What I Can’t Live Without: May 2024 Edition
A monthly catalogue of obsessions
Earlier this week, I noticed Héctor Bellerín, a Spanish footballer who I’ve been following since his deeply thoughtful interview with Blackbird Spyplane in 2022, launched his own clothing line, Gospel Estudios. The announcement felt familiar, and not necessarily in a good way. Apparently his desire to start a brand came out of a “journey questioning how [he] could solve dilemmas [he] encountered when consuming clothes.” Based on the images available, the brand appears to be: hoodies with balaclava face masks and…nylon cargo pants.
As a fashion journalist, I’ve interviewed what I estimate to be hundreds of people who have started their own brands, and each time the story is exactly the same: “I couldn’t find this [insert niche item], so I decided to make it myself.” It’s a tired narrative that has long descended into cliché, to the point where any time I hear this answer I can’t help but roll my eyes internally. In the case of Gospel Estudios, it’s doubly baffling because why say your brand is solving a dilemma then neglect to mention exactly what that dilemma is?
Everyone starts a brand thinking they’re going to solve a problem but realistically, introducing another consumer good to the market doesn’t really solve anything. In fact, it’s more likely to just create more problems. We could probably still be chewing on twigs for toothbrushes like people did in prehistoric society and literally still be fine. If consuming clothes presents a “dilemma” for you, or you can’t seem to find what you want, I would highly suggest taking a deep breath and refining your search terms. The world isn’t screaming out for lack of nylon cargo pants. I promise you, what you want is already out there.
Okay enough crowing. Without further ado I bring you everything I’m obsessed with this month.
What I’m Considering
It’s that time of year again, the SSENSE sale, and this is what my cart looks like. Everyday I refresh it waiting for the prices to go down. The MM6 dress may not look like anything special but I tried it on at Ewanika earlier this year and fell in love with its Benedictine monkish austerity. I can see myself wearing it at least once a week in cold weather. Then, last week I went to a David Zwirner gallery opening in LA and saw someone wearing a pair of barrel leg trousers so perfect I had to stop and ask about them. They turned out to be the Studio Nicholson Chalco pant. I have no idea if the style will suit me/look good but that’s kind of a moot point unless the price goes down…
What I Actually Bought
Regular readers of Freak Palace (Freakers?) know I’ve been on the bloomers beat since last year, so when I saw Montreal-based designer Hannah Isolde launched the ultimate pair — white cotton, elasticated ruffles, forgiving waistband — I knew I was waiting for this exact pair. I can’t wait to flit around this summer in these prissy pants, pairing them with white crop tops and weird orthopaedic shoes for a look that’s distinctly “little lad” dressed in his underwear.
What I’m Reading/Watching/Enjoying
I was surprised and delighted by Schuyler Mitchell’s on “frozen yogurt as a recession-era emblem of decadence and restraint.” If you’re not sold yet, here’s a quote:
Right now, especially, nobody knows what the hell to make of desire. People are fucking less, staying home more, epidemically lonely and isolated. Popular weight loss drugs suppress hunger, wiping out the desire for food and its attendant delights. Put simply in the language of the zeitgeist: Body positivity lowkey fell off. Meanwhile, inflation’s still high, affordable housing scarce, and industry-wide layoffs abound across sectors. It’s harder to tap into desire during times of precarity, indulgence eclipsed by basic survival imperatives. When the thinking and feeling halves coalesce — well, I guess that that’s called pleasure. All of this has me thinking, naturally, about frozen yogurt.
For those who inhabit a particular sphere of the slow fashion internet, you’ve no scrolled past these seed-flecked Plasticana clogs and wondered…what’s the deal? I’m drawn to the look but tried on a pair at Baa Bazaar last year and — ouch, unbelievably uncomfortable. The jelly sandals were awful too with zero support. Now every time I spot someone wearing these shoes, I marvel at internally at how unspoiled their arches must be.
Hilary George-Parkin wrote a great story on the flattening of retail categories and how everything is lumped together now, not just because of social media and the DTC boom, but also the “age-old teenage desire to look glamorous and mature”…Worth a read!
Casey writes the amazing newsletter about Gen Z viral trends, After School, which you are all probably following already, and her post about boat shoes cracked me up. A number of publications have been proclaiming 2024 to be the ‘year of the boat shoe’ despite the fact that remarkably few people IRL are wearing the look. You know what people ARE wearing? RealTree camo. People love that shit. I saw like 6 people a day in LA sporting RealTree: hats, shirts, pants, you name it.
What I’ve Written
Ghostwrote this memoir by Christina Chung, a gardener who grows exotic fruit like Chilean guava and Schisandra berries in her Vancouver front year for Maclean’s. A great companion story to the one I wrote last year about an incredibly eccentric woman growing exotic fruit on a farm in Nova Scotia.
I also modelled the ‘trash trench’—a limited edition digital garment—for Dirt in collaboration with digital fashion house DRAUP. Weird and cool and fun!
What Made Me Laugh
Last Word
This hat. 💀 Too good.
You killed this! Piece de rèsistance