Forget whipped coffee, whipped strawberry milk is the latest beverage to take the internet by storm.
As most people continue to practice social distancing amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, many have turned to cooking, baking lots of banana bread, and whipping up just about any pretty treat that will impress their TikTok followers.
For a few weeks, dalgona coffee was everywhere. It’s a simple drink made from a blend of instant coffee, sugar, and hot water whipped into a cloud-like froth and served over ice and milk. Not to mention, it’s fun to make. Even Lizzo tried (and failed) to make it during her own quarantine.
Now, there’s a new—and very pink—option for those looking for a caffeine-free alternative. The best part? It’s even easier to make. According to one recipe shared by food influencer Valentina Mussi (@sweetportfolio), all you need is two ingredients: 1tbsp of strawberry Nesquik and 4tbsp (1/4 cup) of heavy whipping cream.
Similar to whipped coffee, this colorful version requires lots of mixing and whipping with either an electric mixer or a mixture by hand. Once it’s fluffy, fill your glass with ice and milk before topping it with a few spoonfuls of the cream.
“Mix it until your arm is numb and serve over cold or hot milk,” Mussi explains. If you’re feeling fancy, you can even dust the rim of your glass with powder and add a fresh strawberry on top. Sounds like the perfect drink to pair with your latest batch perfect chocolate chip cookies…Just saying.
If you’re not into strawberry, Mussi also shared recipes for cocoa and Nutella-whipped drinks. Just whisk together 1/2 teaspoon cocoa (or a spoonful of Nutella), 1 teaspoon sugar, and 3 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream to create your very own—and much more Instagrammable—Starbucks Frappuccino.
People all over Instagram are obviously obsessed with the pink drink.
William Shakespeare may have written King Lear during the plague, but we’re revolutionizing milk. Honestly, I love this journey for us.
Nothing captures the essence of Susan Korn’s accessories label, Susan Alexandra, like the designer’s favorite creation: the Merry bag.
“That’s M-E-R-R-Y,” Korn spells out for me over the phone. Named for her mother, the handmade bag is small—8 inches by 9 inches—and boxy, with a square base and two top handles. Its simple construction allows for its most striking quality to shine: rainbow-colored, crystalline beads stacked in neat, sparkling rows.
It’s a bag that’s nostalgic. A version wouldn’t be wildly out of place in your grandmother’s closet or inside a kid’s dress-up bin thanks to just the right amount of kitsch and delight—two concepts that have found their way into fashion at this moment
“I designed it just thinking of pure, unadulterated joy,” Korn tells me. “I was thinking of sprinkles on a birthday cake when you’re little, and I was thinking of Christmas lights, and I was thinking of different sequins.” In other words, the bag—and really, all of Korn’s bags—“has all these things that just make your heart skip a beat,” she says.
The brand has been well-known in fashion circles for some time—it’s sold at Opening Ceremony and on Shopbop.com—but a key celebrity placement introduced Merry to the masses.
Late last June, Gigi Hadid shared an Instagram of herself on a boat in Mykonos, her Merry bag perched in the foreground. The picture was, as Korn told me, a “milestone” for the brand, as it would be for any designer—Hadid currently has 43.6 million Instagram followers. The rest is social media history.
PHOTO: Christian Vierig
Susan Alexandra Ma Cherie bag, $275, available at Moda Operandi
Demand for Susan Alexandra is high—there’s currently an online waiting list for the next re-stock of the Merry bag—but Korn promises the craftsmanship makes the wait worthwhile: Every product is made by hand; it takes up to six weeks for Korn and her small team to piece together the 1,500-odd beads it takes to make a single unit. Then, of course, there’s the unrivaled happiness of wearing something so unabashedly fun.
Before designing the boxy bags which have expanded from rainbow beads to include a bunch of quirky motifs, like fruit prints and cowhide, Korn worked in the jewelry space. She assisted New York-based jewelry Jill Platner for a few years, before leaving to launch her own jewelry business.
PHOTO: Vanni Bassetti
Susan Alexandra Lisa bag, $265, available at Susan Alexandra
It was a practical starting point for a designer who worked from her Chinatown apartment: “We’re in New York, no one has a lot of space, and jewelry is small,” she explains. “It’s something that I could make from my bedroom and then eventually expand further through my apartment.”
Korn managed to pack a ton of personality into the tiny items, which she still sells on her website. All her pieces use color enthusiastically; some have a clear sense of humor (like the bracelet she made for one of the “major loves of her life,” painted with a miniature likeness of Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David.)
When her jewelry business began to pick up, around 2017, Korn found the room to grow Susan Alexandra. Enter: the beaded bags, which range from $50 to $385.
“I carry a purse every single day. It’s part of my uniform,” Korn says. Just because it’s a necessity, however, doesn’t mean it needs to look utilitarian. “I feel like everything in your life should have meaning and be special, and the bags are just my version of what a purse should be.”
PHOTO: REX/Shutterstock
Susan Alexandra Ash bag, $360, available at Shopbop
It’s not just that the bags are sentimental—they’re a response to the world as Korn sees it. “I live in a city that is pretty dirty, pretty tough,” she says. “So, at the end of the day, I’ll be sitting on the subway and just look down at my purse and I just feel sort of a sense of delight and calm. It’s my personal antidote to such a strange time that we’re living in.”
Korn’s bags, then, are a little slice of childhood; they evoke the time when serious, “grown-up” issues weren’t on her radar. “They’re very simple and sweet,” Korn explains. “It sort of harkens to a simpler, sweeter time when we’re so inundated with all this dark fear and bleakness.”
Susan Alexandra’s brand of optimism has generational appeal, the designer says: “I’ll have people say that their grandma is obsessed, and that their little cousin is obsessed, so it really attracts people from all over the spectrum.”
“I think there’s just something very human about loving bright color and sparkle,” she says.
If the Gigi’s and Bella’s of Instagram keep buying up her whimsical bags, that’s fine with Korn. She’ll still consider it a personal highlight to sell her bags to anyone who finds joy in them, no matter their follower count.
PHOTO: Samantha Deitch/BFA/REX/Shutterstock
Designer Susan Korn.
“I think what’s most surreal is looking through my tagged photos and seeing women literally from all over the world […] just such interesting, varied, wonderful people wearing the bags,” she says. “As an artist and as a designer, your dream is to touch a lot of lives and touch a lot of people.”
The Instagram crowd’s favorite new fashion brand, I.AM.GIA, is also one of the most elusive. A section titled “Who Is Gia?” on its website simply reads: “CAN I TELL YOU A SECRET? YOU’LL NEVER KNOW.” That’s because Gia isn’t the name of the founder or designer—rather, it’s a persona that inspired (and continues to inspire) Alana Pallister to create the label. “The concept behind Gia was to create a character that every woman could embody and feel empowered by,” she tells Glamour. “Gia is a strong, independent badass who can take on the world and that is exactly how we want her to make other women feel.”
I.AM.GIA is barely six months old (it launched in mid-2017!), and it’s already a go-to for some of the most-followed fashion stars in the business: Bella Hadid, Jordyn Woods, Emily Ratajkowski… the list goes on. Scroll through Instagram on any given day, and odds are you’ll come across a very stylish individual wearing the brand’s pieces. (The tan Cobain pants, $84, and cropped Ankaa top, $54, are quite popular.) Pallister recognized the crucial role social media played in growing not only I.AM.GIA’s reach, but also the concept behind the whole endeavor. “I wanted to take away this ‘Insta famous’ facade that so many young women aspire to be. I wanted Gia to come out and tear apart those stereotypes. There is no rule book to wearing Gia. She is an advocate for going against the grain and being true to yourself. Some girls will wear a Gia piece with a pair of heels, some girls will wear a Gia piece with a combat boot—and either way is incredible.”
A big turning point for the brand was when they received a message from Bella Hadid’s stylist just four weeks into the business. “At that point we didn’t have a large following on Instagram and we didn’t have many ambassadors wearing the product,” Pallister says. “I remember reading the message and thinking, ‘This must be a joke’. I couldn’t believe it.” Lo and behold, her request for pieces to work during Haute Couture Paris Fashion Week was legitimate. Over the course of a week, she wore (and was photographed in) I.AM.GIA separates. “From that point it was a snowball effect in terms of sales because Gia had gained attention,” she says. “People within the industry were talking about her and wondering where she had come from.”
Pallister says the team doesn’t do trend research or forecasting for I.AM.GIA—rather, they design solely for what they imagine Gia is doing, where she’s going, and what’s inspiring her. “When we first launched the brand, the initial concept was to do four capsules a year,” she explains. (The first capsule came together in just four weeks, she says.) “However, once we took on the character of Gia, we realized that wouldn’t suit her lifestyle or the lifestyles of all women. Our girl is out there and she is doing so many different things, so now we create capsules monthly to keep up with her life.” The price point is meant to allow for that type of shopping: Prices start at $31 for a bodysuit, and cap out at $215 for a furry coat.
The Gia gang has grown to welcome more fashion influencers and industry up-and-comers, such as Kaia Gerber, a personal favorite of Pallister’s. “I draw a lot of inspiration from the ’90s so her mom, Cindy Crawford, has always been a muse of mine,” she says. “It was an insane moment for me to see this face of Cindy Crawford on this young incredible model who’s wearing I.AM.GIA.” As far as dream I.AM.GIA sightings go, Pallister wouldn’t hate seeing some mother-daughter outfits on the Gerbers. “I would love to see a ’90s supermodel in Gia next—Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford.” At this rate, it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
Ahead, see the one fashion brand Instagram can’t get enough of.
I’ve always taken more of a “double-tap only” approach to Instagram beauty. I’ll watch as bloggers do weird stuff to their face in the name of entertainment all day, but I’m intensely critical of what I’ll put on my own skin. (Rosacea plus derm horror stories will do that to you.) So when the Hanacure face mask starting popping up all over my feed earlier this year—thanks mostly to a viral endorsement by Drew Barrymore and the fact that you look a thousand-years-old once it dries—I politely kept my distance.
But that was a few months ago, and still the hype wasn’t dying down, so—caving to the FOMO and the curiosity of what I’ll look like 40 birthdays from now—I added myself to a wait list and got KiraKira on standby. What’s the point of using this thing if you don’t Insta Story it, right?
Currently you can buy the Hanacure treatment mask in only one spot: its own website. If you’re a binge-masker with some cash to spend, there’s a $110 kit minimally packaged and impossible to open (until you figure out, you’re an idiot, and it’s a flip top from the side) that includes four vials of serum, four peel-back gelling “solutions,” and very fancy brush to apply the mask with. Or, if you’re just mask-curious, there’s a $29 single-facial kit option.
The steps are easy enough to figure out using the guide inside, and prepping the mask is fun in that geeky, playing-your-own chemist kind of way. You peel back the foil top of the solution, pour in the serum, and shake it all together to activate. Then it’s time to paint it on. I didn’t do a spot test because, sorry, I know better, but who actually does that? And then went straight to putting the cold, serum-y goop all around my chin, cheeks, and forehead—evenly, as the directions stated.
From there, you’ve got 30 minutes: optimal time to catch up on Riverdale, laugh at yourself in the mirror, and blast off a handful of Snapchats. The drying effects are almost instant, and by 10 minutes in, you’re wondering how the hell this stuff is actually supposed to make your skin look better. It tightens so much moving any sort of muscle on your face becomes near impossible—sort of how I imagine Botox would be: not painful, just odd and uncomfortable. By the 25-minute mark, my boyfriend, amused by my frozen, expressionless face, started showing me cat videos, and with each restrained smile a new line on the mask emerged. At this point I’ve sworn to be more diligent about my skin care routine (this look into the future ain’t great) and returning to KJ Apa’s abs can no longer distract me. This mask is tight AF, and not in the way your kid brother uses that phrase.
At 30 minutes, I was at the sink, using only water and circular motions to get all the remaining bits of wrinkled, dried-up gook off my face. As a disclaimer on the instructions warns pale people, the lifting compounds that stimulate blood flow to your face may leave you red, which is a slight understatement. Immediately after my face is angry. But trust the process. The ingredients do have reputable workhorses: calming botanicals with anti-inflammatory properties, several peptides that brighten and minimize lines, and—my most needed component—moisturizing compounds responsible for delivering the promised afterglow, which actually arrived for me the next morning.
Upon waking, a glance in the mirror tells me this thing isn’t only pure spectacle. My jawline looks a little tighter, my cheeks a little dewier—it wasn’t exactly enough of a difference that someone else could tell looking at a before-and-after. But I know my face and how much I love salt, and this looked like I hadn’t touched a fry in days. (Ha. Joke’s on my ass!) There was still some residual redness, but if I can find something that solves that problem, rest assured you’ll know about it.
