My Sale Tonight Is About The Way We Used To Write About Fashion

Tonight at 7pm EST, I’m selling a former assistant of a certain magazine’s EIC’s pieces on Whatnot.

Tonight at 7pm, I’m holding a NEVERWORNS Live! Shopping mini sale with a fabulous model on Whatnot. (PS. Click here to get $15 off. Also, this was the breakdown of the major sale last week.) Note: I haven’t uploaded everything for tonight’s sale because I want there to be surprises…!

Anyway, down to the nitty-gritty: Whose stuff is it? A former assistant to a particular magazine editor-in-chief during the fantastical heyday of glossies. You do the guessing. I’ll do the selling. Note: I’m still cleansing my closet, so there are more personal pieces. Plein Sud leopard-print ankle boots? A Stella-era Chloé horoscope shirt? I know you want it.

The former assistant has incredible style. One director at the magazine remembered her as “having the finest taste,” and I have to agree. A slinky sample Chanel dress that rides the body’s curves like a wave, a black wool Nicolas-era Balenciaga coat that cinches the waste, and a Prada slip skirt with the teeniest beading that almost falls off the hips. She also had a thing for Comme...! There’s something for everyone.

This assistant worked at the magazine pre-2008 crash aka the Black Car era. Big budgets. Endless expense reports. This is the money-packed world of fashion that perhaps inspired zillions of people to want to work in this twisted industry.

I’m not doing this Comme bag justice for you Rei lovers…but more goodies will go live right before the sale at 7pm!

But it wasn’t just the amount of moolah that separated this period of magazines. The way of talking about fashion was a draw of its own: often extreme, loaded, and entirely entertaining. This was when an accessories director quipped phrases like “Fendi had the audacity to stitch wood on an animal print base” about a Fendi Oyster bag. Or when André Leon Talley flailed his hands and yelled about “the famine of beauty.” Or in The September Issue (2009) when Sally Singer’s head spun in a meeting about how “jackets are the new coats.” Or that viral clip from the BBC series Boss Women (2000) when Vogue’s

Plum Sykes

sings this line in her posh drawl: “Who is going to go wear a chiffon Dolce & Gabbana skirt in the office? Only me or someone who works at Vogue, you know?”

therealplumsykes

A post shared by @therealplumsykes

A slight tangent: I miss this way of talking about clothes. The screaming about garments. I read yesteryear pieces about what could be mundane wallets or pashminas, and the sentences are packed with flourishes and ridiculous references. There’s life there! A few months ago, I read a piece by former fashion writer Jenny Comita about suede bags from the January 2001 issue of Vogue. Comita paints an entire universe using the cool babysitter trope to talk about the “rich hippy” trend of suede sacks, which included a beaded Fendi Oyster bag, a floral-embroidered Celine messenger bag, and a patchworked Givenchy bag. Here’s a gem from the article: “And she found canvas schoolbags to be completely unoriginal. Instead, she slipped her shoulder through the strap of a big, slouchy carryall, inevitably overflowing with gum wrappers, clove cigarettes (don’t tell your mother) and tubes of strawberry lip balm. She grew up to drive a Volvo, of course, and graduate from Stanford Business School—but where she is right now, your favorite baby-sitter is more likely than not putting her name on the waiting list for one of these spring bags.”

There’s a ridiculous specificity and an unhinged yet fine-tuned stream of consciousness. Yet, I know this babysitter even though I’ve never met her, and I know these bags—and their linings, pockets, and stitchings, although I’ve never carried one. Ok, fine, I have that Michael Kors-era Celine one that I nabbed on a resale site. That’s not the point! Comita creates a deliciously nostalgic world with a touch of high-on-life Edith Wharton excess using suede bags as the axis.

Writing about fashion has changed. We are more quick-hit visually focused these days, probably because of a combination of being so product-obsessed and our addiction to virtual worlds like Instagram and TikTok. This foray into surface-level aesthetics has reared its head across all industries, from fashion to film to writing. We excise gut sensuality and depend on cheap visuals to get us to style nirvana without actual depth or storytelling. Where’s the world in that?

Anyway, more on this another time.

I can’t wait to see you for NEVERWORNS Live! Shopping tonight at 7pm, aka Sunday, September 26, to shop the yore of fashion. I’m holding these NEVERWORNS Live! Shopping sales are every other Sunday, and some surprises are in between, like tonight! So stay tuned and follow me here to bid.

PS. I’m holding a massive, gargantuan, throbbing sale next weekend on Sunday, February 2nd. It’s with someone you all know. Anyway, more details to come. Giddy up.

Watch the NEVERWORNS Live! Shopping video below. Watch NEVERWORNS, the filmed series, here.