Issue #008: The Spread
chaotic customization and utopian pastels for a dystopian world
There are so many new faces here (welcome!), so I’m going to introduce myself before you devote the next bit of your day to reading this dispatch from my brain. I’m Jo - you can read more about me + my mission here, and see more of my life here. Long story short, I write about what I read, the insidiousness of diet culture and beauty standards, fashion and its lack of inclusivity, and general consumer culture at large. My professional background is in size inclusive fashion and I now work in branded social partnerships at a popular women’s media company. Here’s what I’m serving up on The Composite:
🍽 Every week I write The Digest, a short-form roundup of all the latest in books, bodies, and consumer culture boiled down to bite-size, digestible information so you can reduce your online time while still being in the know
🍽 1-2 times a month I write The Spread (you are here!) which is everything you love about The Digest and then some. This post tends to vary slightly, but typically I go a little deeper into trending topics I’m extra interested in, share a little more personally + anecdotally, and/or include more on what I’m enjoying IRL - what I’m reading, buying, wearing, watching, and more
🍽 I share a monthly reading wrap up of everything I’ve read with detailed reviews and related recommendations
🍽 Occasionally I throw in an essay like this when something happens in the general fashion or consumer landscape that excites me or irks me and I think you should know about it
I intend for The Composite to feel like a mini-magazine of sorts - but one that represents all of us, and that challenges what society tells us how we should look and feel. I hope that when you close one of my posts it gives you the same feeling as just having closed the back cover of a glossy print mag. I hope you feel seen. Thank you for being here! I very much welcome + encourage discussion in the comments section and I’m excited to get to know each other and grow together in this space
*This email will be cut off in your email inbox. Head to browser or Substack app to read in full*
September + October have been slower reading months for me. Everything I’ve read since we last spoke:
📖 Butter | Asako Yuzuki | Mystery | Finished
📖 Selling Sexy | Chantal Fernandez & Lauren Sherman | Non Fiction | Finished
📖 Same As It Ever Was | Claire Lombardo | Contemporary Fiction | Finished
📖 Free Food for Millionaires | Min Jin Lee | Literary Fiction | Reading (and loving)
You can read my book reviews from each month here. September + October combo round up will drop this week!
I’ve been working hard to reduce my social media doomscrolling these days, which means I’m reading more articles and consuming more intentional content - which I LOVE. These are the things that caught my attention this week.
Quick picks:
‼️ Ayo Edebiri interviewed by novelist Yaa Gyasi - what a power pairing
🔊 “Beauty brands could use a sonic glow-up”
🥦 “Whole Foods predicts the major food and beverage trends of 2025” (+ related)
👖 “Fashion Is Losing the Middle Ground”
💵 “Cash App Is Tracking What We’re Eating Through the Emojis We Use”
🔪 “Why is horror so popular right now?” (+related listen)
🍿 “Can Novelty Popcorn Buckets Save Cinema?”
🍴“Hate Noisy Restaurants? Stick This in Your Ear”
📚 “The Original Lit Girls Are Still Influencing What We Wear”
As a chronically online consumer of media, I’m constantly noticing patterns and making inferences. This section is devoted to what I’m noticing right now - where the patterns come from and where they may lead us.
Chaos, Everywhere, All At Once
We have been enduring varying levels of cultural chaos for the past 8 years, and with another fraught presidential election looming, those levels are only escalating. Sometimes our cultural response to the inundation of stress is to reach for something softer, safer, (see pastels for a dystopian world below, for example). In the case of Chaos Packaging + Chaotic Customization, we see the opposite. (See also: Chaos Cuisine, wrong shoe theory, wrong jacket theory). We’re claiming the chaos as our own, full speed ahead. I’ve been writing about the charmification of everything over on The Digest for a couple months now. Here’s some of my thought process on how we got here and how it leads to more hyperpersonalization and accessorization on the horizon.
꩜ Gen Z considers uniqueness to be a luxury in their wardrobes. They’re looking for the pieces no one else has - they want to differentiate themselves and assert individuality in a vast landscape of aesthetic sameness. Social media is largely responsible for this homogenization of style that they’re trying to escape. Their penchant for secondhand shopping only fuels the desire to score that one-of-a-kind find that says something about them through their sense of style.
puts out great content about this!꩜ We first saw the renewed rise of charm bracelets and necklaces in the last couple years, a more conventional and familiar form of customized accessories. This trend evolved by seeping into other areas of expression, from shoe charms to phone cases to keychains - if you can hold it or wear it, you can customize it. The Rhode phone case essentially created a new category of products, consumerism embodied as accessorization of our accessories: how can we show off our possessions and personalities IRL to make a statement in as many ways as possible beyond just the clothes we choose? I love what
said about “Objectifying People, Personifying Objects”꩜ Similar to the phone case innovation, WSJ cites original “chaotic” products that defied the traditional expectations of their categories like the unusual spherical EOS lip balm + Vacation Whipped Sunscreen in a can. The product landscape is so overly saturated that, similar to Gen Z and their fashion sense, brands need to over-communicate. An impactful statement requires uniqueness and brazenness. Our attention spans are shorter than ever, so both people + products need to communicate as much as possible as quickly as possible, in just a moment’s glance before the audience loses interest
꩜ I’ve noticed a pattern of products for adults that are childlike, whimsical, more rudimentary, while products for children are conversely becoming more mature, technologically driven, and cutting-edge. Adults have developed a fascination for toys - Sonny Angels, for example - and are increasingly interested in nostalgia items. We’re turning to “dumb phones”, reviving old franchises, and seeking comfort in what was familiar to us before the world took a darker turn in recent years
꩜ The proliferation of AI is training our brains to expect highly personal, tailor-made experiences in every facet of our lives. With technological advancements, our devices can learn our quirks, desires, dislikes, and immediately cater to them on an individual basis, accurately predicting our behavior. We’re becoming used to an ever-present algorithm that serves our exact whims specifically - long gone is a one-size-fits-all model
All of these factors and more support the continuation and intensification of the era of hyperpersonalization - or, charmcore, evidently.
Lavender Haze & Dark Days
Across all of the 2025/26 color reporting and trend predicting I’ve read, I've not come across much mention of light purple as a color to watch. Even so, I feel pretty certain we’ll see this color emerge in various ways over the next year or two. I also think there’s something to be said for the recent popularity of pastels, which have a strong utopian association, in a world that is increasingly dystopian. In speculative sci-fi novels I’ve read this year, I’ve noticed a strong pastel presence threaded throughout. In both Gabrielle Korn’s Yours For The Taking + Leslie Stephens’s You’re Safe Here, for example, there’s a distinctly baby pink aesthetic acting as a backdrop to the protagonists’ fights against the effects of climate change and late-stage capitalism.
Contrary to chaotic trends, I think we’ll also see an emergence of these softer colors, evocative of a safe place to land and a quiet, peaceful fantasy world. I see light purple really shining in contrast to rich burgundies and brick reds, a natural and elevated evolution of the bright red trend we’ve seen in the last year. Feels fresh and modern!
Trains & TSA in Marketing Tactics
The TSA bin trend earlier this year was a portent for the uptick in travel themed advertising we’re seeing now1. Suitcase brand Beis took advantage of the craze and executed an ad takeover of the literal TSA checkpoint at LAX, using taglines like “baggage even your therapist wants”, a very logical next iteration for the trend. But the thematic is not exclusive to products related to travel - Nespresso, Nuuly, and others have recently released train / airplane centric marketing campaigns. I think there’s a really fascinating parallel here. Over the last few years, we’ve seen air travel lose a lot of its shine. As a frequent flyer, I can confidently say the experience of flying has not returned to pre-pandemic levels in terms of quality, and in many ways it continues to degrade. Air travel has also become increasingly more accessible and affordable in the last couple decades, making it a more “pedestrian” form of traveling when compared to the opulent flight experience of the mid 20th century.
Trains run the gamut of quality, from the MTA to luxury international train experiences in Europe. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Nespresso, a brand that typically aims to exude a more luxurious feel, is aligning their products with the grandeur of top-notch train travel, while Nuuly, a brand focused on rental and appealing to the everyday person, is aligning with Amtrak - solid, but not quite glamorous. (I say this with love as a premier fan of Amtrak). As we’re recovering from the effects of quarantining and getting more comfortable leaving our homes, and, therefore our states / countries, I expect we’ll see more of this thematic across advertising as brands look to align themselves with varying levels of aspiration.
*PS: I actually began renting with Nuuly this month, and I have to say that I am extremely impressed so far, especially with their plus size selection. Let me know if you’re interested in a full review!
Extra Attention for Gen X
Members of this generation have more disposable income, more sense of self, and they’re looking to invest in taking care of themselves, especially as they age. I’ve been noticing a major uptick in coverage about over 40 beauty, clothing geared towards this market, and new innovations being made in medical spaces for them - IE, products and services for menopause. I listened to this Second Life podcast episode this morning with former EIC of Mary Claire Anne Fulenwider, who left her editing job to create a business focused specifically on the needs of women during menopause.
Another notable facet of this shift is the recent surge of age gap romances in both books and movies, all featuring an older woman and younger man. This year alone we’ve had the movie adaptation of the hit book The Idea Of You, (One Direction fan fiction) starring Anne Hathaway. We’ve had Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron in A Family Affair, and most recently Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth in Lonely Planet (seems like Netflix is particularly into the age gap thing). I definitely think we can attribute some of this to the book community where age gap romances are more popular. As BookTok grows in power, so does representation of their interests across all forms of media. Some attribution is also likely due to the fact that women are on the brink of holding less power over our own bodies and fates than we’ve seen before in many of our lifetimes. While I’m not a fan of the age gap romance myself, I can see how, in a world framed largely by misogyny, this would be appealing to a woman who has spent 40+ years catering to a specific, traditional type of male gaze.
Trying to cut out the useless fluff and hone in on the good stuff
While this is sometimes podcasts and music and all the things, it’s just TV and movies this week! There’s some good stuff out these days.
*Side note that I threw on Doctor Odyssey while I wrote this and it is so bizarre and precisely the absurdist ridiculousness I needed as a backdrop to write against. I feel there absolutely has to be a twist coming… Craaaazy cameos. What a weird little show. I don’t hate it?
How To Die Alone | Hulu
Natasha Rothwell, of Insecure and White Lotus fame, is the creator and star of this comedy on Hulu. I related so deeply to her inner monologue about the interactions she had with other characters when it came to existing in the world as a fat woman. When describing her dating experience, she says “societal standards have made her like cilantro” AKA incredibly appealing to some and an absolute deal breaker for others. I chuckled out loud. She was requesting higher AC in her Ubers (something I have to do multiple times a week as a non-driving city dweller) and was told by her ex’s new girlfriend that she “had a pretty face” (IYKYK). But even if you don’t have the unique experience of existing in a larger body, I think you’ll enjoy this show. Be prepared for a seriously unserious time.
Teacup | Peacock
We are really enjoying this sci-fi thriller series starring Yvonne Strahovski (of Dexter and Handmaids Tale fame) about a series of inexplicable and otherworldly events on a Georgia farm. For fans of Leave the World Behind or Dark. If you’re looking for something a little unsettling and highly compelling, I absolutely recommend.
English Teacher | Hulu
All I have to say about this is - have you seen Brian Jordan Alvarez’s TikToks? If his commitment to the bit doesn’t convince you to watch, let me. Watch this!!!
Stepmom | Prime
I don’t know how I’ve never seen this movie before. It has incredible fashion, Julia Roberts + Susan Sarandon, interiors that Nancy Meyers would be jealous of, a depiction of the ever-elusive perfect 90s Christmas morning, and sweaters that rival Neil’s in The Santa Clause. It is incredibly, incredibly sad, but so worth the tears. If you somehow have also managed to miss this one, this is the perfect time of year as it progresses from fall through the holiday season in NYC + upstate NY (foliage for days). I watched it with a pot roast in the oven + a hot mug of apple cider in hand and I recommend you do the same.
See you in The Digest this week! xo
*There may be affiliate links in this post. If you purchase an item through these links, I’ll earn a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support*
The new version of the TSA bin trend, the grocery basket trend, is indicative of another very interesting convergence of interests in marketing - food and fashion, an intersection that’s becoming increasingly more common.
These nails in your photos from this past weekend in WV. I need them in my life. I know you’re my press on queen so if you have a link, please share!!
I watch Stepmom every November, the cry sesh always feels cathartic, and it's an essential fall vibe between Halloween and Christmas for me.
And love lavender!!!