I've been talking about it a lot * week 39

A string of opinionated random thoughts

First: Miu Miu

I didn’t send the newsletter on Sunday (my mother made a point to remind me on Monday, too) because I was waiting for Miu Miu. And boy, was I right. La Signora always saves the day and, the rebel and the radical she is, wore her red 1967 Courrèges coat and sent the Truthless collection and Willem Dafoe down the runway.

Paris is like Epiphany, the festivity that takes all the festivities away and wraps up the fashion mayhem until next time. Alexander McQueen, Sacai, and Carven were my favorites, for Valentino read further down. The rest was … the void; maybe people are tired, exhausted, disconnected, uninspired? How about skipping a season? Maison Margiela made such a masterpiece with their Nighthawk Artisanal collection that this season they released a movie. The end.

So you fell into the brat summer trend, and now it’s October, and nobody wears that green, or the balloon white skirt and those jellies anymore and what do you do? For the moment, let’s not discuss what you do with the brat summer gear next summer. Wake up depressed, you have nothing to wear, and go on a full-throttle shopping spree, I (need to) want the barn jacket and that flowy Chloe thingy lookalike and those biker Miu Miu boots wannabe. Yes, because they are all sold out and too expensive to buy the original, you go to Asos, Mango, or Zara. A phenomenon called consumer socialization.

I was there in 2014 when then, I stopped, looked back, and wrote the book. I am that dramatic and I write a book, you can just read it.

If I look back now, besides caving in overconsumption, social media frenzy, contributing to overproduction, climate crisis, and wearing garments produced under the duress of inhumane labor conditions, even more disheartening was the aspirational dressing. I knew, as everybody around me, that I was wearing the knockoff of those Celine pants or those Prada shoes, and yes, you could see them from far away, so who was I really trying to impress? Where were the empowerment, satisfaction, and happiness of wearing clothing one is proud to own? Where are those pieces now? Some are probably in the landfill.

Because you don’t need to buy clothing to be fashionable.

I will leave it at that. I’d love to hear from you.

when the landline was sexy

Love

• Be un-influenceable

• During Banned Books Week Bookshop.org is offering a 15% discount (I may receive a commission from some sales)

• Valentino by Alessandro Michele. Hear me out here: we are talking about the first runway of a skilled and talented designer at the helm of a luxury and couture Maison, we must give it at least a couple of seasons for the new Valentino to shape up. It’s a new era, and obviously, there was going to be change. We cannot be numbed by the game of musical chairs in Paris, how can we make an educated opinion with one runway we watched from our phones? The collection is rich, luxurious, and full of references to 80s Valentino. Overpacked? Yes. They said they were reducing the number of collections per year, I hoped it was to cut down carbon footprint, pressure, overproduction, however this 80-look collection could have easily be slimmed down or split in two. Michele is a maximalist, meticulous and abundant, you can’t expect PPP, also, I don’t think it was a guccification, it was a Michele-ification. We can agree to disagree.

• How my #RuleofFive year is going: It started with so much resistance and I haven’t bought a thing for the entire summer, which in the big scheme of living life in the world now is irrelevant, but it is what it is.

Hate

• That the name of Daniel Lee is still circulating in fashion circles: who are we kidding?

• This betting on who goes where to cover the unfilled positions in fashion: “I am trying to figure out why we do care” (cit. Mary from RHOSLC)

How do you say it in Italian?

Mettere i puntini sulle i, it literally means to write the dots over the i (as plural). Colloquially speaking it means that You will hear me say it often because I am in constant need to specify something to the last … dot.