The Digest 29
pucci prints, sunscreen smells, and $28,000 fruit salad
Welcome back!
I’m officially OOO until next Wednesday to celebrate my birthday**, and after hitting send on this newsletter I plan to slam my laptop shut until then. I’ll be drinking martinis and playing hostess this weekend, then spending Monday eating oysters poolside at The Rockaway hotel. Wanted to give you one more to read while I’m gone, so please enjoy. Talk soon xoxo
**after I hit send I realized that the 29th Digest is going out the day before my 29th birthday 🥹**
At The Composite, we serve up a curated collection of culture, beauty, and critique. Think of The Digest as your quick, thoughtful read to replace the doom scroll, offering a bite of everything you need to stay in the loop. Come hungry. Leave questioning everything.
Aperitif
A little taste of what’s to come
Trending Tidbits:
These trends are tracked not for following, but for what they reveal. Not necessarily an endorsement, but a thought starter
⚪️ Ghost Lashes
Recommended Reading
📖 What’s Happening to Reading?
📖 Am I hot or not? People are asking ChatGPT for the harsh truth
📖 Turns Out, The Cure for Body Insecurity Is a Sex Party
📖 It’s time South Asian fashion finally got its credit
The Main Course:
A selection curated to keep you fed
Food x fashion, beauty x beverage - these things are not new. I’ve been writing about them since the inception of this newsletter. But I saw perhaps unprecedented levels of FxF and BxB news this week. A starter course on this for you:
🍴Beauty x bev is hot hot hot. Eos x Blue Moon and Tarte x Dunkin both dropped this week. Laneige recently released a Boba-inspired collection
🍴Seeing lots of social posts with lip products in drinks and glasses (ft. Summer Fridays and Lancome)
🍴Tory Burch popped up in NYC with cult favorite Swedish candy brand Bon Bon
🍴“This summer, people aren't just eating hot dogs — they're wearing them”
🍴People are shelling out major cash for levity in the shape of novelty jewelry designs, including a $25,000 hamburger ring and $28,000 fruit salad earrings
🍴I wrote earlier this week about the ~scintillating~ showdown between Sardine Girl Summer and Lobster Girl Summer. You can read that here
🍴J.Crew is leaning heavily into the aesthetics of Italian cuisine - also here. They’re also leveraging something I’m seeing more and more: social posts that focus on the senses. All of this is in promotion of a trip to Puglia with “a few of their friends”
🍴 From @opulentstylings on IG: “Why fashion and food is the perfect mix”, featuring Celine, Fendi, Prada, Balenciaga, Jacquemus, Miu Miu, YSL, and more
🍴From Fashionista: “A Guide to New York’s Many Fashion Brand-Owned Restaurants and Cafes”, featuring Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, Armani, and Tiffany & Co
🍴Longchamp has a temporary cafe in NYC, open now until July 6th
A couple of food-but-not-fashion pieces:
🍎 “We’re producing more food than ever before — but not for long”
🍎 “Is Food Really Better in Europe?”
🍎 “This Summer We’re Eating in Grocery Stores”
🍎 “What Does Virality Taste Like?”
🍎 “For Zohran Mamdani, Food Is Personal, Political, and Powerful” (NYC: Rank Zohran #1! Don’t rank Cuomo!)
On to regularly scheduled programming:
I regret to inform you that this unfortunate trend is back. It’s everywhere. Really, everywhere. Idk makes me feel like you’ll bully me if you wear this
Glossier advertised their new body mists + Body By Glossier line with influencer mailers that included retro viewfinders loaded with the campaign imagery
Harper’s Bazaar wrote about the return of the fashion catalog
The checkout counter is a thing of the past
Content creator Rylee Phillips’s “hyper-fixation for Polyvore collages and 2000s teen culture manifests itself in the ability to fully encapsulate a character based on beauty products alone” - her content curates their vanities of fictional characters (it’s good)
Kraft Heinz announced that they are going to remove all artificial dyes from their products by end of 2027. I suppose we’ll never see the purple ketchup of our childhood come back to life
On the topic of things from the past -
published an interview with Sophie Gilbert, author of the book I recommended in last week’s Digest, about the unsettling return to ‘00s lip gloss and regressive ideas about womenThis is the color I’m noticing popping up everywhere right now, specifically by the name “celadon” - see here on Old Navy, for example
“Brands wanted to make SPF more fun. But do they still work?” - sun protection is being packaged into unexpected formats (whipped creams, bars and solids, mists). The article also cites product “sensoriality” as a major purchase driver
It’s true: unsurprisingly, the scented sunscreen sector is booming. New-to-me sunscreen brand Coola, a brand that leans into “sensorial storytelling” is teaming up with Voluspa on a scented SPF
Formats across categories are shifting - “why your next bottle of shampoo might come in a soda can”
Lots of chatter about lit girl summer this week. Elle said the season is upon us once again, claiming the current it-bag is a “Tote That Holds a Book (and Little Else)”
Beis dropped the “Book Tote”, dubbing it an “overachieving style” part of their campus collection
Author Zadie Smith is featured in Bottega’s newest campaign
The Cut wrote about a cultural movement towards learning despite slashed federal funding for education, AI slop, broken attention spans, and low literacy rates. It heavily features
, a Substack that publishes themed syllabi in service of “curated literary conversations”Extremely, extremely excited about this book dropping in March 2026. Nothing Tastes As Good is “a literary thriller/horror about food, fat, and the weight loss industrial complex”. HELLO!!
Reese Witherspoon’s media company Hello Sunshine announced a Gen Z spinoff, Sunnie. It has a mission I can get behind - help young women feel seen in media and show up on their own terms. E.l.f also seems to be involved.
, Gen Z expert, had some insights into how they’ve missed the mark so far. C’mon Sunnie - I want to see you succeed!! It’s also very hard to find the website, which is oddPinterest is making moves this week. They’ve partnered with e.l.f on “color e.l.f.nalysis”, an AI driven tool to help you find your makeup shade color season
Pinterest also dropped their first-ever cobranded product: a coffee blend with Chamberlain Coffee, inspired by Pinterest Predicts’ Fisherman aesthetic as well as Emma Chamberlain’s personal Pinterest board. I really like the campaign video’s vibe
Modest fashion is still in the headlines, as I mentioned last week. Once again it’s also being discussed in the realm of swimwear, with tankinis, swim shirts, and board shorts all being referenced in this swim trends article
I wrote a while ago about Nuuly’s hyper-local influencer events strategy. Rothy’s is following a similar playbook, but with Substack stars. Their goal is to turn the platform’s “intimate digital communities into meaningful, real-life experiences”
Drybar’s founder Alli Webb is changing her tune with her new anti-blowout hair care line Messy. She says she feels “driven to empower women and give them permission to not have a perfect blowout”. Right…
ASOS is having a pop up in NYC - and yes, they have plus sizes (if you’re a consistent reader, you know what they did last summer week. I have not forgotten!!)
Considering how long I have been griping about Gap’s lack of inclusivity, it is not surprising to me that the face of Gap Studio’s new drop is Lila Moss
The comments on this callout of Skims’ misleading representation of the fiber content of their “Sheer Cotton” collection are cracking me up. “KOTTON, with a K. It’s just a KONCEPT. no cotton harmed in the making; just ✨sheer vibes ✨”
The release of NIKESKIMS, the new combined brand of the two standalones, has been delayed
I’ve spoken at length about the commoditization of sleep. Valentino’s 2026 Resort lookbook features all the models sleeping or lounging in bed
What fashion gets wrong about the culture of sports, aesthetic performance vs true investment through fashion x sports, and more in this Hurs article (fun format)
Related: “How an Elephant Became One of Today’s Hottest Influencers”
Digestif:
A download on this week’s hard pill to swallow
Skipping the hard pill this week because, well.. it’s my birthday and I want to be free from the shackles of disappointing fashion until I’m on the other side of 29.
Dessert:
A weekly book rec as the cherry on top
For fans of The Substance and Black Mirror, Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang is an entrancing body horror and sinister social commentary that follows a young woman working at Holistik, a startup shilling futuristic beauty products that alter your appearance. The story is a devastating takedown of Western beauty standards that exposes the dark underbelly of assimilation and the steep price we willingly pay to fit in at any cost.
*I also highly recommend her new book Immaculate Conception*
^^how I plan to be this weekend^^
If you’re here for a new perspective on fashion, beauty, and culture, you’re in the right place. Pull up a chair. The table is wide, and the conversation is layered.