034: Dakota Butler isn't the fashion girl you think she is
034: Dakota Butler isn't the fashion girl you think she is
Plus Nordstrom's Winter Sale, an unlikely Eckhaus collab, and where to pre-order Proenza straight from the runway.
I wanted to take a little more time and expand on a few of the really moving designers I saw last week and drop some links to make supporting them (in the mutually serving exchange called commerce) a little more direct—should you so desire!
Despite being shown by appointment only, Commission was one of the most talked-about collections—I see this as the realism effect, basically, contrary to the theory that we’re all dressing for parties all the time just because, Commission’s also giving us everyday wearable pieces with clever but not in-your-face signatures like cutouts and contrast panels. A Net-A-Porter darling since being selected as part of its Vanguard fund, however lamentably low stock at present, they’re also on SSENSE and Farfetch where FW21 is on sale. They told me they’d be stocked at in a few more major retailers including Dover Street Market this coming season, so that’s something to look forward to.
Proenza Schouler’s FW22 collection was a big alignment for me, having never fully connected with the designs until now. Moda Operandi already has it available for pre-order, but only for a couple of weeks, so I’m waiting with a few nervous tabs open to make my early investment. The toe-worshiping moulded mules that share kinship with Celine Pirates, Margiela Tabis, Pierre Cardin Magrittes, and maybe most of all the Vivienne Westwood Animal Toe shoes are a top contender.
Just as Carly Mark was sending her AW22 Puppets & Puppets collection down a snaking runway at Ukrainian Village, her brand was getting picked up by a few more choice retailers. Now found on Nordstrom SPACE and Bergdorf’s, Puppets & Puppets seems likely to increase its commercial appeal, a goal hinted at by the more wearable (though still true-to-form fantastical) mini skirts and knits revealed last week.
Maryam Nassir Zadeh needs no introduction in this space, and it’s no secret that MNZ Shop hosts some of the best emerging designers and least resistible sales. But truth be told, if you want to, you can generally find Maryam pieces marked down even further on Luisa Via Roma and, yes, SSENSE.
As for a few of the smaller brands, I wouldn’t overlook Maiden Name, an apparel and object project who’ll be opening a brick and mortar in New York later this year, which is sure to broaden the impact of their unique folk approach. And Connor McKnight, who’s giving vintage gorpcore the luxury treatment in tandem with bar-none tailoring, is soon to be launching at previous Magasin feature Tal’s Colbo.
What’s new
The “wearable art” thing gets thrown around very, very liberally, but what Sinead O’Dwyer does in both medium and message can only be described as just that. Since launching her brand in 2018, her signature rubber breastplates custom-moulded to the wearer’s (typically far from sample-sized) body have attracted the attention of stylists as editorial fodder as well as album cover garb for musicians like Kelsey Lu and Tsunaiana—who’s become something of a muse. Until now, her designs have not been available commercially, but an SSENSE capsule of ruched, body-spiraling experimentations and crystal-cut corsets is bringing O’Dwyer to the mass market.
Julia Fox discourse may be dead or at least a shameful topic amongst the painfully online self-installed brokers of relevance across the internet, but her Markle Sparkle impact on brands is still carrying out its butterfly effect. Miaou, who provided components of her low-rise leather pants uniform over the Ye days, is cashing in with an Urban Outfitters collab featuring swirly tribal mesh and corsets. They’re priced pretty favorably, too, with almost everything under $100.
A new collab demon we never thought we’d have to look out for? Dubiously named winter wear brand Moose Knuckles has followed up its successful partnership with astronomically ascendant Telfar by releasing a six-SKU collection with Eckhaus Latta. Diamond-quilted leather puffer coats and snowboarding pants couldn’t feel less in line with the latter’s Bushwick-to-downtown-dictating uniform, but I’m certain the right dedicated wearer could throw a decontructed knit in their direction and change up the whole subtext.
If you, too, have reached the point in your skin’s wintry decomposition that merely staying on top of moisturizer and drinking however many glasses of water a day you do is not enough, Glossier has proven once again that its timing is impeccable. Its latest release, After Baume, works like an emergency responder to cold weather chapping as well as excess sun, over exfoliation, and zealous retinol use, so we can properly rehab before spring is back.
To honor the newsletterers that ‘slettered before me, I must dutifully inform you that Harling Ross (known better to some of you as a Man Repeller alum) has collaborated with Fanm Mon. The adorable collection of creamy, flower bud-adorned knit cardigans and beanies comes in your choice of cotton or wool.
At some point in this newsletter’s 33 previous sends, I accidentally developed a habit of relaying whenever a new cool underwear brand launches on SSENSE. Well folks, it has happened again! Cou Cou Intimates’ pointelle cotton thongs and briefs—the ones making their rounds on Instagram—have landed in packs of three for your bum’s consecutive delight.
If you’re a CUUP loyalist (who among us…), they, too, have dropped a Valentine’s-y bomb with its Satin Collection, which comes in black, pink, and a titillating green “Vine Shine” shade.
There’s also: Tekla reveals a new terry collection adding robes to the mix; jewelry brand and color theorist J.Hannah teams up with Kindred Black (name a more perfect match) to launch an impossibly elegant, metal-encased fragrance; Jimmy Choo and Mugler collaborate on a line of sheer sock boots; New Balance 574s get the Miu Miu treatment but they’re already deep in the StockX vortex; Nigo’s first kimited-edition collection for Kenzo, titled “Boke,” releases; YanYan knits launches new styles on Nordstrom; PH5 drops its Spring ‘22 activewear knits collection; Eadem’s newest product, a melanin-friendly moisturizer, lands at Sephora; Ghia launches a limited-edition waffle mix bundle with Ghetto Gastro featuring its Nutella-like Ghianduja; Miaou drops its spring collection, and it’s full of hot new corsets; The Arrivals veers acutely into stylish performancewear thru a fresh collab with MAAP; and the instantly (in no uncertain terms) iconic print publishing only just introduced last week, Black Fashion Fair, maybe be sold out, but the collaborative Warby Parker collection that helped fund it is still available.
What’s on sale
Stealth luxury and wealthy Connecticut aunts have a bond many of us shops-The-Row-on-YOOX folk don’t care much to contemplate in our own pursuits. But because Nordstrom survived, nay, thrived through the era of “pivot to ecommerce” while Barneys floundered, based entirely on courting that group, means regardless of how un-Dover-Street it may strike us, Nordstrom’s sales (onto its big Winter one currently) remain an unparalleled source for grossly marked down Max Mara, Lafayette 148 New York, Akris, St. John, and Fabiana Filippi. Consider the 70% off Mackintosh x Loro Piana Wool Field Jacket a middle ground between these desirables and the Thom Browne, Khaite, Rick Owens, and Off-White also quickly disappearing at the same discount.
Verishop’s sales tend to be full—this one’s nearly 2,500 products deep—but they’re never as willy nilly with the discounts as we’re seeing today. Marked percentages off reach 60%, but everything is eligible for an additional 30% off with MINE22. It’s easy to get lost in the fashion section with all the Nanushka and Studio Nicholson peppered in, but home and beauty boast tempting deals, too.
I asked on IG recently which stores people could scroll endlessly, and previous Magasin feature Oren responded that, for him, it was END. I don’t spend a ton of time here, which has been a mistake, but I also recently made the mistake of allowing myself to spend hours scrolling through their uniquely generous sale section. No matter how long anyone scrolls, though, they’d never be the wiser to a secret Burberry sale happening right now, where you can get 40% off with BURBERRYSALE.
There’s also: Martine Rose’s sale drops shoes, jerseys, and more down below $100; Labucq is archiving a handful of styles via a tempting sale; Rag & Bone’s sale reaches up to 60% off; Matchesfashion’s Winter Essentials Sale is on and full of good Marni and Isabel Marant; Tibi’s End-of-Season Sale goes up to 70% off; even though there’s nothing that would fit adults (I checked), The Row’s kids line is on private sale at SSENSE; and a few more good things on SSENSE private sale (log in to see them)—a Loewe knit, a Jacquemus half-zip, a Jil Sander knotted-strap bag, and Tekla towel sets.
Dakota Butler would rather be gaming
On the pleasures of obsolete media and oat milk.
Dakota Butler may have caught your eye on Instagram for her expertly slung Lemaire Croissant bag or her cache of greige coats, but in reality, the arbiter of taste and unapologetic smoker isn’t the fashion girl you think she is. In fact, she’d sooner consider a career on Twitch than allow trends to have any sway in her style. Magasin catches up with Dakota on her recent fashion-agnostic purchases, below.
D: My last fashion job was at Totokaelo, RIP, but these days I just don't care about fashion anymore. I don't keep up on trends, not that I ever really have. Now, being out of the fashion industry and into more design and more arts, I almost completely forget about it outside of buying myself new clothes. Even then I think about what I wear, not in the sense of whether I'm fashionable, but if I look presentable in a more professional way.
Every time I have a day off, I almost always go to a bookstore and I just buy books that interest me. I can talk about that forever. Mast Books is honestly my number one go-to, and they're kind of funny. I don't often go to the East Village, but it's kind of relaxing to venture out to their quiet corner. There's a selection of art books and just books in general that are really beautiful. I do think it’s pretty expensive, but for certain things. If I see something I like and it's $70, I'm like, “That's kind of steep,” but then I'll go back there the next week and just buy it. L: I mean, sometimes it's just money worth spending. D: For me, books are something that are always nice to have, expanding my knowledge about anything is something that I really enjoy. Aside from Mast, Dashwood is cool. Every time I go there, I'm dying for the owner to take a photo of me for Instagram, which is a thing that she does—takes photos of customers buying books and posts them on Instagram, being like, “These are the customers that came in.” And then there’s Westsider, the space is beautiful and they have a cat, which is such a plus to any book shopping experience. L: Yeah we want a mascot. D: We need a mascot. We need something nice to look at besides overpriced vintage books, but I do love that place, so it can't be too much of a hater.
As you may have seen on my Instagram Story today, I bought a GameCube. I grew up with a GameCube, I think it was the first video game system I got as a child when I was 6 or something, and lately I've been really wanting to play a certain game. Even though it's nice to have new things, something about a GameCube is so nostalgic, I just love it. I got it in the mail the day before the snow day. And I was so stoked, I was like, “Oh my god, it's a snow day, I'm not going to work, I'm going to play this game all day.” And then I realized that it's fucking ancient technology and I couldn't even plug it into the TV. So that goes into my next new purchase, an RCA to HDMI converter. I looked up on YouTube how to plug my GameCube into a new TV and this British guy was like, “Here, this is how you do it.” I bought that on Amazon. I hate buying things on Amazon, but it came within a day and now my GameCube works. I literally screamed—I plugged it in and hit start and just had a moment of unbridled joy. L: I was never a gamer, but when I saw that little G pop up on your screen, I was like, “Oh my god, I didn’t realize how beautiful their graphics were.” D: Even the little jingle, the sound that comes up when it says “memory card,” it really just set something off in my brain.
I recently bought a magazine rack for my records. I wanted this other vintage space age magazine rack, and then I saw some girl on TikTok have it and I was like, “Okay, I'm not gonna have it.” I buy a lot of stuff secondhand—I just love to scour the internet and have things that other people don't have and gatekeep them when asked where it’s from. L: Okay, but I'm literally asking you to tell me where it's from, haha. Open the gates! D: It’s by this brand called AYTM, called the Curva magazine holder. It's actually a lot smaller than I had imagined, and I kind of shoot a little bigger, but it's really cute. It's really fun. And then I was at a bar, La Noxe, literally last night, and they have that magazine rack. I was like, “It’s so lucky you're cool and that I like to be here, because now I’m mad you have this magazine rack.”
I like going to the wine store and buying bottles of wine by myself, even though I don't drink much anymore. I have a bookcase that I've designated as a bar area, so I've been buying bottles of wine to go on a wine rack and look nice, even if I don’t know when I’m going to drink them. L: I love a wine bottle as an objet. D: I just really love wine stores. I think they're in the same vein of bookstores where they're kind of relaxing. I almost always buy my wines based on the label, or if I have had them before and I know that I like them, I will probably buy them again or buy from the same producer and just wing it without knowing anything about it. I really love Wine Therapy, honestly, so fucking good, and they just exanded their space. I went in a day before I was going to a friend's house for dinner and didn't even plan on buying more than one bottle of wine. I think I bought three bottles of wine because they had such a great selection. I had bought this bottle of wine that I had at Cervo’s, and I was like, “This is so fucking good.” They had it on the shelf, and I bought one bottle for dinner and then just another bottle for no fucking reason.
I just thought of another recent purchase, which is related: I have it out for Oatly. I was watching the Super Bowl—I think football is really boring, but I was watching it for the commercials—and Oatly had a commercial of the founder in a field on a piano, singing a dumb song, and ever since then I was like, “I can't fucking drink Oatly.” I want brands to stop doing that and just be good, be good instead of having a weird schtick. I can't have dairy and I will be in pain for ages if I eat any dairy at all, so I have oat milk with my coffee. I generally used Oatly, but then I was at H Mart one day and my boyfriend was like, “Oh, this is really cute. Why don't you get this other oat milk?” And so I bought Minor Figures, which has that cute girl in a duck costume or something—I must say, that shit is good! But if I see a commercial from Minor Figures and it's embarrassing, I'm dropping them immediately. L: It’s only fair!
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