Everything insightful that I have to say is private lately. I’m consumed with creative projects, a regular state which is integral to feeding the packs of wolves within. I can’t talk about any of it. I can’t complain either. I am processing certain grief, but trying to have a good time doing it. I think most people are dealing with things below the surface that nobody knows about. I try to keep that in mind. I sometimes marvel at people I know who have the most sweet-natured and palatable exteriors and who are secretly wrapped up in some of the most bewilderingly psychotic melodramas you could ever even fucking conceive of, and I think that’s one of life’s greatest features. There is nothing like peeling back the surface to peer at what roils, gnashing its sabre teeth in the sulfuric cauldron underneath. I guess that’s what Blue Velvet’s about. And American Beauty. It’s an obvious convention of the manicured modern lifestyle for a reason. We like mutilating perfection, ripping back the layers, and exposing… I guess… whatever shocking thing we can find.
The group chat treated me to a discourse that briefly seized Substack about the reputational hazard of employing “affiliate links.” I find this hilarious because the people I trust the most are writers who happen to use them. I think if you’re a poor judge of character and you can’t separate out which fashion writers are being honest and which ones are employing that saccharine, phony, pseudo-enthusiastic tone of voice when selling you a suspicious surplus of mass market products then you have bigger problems than how much couch-cushion change a writer (read: notoriously exploited and underpaid laborer) is scrounging by recommending you a sun cream. Natasha Stagg actually invented the affiliate linking craze—something she would never take credit for and would hate that I’m exposing here, now. When we worked at V Magazine in the early 2010s, she was either contacted by or made the erstwhile discovery of (who cares) a company called “RewardStyle” that promised to earn the magazine cents on the dollar from any sell-through on a linked fashion purchase. To our knowledge, no other fashion magazines were using any such program—most web development in the industry at that time was of the rudimentary CMS variety. I would be shocked if any fashion writers actually knew any HTML. Natasha became possessed by it, much like Kourtney Kardashian in that episode of Kourtney & Kim Take New York in which she discovers the intoxicating power of coupon-clipping. Every post had to have a RewardStyle link. If a story went live, Natasha would ask “did you link to RewardStyle?” Invariably, the answer would be no, and Natasha would sigh and get so pissed off she’d have to leave the office for a cigarette break. She saw the future of media way back then. We just weren’t listening.
So anyway, I’m going to make a shopping list using affiliate links because I think it’s funny if I do it. And if anyone actually buys this stuff, you’ll probably have a more gorgeous life and be one step closer to becoming just like me. I’m keeping it brief for now… I could have gone a little ballistic but maybe I’ll keep doing it if people really like this type of thing.
Eli Russell Linnetz, whose photographs and campaigns are genius, and who constitutes to me what makes a true fashion designer, created the most progressive suburban goth sneaker on the planet. I think Drake’s new mallgoth girlfriend would probably wear it. I don’t want these shoes nor will I buy them but they do amuse me and they might work for somebody else. When it comes to Eli’s stuff, it’s all spectacularly fabricated. I love the raggedy texture of the inside of his hoodies. Of course, I want this biker jacket.
A lof of people ask me what my choice of SPF is, due to the de-pigmented gene mutation that makes me a physical freak. I only use Japanese Nivea Sun Protect Super Water Gel Sunscreen, which comes in a stupid, purple pump bottle. Despite it resembling a Barbie accessory, it is the most full coverage, invisible, and yet completely effective SPF I’ve ever used. I am not interested in switching. When I find something that works I use it forever. I drench myself in it every morning like my life depends on it because it does.
I am a known sock enthusiast. Specifically crew socks, and the best socks you can buy are from Stüssy. I’ve tried them all. Fresh out of the box, they are a bit stretchy, wash them first and then wear them. I asked my streetwear designer friends to tell me where Stüssy gets their blanks so I could find some without the logo embroidered on them, and all the reports that came back indicated that the brand manufactures them in-house. If they ever stop making them I’m going to go berserk. I would like to be able to wear dress socks like a normal person, but they drive me insane. People who wear loose socks are simply a different species.
I can’t leave the house in the Eckhaus Latta Bend Jean without everyone asking me who made my jeans. Eckhaus Latta made my jeans. Their new collection was also an unequivocal high point of New York Fashion Week. When will they get to take over Calvin Klein? I also liked Khaite, Colleen Allen, Lii, and the un-Googlable new brand Uniform, designed by the equally un-Googlable Betsy Johnson. Of all the emergent post-Margiela designers, they feel like the most vital right now. Their shows are cool.
This looks great. I won’t be there.
I’ve always coveted this Martin Parr catalogue.
I was recently talking with some of the most innately stylish Northern California women on a hot springs getaway about the greatest tote bag of all time, the Hermès Herline. When we were younger a few of us shared one, it bounced between us all but really belonged to my friend Laura Sutro’s mom. We destroyed it, basically. I had to track down another one so I can finally have it all to myself. I don’t know what I was waiting for.
The best button-up shirts right now are by SSSTEIN. Personal opinion.
The most devastating jacket I tried on recently was by A.Presse.
I’m probably not going to get onboard the YSL Howl sunglasses train but it has been really fun seeing people out and about wearing them. In hindsight they will feel like an accessory of this precise moment. Anthony, please don’t abandon us.
The new status symbol is a collaboration with Jacques Marie Mage, speaking of sunglasses. Why am I so into the Muhammad Alis?
The best magazines this season: Josh O’Connor on Another Magazine shot by Alasdair McLellan and styled by Alister Mackie. MYTH Magazine’s entire new issue (especially the Dario Vitale Versace special by Haley Wollens—a work of art). Jordan Firstman in Fantastic Man shot by Luca Guadagnino. The Larry Clark Supreme zine (free with purchase? Mine came gifted in the mail). Corporate magazines still suck. I give zero credit to any of them.
Now for some entertainment. I really enjoyed Oprah Winfrey’s special on the Lindsay Clancy postpartum psychosis case. It went viral for disingenuous reasons, which I fell for. A clip circulated of Dr. Kameelah Phillips expressing a desire for (presumably) child murderers of color to be given the same privilege and advocacy as Clancy—an insane MadLibs-style neoliberal soundbite practically designed to piss sane people off. To that end, Caitlin Flanagan makes an incoherent appearance toward the end of the episode, during which she seems to want to express that the support for Clancy has gone too far, but becomes flummoxed in the presence of Oprah, and by the preceding hour which rather brilliantly lays out the psychology of the psychosis. (It is a mania, separate from PPD and schizotypal disorders.) I found this special more educational and eye-opening than anything I saw the defense present during the trial. But mainly, and counterintuitively, it felt luxurious and incredible watching, essentially, an episode of The Oprah Show in 2026. I hope she continues doing these specials about every big national story. It almost makes me feel like we’re a proper country again.
Did you successfully snag a pair of the Cèline Freestyle Lo Reeboks? Don’t even worry about it. When you see some inferior nemesis clomping around in them awkwardly at a party you’ll wonder why you ever wanted them in the first place. (I will kill for the white ones if anyone’s listening. Size US mens 10.)
PARAPHERNALIA #021
I’m a product of profit.
Watching the Oprah special and I'm finding myself suddenly thrust back to when Dr. Kameelah Phillips was a minor but vocal cast member of The Real World: Boston (1997) alongside current Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. Her plea to invoke compassion for future child murderers of color does sound perverted and self-absorbed today, but I think her stance can be better understood as a Gen X survival of a pluralistic 1990s MTV that believed in televised discourse as the premier vehicle for progress.
I'm reminded of this shaky clip below of Kameelah disarming a child's inherited homophobia caught on footage. Kameelah is simultaneously talking to the child and the cameras, but most importantly she's indirectly consoling her nonverbal lesbian cast mate, the stunning Genesis (who spent all season in chatrooms with gay men on AOL, and whose only friend in Boston was a drag queen who sexually aroused her, a "real" life Gary Indiana character). Of course, the camera's gotcha fixation on the girl is more grotesque than anything she uttered, but that intrusive archival fever of the mundane is the crux of The Real World's enduring appeal for a specific kind of gay guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r70TWeitxtY
Thanks for sharing the Oprah podcast in full, I scrolled past clips of it this week because of a nagging suspicion that I was being baited, but it truly is scintillating and healing.
Amusing… come back to Sonoma.