060: Madelynn Furlong and Nick Hudson have a lot to unpack
Plus Simone Rocha menswear, a mini SSENSE sale, and 75% off Proenza archives.
I have an issue with brevity. The newsletters inch further and further beyond the “post is too long for email” warnings each week, and my instincts insist I should start sending more of these even while my IG followers consistently vote don’t!
All of which provide a perfect backdrop to me cutting this intro really, really short and calling it a service to the reader. (I’m behind on projects, on my way to Paris, and this send is already half a week late. Oops.)
Still, all the more space to dedicate to this week’s featuressSSSS (!!). That’s right, our first double headliner, and who better than Madelynn Furlong and Nick Hudson? No spoilers (also: brevity!), so more on them below.
What’s new
I’m sorry but Yeezy Gap by Balenciaga has been the most fun to buy all along. The messy, interwoven brand conceit, the discovery that the design is actually great, the prices! And just when maybe we started to shift our attention away, things got interesting again. I simply can’t not enjoy PR releases going out about collection drops landing like business as usual while Kanye removes himself very publicly from this entanglement that ostensibly made no dent in Gap’s global brand positioning. The latest: Part Two, which includes new round jackets, gloved bodysuits, and a nylon sash bag, is now available worldwide, including on Balenciaga’s own website (Gap is weeping).
Simone Rocha’s poetry has always been welcome to everyone, but a move into the delineated menswear space has formalized it. Obviously, there’s something to tackle about that chasm in the larger sense, but this tender, imaginative collection with an iron core is not the forum. Launched exclusively at SSENSE and adapted from her women’s Fall ‘22 collection, Rocha’s menswear debut is both an olive branch and a flashlight.
Reformation admits it’s not perfect, but its 90% Cashmere collection, which uses 90% recycled fibre and 10% new, cracks the code for making (at least somewhat) closed-loop cashmere feel as soft as you could hope for. Plus, it is Reformation after all, so the styles are all extremely wearable. Some favorites include an orange ribbed cardigan that feels a little Proenz-ish and a relaxed v-neck akin to what Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy might wear.
Do you think Diesel smells like denim? Glenn Martens launched his unisex first fragrance as Creative Director of the brand, and the packaging alone—overly masculine, early Axe body spray coded with a lilt of Margiela’s artful destructiveness—feels so much like him. In fact, it kind of smells like that, too, with a boyish insecurity that turns around and gives a glimpse of something much more knowing.
Balenciaga wants to buy back your used pieces, via a new partnership with resale platform Reflaunt. Net-A-Porter and Mr. Porter are set up with their own programs through the company, as are a growing number of luxury brands (if not Reflaunt, with a competitor). If you already have a good thing going with The RealReal, or maybe an intern to manage your Depop page, Reflaunt’s hoping its more generous commission structure will win you over.
Wrangler and Leon Bridges really think they’re doing something with “When music and denim collide,” the slogan to their collab, but looking past the fact that actually those things cross over pretty much literally all the time, I’m not displeased by the three-piece suit they turned out alongside a few graphic jackets and logo-printed jeans.
German behemoths adidas and Rimowa come together on their somehow-first-ever collaboration, RIMOWA x ADIDAS NMD_S1. Adidas likes to keep its buzziest launches gated in its CONFIRMED app, but soon enough, drops land on site.
There’s also: Mayan Toledano-approved Made Me launches sunglasses; Tekla taps JJJJound for a subtly branded linen sheet set in eight colors; Moon Juice is out with its first new skincare product in four years, a vitamin C powder called G Pack; Marimekko comes home with a West Elm holiday collab; in more partnership news that just makes sense, Lisa Says Gah releases a Vans collection, and the Mary Janes are a guaranteed hit; the Lacoste x Thrasher collab might be the most 2022 thing to happen in 2022; you know it’s gift guide season when four-figure collectibles start hitting your inbox—Veneda Carter’s Hennessy bottle comes with an NFT and costs $2,500 or 1.87 ETH; Anna Sui tends to flicker in and out of the public’s awareness, but her latest, a mommy-and-me Halloween capsule with SSENSE, is exactly how we hope and expect to hear about her; French shoe brand Nomasei only drops two collections a year, and its fall release just came out; artist Jessi Reaves dives into the Acne Studios archives to reimagine past collection textiles in quilted homewares; Who Decides War joins Levi’s in an upcycled collection that’s already available just a few weeks since debuting on the Spring ‘23 runway, available exclusively through the NTWRK app; and Anthony Vaccarello goes full Life of Pi with a YSL x Sebago boat shoe collaboration available in fuzzy zebra and fuzzy leopard (yeah, I know).
What’s on sale
In case you’re wondering, the SSENSE sale will most likely be back in full-force around Black Friday, with Private Sale starting a bit earlier. I’ve gotten in the habit of checking in on new arrivals periodically, to save items to my wishlist and daydream a bit. Sometimes I’ll even buy full price, if you can imagine that! Seeing as we’re in the deepest valley between the last sale and the next, a 15% discount with FW2022 being quietly advertised helps loosen the valve on my pent-up saves before they cause a gas explosion in my heart.
Proenza Shouler’s archive sale is officially on and hitting as high as 75% off. It’s wild, actually. Dresses are $1,000+ off, full suits are under $600, and certain pieces are even flirting with a $100 floor. One shearling coat is down nearly $5,000 (and not too-too terrible considering, at a $1,300 bottom line). It’s a gorgeous, gorgeous free-for-all in here, and best yet, it’s fairly season agnostic.
Shopbop is having a sale and making a big deal about it, which would make sense, seeing as it’s nearly 70% off. A few great things on first pass: Mother barrel-leg jeans, a Simone Rocha t-shirt dress for under $350, and vintage Louis Vuitton from What Goes Around Comes Around.
There’s also: Elleme’s Summer Sale hits up to 60% off; a sunglass brand I get spammed with a lot but have heard good things about from others, Chimi, is hosting an archive sale at 60% off; Solid & Striped’s archive sale is on at up to 70% off; take 20% off full-price items at Luisaviaroma with WEB20; and a rare sale from one of my favorite independent jewelers, Hernan Herdez, with whom I long considered getting my wedding ring forged (I still am, really).
The minimalist-maximalism of Maddy and Nick
On navigating the trends and then throwing them out the window.
Madelynn Furlong Hudson and Nick Hudson are impossible not to watch. Gorgeous, yes, but also a constant output you can’t help but consume. Maddy cut her teeth in the fashion influence space, a craft she helped define and still executes effortlessly like the veteran she is, but the lens refocused somewhere between COVID, growing older, and meeting Nick. Nick, too, a fashion photographer (and noted Aussie), has since crept over to the other side: home. If rich interiors reflect a rich inner life, this pair stands behind a wealth of wisdom. We caught up over a bottle of wine, and they shared a peek into what that place means to them now.
N: It was like this sort of soft porn. L: A soft porn magazine? N: She had done some pictures for it before she met David Schwimmer, and he was just outraged that there were naked photos of her all over the internet. He got a lawyer and spent all his money trying to have it removed from all these sites. M: Wait, was she outraged that there were photos of her? N: No, I don't think she cared, it was just, that was his girlfriend, and they were publicly together, and so people were saying, "Oh, David Schwimmer…" L: …Has a porn star girlfriend. M: Then how did you enter the love triangle? And isn’t Jim Carey involved also? L: I like that this story came out of balletcore. N: Well, I had to break up with her because she was always wearing arm warmers. M: This is why I love being married to him, because he has early millennial LA stories. N: Stupid stories. Pre-social media. M: He lived through balletcore.
N: When I think of style then, it just—it wasn't good at that point. We weren't particularly ironic in 2005 or '04, it was just pure tackiness. There was no lens of fashion. M: I can weirdly see the connection between the focus on being hyper-thin in a Kate Moss-in-the-'90s sense and ballerina style coming back. It's a little Black Swan-ish where I have to be hyper concerned with my weight and the way my body looks because I'm wearing…not quite heroin chic, but…I feel like I'm learning how to dress like a baby Y2K cocaine addict. But I think we're in this really interesting place in fashion right now where you can combine the '70s with the '90s, with early 2000s, and you can mash it all up in one outfit, and it somehow makes sense. I keep going back to minimal maximalism. You could be wearing a very minimal outfit, but it has all of these touches that feel really maximalist to turn it up to a different level.
N: It's also like that with interior design, like Japanese and Scandi and all that stuff. Minimalism is starting to feel old and dated. L: Does maximalism feel old at the same time too though? M: It's the Kelly Wearstler of interior design, I'm over it. L: The Memphis of it all, I'm like, "God, give my eyes a rest." M: Over it. We just went into the new Toteme store. I feel like they're doing that minimal-maximalism balance so well in the interior. The clothes are beautiful, but the new store in New York for me is that perfect interior balance. We were talking to one of the store associates who said that they got a full training deck of every piece of furniture in the store; what designer or artist it was by, so that when you asked about it they could tell you everything.
M: We were talking today about how it was so refreshing to just spend a little time shopping and trying things on because, living upstate, you care a little bit about it, but not a ton. I'm in jeans and clogs every day. It's practical. N: Also I feel like when I first moved upstate, I was wearing Blundstone and utilitarian clothing. L: To fit the archetype. N: It's embarrassing because…L: No, it's not. N: No, it's very human, but now I've noticed that I'm less interested in that. I think part of it was about the philosophy of why? Why upstate? That gets expressed somehow through the way you dress and being closer to nature and being more hands-on with engaging with nature. The garden, your home, and so you’re always ready to work.
L: How do you see the minimalist-maximalism or maximalist-minimalism playing out in your taste in your life Upstate? M: I'm very minimal. I could put my entire wardrobe on one rack. Maybe a double sided rack. To me, the maximalism comes in in that there's always an embellishment, and much like interiors, the palettes I work with are very neutral. There's a lot of material clashing, like marbles, with patterns, with really chunky textiles, with really sheer textiles, with woods, with metals. If you were to write that equation down, it sounds really maximalist. But if you keep solid, really tight, it's quite minimal.
L: You play with black paint a lot, which to me has always been so intimidating. I'm sure you've heard that a lot, but it always looks so amazing and also feels very comfortable. M: It's like putting on a white T-shirt and a black pair of trousers. That's an outfit you'd wear every day. Why can't you play with that in interiors as well? N: I'd never done that before I met you. M: Then I convinced him to paint his house black. L: I think you convinced a lot of people. It feels almost like a signature of yours. M: Black to me is just really grounding. It's literally like the earth or the sky at night. It feels really comforting.
N: You work with a lot of contrast, but then you layer in these shades in between black and white so that it's just not stark, there’s transitions. M: There's brown. There's marbles. There's grays. There's the lineny colors. It's a total spectrum, but to that point, it's like the stars in the sky. That contrast is so essential. It's done in a really romantic way I think. N: I never really thought of that as a romantic way, but I think there's sensuality to it, I would say. M: There's a sensuality, for sure. I like really sexy things. N: That's why you married me. M: It's like when you put on a dress, something like Tom Ford Gucci, and you're like, "This is hot. This is really sexy," but it's so minimal.
L: Is there fashion on the inspo board for interiors for you? M: I've never actually thought too much about combining them, but I definitely think about things in a fashion way. I graduated with a painting major, an art degree, and then went into fashion design, and then went into fashion, photo, and broadcast art direction. I think the way that I think about interiors involves understanding color well. I have a client right now that's like, "I'm envisioning pops of fuchsia,” I can almost think of an outfit. I'm like, "Okay, what's a chill fuchsia outfit?" Not that I would ever wear it, but I'm not going to pair fuchsia and black. We're not going for an '80s situation. It's going to be fuchsia, terracotta, sky blue, and creamy beige, and suddenly there's that palette of like, "That's an outfit that you could build." It would make the fuchsia feel really subtle, in a Jacquemus way. L: Do you have interior references when you get dressed? M: Like does it go the other way? No. L: No, I don't think it goes the other way for me either. “Look, I'm a staircase today.”
M: Obviously we all fell in love with interiors over COVID. There was a newfound love of building a really curated, beautiful home. It was necessary. You start looking at your space and going like, "Well, I hate all of this." I think because I was always in fashion, I was always looking at my closet and going like, "I hate it." I was always evolving it. Trying to build the perfect capsule wardrobe, which is impossible for someone that works in fashion. But there's so many pieces that I thought I'd always want that suddenly feel so irrelevant. I think you're always going to want some good white t-shirts and good jeans. L: Do you have those things? Do you have those core pieces that you're like, "This is my t-shirt."? M: For me my core pieces that I wear over and over and over are Slvrlake Denim, a size up. My Dubie boots, the knee-high ones. For sunglasses, I always go back to the Phoebe Céline era of sunglasses. I can't get out of that. Everyone is wearing the super Y2K, or the wraparounds, but I hate them. I had a really good black Givenchy blazer that was the perfect oversized semi-textured wool and then my grandmother put it in the dryer. It's a uniform. It's like the Cindy Crawford or Julia Roberts look.
L: You said you're trying to fall in love with fashion again. You walked around today, did you buy anything today? M: Yes. I bought two things. I've been buying a little bit of Acne recently. I made a few purchases on Acne that I got shipped upstate. Then I went and saw them in person today and I was like, "Oh. I don't want these." L: They're pre-returned in your mind already? M; Yes. I'm not sure if I'll keep any of them honestly. Today I got a Toteme bustier, it's like this off-white silk really interesting top. I debated over these really oversized Chanel pants from The RealReal but didn't get them. They were almost there and then I was like, "I don't know." A bit too baggy. I did get this Fendi skirt. Well, actually Nick got it for me.
M: We have Paris coming up. Most people went last season and the season before. I didn't. I've already missed a few seasons in terms of renovating houses or purchasing houses or just wasn't available. N: Getting married. M: Getting married, yes. This is the first season since COVID I’m actually able to go back. I'm looking forward to it, but I also feel nervous. The whole travel anxiety of it all. L: How much of what you wear is your wardrobe when you're at New York or Paris, and how much of that is brand pieces? M: Again, I pack very minimally. Typically, I've gone to Paris with two large suitcases, one full of accessories and shoes, one full of clothes and jackets or whatever's needed and toiletries. Sometimes, I can get away with a medium or whatever, but Paris, a lot of it is brand-driven. L It's a little bit more convenient, I'm sure. M: Oh yes, you're going to a Givenchy show and they're going to dress you head to toe. You just have to have the right undergarments. It's full looks. If it's not, I mix in a lot of vintage with the pieces, which I think is fun. It'll be like, this really amazing Tibetan jacket. This is one of one of one of one.
M: I find it very exciting again. It used to feel exhausting. 2020, 2019, I was so tired. But now I have a bit more of a fresh perspective on it all again. It was really easy to just be like, "Oh my God, I'm never home. I'm traveling all the time. Woe is me." Now I feel like I'm going back and I'm excited to see the people and I'm excited to be involved in the fashion community and feel the brands, but I have no idea what’s happening trend-wise. L: I mean, balletcore?
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