Why are we so afraid of fashion?

My essay for the 1-year anniversary of Letters & Sodas.

Karl Lagerfeld in 1987

Good morning, Messketeers, and welcome back!

I know last week I promised you all a Eurovision fashion recap, but since then some kind readers provided me with the full context of why I should not do that, namely the way the competition is propping up Israel in the midst of a genocide. I am just a culture-less American who had only seen the “Espresso Macchiato” video 10,000 times and knows nothing about the Eurovision universe or its politics, so I truly appreciate all of your insights.

In place of that style synopsis, I thought I would instead share with you a little essay that I read aloud for the one-year anniversary of Lana Schwartz’s monthly show Letters & Sodas (buy her new book Set Piece!) that took place last night. It’s just some random musings I’ve had about going Instagram viral recently and riffing off an idea that I’ve brought up in this email before about our culture’s deep-seated aversion to treating fashion as a symbolically meaningful art form.

Thanks so much for reading and I’ll see you again tomorrow with your usual roundup of high-profile flop fashions.

<3

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Hi, I’m Emily Kirkpatrick. Usually, when I’m invited to speak at things like this, it’s as an expert on stupid stuff tangentially related to my job, like pubic hair, visible g-strings, or the Blake Lively/Justin Baldoni case. But tonight, since I’ve been sent up here with no parameters, I thought I’d just talk about some stupid stuff directly related to my job. Namely, I wanted to share some observations I’ve had over the last week since becoming a niche Instagram thought leader.

To understand my overnight micro-influencer status, we must first go back five years to the launch of my newsletter I Heart Mess. An email that I pithily summarize as “a weekly roundup of the best of the worst celebrity fashion.” I’ve also occasionally referred to myself as the “woke Joan Rivers.”