Lately, I find myself reflecting on the paucity of my early twenties. I was working as an editor then, making no money, and living in a wonderfully old apartment building. A mattress sat on the bedroom floor with a small brass Moroccan table beside it. My grandmother’s alabaster lamp lit the room just enough to read at night. The living room had a makeshift shelf, a replica of a set up my mother designed for a room I let for a summer a few years earlier. A piece of plywood and a couple of cinderblocks held a tube television, a box of Nag Champa incense and an old brass candlestick I took from home. Books lined the walls. A couple of ladder-back chairs with corded seats accompanied a fold-down kitchen table, and every so many weeks I replaced a bar of Dudu Osun in the bathroom.

Although I had a 1992 Jeep Cherokee, I walked to work to avoid losing my parking spot. There were no complicated coffee orders to place in the mornings, no trendy luxury totes to performatively stuff and adorn. I carried a wallet, an iPod, and a book, and if I had a few extra bucks, I might order a tea or a bowl of soup from the cafe next door and read during my lunch hour. I obviously did not need much and do not recall wanting for more than what I had. And I think that had a lot to do with the Black Aesthetics that shaped my perspective to that point. Writers, artists, and filmmakers of the 1960s, ‘70s, and early ‘80s committed to defining Black life on its own terms, as a means of liberation, producing works that rejected white capitalist oppression. I was heavily influenced by image of the Black woman artist in She’s Gotta Have It and A Different Image, eager to channel either the serenity of Giovanni or the blaze of Baraka. And after I have gotten lost in memory, I wonder what it would take to get back there now. Not to the simplicity — that’s easy enough — but the philosophy. Because it is not Saint Heron glassware or secondhand Hanifa knits…

But I am getting ahead of myself. Here we acquire perspective, not just things, and honestly, writing about whiteness and Western beauty over the last few weeks stressed me out (hence the reflections on Black Aesthetics). It is hard to witness a detrimental cycle in progress, one with no benefit. That said, the stress has left me wondering what is beauty? To answer it, I have flung myself back into the arms of ugliness. According to German philosopher Karl Rosenkranz, who wrote Ästhetik des Häßlichen (Aesthetics of Ugliness), beauty is unity, “a sensible appearance of an idea” that “gives us a whole that refers to itself.” Of course, I do not trust this definition entirely. Colonial racism certainly informed Rosenkranz’s work, begging the question who gets to define “sensible” or determine which ideas are presented.

Anyway, these are just some of the thoughts floating in my head at the moment that I hope result in a coherent post in a couple of weeks. To soothe myself, I have been listening to The Maxim, a 10-minute meditation on time by Tom Skinner featuring Meshell Ndegeocello. I am not even sure what to say about this other than two jazz geniuses came together to craft perfection. If you aren’t familiar, I highly recommend checking out anything by either artist, but I have a soft spot for Ndegeocello’s 2007 release, The World Has Made Me The Man Of My Dreams and Skinner’s 2022 EP, Voices of Bishara.

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Ways of Seeing by John Berger
Years ago, my friend recommended I read Ways of Seeing by John Berger, but unwilling to wait a few days for the book to arrive, I binged the BBC docuseries on YouTube later that day. If you have not watched it, it is well worth the time, if for no other reason than to really understand the evolution of how we understand images and symbols. It is particularly useful viewing for anyone interested in Roland Barthes and the semiotics of fashion.

Honorable mention: If you have another hour to throw at the topic, I highly recommend following this up with Berger’s 1983 discussion with Susan Sontag on telling stories. Fashion, style, and presentation are all tools we use to tell a story of ourselves, therefore I think it is really interesting to not only investigate how we are influenced to utilize those tools, but how whether we utilize them successfully.

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How Cynthia Erivo Survived ‘Wicked’ — and Thrived: ‘People Thought I Was Being Myself, Even Though I Was Green’ (Variety)

When No One Looks Their Age, What Happens to Aging? (Cosmopolitan)

I read two interesting pieces on techniques of the body this week. One on Cynthia Erivo’s experience inside “the ‘Wicked’ machine” and another on what happens when no one looks their age. In an interview with Variety, Erivo reflected on the challenges that came with promoting “Wicked” alongside her friend and co-star Ariana Grande. As I mentioned in the previous edition, both were lauded for their extreme thinness on darker corners of the Internet, but Erivo was also criticized and mocked for constantly protecting and tending to Grande. (If you somehow missed it, The Root broke down the complex nature of this hyper-attentiveness.) Interestingly, Erivo, who has made disparaging remarks about Black Americans in the past, said, “I think we haven’t really come to terms with the insidious nature of how we view Black women… Because that’s what was being made fun of. It was my physique; it was my shape; it was the fact that I was bald; it was about what I looked like. And because of that, there was this assumption that I was bigger than my co-star and so I had to be controlling or protecting, and that was my role. I would hazard a guess that it would not have been the same had it been the other way around.” But that’s just it. It wouldn’t be the other way around. We don’t have many examples of white women stepping in and protecting Black women, physically or emotionally. (As a matter of fact, many are witnessing this lack of reciprocity right now on Bravo’s Summer House.) While Erivo is right that race shapes the way her behavior is perceived, it’s obvious that even she has not really come to terms with the way in which Black women are viewed. Assuming there could even be an “other way around” is a loud admission of ignorance on her part. Then there’s the question of “age blindness” now that a few [white] women under 50 haven’t turned into old hags yet. Apparently, Anne Hathaway (43) and Margot Robbie (35) look good and that’s throwing everyone into a tizzy. Despite my tone, this was a decent read on the increasing amount of work women undergo to maintain fashionable beauty. However, I would have liked some acknowledgement that 43 — or, hell, 35! — is hardly old. Then again, I am Black, so perhaps I am no-account.

Speaking of being Black, my windows are open and yet there is not a stick of incense burning. Allow me to rectify that. Have a wonderful week, friends!

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Editorial Note: The following post references white women, but for brevity does not specify that use of the term includes white-adjacent women.

“Men do not differ from anything…” - Colette Guillaumin

thingified
1. to treat one’s own body as an object separate of itself
(Term coined by Catherine MacKennon, definition by Sheila Jeffreys)

I think white women are socially stunted by notions of freedom and femininity. Now, I know that’s an inflammatory statement, but stay with me. When I sat down to write about the horrors of Western beauty a few weeks ago, I started with men for a reason. Too often the conversation begins with beauty practices and not the underlying beauty standards. That is because Western beauty is essentially a racial fetish. Its standards reflect the ideal traits of white men, whereas its practices outline the ways in which their sexual difference and racial purity are maintained. Beauty standards define masculinity while beauty practices culminate in the performance of femininity. When the discourse begins with standards, it ignores both the fetish and the supporting role white women play. That said, it doesn’t seem like such a bad gig.

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Here we acquire perspective, not just things, and recently Arthur Zaczkiewicz, former Executive Editor at WWD, asked me an interesting question: how had the last year shaped my perspective and relationship to fashion theory? You can hear my answer, as well as the rest of our chat here, but the question still rolls around in my head. One point I keep coming back to is that fashion theory cannot capture our desire to transform. As I delve deeper into avant-garde and anti-fashion, worlds that exert individuality outside of social patterns, I have come to realize that that transformation may feel authentic, but it is not always honest.

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I have mentioned the uniform I relied on to get through 2025 — a gray threadbare sweatshirt, white single stitch tee, and a pair of 505s almost as old as I am — but I have not mentioned the ring; an open, modernist piece in brass that I bought in the midst of everything. Looking back, I cannot recall what prompted the purchase or even …

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A few days ago, surrounded by laundry drip-drying, a dwindling pile of household paper products, and my dog’s dirty blankets, I sat on the toilet seat of my guest bathroom and began scrolling through Pinterest. I wanted to get dressed, but needed inspiration; a quick dopamine hit off of s…

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I own a pair of Tolix chairs because of Anna Wintour.

Okay, that’s a slightly inaccurate statement, but the truth is less compelling — stay with me. I actually purchased the galvanized steel classics for my 400 square-foot apartment long before I stumbled across a photo of the editor awkwardly folded over one like a dead crane. They were sturdy, stackabl…

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Border: An outer part or edge

Boundary: Something that indicates or fixes a limit or extent.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about borders and boundaries for reasons that are both apparent and personal. The U.S. invaded Venezuela for oil and continues to threaten Greenland for territorial expansion. Activists and reporters have been jailed, and at the …

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I have been “me” for quite some time, but recently I have grown rather uninterested in her. Instead, I have turned my attention to a much older version I envisioned as a teenager. Back then I felt like an artist without a discipline. I listened to electronic and trip-hop, flipped through every issue of i-D and The Face I could get my hands on, and read the most obscure poetry I could find. And while I had written poetry since first grade, no one other than my mom supported it. My friends were lauded at school for their musical prowess and eye for composition, but I was on my own in my creative pursuits, and as such, felt like an outsider communing in the few creative spaces that existed. I certainly did not present myself as some sort of artist. Because Black parents believed children should not wear black clothing, I did not have access to anything particularly brooding. Instead, I wore a sparkly midnight navy polish from Delia’s. Between biting my nails and lacking a steady hand, the results were satisfactorily grunge.

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“The idea of innocence faces two ways. By refusing to enter a conspiracy, one remains innocent of that conspiracy. But to remain innocent may also be to remain ignorant.”
- John Berger

There is a fascinating connection between fascism and consumption that is challenging to explain concisely. That is why this post is so overdue. The difficulty lies in demonstrating that much of what white people consume is simply whiteness, products that mythologize white identity to maintain a power differential in society. It is a cycle of consumption that begins with concerted ignorance and is perpetuated by the status anxiety that ignorance invokes. To placate the feeling, consumers double-down, investing further into racialized outputs that both justify and reinforce their mediocrity. White women are particularly susceptible, given their role in white hegemony. As both the oppressor and oppressed, white women participate in this and other forms of symbolic violence to protect their position within the hierarchy and it is incredibly disconcerting to witness. Whether patronizing a boycotted company or defending problematic personalities, their obliviousness and utter disregard for the world outside of whiteness is an affront we are all expected to overlook. However, as the U.S. continues to collapse into the political system of authoritarianism, we need to address this sort of consumption for what it is – a highly prevalent and socially acceptable form of racism that worsens the social and economic condition of white people. Honestly, I had no idea where to start.

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In early January, columnist Rebecca Shaw wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian lamenting the fact that “losers” had taken over the world. With the newly elected president came a couple of tech billionaires whose appearance reeked of desperation. “I knew one day we might have to watch as capitalism and greed and bigotry led to a world where powerful men, deserving or not, would burn it all down. What I did not expect, and don’t think I could not have foreseen, is how incredibly cringe it would all be,” Shaw explained. “I have been prepared for evil, for greed, for cruelty, for injustice – but I did not anticipate that the people in power would also be such huge losers.” The article sparked chatter online. Content creators piled on, going so far as to substantiate Shaw’s points in the name of Pierre Bourdieu. It was clear Americans had grown comfortable with status emulation – too comfortable, in fact. In the face of autocracy, no one seemed to notice the absurdity in expressing disgust over the tastes of the ruling class, that caring at all tacitly reinforced the expectation of esteem for the wealthy. Had Shaw really prepared for evil and those TikTok creators actually understood Bourdieu, the presence of bad taste at the top would have been more cause for alarm than revulsion. Instead, their reaction confirmed something far worse: our obsession with taste hastened our social, political, and cultural downfall. Perhaps now that we have slid face first into fascism we are finally willing to contend with taste as the silent tool of white supremacy and the many ways in which we choose compliance and conformity over meaningful self-expression.

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Last week, Ralph Lauren released the Polo Ralph Lauren for Oak Bluffs collection, a campaign honoring the African-American life and culture located in one of Martha’s Vineyard’s six towns. To authentically showcase Oak Bluffs’ “cultural significance” the brand partnered with historically Black colleges Spellman and Morehouse, whose faculty, students, and alumni have called the vibrant coastal town home, or their home-away-from-home for countless summers. As soon as the promotional email landed in my inbox, I skimmed the collection knowing I would not spend a dime. I do not have any connection to the town, island, or the colleges. If I did, I would signal my affiliation in a more substantiated way by not wearing apparel related to the island or even dressing to impress. Locals always dress down. Still, as I clicked through the collection, I knew it would be divisive for one reason: its obvious proximity to whiteness. 

Perhaps in any other political climate that friction would go unnoticed, but Black excellence has taken some tremendous blows. The first came in the nation’s refusal to elect a Black and South Asian woman – an alum of a historically black university –  whose leadership would have maintained some semblance of our already strained democracy. The remaining blows came as a result of that election; 300,000 Black women pushed out of the workforce, the expansion of admissions data to the Department of Education to ensure colleges and universities are not taking race and gender into account in their acceptance, and severe cuts to federal funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The losses have sent a resounding message to Black women that not only has the U.S. made little progress in dismantling its deeply racist and sexist history, but the so-called allies committed to helping make that progress are profoundly ineffectual. It also sent a far quieter message to those willing to hear it: Black excellence will not save us. As a matter of fact, it might be our greatest threat. 

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Years ago, I met a couple, an electronic musician and a writer, who had just built a stunning, yet simple home in a rural pocket of Piedmont Virginia. As a guest of their guest, I had the privilege of learning about them within the context of their highly personalized space. As they walked me through three minimally-appointed rooms, I learned the writers’s father performed John Cage’s 4’33” at their wedding and her mother made the pottery perfectly arranged atop the long kitchen cabinet. The few stone steps leading to a finished attic would eventually become a nursery or their new bedroom, whichever arrangement made sense once their family grew. At the end of the tour, the musician made his way to a stump out back where he slaughtered a chicken for dinner. The writer set out snacks and tea for us to graze on while she prepared a hearty salad. Yes, her mother made the plates. As I noticed original compositions cooing from monitors tucked into corners, I asked myself: How can I go about creating this exact life for myself – minus the baby? And who the hell is John Cage? 

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Last Friday, Lauren Sánchez married billionaire Jeff Bezos on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore standing on what some say resembled an Amazon Basics carpet. Fashion’s favorite bigoted duo Dolce & Gabbana recreated Sophia Loren’s wedding dress from the movie Houseboat for the bride, and, of course, Vogue covered it. Guests included Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo Di Caprio, and curiously Sydney Sweeney. Nothing was at all out of the ordinary for such an opulent affair, but it seemed the majority of onlookers disagreed. Many concluded that Sánchez has no taste. Specifically, people seem to think she looked cheap. I found the discourse pointless. To be clear, I am not defending billionaires – I do not believe they should exist – but I do think we, the huddled masses, should understand something about modern society. Like fashion, taste is now for the poor.

That was not always the case. In the mid- to late 19th century, descendents of the early Dutch settlers loved to employ taste to maintain their status as America’s aristocracy. Anyone watching The Gilded Age will tell you it is all they had. Through their rigid and effortful upbringing, the old money elite fostered a way of life that largely kept out the new industrial wealth emerging from the Midwest. As the country grew, and more White Americans became rich, taste became the standard by which the “aristocracy” not only recognized their own, but granted access to newly affluent outsiders – at least that is how the story goes. New York newspapers and magazines, including Vogue, reported on styles that seemed to garner favor with High Society’s powerful, broadcasting to readers the notion that the deft and discrete performance of taste was essential to upward mobility. 

However, that tactic fell away as the very clan that popularized it, Northern White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, lost their grip on the nation’s economic, social, and cultural capital in the 1970s. Although heavily promoted throughout popular culture in the 1980s, no one seemed to really pick up on the fact that the nation’s aristocracy died off. Increased global interactions due to advances in communication and technology meant wealth was not necessarily amassed or maintained through familial relationships, but multinational corporations and conglomerates. With so much wealth in circulation, that narrow and nebulous notion of taste became irrelevant and bad for business. Anyway, it was too late. The concept of taste had already taken hold, and like anything else inherited from the elite, their brands, styles, and even daily routines, we held it in esteem.

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Here we acquire perspective, not just things and as aforementioned, I have (inconsistently) studied Tibetan Buddhism for over twenty years. What I believe I understand of it may not be understanding at all, but mere supposition, so it is hard to write anything more on the topic as it relates to fashion. Still, I have found…

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Candidly, I do not know the point of this post yet. I want to share my thoughts on Tibetan Buddhism, both generally and as it relates to fashion and presentation. That’s where my mind wanders these days. But the thought of embarking on that project feels daunting and exhausting. I am already quite tired and struggling to maintain coherence. You see, I was up at 4:30 AM meditating. This is not some Goop, Moon Juice-generated, Erewhon-type spiritual superiority. No, I am just a 43 year old woman. I wake up at odd hours now. Like wide awake. And I need something to do. Normally, I would search for a long read, ingest countless photos on Pinterest, or mistakenly like stolen jokes on Threads. Until I realized I was afraid to just lie there. Racing thoughts are kind of scary, especially in the dark. I used to meditate, so I tried that. It worked. Meditation and a sleep mask. I (forcibly) close my eyes and focus on the breath. Usually I drift off, sometimes feeling a little closer to all sentient beings. However, this morning I remained awake. So I’m writing.

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The Theory: Postmodern Consumption

Postmodernism, as a cultural, artistic, and philosophical movement, is notoriously difficult to define despite its sweeping impact on American life. Postmodernist work rejects truth and tradition, while embracing artifice and symbolism. It constructs new realities based on those symbols, which are often reworked to diminish their original meaning. Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych (1962) is a famous example of this: 

“Warhol took Monroe as his subject in different mediums, silk screening the actress’s image multiple times in a grid in bright colours and in black and white. By repeating Monroe’s image (and that of other celebrities) over and over again, Warhol acknowledged his own fascination with a society in which personas could be manufactured, commodified, and consumed like products.”

Postmodernism began over a decade before gallery walls were plastered with repeated silkscreen paintings of American icons. Interestingly enough, postmodernism coincided with the rise of consumerism in the 1950s. Although cars, televisions, and household appliances signified a certain level of success, they were branded pragmatic, even moral purchases. According to historian Elaine Tyler Mae, “Purchasing for the home helped alleviate traditional American uneasiness with consumption: the fear that spending would lead to decadence.” Of course that unease and fear would not last long. 

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