The Stolen Valor of the Pierced Nipple Bra

Microsoft wants you to read; TikTok wants you to meditate

and

May 23, 2025

My brain is absolutely fried this week, so I have little to offer in the way of an introduction. But, I humbly request that you please read my piece on PRINT about what I call the ‘brand patronage’ model.

Christina’s weekly scroll –

Dum Dums refuse to go MAHA.
Neeeeeed to try the Selena Gomez horchata Oreo…
Jane Goodall on Call Her Daddy is genuinely great.
ICY(somehow)MI: Sesame Street has been saved!
Bria Lemirande and Oddli made the cutest lil farmers market tote.
Caffè Panna and MoMA teamed up on a limited-edition “Van Dough” ice cream.
Gaming tings: Fortnite is back on the Apple app store. 45 years of Pac-Man! Plus, Fenty is selling an exclusive-to-Roblox Grape Splash Gloss Bomb.
Lancôme is going all out for 25 years of Juicy Tubes, tapping 2000s icons like Paris Hilton, Hillary Duff, Gabrielle Union, Ed Westwick and a stacked cast of others. Kinda insane how many celebs they pulled for this, tbh.
SKIMS pierced nipple push-up bra. I’d say go ahead and get them pierced but it’s one of the worst pains I’ve ever experienced, so maybe just stick with the bra.
skims
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More from Gustaf Westman and Mercedes in the form of a sexy snack plate.
YELLOWJACKETS RENEWED FOR SEASON 4! YJ RENEWED FOR SEASON 4!
TikTok launched in-app guided meditation to encourage users to limit their screen time, lol. Love when tech causes the problem and tries to position itself as the solution too!
I want my own Saie vanity…
saiebeauty
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Meet Felix, ASICS first dog ambassador :)
Gnarly: Urban Outfitters x U-Haul x Katseye.
Pierpaolo Piccioli is Balenciaga’s next creative director. Following Demna’s era, this signals a return to the brand’s roots. Course correcting!
Nikita note: I really enjoyed this take on Instagram about what each CD choice means.
Beer sales are down because screen time is up!
Soft Services commemorated four years of bizz with a community dance class at MOVES. Such a fab way to celebrate bodies/skin/people.
softservices
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Miles Gems, known for his Recess Therapy interviews, was invited to GIA’s NYC campus thanks to his love of gemstones. So so good <3
The Cut polled women in NYC to find out how much they spend on working out each month. Unsurprisingly, women in NYC spend more money on working out than women who don’t live in NYC. Water is wet.
Across all salary brackets, the average amount of money women in NYC spend on working out is about $270 a month. For women who are not based in NYC, the average is about $180 a month.
Last day to submit your treatment for the Somebody Loves Me music video, lmao.

Nikita’s weekly scroll –

laughs darkly I guess we (millennials) killed something else: retirement. (N.B., like most things we ‘killed’ the market killed the dream for us.
Touchland sold last week for an eye-watering amount just short of $1B. You can’t really find anything about the founders online — rare for a female-founded company. Women are constantly sold the dream of ‘building in public’ and torn down in ways male CEOs wouldn’t imagine; this pressure only compounds for WOC and black founders. All of that is to say… I found this one from
Ali Kriegsman
an interesting provocation.
The arc of culture bends upon itself in dark ways, and perhaps millennial women were failed by pop culture more than we think.
This story feels like more of an indictment of the Taxonomy Trap (h/t
Nick Susi
) than cultural commentary, but what is life like when everything is -coded.
I mean yeah sure talk to ChatGPT about what’s going on but an AI chatbot to mimic someone who ghosted you? Touch grass!
I’m usually pretty mad at or bored by celebrity skincare, but I have to tip my hat to Savannah James for the inherently inclusive approach her brand is taking to clinicals. Curious to see how this one performs in-market. I’m really curious who the audience for this is, because the pricing and the componentry/color scheme/branding don’t feel reflective.
The Daily Mail launched a Substack. You can look it up on your own risk.
Man, the whole AI thing pushing young people just out of the labor market is really just so sad.
Your satire lacks substance.
On the brands as patrons subject: Microsoft is launching a print publication called Signal, Hedi Slimane is launching a publishing house, and Square made a zine.
Violet Grey has launched an $1100 perfume. It’s a kind of insane blind buy because not (1) note is described. So much of the purchasing behavior around fragrance is… like purchasing behavior around anything else, shaped by reviews and increasingly Fragrantica.
If I might politely draw your attention to a prediction I made in Fast Company…
“In 2025, we’ll see a pendulum swing: luxury becoming intentionally louder, but in more sophisticated ways. Not through logos or traditional flex culture, but through signals that demonstrate deeper forms of capital: access, knowledge, time, relationships. The wealthy are realizing that trying to hide only creates more attention. Think: 1) Visible displays of “time wealth” (handmade, custom, wait-listed items; 2) Overt displays of cultural capital rather than just financial capital; and 3) Products that show off insider knowledge rather than just purchasing power.”
Personalized, exquisite, out-of-reach fragrances are certainly a long-tail of this trend.
Now, I LOVE the Toryssance as far as RTW and shoes go, but what is this, honey?
Chanel sales are down 4%. No comment :)
Our friends at
dcdx
have launched their latest venture, Offline — an agency built exclusively for brands to work with communities. I am so curious about how this works.
I don’t have a snappy distillation of this. But if I were you I’d follow Jasmine Bina on LinkedIn.
Is virality a trap for beauty brands?
As someone who listened to The All-American Rejects a lot more than I’d like to admit growing up, their house party tour is genius. They’ve instantly cultivated a new fan base by giving a fuck.
I need this Levi’s Sacai jacket bad.

In a reverse progression, a Substack has gone to print…
Gen Z is monetizing their data. Can’t beat them? Join them!
Open AI spent $6.5B to acquire arguably some of the most legendary creatives in the game. Could they have maybe spent a bit more on creative? That photo is so weird.
In my piece the New Cultural Operating System (2021!), I cited the ongoing American trust crisis. It’s not getting better folks!