20 baby blue sweaters to pair with cocoa brown (mostly under $100)
+ public speaking advice, tokenism in the fashion industry, gourmand perfumes as dessert in the ozempic era
It’s Friday afternoon and I’m using the kitchen counter as a standing desk, getting flour dust on my keyboard writing this newsletter. The blueberry scones have just come out of the oven; they look nuggety and fluffy and far better than my last batch.
Baking blueberry scones from scratch is not a normal thing for me. It was a lot to work to get this photo: I wiped toast crumbs and tomato sauce stains off the table, and ended up storing the scones in a plastic tupperware with an offensively bright neon green lid. But it’s undeniably cute to see them tucked in a nice platter like a pile of sleeping bunnies, so I won’t apologize for the bit of pastry chef cosplay.
I’m baking to rest my brain from an eventful week—I say this a lot, but when you work in media/writing/any job that relies on intellectualizing things, it feels really good to have a brain empty day and make something with your hands.
What’s on my mind…
Spoke as a panelist at the Remake x KQED fashion show about the politics of fashion alongside Delila Hailechristos of ReLove and Ayesha Barenblat, CEO of Remake (what an honor—they’re both incredibly smart and stylish women). It was my first time doing a public speaking event as a fashion writer. Right before the three of us were about to go up, Delila offered some advice on how she calms stage jitters before speaking: “remember that everyone is here to hear you speak, so anything you say is the right thing to say.”
I can’t stop thinking about this piece by Kara on Willy Chavarria as the “Patron Saint of Misfits.” Like Kara, my fashion theory knowledge has been shaped by Mina T. Pham. For those of us who are trying to predict how race, class and fashion will intersect in a conservative political era, Pham’s analysis of how the Western fashion industry developed a “racialized taste” for Asian superbloggers like BryanBoy and Susie Bubble in the late 2000s might offer a framework. I anticipate another cycle of racial tokenism in the coming years where brands will signal progressive values without making any real foundational changes. I’m also noticing a resurged interest in “BIPOC-owned brand gift guides” and "creators of color to follow” content, which is what happened in the latter years of the Trump’s first term. I’m all for the BIPOC gift guides but it is odd seeing this messaging come from brands that never seemed to care about racial equity at all. Historically, these waves of interest tend to stem from an emotional reaction (often white guilt) rather than an engrained lifelong practice of challenging the fashion industry’s status quo—which always reverts back to whiteness. We’ll see.
In the Ozempic Era, are Gourmand Perfumes the New Dessert? I’ve been working on this story for a while now, after hearing accounts from women online that after starting GLP-1 drugs, “perfume replaced my food obsession.” For some who previously struggled with sugar addiction, smelling a gourmand perfume gives them the same "hit” as eating a sweet treat. The implications of food consumption being compressed from solids to liquids (think soylent, branded as a meal replacement) to gaseous (perfume when sprayed) is both fascinating and disturbing. For a scientific perspective, I called neuroscientist Leslie Kay at UChicago, who explained how the olfactory bulb’s relationship to GLP-1 production could be a factor in this phenomenon. If you own a perfume brand and can share data on how gourmand vs. non-gourmand sales performance, I wanna talk to you! And if you’re an editor who’s interested in this story, I’m open to chatting. Send me a note at vivthemole@gmail.com.
Color Combo: Baby Blue + Cocoa Brown
The local news says this week brings “bone chilling temps” to the Bay.
I have been wearing a cashmere sweater every day, and especially loved how this outfit came together for a day of errands. The vivid baby blue (bordering on cerulean, like the Devil Wears Prada cable knit number) feels so soothing against an earthy brown striped scarf. The moss green bag ties the colors together, I think.
