I’ll start by saying I’m no coffee snob. Like any American whose teen years were spent reconfiguring their MySpace Top 8 and hanging out in mall food courts, I made my foray into the world of coffee via a sugar-packed caramel Frappuccino. Five years later I moved to New York to go to Parsons School of Design, and quickly learned downtown art school kids were willing to shell out extra cash for a basic cup of joe—all for the aesthetic of boujee cafes where the motto is “Starbucks? We don’t know her.” All-nighters were all too familiar during freshman year, so caffeine soon became a necessity rather than a mere prop for my newly-launched Instagram account—but I couldn’t tell the difference between a Venti medium roast and the sweet nectar of luxe Ethiopian beans if you paid me.
As years went by, I leveled up and ditched the Starbucks mermaid for the cooler, more elevated La Colombe peace dove. Rather than an accessory, caffeine was more like lifeblood in the formative years of my career, mostly spent organizing fashion closets and, you guessed it: fetching trays of coffee for magazine execs. During a summer stint when I was writing style news from my Brooklyn apartment, cold brew was first on the agenda each morning, and lazy Sundays called for oat milk lattes delivered to my bed. I’d come a long way since my intro to the frozen caffeinated treat.
Like thousands of New Yorkers, my ideal weekend involves leisurely strolls to the local cafe, neighborhood pups, and boutique hopping—but that all came to a halt when social distancing put the city into hibernation-mode amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Iced lattes and vintage Levi’s are truly the least of our worries during a global health crisis, and staying home is a must—which is why Jot Ultra Coffee is a true gift. My new love interest, the ingenious beverage I told cold brew not to worry about, comes in an Insta-friendly Italian glass bottle and is 20x stronger than traditional coffee.
The first time I mixed one tablespoon of Jot with Oatly Barista Edition, I was catapulted into the blissful ether where my troubles momentarily drifted away. If you still ride for cow’s milk, Jot co-founder Palo Hawken recommends “stirring one tablespoon of Jot into 3 oz ice cold half-and-half for a sipping coffee that celebrates the intensity of the coffee flavor. The interplay between Ultra Coffee’s earthy, bright flavors against the creamy texture of half-and-half is like nothing else.”
Judge Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed on Saturday as the 114th U.S. Supreme Court Justice. The final vote was the conclusion of a weeks-long process of primary confirmation votes, hearings, and powerful testimony—particularly the testimony delivered by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault and took her allegations to the Senate floor, where she unflinchingly and bravely detailed her account to the judiciary committee.
During the confirmation vote Saturday afternoon, protestors could be heard screaming and shouting from the public gallery, with cries of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” and “I do not consent!” Thousands of other protestors surrounded the Supreme Court Building and U.S. Capitol.
Twitter users, of course, took to the platform to express their feelings after Kavanaugh’s final confirmation vote on Saturday.
And finally, there was one strong message that shone through: “November is coming.” Kavanaugh’s confirmation—and nomination—seems to have raised awareness that voting in the upcoming midterm elections is more important than ever.
After a few seasons of slogan tees and pins, seeing politically-adjacent messages at a fashion show doesn’t feel abnormal: The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) has partnered with organizations like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU to raise awareness for their services , designers have taken their bows wearing shirts with messages of inclusivity, politicians have even made unofficial cameos on the runway… What remains a “surprise,” in a way, is the issue that fashion people deem important or noteworthy enough to make a talking point during Fashion Week. At the Spring 2019 shows in New York, there wasn’t as much of an industry-wide mobilization surrounding a single message, as we’ve seen in the past, but a handful of designers and show-goers did harness their platform to bring attention to the upcoming elections.
The timing of this season’s shows lent themselves to this issue: New York state’s primary elections were set for September 13, the day after the official end of New York Fashion Week. As such, some designers referenced some of these campaigns during their shows. Perhaps the most pointed reference came from Christian Siriano, who kept the focus on the local gubernatorial race, between Cynthia Nixon and incumbent Andrew Cuomo.
PHOTO: Victor VIRGILE
“I went to an event where I had the pleasure of hearing Cynthia speak and she was amazing. It felt very real and every issue she brought up I agreed with,” Siriano tells Glamour. “I decide a few weeks ago to invite her and add some promotion [about her campaign] to our show… I think its important speak up for what you believe in. I believe in a better New York, and I think Cynthia will give us that.”
In the show notes, Siriano thanked Nixon “for all you’re doing for New York.” The designer left informational pamphlets about the Cynthia for NY campaign on each of the 650 seats in the venue. During the show, a model walked down the runway wearing a “Vote for Cynthia” T-shirt tucked into one of Siriano’s signature evening skirts; he took his bow wearing a different version of it, reading “I’m Voting for Cynthia.”
PHOTO: Victor VIRGILE
Oh, and throughout all of this, Nixon was sitting front row, right in between Judith Light and Whoopi Goldberg. “He’s been such a supporter of the campaign, which I’ve been so honored by and so grateful for,” she told E! News of Siriano at the show. “[The T-shirt] was an incredible tribute, but it’s a natural fit because he’s been a designer that has so much been a champion for so long of [the message] that fashion should be for everybody.”
PHOTO: KEVIN TACHMAN
“I think my show is a place to showcase… what issues are important to me and my brand,” Siriano explains. “[It’s] a very large stage where so many people are watching, so it’s a perfect place to help promote something that I think is important.” We have to talk about voting “because we can’t not support the people we believe in because, as we have seen, it can really affect our cities and country in the worst way possible.”
Prabal Gurung is another designer who’s become known for his socially-conscious runway displays: He’s ended his past few shows by running down the runway while wearing a T-shirt printed with some sort of message, from “Resist With <3” (Spring 2018) to “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like (Fall 2017.) That would be no different for Spring 2019—and attendees were clued into what his slogan would be upon arrival.
As each guest took their seat at Gurung’s show, they were greeted by a small card on top of their program that read, “I am a voter.”
PHOTO: Jamie McCarthy
Then, after the last of the models wearing his technicolor spring collection made their way backstage, Gurung emerged, his T-shirt a colorful call-to-action: “Vote.”
PHOTO: Frazer Harrison
The T-shirt is part of a collaboration between luxury retailer Moda Operandi and Rock the Vote, which features pieces from designers including Gurung, Brandon Maxwell, Carolina Herrera, and more. It retails for $100, with all proceeds going to the nonpartisan nonprofit. Gurung would later post an image of himself wearing the shirt to his personal Instagram, with the caption: “Making a #PSA. Do the right thing. #VOTE.”
PHOTO: Christian Vierig
Footwear designer Chloe Gosselin partnered with the group Rise Up and Vote for her Spring 2019 presentation, which was meant to be an event centered around women, community, and change. (This included a soundtrack consisting of speeches by the likes of Malala Yousafzai, Hillary Clinton, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.) One of the models donned a T-shirt that read “I am a voter.”
PHOTO: Madison McGaw/BFA.com
Jeremy Scott, a designer with over 2 million followers on Instagram known to draw a crowd for his namesake label’s New York show (he’s also the creative director of Moschino, which presents its collections in Milan), also made a statement during his customary bow. He encouraged a different civic responsibility, though: calling your senators.
When he stepped out on the runway at the end of his Spring 2019 show, Scott was wearing a T-shirt that read “Tell Your Senator No on Kavanaugh,” referring to U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who’s confirmation hearings are ongoing. It also listed a phone number to call: 202-902-7129.
PHOTO: Pietro D’aprano
The following evening, Scott attended Harper’s Bazaar‘s annual Icons party, once again wearing (and purposefully showing off) a T-shirt encouraging civic responsibility. (The style happened to be the same one worn by a model at the Chloe Gosselin presentation.)
Fashion shows—and Fashion Weeks, more broadly—are highly publicized events, with the cumulative followers of designers, brands, celebrities, and other people associated with the shows tuning in to see what’s happening. As of September 10, about halfway through New York Fashion Week, there were over 300,000 posts related to it on social media, WWD reported. There are photographers everywhere, capturing not only what’s on the runway but the environment around it.
President Donald Trump graced the latest cover of TIME magazine Thursday in what is perhaps their most harrowing visual critique of his presidency yet.
For the cover, TIME created a photo illustration of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer John Moore’s now viral image of a two-year-old Honduran girl crying as her mother was being detained at the border. The president is seen towering over her. While Trump signed an executive order meant to end the separation of families at the border, thousands of families still remain apart and plans to reunite them are murky, Vox reports.
Moore has been photographing immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border for years, but when talking about taking this particular picture he told TIME, “This one was tough for me. As soon as it was over, they were put into a van. I had to stop and take deep breaths… all I wanted to do was pick her up. But I couldn’t.” The picture has already become the most emblematic symbol of America’s immigration debate, and this TIME issue has only further ignited the conversation.
In the hours after its release, many have taken to Twitter to praise the cover, criticize President Trump, and discuss the border crisis.
“Welcome to America. Sadly, torturing children by snatching them from their parents – and then sending them off with strangers thousands of miles away is how Donald Trump feels powerful.”
“Nailed it.The actual new @TIME coverBe ashamed people, this is what we’ve come to.I hope this is retweeted all day and all over twitter every time Trump logs on.”
If you’ve taken Fiction 101, you may be aware of the golden rule: Write what you know. CNN chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper stuck to this idea when he wrote his debut political thriller—to an extent. The Hellfire Club is rife with Beltway intrigue and backroom deals, but Tapper’s leading lady is what kept us turning pages. And we’re not alone: Margaret has been praised by Nicole Wallace and Elizabeth Banks, and is perhaps best described by a member of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand‘s staff as a “resourceful badass” and “true queen.” We checked in with Tapper to find out how it feels to be the creator of a woman readers won’t be able to stop thinking about.
Glamour: I know you’re getting all kinds of praise for your Margaret. Can you tell me a little bit about how she came to be?Jake Tapper: As a reader of thrillers, I was well aware that the usual formula is for a single, studly James Bond type to jump from martinis to romance to shootouts. I knew I wanted Charlie Marder to be married to a woman he was madly in love with, and I knew I wanted her to be strong. I think that’s sexier and more romantic than the normal prototype. As a fan of Nick and Nora from The Thin Man, I started off wanting them to have what I hope is witty repartee. As Charlie begins to compromise his principles, Margaret objects to what’s happening to the man she loves and admires. From there, she took on a life of her own.
Glamour: Have you been surprised by the response?JT: Absolutely. I don’t pretend to be Mr. Woke 2018 or to have any special insight into women. I’m just a normal meatheaded man, though I do read, so I’m aware of feminist criticism of art made by men—the Bechdel Test and such. So I’m kind of amazed readers out there think I pulled it off.
Glamour: What was it like to write a woman who is pregnant? I’d love to hear a little bit about your research here.JT: The first challenge was to give Margaret her own complicated backstory, involving her own family struggles and interests and ambitions. Then I wrote for her as I would for any character, though with more noble motivations, since she’s such a kind person of such character. When the book starts, Margaret has just found out she’s pregnant, so I did a lot of checking with my editor, who happens to be a woman, and also my wife (we have two kids), to make sure the physical challenges she faces as she enters her second trimester were even possible. There were some scenes that had to be rewritten because my editor insisted there wasn’t a pregnant woman alive who who would have Margaret’s stamina.
Glamour: Do you think the experience of writing Margaret has made you a better colleague, husband, or friend—or a more empathic one?JT: The simple answer is no. But I do think it’s make me a more critical reader when it comes to the roles of women in fiction, as written by men, and more appreciative of authors who make the effort to include many different types of characters. Look, I think part of it is, at least as far as I’m concerned, I didn’t want to mess it up. I felt a similar anxiousness about an African American character I wrote, in terms of: Who the hell am I to even attempt to create this character? That trepidation might be part of the issue for some authors. But I’m really glad I tried.
It’s not long ago that a holy trinity of alleged Kardashian-Jenner baby news descended upon us: Kim Kardashian was rumored to be expecting a third child via surrogate; Kylie Jenner was apparently pregnant, which almost broke the Internet; and Khloé Kardashian also had her turn at bat with pregnancy gossip. Although Kylie’s kept mum (as is her every right), Kim since confirmed that she’s expecting via surrogate. As of Friday, Khloé has now also weighed in on the bun-in-the-oven rumors, thanks to a little kerfuffle whipped up by an Instagram pic she posted Thursday. The image in question, which is promoting her Good American line, has her resting an arm over her waistline (you can see where this is going, no?) and wearing a short, tight faux-leather miniskirt.
It was pretty much off to the races with the commenters, who were eking out a “baby bump” (their words, not ours) from the image and commenting on what is apparently strategic arm placement versus something not-awkward to do with your hand during a photoshoot. (Hands! What to do with them?)
Here’s the image:
Khloé, who’d also posted the pic on Twitter, getting much the same response, took the commenters to task with a lil’ lesson about something called ~ fashun ~. Twitter user @Khlomoney98 screen-grabbed it for posterity: “this is a peplum shirt,” Khloé wrote. “It flairs [sic] out at the bottom. It’s just the way the shirt is designed. In some of the next pictures coming up from the SAME shoot, I’m in a crop top. Showing a lot of skin…”
Of course, we don’t know when the shoot happened—it could have been months ago!—but we also don’t know if Khloé is pregnant. Or if she’s not. And that’s OK. Because she will tell us if and when she wants to, or not tell us because there’s nothing to tell. In the meantime, we’ll just be doing our best to keep up with the rest of the family. And that, frankly, is a lot.
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