Hello, my nearest and dearest!
Today has gotten off to an incredibly slow start and thus the composition of this newsletter has gotten off to an even slower one. My deepest apologies, but I have been felled by adult seasonal allergies in a truly devastating and humbling fashion. Even my daily dose of Claritin can only do so much to abate this sinus pressure, and as someone who grew up with no allergies at all, truly nothing can assuage the crushing blow to my ego that is being blindsided by this affliction in my late 30s. So anyway, I come to you with my usual foolish patter, but I am going to attempt to keep things moving along a little more briskly and succinctly (for me) here today in order to save us both some agony.
That said, I do need to tell you all that Netflix bamboozled me into going to a screening of Frankenstein last week on the Upper West Side that I thought was like any of the million other screenings I’m regularly invited to. However, when I arrived, it turned out to be a true cattle call with a line of hopeful attendees that rivaled the one outside The Row’s sample sale. After standing in that queue for all of three minutes, it was abundantly clear to me that I had been fooled and none of us would be viewing a monstrous Jacob Elordi that eve. So I proceeded to stomp around the general vicinity of Lincoln Center in a huff, which is how I found a halal cart where I was offered a sample of their lentil soup that turned out to be perhaps the best lentil soup I’ve ever had in my life. For those curious, it was parked like two blocks down from the AMC up there on the right-hand side. Find it — you will not regret it. A silver lentil lining to an otherwise fruitless theatrical endeavor.
And while some on social media have dubbed these months “the great lock-in” because of the way they’re getting their shit together, getting ripped, and generally putting themselves on the optimal track for success, I am calling it the great lock-in because while deep in conversation with my friend Christina this weekend, we failed to notice all of the gates slowly closing around us and almost got locked inside Tompkins Square Park during the dog costume Halloween parade. But at least we had some very delicious scones to tide us over while we were momentarily imprisoned in there, as we went to that TikTok-viral place Mary O’s in the East Village beforehand, and that piece of bread with a slab of butter and jam on it is, in fact, as good as everyone is hyping it up to be.
Longtime readers and real-life friends know that I have replaced most of my social media addictions with a newfound addiction to Reddit. Specifically, the subreddit for my neighborhood, which is a life hack I cannot recommend more highly to everyone, as it not only tells you about all sorts of fun things going on locally but also gives you all the hot goss on dirty restaurants and bad neighbors without ever having to actually set foot outside your home.
Anyway, that’s how I found out about this meal prep club organized by a professional chef where everyone pays what they can, and you get together to cook huge batches of stuff in a commercial kitchen, BYO Tupperware, and then take home an assortment of meals and snacks to tide you through the week. So I attended that on Monday, and it was so fun. I learned a number of practical cooking skills, I got way more food than I thought I would, and made dishes I would never cook for myself — all while chit-chatting with some lovely people who live nearby. I did, however, immediately discover why cooking seems to be such a struggle for so many people, as it turns out folks are really not into reading recipes or following very specific instructions. Those comments about weirdo substitutions people are making on the bottom of online recipes are not a fluke.
Oh! And I wrote my first piece for Slate this week! It’s an essay riffing off much of what I wrote to you last week regarding the return of King Kylie, and I would love if you’d check it out.
There’s also a new video up on YouTube for members over there all about Emanuel Ungaro and whether or not Law Roach will be able to save the flagging couture house.
And it’s still not too late to binge-read Masscult & Midcult over the weekend to join us for our second
zoom meeting on Monday!!Ahoy!!!!
First things first, last week,
’s Gift Guide newsletter provided me with the most important piece of news I’ve heard all year — the names of Mary-Kate Olsen’s horses. This is the celebrity intel I crave. These are the only details I care about, and no magazine profiles are giving them to me. I haven’t decided how yet, but I do feel these names demand to be immortalized in some way. A line of minimalist scented candles perhaps? Engraved into a decorative stone for the garden? A “Cell Block Tango” parody featuring these ponies’ monikers for the true Olsen acolyte?! Stay tuned.My Biggest Fans!
In far less iconic news, I wanted to quickly update you on the Kardashian-Jenner sisters’ obsession with all things MESS, as they are suddenly following every piece of advice I’ve ever given them in this newsletter religiously, and yet are still not paying me to give it to them directly…….
But hot on the heels of the fast-fashion merkin debut, Kim finally did something else that I’ve been begging her to do since 2023 — put a mask on her head. And, as always, I fear it’s too little, too late. But mostly, this was just the wrong outfit/moment to do it, even though I know this is exactly how the garment came down the runway. While I actually kind of like the Total Recall-inspired quadruple breast illusion, it also makes it look like Kim has the exoskeleton of an ant, so if anything, the headgear should’ve been way more hymenoptera-esque As is, she just looks like a sentient dildo.
And I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a million times more, but if we must do creepy flesh tones, why do the tones never actually match the flesh?? Kim is painting herself that skin color anyway, why can’t some coordination and customization take place for maximum couture eeriness?
And the last piece of advice I’ll share with her, for now, is I am begging Kim to hire Kendall’s movement director to tell her how to pose on the red carpet in stuff like this because in the video footage you can tell she was my baffled by what to do with her hands and kept going for these stylized, avant-garde movements before chickening out at the last second and returning to her standard hands-on-hips pose.
And it wasn’t just Kim who has subscribed to the cult of Mess, but also Kylie, who, in the midst of this King Kylie rollout, shared a photo of herself wearing a suspiciously familiar outfit completely composed out of her own Lip Kits. Readers might recall that in August we got a similar sartorial concoction from Kesha while peddling some ELF Cosmetics product, and I wrote that while the gimmick was good, the construction was bad, and I advised her — and all beauty brands — to create a far more wearable and movable textile out of these plastic tubes moving forward. Much as Kylie has done here. And if that’s not enough to persuade you of my psychic influence, this bandeau is also the spitting image of a top I complimented at length in this email in January, which belonged to an adult film actress at the XMA awards and was fabricated entirely out of iPod Nanos exactly in this manner. Interesting. Verrrryyyyy interesting!
All Strapped In
Of course, Kim isn’t actually listening to me, because if she were, she’d know that the heyday for this type of fashion stunt has long since passed. I actually don’t totally hate this Dilara Findikoglu get-up as it brings back fond memories for me of Kim relentlessly posting photos of herself in that Chanel areola bikini top circa 2018. I will say, though, I think this whole look would hit MUCH harder if 1. Kim didn’t look physically pained by every strap, chain, and piece of boning entrapping her in the garment and 2. Kim had been a champion of Dilara’s work extremely early on so she was one of the first celebrities we saw in an outfit such as this rather than the umpteenth. Between the attire and the hair, there’s also something very FKA twigs about everything going on here. But my number one complaint is, of course, WHERE IS THE GODDAMN MERKIN, LADY. An entirely sheer outfit and for what! Nary a hint of a faux pubic tendril to be seen. She could’ve even replaced this crystal fringe dangling from the FUPA and made a custom rhinestone-encrusted bush instead!!!! But I’m going to shut up now because I promised myself last week that I would stop giving this woman free ideas to squander.
Foam Curves Ahead
And the KarJenners aren’t the only ones following my trend forecasts to a T! Over the weekend, we got the newest addition to the build-a-body canon — Hailey Bieber in a custom Schiaparelli faux-woodgrain gown complete with dramatic hip pads tucked under this sheer corseting. A reader on Notes commented that she looked like a sexy tree, and I think that summarizes what’s going on here nicely. And, as I said when this trend first began, it’s fascinating to me to see the way we’ve completely eradicated all curves over the past couple of years, via Ozempic or otherwise, only to artificially build them back on again. Especially as those reconstructed silhouettes become increasingly more realistic, naturally segueing into the bodies-on-bodies trompe l’oeil physiques we’ve been discussing.
I also thought this photo Hailey posted on Instagram of herself unable to actually sit down in this dress specifically designed for her to wear to a sit-down gala dinner was a beautiful finale to what many critics have dubbed a month of anti-woman fashions.
But the lumps and bumps didn’t end there! Emily Ratajkowski and Jodie Turner-Smith also opted for garments with some dramatic, upholstered protrusions. Ratajkowski went with a Jean Paul Gaultier Spring 2026 dress designed by Duran Lantink, and it’s perhaps the first thing I’ve actually liked from the designer. At least, I greatly prefer his experimentation with plush geometric shapes to his dalliances with “non political” sex-swapped bodies.
Jodie likewise chose one of the designer’s Spring 2026 jumpsuits with ponderous, ovaloid breasts that give her a sort of Jessica Rabbit meets Addison Rae at the 2024 VMAs silhouette. But I mostly wanted to include this image to say that I appreciate the way Jodie actually engaged with her chest prosthetics when posing on the red carpet, because what is the point of having such artificial bulges if not to play with them a bit. Kim, please take note.
And finally, as a longtime fan and pusher of the inflatable Rick Owens footwear, I was charmed to see these Glenn Martens swashbuckler boots that look like a computer cursor come to life. While much of the build-a-body focus has been on the naturally curvaceous elements of the female body, I would love to see us start inserting more undulations where they don’t belong, like this mid-thigh right angle.
Flapjack Fascinator
As you should all know by now, I truly love a fun hat and can never see enough of them. So I just had to give a quick shoutout to Niecy Nash’s dominatrix flapjack fascinator, which is perhaps the only good thing to come out of this atrocious All’s Fair press tour. I do wish the wire along the edge of this floppy cowhide pizza crust wasn’t quite so prominently visible through the thin leather, but even so, I still find it to be quite a captivating chapeau. Also, a powerful reminder in this world of bulbous, padded-out fashions that we should likewise be exploring flat, paper-doll clothes and delving deeper into huge, 2D shapes on the red carpet as well.
Hunky Halter Tops
Speaking of leather daddies, easily my fav look of the week had to be Alexander Skarsgård in this custom Ludovic de Saint Sernin ensemble. Timtohée wishes!!! I love the way Alex has been playing with fashion lately and incorporating elements of kink in promotion of his kinky new spate of films, even if not every outfit has been a rousing success. I’m thinking specifically of the Saint Laurent thigh-highs, which I’m pretty sure I have yet to see a famous man pull off successfully, although lord knows they’ve tried.
Anyway, I think the office siren dress shirt halter is a fantastic choice, and I love that the leather tie corresponds to the lace-up leather pants. Someone on Substack tried to tell me that Alex’s shoulders are not broad enough to carry this look………and to that I say, what in the body dysmorphia hell are we talking about. The man is 6’4”. Shoulders don’t get much broader than this, unless we’re talking professional linebacker status. That said, I do think perhaps the diagonal lines of the shirt could’ve been taken in just an inch or so on either side so as to leave more chest sluttily exposed and thus create the illusion of an even BROADER shoulder for everyone’s viewing pleasure. I also would’ve liked to see a touch more spandex in the makeup of this shirting fabric, just to maximize the figure-hugging cling of it all. But, regardless, a powerful opening gambit into a new era of tarty menswear.
Ok, well we did it, Joe. Despite the fact that this email began with me in the depths of mucus-laden despair, this epistolary conversation has boosted my spirits to the heights of Drew Barrymore entrenched with her pets above.
I’ll see you back here next week, you little ghouls and goblins, with an exclusive recording for paid subscribers of Jess and my livestream all about the Skims bush thong debacle, and a hot and fresh episode of Mess World for everyone to enjoy. Sayonara, sisters!
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