♥ We Have Reached Peak ‘Exercise Dress’ (The New York Times): “… an ‘exercise dress,’ … [is] an all-in-one outfit that … may be haunting your social feeds, with ads touting its comfort (stretchy nylon and spandex!), versatility (built-in shorts!) and universally flattering silhouette (who doesn’t feel good in an A-line dress?) … Compared to last year, exercise dress sales nearly doubled.”
♥ It’s Time to Bring Back Cargo Pants (WIRED): “… it’s so obviously time for cargoes to make a comeback. Past time, really. Everyone is walking around with a giant phone and nowhere to put it. The technology exists to solve this problem. We just need to embrace it.”
♥ What Are Stores Even Thinking With All These Emails? (The Atlantic): “Email is one of the few ways companies can reach their customers directly. In fact, people overwhelmingly say that the way they want to hear from brands is by email … That’s why the mailbox software started suppressing messages—to protect people from companies’ temptation to send too many emails. In response, email marketers obsess over ‘deliverability’ … But that process has created new and weird feedback loops, in which some companies and certain messages might be able to reach your inbox more readily than before, while others get junked … before you see them. As a result, your personal inbox gradually has become less like a mailbox and more like a wormhole into every business relationship you maintain.”
♥ Adidas Failed to Revive Reebok. Now Authentic Brands Will Try (Bloomberg): “On Aug. 12, Authentic Brands Group Inc. snapped up Reebok for $2.5 billion, adding the sneakers with the Union Jack emblem to its hodgepodge of brands that includes fast-fashion retailer Forever 21, skateboard specialist Airwalk, outdoor outfitter Eddie Bauer, and shirtmaker Brooks Brothers … Adidas’s failure to restore Reebok serves as a cautionary tale for any business trying to reignite a brand that’s fallen out of favor with consumers.”
♥ Nick Kristof and the Holy War on Pornhub (The New Republic): “There is no question that Pornhub sits at the crux of two bad ideas: a race-to-the-bottom gig economy and a tech-determinist business model that values stickiness and seamlessness over content moderation. But the abuses that all this enables are not signs of the end times; to confront them with a religious crusade is not only useless but dangerous. Pornhub can continue business as usual so long as it can say its loudest critics are just pissed-off fundamentalists. Stuck in the predictable pushback to anti-porn ‘puritans,’” the possibilities for challenging Pornhub’s business model—and the working conditions and the exploitation it enables—could be lost.”
♥ The Indefensible Cruelty of OnlyFans’ Porn Ban (Slate): “OnlyFans said … that it will ban sexually explicit content on the platform starting in October, while still allowing nude photos and videos that are consistent with its policies. That is ambiguous enough that it’s not clear what will be allowed and what won’t.”
♥ Demography Is Not Destiny (The Atlantic): “Political parties and identities are not static, and few concepts are as elastic as the invention of race, in particular the category of ‘white,’ which is defined not just by looks and ancestry, but also by ideology and class. The fact that fewer Americans identify as white in the 2020 census than did 10 years before does not spell doom for the Republican Party, nor does it herald an era of political dominance for the Democrats, despite the forlorn cries of those who are committed less to conservatism as an ideology than the political and cultural hegemony of those they consider white.”
♥ Sale styles are an extra 30% off at J. Crew with code SALEONSALE. Note that select styles are final sale. My picks:
♥ How Fashion Can Get Women Back to Work (The Business of Fashion): “Globally across all industries, 64 million women were laid off or quit their jobs in 2020 … In the US, about 2.4 million women left the labour force between February 2020 and February 2021 … Globally, 36 percent of women reported spending at least nine hours a day on childcare.”
♥ Paying With a Credit Card? That’s Going to Cost You. (The Wall Street Journal): “More small businesses—and even some larger ones—are charging shoppers a fee for credit-card purchases or offering them discounts when they pay with debit cards, cash or checks. The moves are meant to offset the various fees businesses pay on credit-card transactions, costs that have grown alongside generous cash-back and travel rewards.”
♥ The Vaccine Cards Are the Wrong Size (The Atlantic): “It was the wrong size for the one place where most people keep all their important everyday documents, and of too nebulous a purpose to sit safely in a drawer with my birth certificate and passport.”
♥ Who Gets the L.L.C.? Inside a Silicon Valley Billionaire’s Divorce. (The New York Times): “This month, Ms. Huynh found a website … with her photo, links to her social media accounts and news reports about her. It also included a legal filing about her from 20 years ago, which was no longer available online and included salacious details about a past relationship. The website concealed the identity of the person behind it. But Ms. Huynh eventually discovered that someone named Scott Wendell had uploaded the legal filings. Wendell is Mr. Hassan’s middle name.”
♥ Recently purchased: J. Crew Collared Merino Wool Sweater Dress, & Other Stories Oversized Gold Button Two-Tone Cardigan, FP Movement Halfway There Sweat Shorts, Caslon Snap Placket Henley T-Shirt, and WDIRARA Printed Crop Top.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, everyone! And for those of you in Henri’s path, stay safe!
