Happy Pride Sunday! I am coming to you with a short little Weekly Spill this weekend. She’s petite because much of my brain this week was taken over by the joint slay of chronic migraine and post-debate dread.
I didn’t want to leave you divas hanging though, so.. here are the things that I’ve been thinking about this week:
Becoming Karl Lagerfeld: This week I binged the latest fashion designer biopic miniseries (it’s a niche genre, but just think about how many cop shows there are), Becoming Karl Lagerfeld. It’s pretty short, only 6 episodes, and takes place between 1972 and the early 1980s. In Karl-world, it’s the Chloé era. If I was going to compare it to the others, I would say it’s more Halston (2021) than The New Look (2024). It really zooms in on Karl’s relationship with Jacques de Bascher, and his rivalry with Yves Saint Laurent. The clothes that either of them designed are largely absent, but I honestly didn’t really mind? The drama was enough to keep me entertained. (and the menswear is gorgeous)
The acting is great, Daniel Brühl gives an incredible performance as Karl. He really got his mannerisms down while keeping the performance nuanced and restrained. It would be really easy to play Karl as a caricature (in real life he often appeared to be performing the character of himself), but Brühl managed to walk that line between camp and human vulnerability. The show has shot The Beautiful Fall (the book about Karl & Yves) to the top of my reading list. Also, I’m obsessed with Jacques de Bascher. There is a recent biography about him that is supposed to be good, but it’s only in French. So, I’ll be waiting for that translation I guess.
Happy Pride to literally everyone featured in this series, but especially to Jacques!! It was not his fault that he was hot and everyone wanted him. Additionally, we need to bring back the dandy. What happened there? Where did they all go? I worry that we have no young dandies. André Leon Talley was a modern day dandy. Hamish Bowles and John Waters are still carrying the torch… maybe I’ll try to research this. We need a major dandy resurgence stat!
Oh btw, the show is in French. There is an English dub, but it sucks just watch the French version and read.
Illinoise: I won the ticket lottery for Illinoise this week, and I haven’t stopped thinking about the show. I went in basically blind; I hadn’t even watched the entire Tony performance because my pizza was delivered right in the middle of it. The show is beautiful. It’s essentially a modern ballet—there is no dialogue at all—set to the music of Sufjan Stevens (who did the score for Call Me By Your Name). I found this Broadway season to be frustrating because it was beginning to feel like the only shows getting produced are adaptations of movies, the same risk-averse IP issue that Hollywood is dealing with. The average ticket price is so high, and a ton of shows are aiming to broadly appeal to as many tourists as possible. Then, there is Illinoise. The audience has to engage and think to interpret the story, nothing is spoon-fed to you, but the stories were all told so brilliantly through Justin Peck’s choreography. Moments that might have been cheesy or schlocky if they were sung or spoken, hit incredibly hard emotionally and felt so poignant and specific. I left feeling like I had just sat through something really special. I hope that the success of this show means that dance will be taken a little more seriously on Broadway.
Side note: If I had a nickel for every new musical with Woodrow Wilson in it this year… I’d have two nickels, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
New York Magazine’s cover story on Republican Women: I meant to include this last week and forgot. I thought this piece by Rebecca Traister was really well done, managing to point out the many hypocrisies found in the public personas of these women while exploring the impossible expectations of the mold they are all trying to twist themselves to fit. It doesn’t fall into the trap of making sympathetic and/or girlboss-ian heroes of these women, which I appreciate. The loudest and most hypocritical women on the right are fascinating in a really strange and terrifying way, and I think the writer was genuinely trying to understand them. I was curious to see the response to the story, especially from the women interviewed, because the hopeful part of me wondered if reading it could spark even a tiny bit of introspection. I should know better than that though! They called the cover image the “most sexist magazine cover ever.” And based on the response statements, none of them actually took the time read the article. I would recommend it though!
Vogue World: I’m still not really sure what Vogue World is or if I should care about it. Vogue obviously thinks that it is very important. You would think an event of such importance would be better explained, but alas. I fear that Vogue World will never stop being confusing. I don’t really understand the point. I haven’t seen anyone really excited about it (other than Vogue), but they seem determined to have it continue. I did like this commercial that announced it, I’ll give them that.
I read some of the coverage and looked at the pictures and clips. It seems cool… I guess? I’m just confused. Why??
Schiaparelli kicking off Couture Week: I feel like I just sent out my Spring Couture Week newsletter… you know what they say: time flies when it’s passage gives you crippling anxiety! The more I see from this Schiaparelli collection, the more obsessed I am with it. It’s so stunning.
I need Daniel Roseberry to release his pop girlie playlist immediately. It’s killing me. Are they jamming out to “Espresso” in the atelier? Does he know the “Hot To Go” dance? What does he think about Brat? Who’s album release is he shading? I worry that it’s Kacey Musgraves. This is currently taking up a lot of space in my brain if you can’t tell.
Pride:
That’s it for this week, thank you so much for reading!
https://www.sternberg-press.com/product/no-dandy-no-fun/
https://kunsthalle-bern.ch/en/-exhibitions/2020/no-dandy-no-fun/
Dandyism is getting hawwwtttt again
congrats on the Illinoise lottery win!! and v glad to hear you loved it —it’s at the top of my list when I move back to nyc in august