The Digest 20
Dead Dinosaur, mad for matte, and smell-o-vision
Welcome back
to the Digest, my weekly download on shit I found interesting and think you will too. Number 20! In today’s edition you’ll find the rising beauty trend I refuse to take part in, my weird childhood career ambition, the unlikely new hero of my haircare routine, multi-sensory marketing, and more about my beef with the rising star that is Gap. See you in the comments!
Happy digesting xx
Throughout the week, I keep track of everything that feels culturally relevant in the areas that I care about. I take that list from my notes app and turn it into this download of understanding consumer culture, tracking trends, and dismantling beauty standards to keep you in the loop on what I think you should know about this week. I hope you enjoy and take your time to Digest.
Think of this as a curated morning paper to replace your AM doom scroll, best read with coffee in hand
x Jo
“Fashion is entering its Jurassic era, according to FW25 runways”. Great niche news for those of us who thought we’d grow up to be paleontologists but chose fashion instead
I also discovered this week that “Dead Dinosaur” is a Snif fragrance, with notes of gasoline, pink pepper, and amber
Some are dubbing this NYFW trend “foil finishes”, some say it’s “wet shine” - but I’m calling it “oil slick” in honor of said dinosaurs
A coincidence?? Perhaps… File this under things I cannot bring myself to think about
Fashion week this year was particularly furry, fuzzy, and floofy. Materials that have previously been shunned like fur and leather made a strong return to the runway + street style set. I can’t help but feel like this is a symptom of our political swing to the right, right alongside the rise of cow milk and red meat
Stella McCartney’s new campaign “Save What You Love” features AI generated birds and “serves as a reminder that there could someday be a world where these creatures live only in fantasy”. The comments are starting to point out the harmful environmental effects of AI, so it’s a double edged sword of an effort for the longtime sustainability & “conscious luxury” advocate
I predicted a cruise ship renaissance in culture this year. Starting to see signs
Has anyone else watched Apple Cider Vinegar? You will endure hours of intense secondhand embarrassment and it will be worth it. The scenes in the last episode set to Vampire by Olivia Rodrigo? Absolutely top tier soundtrack decision. As
said, “It's like if the Inventing Anna creative team had seen The Substance and stopped at Erewhon”Related: “The Cancer Scams That Foreshadowed MAHA: Long before R.F.K., Jr., promised to “Make America Healthy Again,” wellness influencers were peddling a seductive promise of purity to the desperately sick”
Our fascination with scammers never seems to wane. Elizabeth Holmes is on the cover of people this week. Ironically her Hulu series counterpart Amanda Seyfried is on the cover of L’Officiel
My partner and I watched all available episodes of the new Love is Blind season, and we both kept saying it’s the most Republican season yet. So… exactly, yeah. Love is Bland, indeed
“Tradwives are the new food porn: we can't understand tradwives without understanding diet culture”
The beauty news I could not escape this week? Matte is back. Maybe for some of you - not me though. Further evidence: Kylie’s new product “calls back to the extreme matte looks of the King Kylie era”. Despite my personal resistance, it’s powder to the people time
Let’s talk about Gap. They were in the news quite a bit this week, and every time I see mention of Gap’s “great American comeback” (Vogue) , it ruffles my feathers a bit. The “Gapaissance” is only relevant if you can wear the brand - I can’t. And neither can a large portion of the population. Why does a brand for the everyday American ignore the huge chunk of Americans who exist in larger bodies?
One positive Gap note: “Gap champions Black designers with its latest Harlem’s Fashion Row collaboration”
On the flip side, Selkie is doing the damn thing. So many things to be said about this collection, which not only nestles itself right into the Rococo revival trend but also sticks to its inclusive guns in an Ozempic-fueled world. Also, more matte (in collaboration w Colourpop). The collection is named Libertine, “someone who ignores or even spurns accepted morals and forms of behaviour observed by the larger society”
Everyone wants you to know how to style an oversized suit right now. Everyone. See also: very unexpected look from Chappell. Hot girls are wearing ties right now
When I was a kid, I asked my mom if Ovaltine was allowed to call out Nesquick so blatantly in their commercials. Makes sense that I ended up working in branded content. Really interesting article here on borrowing vs stealing and copyright law in design by Composite favorite, Elizabeth Goodspeed
“Why do we fear ugliness and what can we learn from it?” A new book that “explores the other side of beauty – its sinister roots and systematic reality”
So are we all reverting back to drug store shampoo right now? Alix Earle popularized Pantene recently, but the trend is seeming to continue. I have been a hair snob forever (raised by hairdressers, worked in a salon for 5 years) but I switched my routine to the Garnier filler strength repair system and… my hair looks amazing
“Perfume without perfumers: Is AI a threat to the human nose?”
Move over, cherry, there’s a new fruit in town and she’s taking the fragrance market by storm
“What Does a Movie Smell Like? Into the strange and smelly world of film-based scent collaborations”. Absolutely fascinated by the reimagining of smell-o-vision, a trend I think we’ll see expanding. A24 partnered with a Brooklyn theater recently to pipe out “a bespoke blueberry fragrance into select Alamo Drafthouse theaters during a key scene” in Heretic. Everything will be turned into a multi-sensory marketing experience as time goes on
The “strategic tool brands can use to communicate in a world where attention is currency” (see Moschino Windex perfume)
NYFW beauty trends from this article that caught my eye: Galactic Hues (more space pls always), In The Dollhouse (many models described this season as “paper dolls”), Velvety Matte (sigh), and Exhaustion Blush / no concealer
See also hair trends, where Christian Cowan’s towering styles take the cake. Sky high hair spotted also in the gorgeous W Magazine spread of Ayo Edebiri that I’m sure you’ve seen already but probably want to see again. Ayo’s stylist also gave us a slew of fantastic looks from Ayo for SNL’s 50th anni, alongside this spectacularly stunning look for Saoirse Ronan at the BAFTAs
Gabe Gordon is an indie designer who was new to the NYFW schedule this season. His collection, Rubber Boyfriend, incorporated visuals from high school stereotypes, described as “runway-turned-1980s classic thriller”. Euphoria makeup artist Donni Davy’s brand, Half magic, was the beauty partner for the show, creating looks described as rubber doll & sex doll adjacent. And there was also.. tall hair!
“Inside The RealReal’s latest marketing bet: a new Gossip Girl-esque Substack newsletter”
Sabrina Carpenter’s Vogue cover shoot was beautiful, yes - but it feels predictable and too easy. I think it needed something fucking weird to make it good. But Vogue maaay not be the right publication to ask for that
Vogue Business’s menswear size inclusivity report “points to the evolution of male body standards in an age of Ozempic and conservatism”. Only 4 of 59 brands included at least one plus size male model
Wild card for fellow space lovers: just an absolutely fascinating article about how the human body reacts to being in space, studied through a comparison in identical twins
Here’s your discussion post topic for this week: What do you think of Emma Stone’s popcorn bucket dress? I must know your thoughts, drop them in the comments expeditiously
Mentioned this week:
Some other things I loved this week:
I’d love to know what resonated most with you this week so I can continue honing this newsletter into being the best version of itself. Thanks for reading!
<3
Ok the Emma Stone dress - I think it was just a fun little dress, not particularly ground breaking except for having exaggerated pockets. I don’t think it needed as much coverage as it’s gotten