Court room sketch artists have never been hotter.
And a blessed Selling Sunset premiere day to you and yours.
Hello, and a belated 420 to all those who blaze!
This week, I’ve been working on throwing myself back upon the conveyer belt of endless appointments that make me feel like a real person in the world who also occasionally takes care of themselves. In the midst of all this booking and scheduling, I’ve discovered what is perhaps my singular adulthood life hack, aside from disgruntledly accepting the fact that exercise fixes my brain, and that is this: always make the next appointment while you’re at the current appointment. Yes, as with all the 30-something lifestyle advice I dole out to you in this newsletter completely against your will, I understand how spectacularly lame that is. And yes, I know you (I) will probably just end up cancelling that appointment later anyway. But at least you’re on the books and have immediately eliminated like five excuses from your repertoire.
Anyway, the only other thing I have to share with you is that I’m very concerned about this swiftly approaching “gilded glamour” Met Gala. That Americana slop last September was bad enough. But now, not only are they asking the famous people to do it all over again 8 months later, but they are providing them with a theme that has the built-in hard out of simply dressing in the color gold. You already know all the girls are just going to show up in Versace metal mesh and call it a day. I feel like every year the gala lowers the bar, making the theme looser and looser in an attempt to persuade its guests to adhere to some sort of coherent vision of dress, and every year celebs prove that the only rule they’ll abide by is the law of looking hot. No one even wore Marc Jacobs last year to an American fashion-themed event!!! All I know is Rihanna better show up and give us some actual food for thought even if it means she goes into labor right there on the red carpet. Honestly, I can’t imagine anything more befitting an icon.
And before we officially get into it, I just have to say that my mom told me I have to get in touch with Kim K because I have “some really interesting ideas she needs to hear.” I tried to explain to her many times what an impossible request that is and that it’s not exactly a shoot her an email kind of situation, but she would hear none of it. SO. If any of you have the hookup, please make that introduction asap so I can finally get my mom off my back.
Alright.
Well, Julia Fox has done it again. I feel like she and I have traveled a very long and rocky road together to get here, but at this point I’m not only fully along for the ride, but now believe she might actually be the new supreme in our midst. While the fashion can obviously be elevated dramatically, she’s doing A LOT with what she’s been given and who else is giving red carpet interviews like this. She’s a meme production factory, spewing out infinitely quotable soundbites at an absolutely unbelievable clip.
And even with that limited access to designer looks, the woman is still managing to serve up some authentically fresh fodder. While I think all the black leather is a little harsh against her skin tone, I appreciate her leaning into her dominatrix roots and giving us a fun, new side saddle cutout concept. A concept that, once again, should be all over Kimberly if her team understood anything about how to effectively construct and control a press narrative through the use of outrage fashion, but as we covered extensively last week, they simply never will.
Because while the world has been laughing at her antics, much like Kim K before her, the Julia Fox influence is undeniable. Try and tell me these girls are not pulling directly from her playbook. Shanina Shaik is walking around in an outfit almost identical to that Guy Fieri dinner jacket Julia found herself swaddled in like two weeks ago. And Delilah Belle clearly took her Instagram DIY course on how to chop a top in half to create the ultimate outfit.
While you may consider following Julia’s It-girl fashion prophecies to be a rookie mistake, Shanina clearly needs all the guidance she can get. The Victoria’s Secret model attended Coachella in a top that looks like the aftermath of one of Dexter’s kill rooms and denim spats. DENIM SPATS, for christ’s sake. Honestly, the footwear probably has Julia shook right now because that’s a DIY opportunity just waiting to happen. In fact, I saw a handful of girls in this exact style of boot and while I know we’re all desperate for new ideas, I feel like we need to nip this trend in the bud right now. If we’re going back 100 years looking for garments to revive, could we at least bring back something useful like the muff?
The VS girls as a whole were mining some very odd territory over the weekend in the name of festival dressing as our conception of trend cycles continues to slacken. Elsa Hosk wore what I consider to be one of the worst items of clothing ever invented: the denim maxi skirt. Now, as I said on Twitter, this is a look that, for me, only conjures memories of a religious cult I once sat next to at a frozen custard stand in southern Missouri. How did I know they were in a religious cult you ask? Well, it was a group composed entirely of women dressed in the same peasant blouse and denim maxi skirt that then took their ice cream and piled into a windowless van with a cross on the side driven by the only man in the bunch. Anyway, all that to say it’s not a great look whether you’re a cult member or a supermodel.
This week, I’ve also come to terms with the fact that on top of my Julia fixation I might also be a down-low Emma Chamberlain stan?? While this is her first appearance in the newsletter, I’ve pulled her looks a number of times in the past because she’s one of the rare girls who is doing some interesting conceptual dressing and actually sort of pulling it off. Like this corrugated cardboard romper she wore to Coachella complete with Han Solo’s belt hanging off of it. Compelling!
These girls, on the other hand, think they’re doing what Emma is doing and are sorely mistaken. I was pretty surprised to see the resurgence of the Yeezy barnacle boot in the desert after it so thoroughly failed to catch on with the masses in any capacity beyond Justin Bieber and Fat Joe. For those who can’t parse their Instagram models, on the left we have Josephine Scrivner and on the right, Stassi Baby, and both look like their feet have been trussed up like logs of Beef Wellington.
Something else inexplicable that happened this week is the insidious return of Alexander Wang. He held a runway show and party in Los Angeles that was attended by a number of celebs because apparently we’re all just supposed to pretend like nothing ever happened. I feel like I’m always harping on about this lately to you guys, but to ignore the MANY credible allegations against him is so grotesque to me…and for what? Some ill-fitting slips and button downs?
He even has Kim out here congratulating him!!! This has got to be a paid placement right? Why would she even get herself involved with something like this?? Her team isn’t just failing her sartorially, but also morally because how is no one around her suggesting that perhaps aligning herself with a sexual predator is not the best look.
This is another thing that drives me nuts but is also just the sad reality of modern celebrity coverage. Like this is obviously a lie. Kim knows it’s a lie, we know it’s a lie, it’s just a good sound bite to sell some underwear. While I’m not surprised at all that she said it, I do hate that we as the press just have to sit there and take it! Modern fashion journalism is so dependent on access and clicks that it often curtails the writer’s ability to actually be a critical thinker and have a real dialogue with their subject in order to just keep feeding this bottomless content machine. I mean, just imagine how much more engaging this conversation could have been if the interviewer could actually push back like, “well, you and I both know that’s not true because a coffee table book filled with a decade of photos of you in your underwear exists.” Of course, if you actually said that, Kim’s PR agent would have pulled her before you could even finished the sentence. I’m just saying, something’s gotta give.
Likewise, I continue to not understand why everyone in this family can’t wait out a scandal for a normal amount of time. Especially, when that scandal involves multiple dead people. I swear celebrities frantic need to remind people they exist is what’s going to take them all down in the end.
And apropos of Kim, I’m sorry, but I just have to show you the greatest observation I’ve ever made. (h/t to Dave who led me to this image thanks to a conversation we were having about the court sketches below.)
High art. For those who don’t know, Blac Chyna is currently suing the hell out of the Kardashians over her cancelled TV show with Rob and, having written a little bit about the case in the past, I’m personally inclined to believe she’s going to win. I’ve actually been surprised more big outlets aren’t covering this extensively as this could very well be the first time that family has ever fought so hard in court to lose so big…and to a woman who was almost Angela Kardashian no less! My favorite part though is, of course, the daily court sketches, which because of the virality of this first set has now prompted every other outlet to hire their own sketch artist and each and every rendering is absolute perfection. But what I enjoy most about this artist in particular is how you can tell that they have fully chosen sides and it’s Blac Chyna in her Cruella de Vil “CATCH THOSE PUPPIES!” era all day, every day.
And after all that hubbub over day 1, now I feel like the sketch artist is really starting to feel themselves. I mean, just look at Khloé’s ski-slope nose, Kim’s Grinch-esque, furrowed brow, that huge-assed woman on the wall in the distance. And while I initially thought Blac Chyna’s nails were just a spirited interpretation of gesticulation, after seeing actual pictures of her talons leaving court, no, they really are Wolverine-caliber nail extensions. Although the court room artist did later confess that she can’t really see anything that’s going on — iconic.
Elsewhere in Kardashian land, I just have to point out that Kendall is attempting to usher in the stupid-large belt portion of the mid-aughts revival and I have too many other horrific trends to deal with at this point to fight it. I suppose I’ll allow it for now just as long as we leave the buckles slung low and not cinched around anything empire waist!
And I feel like we need Jia to step in once again to explain to us what the fuck is happening over on that photo app as I feel like we’ve swiftly moved past her beautifully dubbed “Instagram Face” into the full-blown Instagram singularity. There is a cohort of celebrities who despite being very famous I’m starting to not be able to immediately distinguish from one another as they slowly morph into one racially ambiguous individual who’s been FaceTuned into a poreless stick figure of body dysmorphic perfection. The prototype seems to be Khloé, who is obviously the most mocked for her face-swapping ways, but Chrissy is also especially guilty, in this case making her thigh smaller than her own calf. Then again, while those two A-list ladies probably take the brunt of the critiques, these identical bobble-headed women are legion.
And thanks to that alarming shift towards Hollywood’s new vision of the tanned and toned ideal, I feel like girls like Joy Corrigan who are still living up to the old early aughts, Victoria’s Secret beauty standard actually wind up standing out in a weird way? But regardless, my budding fave returned this week to once again demonstrate how posing is done, sprawling herself across a Revolve Social Club banquet in order to get the shot and doing Ms. Fox proud in a disco-ball bra and torn-to-shreds Canadian tuxedo.
I know I said this when the film first started shooting, but I’ll say it as often as I have to in order for it to sink in: We must put some goddamn respect on Angelyne’s name. Much like Lily James’s portrayal of Pamela Anderson before her, these huge prosthetics are NOT it. They look preposterously fake. If we want to pay homage to these big-titted legends why not cast some authentically double-D ladies?
Speaking of people with out-of-proportion appendages, I’m so sorry to plague you with these images, but I’m running out of time here and I just need to share this horror with somebody, anybody else. James Charles is so far gone, I don’t even know what aesthetics he’s pulling from, like, who’s on these styling mood boards?? No one dresses like this, even the wildest festival girlies have moved past these Nasty Gal dregs. Someone on Twitter also pointed out that the bodysuit is the same print as the predator on The Predator movie poster and I can think of nothing more fitting for a man who is an actual predator.
On the opposite end of the unfortunate spectrum is Elizabeth Olsen in Armani Prive. A look that might as well have come straight out of the Goodwill donation pile from nana Evelyn’s collection of special Easter church outfits.
And, in celeb world, Doja continues to be our only star who is actually looking towards the fashion horizon. Once again, it seems as though we are careening towards a reality where all of our footwear is going to become permanently attached to our pants and, yes, I understand that this top looks like a garbage bag that got left out in the sun and melted. I didn’t say that I necessarily like the look, but at the very least it gives me reason to pause and reflect and that’s a hell of a lot more than I can say about the rest of these Coachella outfits. Although, let’s see what season 2 has in store for us.
And as I bring our official Mess business to a close, I just have to ask, can we please put a moratorium on this particular shade of Valentino highlighter pink. I beg. There’s so many other colors we could be doing this in.
Pop Base @PopBase
Page Six confirms that Al Pacino, 81, has been dating Noor Alfallah, 28, since the pandemic. “The age gap (53 years) doesn’t seem to be a problem, even though he is older than her father.” https://t.co/eygbSI50UBAnd finally I just want to applaud this prolific conquest queen. This sexy grave-robbing icon. Our bravest soldier fighting our horniest war: Noor Alfallah. May her name forever appear in the will of a geriatric multi-millionaire.
Well I’m as petrified as Tristan Thompson when someone has something to show Khloé on an iPad, but I have to tell you…our journey together has come to an end.
I suppose it’s about time I follow Sting’s lead and learn how to mind my own business anyway.
So I’m going to pull a Meloni and skip across some sedan hoods into the NYC air-pollution sunset.
And join Rod in living my best Nancy Meyers coastal grandma life with or without the 12,000 square-foot kitchen. Ta-ta.
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Have a blessed weekend!
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