Ann Friedman - Growing up with the fashion internet

I took a moment this week to time-travel to the early fashion internet era, which I experienced as a fan, not a contributor. Here I am at a large desktop computer in my fluorescent-lit cubicle, sharing posts from Hel-Looks and White Lightning with friends on Google Reader. Here I am reblogging vintage Anjelica Huston photos on my Tumblr. Here is a copy of FRUiTS on my bookshelf. Here are my layered silk scarves and my gold-sequined tube top. Here is my bold lip.

Ah, the late aughts, now smeared with the vaseline of nostalgia! “No one was being paid to promote any product or brand; everyone was genuinely just their authentic self,” the photographer Tommy Ton told Emilia Petrarca. It’s hard to not feel a bit cranky-elder about how things have evolved. I hate the affiliate-link internet, the “best jeans for most people” internet, the internet where three-month trend cycles barely blink to acknowledge the harms of disposable fashion. I am on a perpetual hunt for remnants of the mood-board internet, the archive-digging internet, the weirdos-wearing-what-they-want internet. It’s still out there. I find it in some corners of TikTok, on a few Substacks that are not shopping-oriented, and in my sewing-centric Pinterest feed.

Mostly, my inspiration hunt is offline at estate sales and in thrift stores and, increasingly with each passing year, in my own closet. With respect to those who fret about vibe shifts and plead for help in finding their “middle-aged style,” one of my many aging-related pleasures is having a well-seasoned wardrobe. Arabelle Sicardi, who I started following in the fashion-blogging heyday, writes, “My closet hasn’t changed much since I fell in love with fashion - it’s more lived in, more actualized.” 

There is a fine art to figuring out what should survive a closet purge, what could be remade or repurposed, and what should just be shoved into a storage box for awhile. I enjoy a three-step system from an internet-famous stylist as much as the next gal, but I don’t think this is something that another person can ever fully teach you. Because it’s about knowing your own taste and trusting the voice deep within you saying, “That gold-sequined tube top is a forever piece.”

Indeed, I wore it on Saturday night, to great effect! I think my early-aughts self would have liked the look enough to Gchat a photo of it to a friend.

"In my experience," writes Heather Havrilesky, "almost every scandal involving a successful woman quickly transforms into a chorus of voices repeating the talking points of unprincipled men, who lavish attention on a beautiful, smart woman when times are good and then treat her like a leper when she falls out of public favor." [Ask Molly]

Jack Self on the walls that surround the ultra-rich: "My main observation is that for individuals born into extreme wealth, it is almost impossible to grasp anything about material or social reality." [MacGuffin magazine, via Seb Emina] And Matt King on the mass timber aesthetics—and environmental benefits—of Milwaukee's wood skyscraper. [Belt magazine]

Poor unfortunate loaves: Anna Merlan on tradwives' terrible bread. [Flaming Hydra]

"Think of friendship as a tapestry," writes Aaron Edwards. "It starts with its first seams—a meeting at a party, an introduction, a spark at a concert. Sometimes you’re knitting it together, sometimes one person is working overtime, and sometimes you stop and look at what you’ve made and know that it’s time to set it down, let it breathe, or let it evolve." [Slate] Plus Sarah Wheeler on cis-het dads' paths to intimate friendship. [Romper]

And a poem that made me cry:
"She loves to visit her friends
In their cities
In their 1 year leases
In their crises
In their love stories" [Shea Stanley]

Proxy, a new-ish podcast from Yowei Shaw that's all about connecting strangers and experts who have shared experience. (See also: Yowei's song about being laid off.)

Thanks for this, Abby! (Relevant to last week's subject line.)

Writing fellowship alum Nereya Otieno wrote to tell me she recently heard an artist remark, "Your community is what you interact with even on the days you don't talk to nobody."