Welcome to Freak Palace

The butler will see you in.

Welcome to Freak Palace, a newsletter driven by personal taste which I would describe as eclectic, esoteric and downright bizarre. For those who don’t know me, I am Isabel Slone, a fashion journalist who lives in Toronto, Ontario. I spend approximately 80% of my waking hours thinking about clothes. I think it’s the only thing I’ve ever truly loved: the act of self-creation that comes from picking out the exact items that externalize the nuances of one’s own existence. From 2006-2012, I wrote a blog called Hipster Musings, which about 20 people read, but those 20 people seemed to really like it. After that, I realized I wanted to write about fashion for a living and started penning stories for established publications. I gravitate towards the weird and wonderful, and have written about cottagecore for the New York Times, a paean to orthopedic shoes for New York Magazine and the counterintuitive appeal of Hooters for Playboy. 

So what is a freak palace? It’s a home in which a person has imprinted their personality on a space so thoroughly, it couldn’t possibly belong to anyone else: exactly what I intend to do with this newsletter. (Like this guy in Houston who covered his entire house in beer cans. Or this other guy in Philadelphia who decorated his car in household objects he found at Goodwill). It’s also the nickname I’ve given my Toronto apartment. I initially toyed with calling this newsletter Arcane Obsessions and making it a deep dive into all of the strange antique collectibles inhabiting space in my brain: Toleware, Jasperware, Lettuceware…I promise I am in objects that aren’t ceramics. Then I realized that pretty much everyone I know is much more interested in…clothes.

Some venerable examples of a Freak Palace

Most people really want to be told what to wear. Even more so in a time where seemingly anything goes and you can walk outside and get whiplash from trying to figure out all of the different styles that seem to be popular. Every day I see people wearing tiny tops, chunky mall goth boots, Matrix-style leather coats, aggressively baggy clothing that drags on the ground. This mélange can be baffling and I welcome any reader questions about how to navigate this increasingly confusing world. I promise to answer them in as generous and non-crochet-y way as possible.

I also wanted to start this newsletter because, well, media is dying. I love being a journalist but I’m always paranoid about how long it’s going to last and would like to build a safety net for myself that doesn’t involve moving back to my parent’s house or becoming an AirBnB landlord. I have a multitude of opinions about fashion – some popular, some not – and over the past few years, it’s become increasingly difficult to find outlets to publish them in. I intend to make this not only a catalogue of my tastes but a home for fashion opinion and feature stories that are more than just 400 words on some paparazzi picture of Bella Hadid. (Sorry, mainstream fashion publications.)

When I first embarked on my career, I wanted to be an essayist, in the most Lena Dunham sense of the word. (Remember, this was 2012.) I thought it was my calling to write personal essays and share my unique perspective with the world. However, journalism as a whole couldn’t have been less interested in my navel-gaze-y treatises and I quickly learned to crank out whatever the market wanted…trend-based feature stories with critical analysis. I think this is a shame, because heartfelt, lyrical personal essays are some of my strongest work. Ironically, half the time, people mistook my reported features for being personal anyways. (I’ll never forget the time I pitched a personal essay on sex negativity, the editors asked me to write it as a reported feature, then proceeded to misleadingly title the piece ‘Confessions of a Sexual Skeptic.’ Which kind of proves that the essay I could have written would have been way better anyways.)

As cringe-y as the concept of playing into the cult of personality may be, it helps to actually have one. So many people chase the dream of being an influencer without even knowing what they truly like or have to offer. Sorry to be mean, but those people suck. I’ve been scouring the depths of the internet trying to decode what I like for my entire life, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I have highly developed tastes and interests, which you’re at least mildly partial to or else you probably wouldn't be reading this.

When I’m not writing about outfits and clothing, I'll be writing about niche antiques things I’m obsessed with: homewares, antiques, kitchen items, books. Consider it a one-woman Strategist or Wirecutter, except I’m not trying to sell you on ‘the best,’ I’m simply sharing what I like and you’re welcome to go for it or not. What I like isn’t going to be the same for everyone else. This is the inside of my brain, a continuation of the blog I left behind many years ago. In a way it feels like a fresh start, but it also feels like something I’ve been doing all along.

Thank you for joining me along on this ride. It’s going be fun.