meghan markle finds solace in kim k's cultural appropriation woes
her lawyers messed up
QUICK HITS
Mysterious influencer network pushed sexual smears of Harris
Still for Sale, 12 years later: Michael Jordan’s $15 million mansion
Warner Bros. now has the three highest-ever opening weekends in September
NYFW stresses me out because it clogs up my feed, warps the news cycle, and I’m not even in New York, so what do I get for all my suffering?! Each year, every reputable publisher has at least one article bemoaning the slow decline of NYFW—asking, is it still relevant? Is this the end of NYFW? Each year they ask, and each year the show goes on. Needless to say, you’ll be getting no NYFW content from me, but if your voyeuristic tendencies ever get the better of you, my favorite Substacks to follow for show recaps, opinions, and fun looks are
’s Magasin, ’s In Moda Veritas, and ’ The Love List. Lauren Sherman’s Line Sheet is my fave non-Substack source.One thing about Julie Schott—she knows how to get her brands on the runway. Starface’s Starbalm made its runway debut at the Susan Alexandra and Rachel Antonoff show in these custom beaded lip balm holders. In March, their yet to be launched Earth Star pimple patches were a star accessory in Kiko Kostadinov’s runway show. Another of Julie Schott’s brands, Blip, which makes gums, toothpicks, and lozenges to help young people quit vaping, teamed up with Kim Shui for their NYFW show, featuring Blip sticks on the runway and sharing their products with afterparty attendees. Moves like these are why Starface, like Glossier, has come to embody a zeitgeist. A reader told me that Futurewise, a skincare brand also owned by Julie Schott, isn’t moving product at Urban Outfitters, though.
Felt very inspired reading a profile of Business of Fashion founder Imran Amed in Columbia Journalism Review. “He set up BoF on Typepad, the old blogging platform, and sent his missives via email— ‘not a thing’ at the time, as he put it. ‘The idea of building a community, focusing on servicing the reader first and not worrying about advertisers—those were all principles embedded in BoF from the very beginning,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t set up to be a business. For six years, it was purely for readers to share.’” I have a long list of sources for this newsletter, and if I had to pick just one for my fashion news, it’ll be BoF. Easily.
US private equity group TPG is in talks to buy stake in Vinted at a €5bn valuation. Vinted (which I just learned is based in Lithuania, of all places) posted its first annual profit last year, making it the first second-hand fashion marketplace to break even, as competitors Depop and ThredUp struggle to reach that milestone. One of these days, I need to do a deep dive into the economics of these second-hand fashion marketplaces. Because for all their popularity with Gen Z, and the sector’s growth in recent years, it’s a tough business to operate and tougher still to make money in. In the last two years, every brand from the likes of Shein and Zara to Lego and Ikea has entered the second-hand business. This makes sense—kind of—sales for second-hand are growing much faster than sales for new items, although the gap is still huge. ThredUp estimates that the global second-hand clothing market has grown from $141bn in 2021 to $230bn this year and should reach $350bn by 2028, at a growth rate it estimates is at three times that of new apparel.
Fun. Except that the logistics of running a second-hand platform are a b*tch and the costs are insane. I think the biggest competitors to platforms like Depop and Vinted aren’t each other—they’re charity shops like Goodwill and Oxfam, which operate as nonprofits and have decades of experience in supply chain operations, inventory management, and just a lot more manpower. Which is also why brands like Zara and H&M launching second-hand options is dumb, because any company that’s used to and built for linear manufacturing is going to have a really hard time operating a circular model, particularly if they’re not going to invest in building it out properly like Urban Outfitters did with Nuuly. I know this because I’ve seen it firsthand—it doesn’t work. My guess is these brands know this, and their second-hand offerings are just PR ploys. Because surely, Shein must know that second-hand Shein is useless. Even Goodwill won’t touch that stuff.Vogue surveyed 101 fashion industry professionals to gauge the importance they place on their own and their peers’ social media accounts. Participants included designers, journalists, editors, stylists, PRs, buyers, brand consultants, and social media and marketing reps, with Instagram followings ranging from 1,000 to over 300k. Of those surveyed, 92.1% felt their social media presence and profile had at least some impact on their career, 57.4% said they felt pressure to post not just about work but also about themselves, and 50.5% said having a large social media following was at least somewhat important when applying for jobs. Great piece overall, but not talking about that journalist to influencer to substacker pipeline was a miss!
We’re still writing about the plight of the girlboss, I see. So much clickbait potential in a single word.
Hear me out, I actually like The Perfect Couple’s opening credits dance sequence. Aren’t we always saying Hollywood needs to take itself less seriously? In the few shots where we actually get a glimpse of her, you can just tell Nicole Kidman would rather be anywhere but there.
E.l.f Cosmetics partnered with Tinder on a limited edition makeup collection. I think Tinder’s problems are bigger than e.l.f, but young women are a demographic Tinder needs to get in front of, so this might just be worth whatever they shilled. On the other hand, I don’t think I could ever be tempted to get Tinder branded makeup, so we’ll see how this goes.
Estée Lauder is partnering with Dresden University of Technology to study the connection between scent, memory, and emotion. This sounds fun. The research will be led by Dr. Thomas Hummel from the university’s Smell & Taste Clinic and department of otorhinolaryngology, who has been studying the sense of smell for three decades. According to Estée Lauder's research, 75% of consumers change their fragrance based on mood and emotions, and TUD’s study will examine the effects of Estée Lauder perfumes on the brain areas controlling memory and emotion. If you start seeing Estée Lauder brands start marketing their fragrances differently a year from now, you know why.
The government says your boyfriend is eating too much meat. Currently at higher risk of heart disease, stroke, and some types of cancers.
Americans might be drinking less dairy, but they’re eating more of it. Say CHEESE! According to the International Dairy Foods Association, America’s per capita cheese consumption has more than doubled since 1975, to about 42 pounds a year—more than all the butter, ice cream, and yogurt combined, and facilities for making cheese account for more than half of the $8 billion in U.S. dairy-product projects slated to come online from 2023 to 2026. Many dairy producers are looking to cheese to replace demand for milk, which has been in decline in the last decade. Meanwhile, plant-based cheese hasn’t taken off in the same way as milk alternatives, because, well, have you tried them?
Over the weekend, former Sports Illustrated editor-in-chief Chris Stone, along with co-founders Michaela Hammond and Adam Mendelsohn, launched OffBall, a new media sports property that’s piqued my interest. What’s intriguing about OffBall, which has a website and newsletter, is that instead of creating original content, it curates sports and culture news from social media and other new outlets. Speaking to Semafor, its founders said they see it as an alternative to “ubiquitous, low-quality aggregation.” The caption for their latest IG post reads, “Introducing OffBall. Sports. Culture. Curated. No algos, no aggregation, no AI.” Obviously, I’m completely sold on the value of news curation, and your reading this shows that demand exists. So I can see there being massive demand for this kind of sports news curation—sports is maybe the only cultural unifier we have right now, after all —but I am curious about what it takes to build a brand without any original content—no takes, no commentary, no distinct POV. Update: I got their first newsletter and I like what I see. Loads of links, super digestible, and a good mix of hard sports news and sports culture news. Maybe now I can finally have a sports news source I actually like.
Meghan Markle is reportedly finding solace in Kim Kardashian’s cultural appropriation woes, as the launch of her lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard, hits a snag Rachel Zane would have seen coming. The New York Post reported that Meghan is considering changing the name of her brand after its trademark applications were refused. Apparently, businesses cannot trademark geographic locations, and no one on her legal team informed her. “They’ve been put into a bit of a last-minute spin but they’re not too worried because they are aware that Kim also changed her brand name after launch and it still did amazingly well,” sources told the Post, referring to the time when Kim had to rename her shape wear brand from Kimono to Skims after she was rightly called out for cultural appropriation. Wait till the British press gets a hold of this.
Airmail built a case for why getting your wedding featured in Vogue might be a curse, not a blessing. “Like sticking your hand in a wood chipper and expecting a different result than the last person who tried it, brides and grooms should heed the curse that seems to befall those who wed under the Vogue canopy of love.” It’s a pretty long list.
Been keeping an eye on Alex Cooper’s Unwell Tour promotion, and I’ll give her this—that girl commits to the bit. I think being a part of Unwell's community—listening to their podcasts, attending their events—is a way for many young women to relive their sorority experiences. Call Her Daddy and the rest of the Unwell universe is one of the few spaces that embrace women being messy but the whole depression thing—because otherwise, that’s just TikTok. Today on Unwell’s stories, I saw that they had created Instagram group chats for each of their tour cities. Smart. I popped into a few, and the excitement was palpable. Women love that brand.
The Texas billionaire who once said green activists should be “removed from the gene pool” could be suing Greenpeace to bankruptcy. Kelcy Warren, billionaire owner of pipeline company Energy Transfer, is behind a lawsuit that Greenpeace says could bankrupt the environmental group’s U.S. affiliate. In 2016, Greenpeace, Native American tribal groups, and thousands of other activists camped in a remote corner of North Dakota to block the Dakota Access Pipeline project. Their months-long protest stalled the oil pipeline’s completion and made international news. Now, Energy Transfer’s lawsuit against Greenpeace alleges that the latter incited the Dakota Access protests, funded attacks to damage the pipeline, and spread misinformation about the company and its project. They’re seeking $300 million in damages, which would likely wipe out Greenpeace USA, according to the group’s leadership. Greenpeace, for its part, is saying it played a limited role in the protests and never took part in any property destruction or violence, but inside sources told the WSJ that there’s a good chance they’ll lose this one.
What were Elon Musk and David Zaslav talking about at the US Open final? Wrong answers only.
I’ve been meaning to do a deep dive on the cult of Nvidia for a while, but Business Insider beat me to it. “Nvidia's quarterly earnings reports have turned into a referendum on the future of the whole stock market and even the US economy — a highly anticipated financial event like the jobs report or an inflation print.” It's true. I largely avoid reporting on Nvidia because the whole thing feels like a hamster wheel you can’t get off, once you’re on. Nvidia earnings—Nvidia anything—always dominate the news cycle, so I’m assuming you’re hearing all about it elsewhere, anyway. Still, I may or may not be talking to some Nvidia employees and lurking in Reddits. I’ll tell you if I learn anything good.
there’s a tiktoker who also talks about the vogue wedding to divorce pipeline. her username is: georgiejxmes - its a fun series!
Such good newsletter! I feel smarter and cooler after reading it 🙌🏽