♥ One of my favorite outerwear purchases from last fall, the Free People Kate Faux Fur Coat (also here, here, here, and here), has been restocked this season. Read my review here.
♥ You Too Can Play the Handbag Stock Market (The New York Times): “… handbags are becoming less of an emotional purchase and more of a rational one. And the people buying them … are starting to behave a lot like car buyers, who plan and research their purchases in advance.”
♥ Gap’s CEO Is Out, Done In by Fashion Missteps and Fading Brands (Bloomberg): “Gap fired its chief executive officer late Thursday after his turnaround efforts failed to reignite sales growth, with disappointing third-quarter performance sending shares plummeting in late trading. The apparel company … brought back a member of the founding family to lead the company while it figures out a longer-term plan … after a brief transition, Peck will exit the president and CEO role and vacate his post on the retailer’s board. Robert Fisher, the company’s current nonexecutive chairman and son of Gap co-founders Don and Doris, will step in as president and CEO on an interim basis … companywide comparable sales appeared to be down 4% in the third quarter, which ended Nov. 2, with that measure falling 7% at its namesake brand.”
♥ Riding the Unicorn (The Cut): “Music is a key aspect of a successful spin class, a motivator. Classes can be searched that way … Music is mentioned 174 times in the IPO documents. Peloton has, so far, paid $50 million in licensing fees. The National Music Publishers Association, however, sued, first for $150 million on March 19 and then, after reviewing the full catalogue of archived classes, doubling the claim of the lawsuit. There are, of course, ways around this, like asking Peloton instructors to use lesser-known music, partnering with artists who want exposure, and so on, but as anyone who has ever spun can tell you, the music is kind of the key.”
♥ What It Means to Evacuate (Slate): “Being an evacuee—in California for fires, and elsewhere for other disasters influenced by a changing climate—is a limbo state that more and more Americans are regrettably learning to occupy. And it’s hard in ways that even the happiest outcomes don’t quite paper over … If you evacuate but eventually get to return to an unharmed home, as most of the people I talked to did, there is a sense in which the ordeal doesn’t quite ‘count.’ It’s hard, in the abstract, to understand what it means to pack up far too little and sleep in a warehouse filled with strangers, suddenly vulnerable and dependent, with little control of your life, waiting to hear whether your home still exists. If your home survives, the relief can obscure but not obliterate those frenzied moments you spent when you had to fully plan for a different outcome.”
♥ Until 11/11, take 46% off your Ann Taylor purchase with code FRIENDS. My picks: Ribbed Turtleneck Poncho, Houndstooth Chesterfield Coat, Chain Print Satin Skirt, Faux Leather Seamed Side Zip Leggings, Cozy Mock Neck Sweater Dress, Blackwatch Plaid Funnel Neck Coat, Hammered Satin V-Neck Bow Blouse, and Faux Leather Trench Coat.
♥ I Had a Late-Term Abortion. I Am Not a Monster. (The New York Times): “If you identify as ‘pro-life,’ what does that phrase mean to you? I know that in advocacy circles, it means, essentially, ‘anti-abortion.’ But what does life mean to you — the life that you are ‘for’? Does it mean breathing on your own? Does it mean having a heartbeat? What are the markers of a life of quality, of purpose, of meaning? If your brain was not functioning following a traumatic car accident, would you want your body artificially sustained indefinitely? What is the threshold of experience for you to want to continue living?”
♥ The 5-Hour Workday Gets Put to the Test (The Wall Street Journal): “… small talk during work hours is discouraged. Social media is banned. Phones are kept in backpacks. Company email accounts are checked just twice a day. Most meetings are scheduled to last no more than 15 minutes … As a result, the company produces the same level of output for clients despite shorter days … The five-hour day brings challenges, employees say, with the pressure to produce the same work in less time. They also had to adjust to not texting or talking with family during the workday … the five-hour workday idea fits with the broader trend of companies looking to increase flexibility, which many workers value above pay. Research shows most people are only productive for four or five hours of the workday, so reducing work time doesn’t necessarily cost companies output.”
♥ Life After Prison, on YouTube (The New York Times): “Since 1978, women’s incarceration has climbed at twice the rate of men’s in the United States, with 834 percent more women locked up than 40 years ago, according to a report from the Prison Policy Initiative.”
♥ Take 40% off everything at J. Crew with code FAMILY until 11/10/19. My picks: Marled Turtleneck Sweater Dress, Front-Pocket Turtleneck Sweater in Rugby Stripe, Swing Coat in Italian Stadium-Cloth Wool, Silk Tunic in Ivory Poppy Floral Print, A-Line Midi Skirt in Duchess Satin, Cowlneck Satin Camisole, Turtleneck Sweater Dress in Supersoft Yarn, and Jewel-Embroidered Sleeveless Peplum Top.
♥ America’s Largest Health Insurer Is Giving Apartments to Homeless People (Bloomberg): “There are more than half a million homeless in the U.S., about a third of them unsheltered … When they need medical care or simply a bed and a meal, many go to the emergency room. That’s where America has drawn the line: We’ll pay for a hospital bed but not for a home, even when the home would be cheaper … The U.S. system is engineered to route billions of dollars to hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and labs to diagnose and treat patients once they’re sick. It’s not set up to keep vulnerable people housed, clothed, and nourished so they’ll be less likely to get sick in the first place. The U.S. spends 18% of its gross domestic product on health care, vs. 8.6% in the other 35 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.”
♥ Does Fast Fashion Have to Die for the Environment to Live? (Los Angeles Times): “The clothing industry is responsible for about 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions and consumes more energy than aviation and shipping combined, according to the United Nations Environment Program … Fashion’s environmental problems stem from both the manufacturing process and overproduction — and they plague all levels of the industry … ‘As long as we look at clothes as disposable, we have a problem.'”
♥ Virtue and Vanity at Reformation (The New Yorker): “There is comfort in subsuming your sense of individuality to a larger sentiment of prescription and predetermination. There is pleasure in looking at a screen and having someone tell you what to do … Aflalo … once told the Times that she wanted to combine ‘altruism and narcissism.’ She recently described the company to Vogue Business as ‘Zara but with a soul‘ … That’s a formidable goal … It is also an inherently contradictory one: there’s a limit to how altruistic one can be when producing and shipping clothing at anything approaching that scale. Previously, about half of the fabrics Reformation used were deadstock … but, as its offerings have expanded, that figure has dropped to about fifteen per cent. The company has developed a Zara-esque speedy production cycle: clothes can go from the design table to stores in a month.”
♥ Why So Many Babies Are Getting Their Tongues Clipped (The Atlantic): “One 2017 study found an 834 percent increase in reported diagnoses of tongue tie in babies from 1997 to 2012, and an 866 percent increase in frenotomies during that time. And those are just inpatient numbers: babies who had tongue-tie revisions shortly after birth, before even leaving the hospital. It doesn’t include babies who get an outpatient procedure later in life … Today, women face pressure to breastfeed from the moment their babies are born. Yet, they might not be taught about proper latching, or the fact that—unsurprisingly—attaching a tiny suction machine to your nipples for hours each day can be painful. Instead of working through the natural learning curve, parents might look for a problem they can fix to make it better. Enter tongue tie.”
♥ Hundreds of new styles have been added to the Tory Burch sale section, including the Tory Burch Kendra Fringed Cardigan which I own and love. A few more sale picks: Plaid Trench Coat, Gigi Bootie, Tweed Sleeveless Pencil Dress, Perry Reversible Tote, Color-Block Espadrille, Bunny Intarsia Sweater, Miller Lug Sole Boot, and Gigi Boot.
♥ The Japanese Fried-Rice Omelette That Rewired My Brain (The New Yorker): “Even in a country oversaturated with perfect recipes, omurice is a perfect recipe; the lovely thing about it is how it leaves room for variations. You’ve got the symphony as it’s composed, and then you have the changes from orchestra to orchestra, with slight adjustments making for enormous tremors in the eating experience.”
♥ The Mancession Is Finally Over (Bloomberg): “… there are more than five million prime-age men who didn’t have paid jobs in October who would have had them if 1950s/1960s conditions still prevailed and Epop was 95% … In 2018, 10.4% of men aged 25 through 54 (about 6.5 million men) were not in the labor force … Being ill or disabled is the main reason prime-age men give for not being in the labor force, and by far the biggest driver of the group’s decline in labor force participation since 1991.”
♥ Tales From the Teenage Cancel Culture (The New York Times): “The term ‘canceled’ ‘sort of spawned from YouTube’ … Ben, 17, said that people should be held accountable for their actions, whether they’re famous or not, but that canceling someone ‘takes away the option for them to learn from their mistakes and kind of alienates them.'”
♥ Recently purchased: Free People Hit the Slopes Fleece Jacket, Abercrombie & Fitch Polar Fleece Half-Zip Sweatshirt, Reiss Coco One-Shoulder Ribbed Sweater, J. Crew New Lady Day Coat, Uniqlo Pile-Lined Full-Zip Hoodie, Leith Juliet Sleeve Sweater, Free People Far From Home Coat, Ann Taylor Belted Trench Coat, and Everlane The Clean Silk Tie Neck Blouse.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
