Style's Week #17: Silly Season
Helmut Newton, Vurgalisation, Vogue's September Issue, the Stock Market, Tech accessories, and more.
Style’s Week is a weekly series covering the hottest media trends, business, culture and shopping. It is edited by Kevin Robles, and sent between Friday and Sunday.
Dear FBS,
Happy Friday! It’s the weekend. And it’s silly season.
That time of the year when everyone is on vacation and the news cycle slows away from hard business, and because the seats of government are mostly empty, silly season is characterized by trivial and frivolous news stories. But is that really happening? Where are the politicians in bathing suits we can poke a little fun at?
In an election year peppered with insults, it can feel that silly season is being skipped altogether. Or, that the eerie tone of the stock market, makes the silly season stand on edge. But perhaps it’s not so much that silly season isn’t here, it could be that with the memefication of culture and the Internet, silly season lives in perpetuity.
I find what helps to take the edge off in August is miming my Golden Retriever’s downward dogs, listening to other people’s music playlists, and taking pictures. How do you live out the last full month of summer?
I had a bit of writer’s block this week. I like to think of it as being under a sort of magic spell. A time to step back and take stock of the subject. When this happens, photography lets me live through the magic of the unknown that is captured in an image. Knowing that once le writing block spell is over, I will have a more defined view of the subject at hand.
And like a draw from a deck of tarot cards, I read up on Helmut Newton. A photographer known perhaps better for his soul-searching for the sun, rather than of his subjects. He photographed them in the 1970s splendour equated by Vogue to, “some over-tan lady to just keep those stilettos on all day long—even, perhaps, while standing around the house nude.” Before the 1980s threw layers of suiting on women.
When le writing block rears its prickly head, maybe it’s time for change.
Picture, an empty set of legs on stilettos walking past the black lacquer door of a hotel room in the Côte d'Azur. A woman hoisted on a saddle behind a piano settled atop the back of a chair. Or wearing the saddle herself, posing on all fours on a bed. Nuns, priests, noire stockings and more stilettos, models posing in tuxedoes holding cigarettes in the lifeless streets of Paris.
Or, the style classic of four models walking on set as if they were in the street in Paris, draped in suits in the early 1980s, fabulously ignoring their outfits, at a time when the draping of the 1970s was being refashioned into professional garb.
Perhaps one of my favorite pictures from Newton’s body of work is of a fashion model stretched out on her back in the back of a limo in a black halter-top baby doll dress covering her crotch with her hand.
If fashion isn’t for the prude, it certainly is for the prudent.
The picture exposed happiness. But how to find it? How to draw out that big inner laugh?
There’s certainly a room for it. Alison Beard wrote for the Harvard Business Review, “Laughter relieves stress and boredom, boosts engagement and well-being, and spurs not only creativity and collaboration but also analytic precision and productivity”. Sign me up!
Whether it’s through the productivity of a list, having more time outside, or simply talking to a complete stranger, finding value in life’s silly moments offers you a fresh dose of perspective. It can be going to the comedy club, or watching reruns of your favorite sex columnist, Carrie Bradshaw, with a friend.
Perhaps what we all need is to let out a big, honking, loud, room-filling laugh. To have a kitchen dance party!
When I was a candidate for my master's degree I apprenticed at the market research agency Kantar. For my class’ first week at the company, our CEO organized a breakfast. She gave one of the multiple speeches I would hear during my two-and-a-half-year tenure at the company.
She discussed her vision for our program, data management, and insights, and singled out a word about development that has stayed with me since: vulgarisation.
The idea was that we offer complex information to people through accessible language that connects us. It allows us to create content and communicate through language that is clearer, qualitative, and performs better.
In the end, the soft skills behind connectivity can help you find a new source of joy. After all, that’s what’s key to style, moments worth looking forward to.
Let’s get down to business.
NEWS:
On the streets of Paris, the phone strap is the newest must-have accessory. (Elle Dresses Well)
Around the time that Jacquemus created the ridiculous Le Chiquito bag, if I do say so myself, (Fall-Winter 2019), a purse so tiny it could only fit a set of keys, some gum, a lipstick, a pack of Vogue cigarettes and a bic lighter, bags seemed obsolete. The ridiculously small bag was a reaction of the shift to digital and mobile first productivity. If you can pay with Apple Pay, do you really need your wallet to run to the downstairs supermarket?
Enter the the phone strap that is worn on the streets of Paris as shoulder bags, strapped across the body, or as chain necklaces. When I was working at Celine I’d make the argument: it’s a tech bag that puts you in control. You have two credit card holders and a compartment for the phone. If you’re going out and just feel natural, it’s really all you need.
Hair conditioner is out, hair masks are in. (Vogue)
Blake Lively is on the cover of September Vogue. The issue, featuring Lively as a jewelry thief, didn’t land on the press kiosk without a bit of commotion. In an interview with Andrew Sean Greer, Lively tells the story behind the bouffant: “we turned [the fitting] into a multi-hour photo shoot with hair dryers becoming wind machines and me mounting a [Vogue office] desk and people with flashlights creating lighting effects.”
In a podcast episode of The Run Though, Lively promotes the new haircare line she’s launched with Target, Blake Brown, which controversially was developed without a conditioner. She tells Vogue, “my hair was once messed up on set and when I went to the salon they told me, ‘stop using conditioner, what you should be doing is alternating between a strengthening mask and a nourishing mask. Root for your routine.’”
If you need convincing, Tina Knowles is another purveyor of the adage, saying, “Don’t leave conditioner on your hair. When you get out of the shower, your hair should be squeaky clean”.
If it’s the natural look you’re after, or as Gen Z likes to call it, “Natty”, I like this advise.
I swear by Kérastase when it comes to hair care. It helps keep my full, thick black lengths under control.
The cover was directed by Baz Luhrmann, and styled by Tonne Goodman.
, columnist at Magasin, is editing a new men’s wear style vertical. (Magasin)
I wrote about subversive preppy style recently. On that canon, I like the idea of washed sun faded polo shirts by Gant.
Faubourg Saint-Honoré was featured this week. (What Looks Good)
Thank you to FBS friend,
, for featuring us on What Looks Good. I picked up my fresh pair of suede Sebago’s this week, and I’m thrilled to close out my summer in them. Jolain wrote of Henley’s this week,“Many credit Ralph Lauren for its revival in the 70’s, though I would say it was always around in a less glamorous, men’s undergarment sort of way. Women have adopted it for decades now as an alternative to a straight tee.”
I hadn’t thought about Henley’s in a while, and I like the idea of having a variety of basics that can be dressed up or down. With a Prince of Wales sports jacket and a pair of Levi’s in mind, I’m starting to think about the fall.
Alright—time to check out. And remember, there are ups and there are downs. Maybe it’s a good weekend to fly a kite in Manhattan. Wouldn’t that look good? I’ll see you next week.
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We definitely need silly season over here! But the mood has lightened tremendously with the new and much livelier democratic ticket. Loved your insight and thank you for the shout out!
Friend just got back from Tokyo and she bought a phone strap bcs it was so popular over there too! I am too addicted to my giant water bottle to live that life but it seems very natural as you say!