🍸 OFF-MENU 002 🍸: "Play 𝓜𝓲𝓼𝓽𝔂 for me."

What I'm loving this week: NYFW, fish earrings, Audrey Hepburn's '70s style, and more

Good morning everyone! If you’re waking up to the sound of PR interns crying into their Crunchwraps, it’s because New York Fashion Week begins today. As per usual, we’ll be covering the shows for HALOSCOPE, so make sure you’re following us for updates. We’re speed-running our rating system, which I talked about earlier this week, and I’m curious to see what conversations spark.

Now, for some of my favorite things…

#1: These Martha Calvo fish earrings

Last Christmas, I got the perfect gift: a 1-on-1 consult with an astrologer, who told me Pisces would control the engine of my life this year. I have 0% Pisces in my chart — I’m an Earth sign, controlled, judicious, hard-bitten — and I dislike acquiescing to matters of the heart. But goddamn if she wasn’t right. This year I’ve been, more than ever, knee-deep in my creative element; tapping into my emotional intelligence; and very much a crybaby (no offense to my Piscean friends).

On an aesthetic level, Pisces is still pulling the levers. I’ve been very drawn to thalassic aesthetics — as if this newsletter wasn’t indicative enough — including these fish earrings from jewelry designer Martha Calvo. So sweet, funny, and mild, and I think they look more alluring and shocking for Fall/Winter than Spring/Summer.

#2: On takedowns

A piece from Miriam Gordis’ fabulous newsletter Small Wire on the nouveau art of the literary takedown (seen most notably earlier this year between Lauren Oyler and, well, everyone else — as well as, in Gordis’ words, Andrea Long Chu’s countless “vivisections”). We’re in an Internet era where everyone wants to be a tastemaker-cum-critic, with or without a relevant byline. Takedowns are as intoxicating for the proselytizers writing them as the parishioners reading them.

Gordis makes an unassailable point, here: “The takedown tends to reach backwards, comfortingly, to a well-known canon. Writers used to be good at writing and novels used to be better. The problem with writers now is that they do not heed the lessons of their predecessors.”

#3: This “I Hate New York” T-shirt

Let it be known that I had the original vintage cut wishlisted and it sold out — but this is a nice reprint from an indie designer on Etsy. Let it also be known that I vehemently disagree with everything Chloë Sevigny has said about California and feel about New York the way she feels about California. In the New York vs. L.A. vs. Chicago tetherball match, I’m L.A. all the way, baby. NY still has time to win me over, but it hasn’t happened yet, and I love seeing New Yorkers get so incensed. It’s cute. This is my They don’t build statues of critics crop-top.

#4: The Tabbisocks Museum Collection

TABBISOCKS! I wrote about this Japanese brand when Dirt asked me about my favorite socks earlier this year, and I still stand by my choices — including the Tabbisocks Museum Collection, AKA 50+ patterns from famous paintings and textiles printed onto craftsman-made nylon tights. These are my favorites: a pair of Renaissance tapestry tights poxed with winding flowers, lions, peacocks, and unicorns. Insane.

#5: Audrey Hepburn’s ‘70s style

Inspired by a tweet I saw earlier this week that I can’t seem to find anymore, so you’ll have to take me at my word — in essence, it was arguing how troublesome it is that we rarely see photos of Hepburn throughout the latter half of her life, and I’m inclined to agree. We (women included, unfortunately) tend to chafe at the idea of ingénues needing another light; at beauty queens developing crow’s feet; at the people we prize for their attractiveness suddenly challenging our ideas of attraction. We think of it in terms of betrayal, and our words, even meant kindly, are often peppered with “but,” “still,” and “nevertheless.” I do think it’s because it reminds us of our individual senescence, and we cannot grapple with the fact that even beautiful people age, change, and die. (We also cannot grapple with the fact we can be — and usually are — attracted to people older than us, sometimes far older, but that’s another essay).

If you’re able to put your fears of aging to the side, even momentarily, you’ll see that many of these beautiful people found much richness — and arguably became far more interesting — as they got older. Hepburn is no exception. Much like Jackie O., I think her best style surfaced in the ‘70s and ‘80s, as she entered her 50s. She’s not chic and sophisticated despite her age, but rather chiefly because of it.

#6: Play Misty For Me (dir. Clint Eastwood, 1971)

I’m not the target audience for Clint Eastwood movies and probably never will be. I fell asleep during The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (I know, I know) and I will never get the hours watching American Sniper back. However, this has that lazy, alluvial thing (see: every Altman movie, especially The Long Goodbye) that I really love, and it’s so crazy seeing a young Jessica Walter play not-Lucille Bluth. The perfect movie for rainy, sleepy, sexy days.

SPEAKING OF WHICH — I’ve been in a ‘70s sex thriller mood. Can’t explain it, really; when I feel the Muses call to me, I answer. I’m thinking Klute next, but I’m open to suggestions.

#7: “Misty,” Lesley Gore (1963)

And finally: the definitive version of “Misty,” at least, for me.

See you on Tuesday. ꩜