It’s Terrible The Things I Have To Do To Be Me by Philippa Snow
Where: Amazon, or your local bookshop
What It Is: Philippa Snow’s latest literary foray into the war-torn territory otherwise known as femininity and fame. This essay collection is a series of love letters, or a set of micro-biographies, or proof that coincidence is catharsis, or a vitriolic defense of direly misunderstood women stranded in dire straits. Officially, it is a sequence of paired biographies of famous women, outlining the existentially if not literally linked lives of celebrities like Anna Nicole Smith and Marilyn Monroe, Britney Spears and Aaliyah, and Lindsay Lohan and Elizabeth Taylor.
Why It’s Worth A Look: This book has it all: Lifetime movies, lips red as a fresh wound, felony theft, sex tapes, love stories. Snow sets her sights on the ampersand and turns a grammatical symbol into a trick mirror. Or perhaps a window, through which women who are usually pitted against each other can instead finally see each other clearly, and converse across time. Reading Snow is a ride on a prose rollercoaster, alternately wrenching and droll, rife with bars like a description of Lindsay Lohan as the “human equivalent of a Long Island iced tea” and Britney Spears possessing “Schrodinger’s virginity.”
–Emmeline Clein, Books Editor
Balenciaga Fragrance Collection
Where: Balenciaga
What It Is: Perfume launch parties are usually more about the party and less about the perfume—people arrive, sniff a blotter, then hit the bar or the dance floor. They talk about everything but fragrance. Not so at Balenciaga’s NYFW cocktail celebrating their new fragrance collection, where the guests crowded 10-deep around the scent bar. Everyone wanted to smell all 10 fragrances, as each one’s composition was so unique, so surprising, so compelling that you just had to try the next and the next and the next.
Why It’s Worth a Look: I couldn’t pick a favorite, which, in my 25 years of writing about perfume, has never happened. So I asked two top perfume critics who were at the party for their favorites. “Love the Incense,” says Office of the Surface’s Jamie Rosen of the hypnotic Incense Perfumum Parfum. “It’s not trying to be anything other than its dark and spicy and resinous self.” The Dry-Down Diaries’s Christina Loff agreed: “Jet black in color with a scent that takes me to some holy chamber rich with resins and amber. A beautiful one for colder months.” Loff’s top pick was Le Dix Parfum, a “reverential reconstruction,” according to Balenciaga, of Cristóbal Balenciaga’s first scent from 1947. “I didn’t want Le Dix to be my favorite, but there was something so distinctly different about it from everything else in the line,” Loff says. “Maybe it’s the power of suggestion, but it feels vintage to me and it transports me to another time. I love that powdery iris cloud it puts me on.” I still can’t decide, and I don’t have to: I bought Les Dix, the mini-bottle collection of all 10.
–Emily Dougherty, Beauty Editor
Chan Luu Ripple Diamond Toe Ring
Where: Chan Luu
What It Is: Perhaps a more belated pick as far as weather-appropriate fashion is concerned, but there is never a bad time to ponder (and buy) this piece, since it’s such a special and unexpected way to accessorize, especially with the very much in-vogue flip flop. Dream on! With a diamond-embellished toe ring, no less.
Why It’s Worth a Look: You can pair with an anklet—or turn a bracelet into one—for an added air of foot-forward styling.
–Sam Falb, Assistant Editor
Christofle’s Carrousel Collection
Where: Currently at Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche in Paris, and in all Charlotte Chesnais and Christofle boutiques starting this October
What It Is: A sculptural set of cutlery rendered in silver and stored in a walnut-paneled case inspired by the work of artist Jean Arp.
Why It’s Worth a Look: I love when jewelry and homeware collide, as they do here with the collaboration between designer Charlotte Chesnais and luxury silver and tableware line Christofle. The lightness and sculptural shape of these pieces give your tablescapes that same emotional feeling that jewelry offers when you slip it on.
–Ali Pew, Fashion Editor-at-Large
Animal Stories by Kate Zambreno
Where: Transit Books
When: Launching at New York’s Community Bookstore on Sept. 26
What It Is: CULTURED Contributor Kate Zambreno‘s new publication catalogs a singular trip to the Jardin des Plantes’s Monkey House in Paris, where they recount a towering tree that appeared “to be the stage design for a simian production of Waiting for Godot.” In subsequent chapters, Zambreno draws on John Berger’s musings on animals, Kafka’s trans-species writings, and their young children’s own experience of the zoo for a critical look at life inside an enclosure.
Why It’s Worth a Look: Zambreno is no stranger to exploring novel form as well as content in their writing—a list that includes Heroines and The Light Room—which makes the event at Community Bookstore a ripe opportunity to quiz the author themself on the maze that is their latest work.
–Mara Veitch, Executive Editor
Le Labo’s Osmanthus 19
Where: Online and in Le Labo stores around the world (I have a soft spot for the OG Elizabeth St location.)
When: Available through Sept. 30 everywhere, then for the next year in Kyoto only
What It Is: The latest scent in Le Labo’s City Exclusive family, inspired by Kyoto, with notes of osmanthus (a shrub native to eastern Asia and known to flower in early winter, for the novices out there), incense, and resin. My experience of smelling it goes like this: tart, satisfyingly saccharine, then oddly sweaty in a hot way. It feels like walking through a garden to enter an old, slightly dusty record store, whatever that means about my psyche.
Why It’s Worth a Look: Those who know me well know I’ve worn Le Labo’s Santal 33 for almost a decade. Those who know me better know my girlfriend wears the same. When hers was confiscated by airport security this summer, I knew it was time to shake things up for both of us and Osmanthus 19 couldn’t have arrived at a better time.
–Ella Martin-Gachot, Senior Editor
The New Age of Sexism: How AI and Emerging Technologies Are Reinventing Misogyny by Laura Bates
Where: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your local bookshop
What It Is: A damning look at our inability to regulate new tech as it emerges. Laura Bates, the author of Men Who Hate Women and founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, takes a look at A.I.’s rapid expansion of deepfakes (about 96 percent are pornographic imagery of women), the metaverse, digital brothels, and more ways that our social failings are being encoded in the future.
Why It’s Worth a Look: Now is perhaps the worst gender relations have ever been in my (albeit short) life. Bates outlines how this shift goes beyond dating and social media tiffs, impacting the products we build, legislation we pass, and the way we teach the next generation. After reading, I am scared—but informed!
–Sophie Lee, Associate Digital Editor
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