♥ Why Shoppers Are Obsessed With ‘Summer Camp’ Jewellery (The Business of Fashion): “Plastic charm bracelets, candy-coloured rings, pony bead necklaces peppered with letters and emojis and other kitschy jewellery are one of the more whimsical trends to emerge from the pandemic … Camp jewellery sits at the nexus of several trends that are set to dominate post-pandemic fashion. It’s a pivot from delicate, minimalist jewellery that Instragram … helped popularise … The rise in whimsical, beaded jewellery dovetails with the resurgence of 1990s and early 2000s style trends. Colourful beaded jewellery was popular in the rave and electronic music scene of the ’90s — kandi jewellery was often traded at festivals.”
♥ What Is ‘Cheugy’? You Know It When You See It. (The New York Times): “Cheugy (pronounced chew-gee) can be used, broadly, to describe someone who is out of date or trying too hard. And while a lot of cheugy things are associated with millennial women, the term can be applied to anyone of any gender and any age … the following are also cheugy: The Hype House, Golden Goose sneakers, anything associated with Barstool Sports, Gucci belts with the large double ‘G’ logo, being really into sneaker culture, Rae Dunn pottery, and anything chevron.”
♥ The New Denim Hype Looks Like a Stretch (The Wall Street Journal): “As a multiple of forward earnings, shares of Lululemon are now trading at roughly where they were before the pandemic, while Levi’s is trading at higher levels … denim is seen as the perfect bridge from the comfortable clothes consumers got used to while staying home and the dressier outfits they used to wear … Yet that still doesn’t seem to be enough of a reason to jump onto the Levi’s bandwagon … While interest in the new denim fit is undeniably there, it is trickier to forecast exactly which brand consumers will turn to. The skinny-jean cycle … did little to help Levi’s expand sales at the time.”
♥ Why The Next McDonald’s Could Be A Virtual Brand (Restaurant Business): “… it can be tough to cut through the noise on delivery apps crowded with burger and chicken concepts … the math suggests that a virtual brand going toe-to-toe with McDonald’s, or even Sweetgreen, is still a long way off. The aforementioned MrBeast Burger was serving an average of 12,000 burgers a day by mid-March, which is about how many burgers McDonald’s sells in a half-hour.”
♥ The End of Kimye’s Wild Ride (Vulture): “Maybe it was because he kept mispronouncing her name and the universe only manifests what you ask for clearly, but it took almost a decade’s worth of other relationships and Kanye’s steady, increasing persistence — which included dropping little lyrical love crumbs in his songs — before the two of them finally got together in 2012 … the appeal of Kimye was simple … They earned our infatuation because they seemed preternaturally well suited for each other … It’s easiest to see Kanye’s influence on Kim through the fashion world. With him, there were front rows at Fashion Weeks and friendships with high-end designers, and eventually, it wasn’t just Kim at the Met Ball — it was the whole damn family.”
♥ The Shoe Styles That Will Rule the Summer (The Business of Fashion): “The future is particularly cloudy in footwear. In March, the best performing brands emphasised comfort over glamour. Crocs, Sanuk, Teva and Toms were among the shoe and sandal sellers that saw the biggest jump in online sales that month, compared with February, building on strong business during the pandemic … Mentions of ‘comfort’ in retailers’ footwear emails to consumers increased 63 percent in the past three months compared to the three months prior … while flat sandals with ‘sports’ and ‘hiking’ in their product descriptions rose 69 percent year-over-year … while consumers may be ditching their T-shirts and leggings for something more glamorous, what they wear on their feet will continue to serve comfort over style. Dresses, after all, can be paired with sneakers or flat, foam-bed sandals and still be a put-together look.”
♥ The Hot-Person Vaccine (The Atlantic): “… one vaccine in particular—from Pfizer—has somehow become the cool vaccine, as well as the vaccine for the rich and stylish … On Twitter, the vaccinated are changing their usernames to reflect their new personal identities: There are Pfizer Princesses and Pfizer Floozies and Pfizer Pfairies and at least one Portrait of a Lady on Pfizer … the Pfizer jokes are … directionless. TikTok is a place where a largely Gen Z and Millennial user base riffs near-constantly on the notion of class and perceived class differences.”
♥ Affluent Americans Rush to Retire in New ‘Life-Is-Short’ Mindset (Bloomberg): “About 2.7 million Americans age 55 or older are contemplating retirement years earlier than they’d imagined because of the pandemic, government data show. They’re more likely to be White … and many cite robust retirement accounts and Covid-19 fatigue for their early exit … the pandemic is treating the affluent differently, empowering them to leave corporate life early.”
♥ They Call It a ‘Women’s Disease.’ She Wants to Redefine It. (The New York Times): “… endometriosis … suffers from a branding problem: It falls into the abyss of ‘women’s diseases’ (overlooked), diseases that don’t kill you (unimportant) and menstrual problems (taboo). Researchers often call endometriosis ‘benign,’ as in noncancerous — but doing so … lessens the seriousness of a common, painful disease … Humans, unlike almost every other mammal, grow their entire endometrium — the womb’s inner lining — once a month, whether or not a fertilized egg takes hold. If no egg appears, they shed it. Dynamic, resilient and prone to reinvention, the uterus offers a window into some of biology’s greatest secrets: tissue regeneration, scarless wound healing and immune function.”
♥ Why Valentino Is Finally Launching Makeup (The Business of Fashion): “In the coming weeks, Valentino will launch its first line of colour cosmetics, including lipstick and foundation in dozens of shades, plus a tiny clutch just big enough to hold a satin face powder and miniature lipstick tube. Valentino was one of fashion’s few remaining beauty holdouts … Along with fragrance, cosmetics is often the go-to brand extension for high-end labels. Lipstick, foundation and bronzer are affordable to the masses and can be sold at department stores, airports and even drugstores without fear of tarnishing the appeal of handbags and shoes bearing the same logo … the hard work of developing these products is often licensed out to experienced cosmetics hands (L’Oréal in the case of Valentino).”
♥ Post-vaccination Inertia Is Real (The Atlantic): “The newly vaccinated have been tasked with reclassifying a whole suite of behaviors that were very recently dangerous, breaking months-long habits that were set and solidified during a time of crisis … Some people have already easily, almost intuitively, made the hop; others have been there for months. But plenty are having trouble toggling their brain from masking modesty to face-exhibiting exuberance.”
♥ Shoppers Return to Malls, With an Urge to Spend (The Wall Street Journal): “Foot traffic at a representative sample of 52 malls in March was up 86% from the same month last year … Still, the shopping center recovery looks uneven. Malls in places with an overabundance of stores and limited population growth are likely to continue struggling, especially after the recent pent-up demand subsides.”
♥ Elon Musk’s SNL Hosting Gig Is a Trap (The Atlantic): “The man who’ll take the SNL stage on May 8 won’t just be a billionaire with spacefaring dreams, but one who shamelessly and aggressively stirs the pot on the internet … to the cheering of his ardent acolytes … But if SNL thinks it can brighten or dim the star power of its host, Musk poses a particularly risky challenge. He’s a black hole, a rare figure who absorbs attention, good or bad … His power does not depend on cultural support from the likes of SNL; he can be disliked, but not ‘canceled.’ None of his scandals have substantially altered his influence on the tech industry or his online following. Unlike a typical SNL host, he has nothing to lose … No wonder some working at SNL seem baffled, if not outright frustrated, by the decision. They’ve been left in the uncomfortable, lopsided position of creating comedy for someone without any need for their work or support, who’s basically trolling them for kicks.”
♥ The Slander Industry (The New York Times): “The people facilitating slander and the self-proclaimed good guys who help remove it are often one and the same … many sites appeared to be owned by a small handful of people … Based on estimates provided by removal services, it would cost me about $20,000 to get the posts taken down — and even then, more posts might appear in their place … There is another way to lessen the posts’ impact. In certain circumstances, Google will remove harmful content from individuals’ search results … If a site charges to remove posts, you can ask Google not to list it … It mostly works, but is less effective for images. And if you have an attacker who won’t stop writing posts about you, it’s almost useless. The slander remains.”
♥ Recently ordered: Sézane Alexandra Dress, Madewell The Mom Jean, Ann Taylor Swing Trench Jacket, Reformation Bow Sleeve Dress, Supergoop! PLAY Everyday Lotion, and J. Crew Leather Belt with Anchor Buckle.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
