Skin and Smoke
The great black and gold stoppered boules of Lanvin—Arpège or My Sin on Bette Davis’s vanity in All About Eve,...
Prose
Losing Control
The Nineteenth-Century Beard Movement in Europe and North America
Viewed from a distance of more than a century, the nineteenth-century beard fashion looks like a basic historical fact. And...
Joan Crawford’s Mouth
To age in public for a woman is, despite all woke societal efforts to the contrary, still hell; to age...
And Then It’s Cringe and It’s Everywhere
American Apparel and American Apparel advertisements, CSS, New Young Pony Club, Urban Outfitters, headbands worn across forehands, leggings, Steve Aoki,...
Metamorphosis
In the summer backyard, the child poses by a garden chair wearing a long red cotton yukata printed with tiny...
Un Veritable Cachemire
The idea of time as a crumpled handkerchief offers a welcome alternative to the notion of time as a linear...
Betwixt and Between
Catwalk shows hardly ever begin on time. Delay, anticipation and deferment are traditionally part of the routine. Waiting for the...
Colour Codes
Flagging is a way of communicating basic information without needing to speak. Bandanas are soft introductions. They are self-labelling devices,...
A Pair of Sneakers
How many miles of endless asphalt haven’t I covered in these shoes, and in how many cities? This pair of...
The shaping of Indian-ness
How Vogue India reiterates right-wing rhetoric
Vogue India, with its four million online readers and audience of seven million on social media, mostly catering to educated...
Expecting
It’s been a year since my first miscarriage, and the summer sales have returned. I buy a loose kaftan, I...
The Reasonable Shopper
I never knew when or what I was going to lift. The Time to Take was a calm, concrete feeling...