Safety Style

Cult luxury and a really good USM Haller deal

For the 4th issue of 90antiope, Martina Tiefenthaler and I spoke about “not working.” The announcement is out and its contributors list looks exciting.

The Highsnobiety White Paper I wrote (with much help from the editors and surveys) is long, I know, so it may get lost in menswear week or take some time to gain traction, but judging from the comment section, we’re all saying the same thing: luxury should mean quality, again. That may sound obvious, but if you consider the signifiers of style over the past few decades (brand codes, re-releases, It items, distilled logos), you see we’re coming from a far more conceptual mindset.

Many a factor—the wide adoption of open source AI tools and cryptocurrencies, the rise of surgical tweaks and trompe l’oeil makeup techniques, advances in cosmetic/weight loss medicines, options to live almost entirely in alternative bodies online—have contributed to a shift, in fashion, toward romanticizing the real, whatever that means. You know, authentic, earned, artisanal, etc.

And maybe, in a way, timely. I keep hearing, in meetings with skincare brands, that the next look is dissolved filler, less frozen, not overly plumped, au natural. An admission that freezing time on the face is not possible—that an unmoving expression might look prettier, more serene and hydrated, but it doesn’t quite look youthful, just different—or, actually, the same.