Weekend Update

Sale PSA: Nike Air Max Dias in black/white, now under $60 (awesome shoe, awesome price), a linen shirtdress from Lafayette 148, now 60% off, and classic (!!) black ankle boots from Nicholas Kirkwood, now 60% off (I also like these Church’s penny loafers, also 60% off).

1. This week, sharing this great bag (on sale!), via Brother Vellies.

I have been looking for the PERFECT zebra bag. I love all the details of this one including the chain which doesn’t look cheap (which is the problem with a lot of chain link bags). The only issue – WHERE am I going to wear it? But it is so gorgeous and just the right size (big enough for a smartphone).

2. Sharing this piece, via The NY Times – the Virgil Abloh backlash. Do you have any thoughts on Virgil? I don’t think about him much, his designs don’t really speak to me (nor are they intended to, I think) – I kind of slot him with Hedi Slimane in my mind. Not interested.

4. Sharing this piece, via Buzzfeed: I Don’t Feel Like Buying Stuff Anymore.

4. And finally, a very thoughtful piece via Vulture, about “anti-racist” reading lists and who they are for. This is something I’ve struggled with. These books are helpful but I don’t think reading a title and snapping a photo and patting yourself on the back and proceeding on your merry way is necessarily “doing the work”. But shouldn’t we be encouraging all progress? I myself haven’t been doing the work. I know there’s so much more.

5. This week I read The Chiffon Trenches, by Andre Leon Talley.

This book surprised me. I was already really looking forward to it (high fashion gossip from the ALT? Sign me up!). And yet this book is so much more. It’s a memoir of ALT’s rise (and soft fall) in the fashion industry. There is a lot of super interesting gossip (Karl Lagerfeld, Anna Wintour, etc) but what really permeated this book for me was ALT’s sadness and determination. His friends die and he moves on. He is given awards and writes books and creates documentaries and moves on. He seems to remember every gift he’s ever given and received. He experiences terrible racism and you get the sense that he cannot accept it, or has brushed it off. ALT is flawed and you get the sense that he knows some of his flaws but not all of them..though he lays bare his truth as best as he can.

I felt like crying all through this book but the thing is it wasn’t always out of sadness. It was just from a man sharing his soul. I read a few negative reviews that people said ALT was “bragging” and I shut the page immediately, disgusted. I doubt they have any idea of what ALT has endured to get to his position. He should stand high and proud, and he does. I also read some reviews that said he should have done more to combat the racist behavior he experienced…or at least acknowledge it, which I think is a longer debate. Is it his responsibility to educate the racists? To put his career on the line? He was a young black man from the South, often the only black person in the room, in a undeniably white and classist and prejudiced culture. He survived and you get the feeling, reading it, that in order to survive he had to give up a part of himself. Suppress it, change it, maybe forever. Which is a tragedy. I read this in two days and am still thinking about it – what he wrote, how it made me feel. To me, there is no higher praise. I highly recommend The Chiffon Trenches.