Rat Diet No. 12

The fashion Substack power panic.

All summer and throughout September, I worked on a story for SSENSE that attempts to chronicle a timeline of fashion fandom online. It was clarifying to work on in a moment when there’s been so much talk about Substack and newsletters and whether or not fashion blogging is “back.” To properly understand how we got to where we are now, I felt like I had to start from the beginning again. So, I spoke to 14 key players along the way, from Susie Bubble, to

Kim France

, to Tavi, to help me outline the last 24 years of fashion standom. The result is an exhaustive yet entirely incomplete oral history. It’s a story about tech platforms and how they raised us—you should see the asylum, etc.—and it’s also a story about power. My main takeaway is that we keep having the same conversations over and over again, and that a lot of the same skepticism and condescension, especially towards women making money by writing about fashion online (when men write a number of the most-read, highest-grossing fashion newsletters), still exists. In many ways, we haven’t progressed at all, and I say that about everyone involved. So how do we move this conversation forward? I think power—who has it, who doesn’t, and why should always be interrogated. I encourage readers to be critical. (And exercise their power to unsubscribe!) But it’s also funny to watch legacy media publications question the rise of newsletters without acknowledging legacy media’s role in both their creation and popularity. To me, the biggest difference between then and now is that for some writers on this platform, the ultimate goal is no longer working full-time for or being validated by a publication. That shifts the power balance a bit. But not entirely! To really tip the scales, I think writers, myself included, need to be a lot more avant-garde, and readers, myself included, need to be more decisive with their dollars. Anyway. What do I know?? I’m just another girl with a blog. At the end of the day, maybe we should all just join forces, bring back Style.com, and put it behind a paywall. Would that make everyone feel better?

Below is everything else I consumed this summer/fall.

What I Read

• Cathy Horyn’s essay about finding her personal style at 60. One of the best pieces of fashion writing I’ve read in a long time!

• Jason Schwartzman’s Strat post is so Wes Anderson-core that it’s almost cringe, but I enjoyed reading it, and I think his fabric markers idea is really smart.

• This New Yorker story about Kanye gutting an “architectural treasure.” It’s an incredible feat of reporting. I feel like it got buried this summer, but I almost missed a flight last month because I was so caught up in it.

• Jennifer Wilson’s profile of Law Roach. His description of Josh O’Connor made me laugh. I also appreciate the Rachel Zoe shoutout and went down a rabbit hole this month when she and Roger (“Roge”) announced they were getting divorced :(

  

• David Sedaris on meeting the Pope.

What I Watched

• Supersonic, the 2016 Oasis documentary, which I needed subtitles for. It took me way too long to understand that that a “fit bird” was not, in fact, a pet bird.

• All seven episodes of America’s Sweethearts, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders doc on Netflix. Unionize DCC now!!!

• La Chimera, which might be my favorite movie of the year so far. And not just because Josh O’Connor speaks Italian in it.

What I Bookmarked

• Noami Nomi’s merino wool ties, which match her fantastic shirts.

• This fun print by Arthur Arbesser.

• These green Corali earrings.

• And this green Baserange knit set.

What I’m Loving

• This is going to sound very Goop-y, but I have terrible insomnia, and a friend (who is a nurse!) recommended “Magnesi-Om” from Moon Juice, and it helps me calm down. *I don’t take the “Sleepy” one because melatonin messes me up.

What I Freaked Out About