women in a group chat for roughly three months now. And if you want to know how the planning for that momentous occasion is coming along, all you need to know is that I have already had one of those classic missing the school bus-style stress dreams about everything going completely haywire.

On a very different note, I’m working on a story about expensive designer water bottles, coffee mugs, and beverage holsters and am looking to speak to the owners of such luxury goods. So if you are the proud purchaser of any of the above, please reply to this email so that we may discuss your high-end drink accessory ASAP!

Finally, if you are not a paid subscriber, you once again missed out on a sumptuous edition of Sloppy Seconds in which I discussed how lollipops have become the hottest accessory of summer, shared some thoughts on Sydney Sweeney’s singular red carpet success to date, and mused at length about the unexpected resurgence of Andrew Dice Clay. But most importantly, you missed out on an exclusive image of my business associate Fran in all of her floof glory. And if access to premium Fran content doesn’t get you to fork over $5, I’m afraid nothing ever will.

Ok. I’m ready. God, I sure hope you are too.

First of all, we have got to talk about Prenuvo again. I am officially on high alert. These conspicuously “not an ad” posts are plaguing me and I am dead set on getting to the bottom of it. Fashion editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson wrote a lengthy post espousing the many benefits of this full-body scan and assuring followers that this is absolutely not a paid placement, but you have to admit the timing is INTERESTING. I also noticed a comment on this post from model Hunter McGrady which led me to her own enthusiastic Prenuvo post in which she mysteriously added the disclosure that she is a “#partner”………can someone deeper in influencer territory than I explain to me the difference between a #partner and an #ad because the distinction seems murky. I also noticed that all the folks posting these types of endorsements are getting personalized discount codes for their followers to use. I presume this is where the #partner-ship comes in and that they are making some sort of percentage off those referrals, although that’s just pure speculation from my extremely suspicious mind. However this social media campaign is operating, it seems to be working because when I expressed my distrust of these posts on Twitter, eternal Mess Muse Mia Khalifa replied that they had influenced her to make an appointment for herself and that the clinic is already booked out until November. I told her to keep me posted if a #PrenuvoPartner offer is made during that visit and, if so, to spill all the deets of what precisely that entails. Details I will, in turn, spill unto all of you.

Regarding the wedding that shut down the Jersey Shore last weekend, I thought the attire was all very much whatever, although I am concerned that this is only going to add more fuel to the quiet luxury TikTok girlies’ fire. But while the clothes left me totally ambivalent, I am very intrigued by the newlyweds’ choice not to utilize the services of a tailor whatsoever. Especially considering I feel almost certain that both of these garments had to be custom made, and yet the fit is very much giving off-the-rack. I’m just saying, how do you even make it so that a halter fits this poorly around a neck.

Oh, Jen. Why step in it so hard when you could say nothing at all. Why tempt the cancellation gods to bring forth receipts of your own weird Instagram behavior. For those who don’t know, Aniston suffers from a social media affliction I call sticky grandma fingers, liking posts with abandon that are bound to get her into deep shit with her admiring public. She has been caught numerous times liking pro Depp and Pitt posts (both *alleged* abusers) and, most recently, someone spotted her support of Jamie Foxx’s weird anti-semitic Instagram post that he swears he didn’t mean to be anti-semitic, and yet.

Anyway, no big surprise here considering it’s always the people with the most cancellable opinions that are the first to decry popular culture for attempting to “destroy” their friends’ lives by simply expressing displeasure with their behavior. Because, come on. Name a single famous person — outside of a fringe case like Harvey — who has actually been cancelled. I’ll wait. I mean, we’re at the point where they’re even trying to vindicate and foist Kevin Spacey on all of us again, like be serious. Besides, these megastar ~~victims~ of cancel culture still happen to be incredibly well-connected multi-millionaires. I think everyone will be just fine.

What celebrities often fail to understand is that what they love to brand as cancel culture is actually just really normal feedback from their audience. Somewhere along the line that feedback loop got broken and became replaced with this idea of fame infallibility, that a celeb should get to be a celeb and force their content down the public’s throat no matter how we feel about them. These peoples’ careers have always been up to us to make or break and I think it’s a net positive for us to periodically remind them of that fact.

See, cancel culture strikes again! Can’t a fake heiress who paid off her criminal debts using the money Netflix gave her for the rights to her life story catch a break in this dog-eat-dog world!!!! All jokes aside, I do love to see scammers scamming by pulling the same types of tricks that landed them in the clink to begin with and being celebrated for it. The recent Fyre Fest 2.0 announcement also comes to mind. But that said, doesn’t this feel like it’s happening three years too late?

And I just wanted to say that it’s really been one hell of a year for the ukulele. Hopefully Dick will be able to save this poor little instrument from it’s Colleen Ballinger apology rebrand. (BTW the new developments regarding the Swoop video and the allegations made against Colleen’s ex-husband — JUICY. Please DM me if you would like to discuss further.)

Ok, now for my absolute favorite thing of the week: Bridget Everett’s Burger King “Bur-Kin” bag. I already love Bridget with all of my being, but now she has also done the seemingly impossible and made this played-out, overpriced handbag feel fresh again. I’m obsessed. I haven’t wanted a purse this badly since Candice Bergen painted a weed leaf on some Louis Vuitton pochette. And considering this is coming hot on the heels of that hot dog clutch last week, I’m starting to see a carnivorous theme emerging in regard to my current handbag preferences.

Something else I loved was Zendaya for the new issue of Elle. The woman simply cannot do anything but serve. But I mostly just wanted to include this image to show you both this fun upper-gluteal exposure as well as to demonstrate the immense difference between this Steven Klein product and the work he did for Kim’s Skims campaign which was a remarkable example of phoning it the hell in. Can Kim really not see that she’s getting the bargain basement version of what these storied photographers are capable of? Don’t answer that.

As I already told Sloppy Seconds readers, I fear Addison Rae’s new EP AR is a bop. And as her little photo spread for Vogue dot com proved, I think her early aughts-inspired pop reinvention merged with her new vintage high fashion turn courtesy of Taylor Russell’s stylist is all very promising. Although I’m still very much ready to move on from this tits-out dressing tactic, but at the very least they served it to us with a hot pink thong for once. Now go stream “2 die 4” and think about how needlessly rude we were as a culture in regards to her first single “Obsessed.” Yes, the music video leaves much to be desired, but she did not deserve the Dixie D’Amelio treatment we gave her!!!

Well. I told you it would happen before the year was over. I told you the first person to do it would be Julia Fox. And here we finally are. Full bush out. A PVC Dress layered atop PVC underwear. We did it, Joe. Another Mess prediction fulfilled with my profoundest regret. But I’ll hold off on gloating just yet about my fashion soothsaying abilities until we see one of these nudist colony fits hit the street.

I also have been keeping a closer eye on perennial Mess faves Latto and Saweetie and my diligence has been rewarded tenfold. This week, Latto gave us not only the boots with the fur, but also the bra. An exceedingly luxe take on a boulder holder I would love to see more of. And Saweetie brought back the Coperni candy dish handbag which, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe we’ve only seen carried by Kylie Jenner and Doja Cat thus far. I still love this stupid little vase, and the immense impracticality of it only makes it all the dearer to my heart. I maintain that extreme luxury art objects worn as accessory is the future of the celebrity flex. But now what I really want is someone to buy this bag just to take a photo of it smashed to smithereens on their marble floor. Give me obsequious wealth and make it disposable!

In further aggressively one-percenter moves, Kim Kardashian revealed the extremely long braids her daughter North got installed for their trip to Japan. Obviously, this is Kim once again laying the foundation for her eldest child’s fame, as she’s done since her birth, using one of their family’s most classic tabloid outrage strategies. But while the PR tactic is old hat, deploying it via a 10 year old feels extra gross. Especially given that there’s no possible way that North can truly comprehend what her mom is up to or even the full scope of her family’s fame and her place within it. On top of that, this just feels like the formula for creating a monstrously entitled, out of touch child because I was watching another Story Kim posted of North walking through the airport with this hair, which also happened to feature her poor friend walking behind her carefully monitoring every step to make sure she didn’t accidentally tread on these extensions. I suppose it’s important for the Kardashian children to learn young that the entire world exists solely to cater to their whims.

In that same vein, Kim also once again dressed North in another piece of Kanye fashion history, this time putting her in his College Dropout polo. I’d like to think that these little father-daughter twinning moments are North’s idea and not flagrant PR stunts, but I have a feeling it’s all coming from her mother given Kim’s love of using another celebrity’s iconic piece of apparel to reify her own fame…

On the topic of this family’s self-mythology, this Instagram Story from Kendall is so interesting to me. I’ve spoken about it a little bit in the past, but I get the feeling from a lot of the generically tasteful outfits that you see on the likes of Kendall, Hailey, Sofia, and their ilk that these girls are attempting to actively curate the Pinterest mood boards they want to appear on decades from now. To me, it feels like a transparent bid to be the second street style coming of Princess Diana, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and Jane Birkin all rolled into one via incredibly staged paparazzi images. So in that light, it makes sense to me that Kendall would like and want to proliferate this type of photo because it furthers that sort of happenstance glam image she’s trying to cultivate. She wants to star in the next gen of “oh my god, I can’t believe you caught me outside looking perfect and timelessly chic, how dare you!” Tumblr references. And to make all of this just a little bit more strange, I noticed that this image comes not from one of Kenny’s massive fan accounts, but rather a user with just 6K followers. And this particular image was also buried pretty deep in a carousel they’d posted. I just love knowing that she’s really out there hunting through her own pap shots on social media.

Kendall also gave us more unremarkable Emperor’s New Clothes fashions this week, layering sheers upon sheers in a head-to-toe Gucci runway look. Although, despite appearances, she didn’t go full Julia Fox with it because, much like the outfit Irina Shayk wore from this collection to the Cannes Film Festival, I suspect that this mesh lingerie is actually fully lined so as to prevent total exposure. A nice little trick for creating the Barbie-core illusion of nudity without going full OnlyFans with it.

Khloé was also out there showing off her bare posterior, once again at the behest of Dolce & Gabbana because apparently it all rests on her shoulders now to fulfill that familial spon con contract. They’ve got her on quite the aggressive triptych posting schedule. But this extremely Fashion Nova Instagram editorial also got me curious….do you think it’s possible to makeover Khloé in a high fashion way? Because I sure would love to see it. But it seems like a Herculean feat as it would also require Khloé to cede control over her image and place a level of blind trust in a glam and styling team that I don’t think she’s capable of. This family is way too invested in looking pretty to realize the immense potential that introducing a little intentional ugliness could bring to their lives.

Although there’s definitely still plenty of ugly in their lives because just when you think the Dolce is the worst of it, Khloé whips out these bulbous taupe life rafts. Sometimes it really feels like Chanel is stealing all of its design ideas from their own Alibaba knockoffs in some perverse luxury dupe ouroboros.

In further flop news, Kim posted this photo of some traditional geta for sale while on her trip to Japan and whenever one of these women posts a photo of another culture’s fashion or beauty it immediately strikes fear into my heart because I feel like it means it’s only a matter of time until they’re going to be culturally appropriating it. Get ready to see Kimberly clip-clopping all over Calabasas in the very near future.

As for Kylie, I find this outfit so odd, and not for the reasons you probably think. The fact that it looks like she forgot to put the gown over her 1890s underpinnings aside, I think it’s strange that someone who is the new face of Jean Paul Gaultier would wear something that looks so much like Jean Paul Gaultier, but is in fact designed by Dilara Findikoglu. It just seems like bad form? But then again, it’s also a perfect representation of what I’ve been writing about here for the last couple of weeks in regards to the way Kim manages to blur brands’ distinct identities into one generic aesthetic that points directly back at her and just becomes more fodder for her own fast fashion brand. The legacy continues.

Kylie’s boyfriend Timothée Chalamet, meanwhile, released what I believe he intended to be a thirst trap (left) but really just makes him look like a mouse struggling not to be swept away by a river’s current. And clearly Kylie felt similarly and intervened. Because the image on the right, taken just a few short days later, is extremely Kylie-coded to me. I can’t explain it, but it really has her golden hour-obsessed touch all over it.

And finally, I just wanted to say, thank you all for having as much faith in me as Ben Affleck does in his jaw strength and ability to multitask.

Well, despite the fact that we are now at the end of this email, I’m sure many of you are currently thinking the same thing as Logan Paul.

Rita Ora with The Iceman, Wim Hof

But that really is all I’ve got for you today, so until we meet again, practice taking some deep breaths and I’ll be back again before you know it.

Alabama Barker signing off.

Bye!

And Just Like That…you’ve reached the finale of August’s installments of Mess. Considering the Sisyphean task I’ve set before you here today that you’ve pulled off with aplomb, may I suggest doubling your mental workload by signing up for a paid subscription? And given the immense psychological weight of what you’ll be grappling with in these pages, please consider enlisting a troop of brave compatriots who can help lighten this troubling load by signing them up for a free subscription. If you’re intrigued by the proposition of fraying your nerves even further without spending any more cash, I recommend joining the ~MESS DISCORD~ where 650 Messketeers are uploading very troubling things on the daily. And don’t forget to indulge in a little Mess Merch as a treat for all your good behavior.

As always, if you can’t afford to pay for more Mess, 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 or bail fund, your next month of Mess is on me.

See ya, divas!