Good morning, everyone.
On Friday night, I went to Gage & Tollner with some of my friends, and while spooning through the layers of Amarena cherry ice cream and toasted meringue in their Baked Alaska, we discussed other sinful foods that defy the laws of consistent temperature. One that came to mind was my beloved cold cheese slice from Little Vincent’s on Long Island — hot pizza, covered with cold shredded mozzarella. I’m sure there are more.
Today’s newsletter includes: On Running launched their own SSENSE-like editorial site; The New York Times cooking team poached an Infatuation editor; Glossier’s recent Chanel giveaway puts them in Cooked territory; a lucien Smith show in the Hamptons; Becky Malinsky, Lynette Nylander, and Rachel Seville Tashjian react to my feed full of Conner Ives dupes; two of the most Instagrammed avocado toasts come to Manhattan; and two of the largest tech companies in wedding planning have merged.
Coat check. The best-dressed person at your Christmas party might be the one who doesn’t take their coat off. Last winter at W magazine’s Best Performances party, Sara Moonves, W’s editor in chief, wore a custom Conner Ives robe of silk and fur. It reminded me a bit of Miss Hannigan from Annie, had Miss Hannigan been an Upper East Side oligarch. I screenshotted the photo of Moonves. The internet had the same idea, promptly comparing it to the Balmain coat Mary-Kate Olsen wore to the 2013 Met Gala, and then the opera-coat moodboards followed shortly after.
Ives has since released several versions of the coat, priced between $6,000 and $8,000. Nearly all have sold out. The rest of the industry either had the same idea, or quickly caught Ives fever. At the beginning of fall, Free People launched a campaign across Instagram for their $400 crushed velvet and faux fur jacket, which sold out in days. Reformation’s $500 shearling and metallic jacquard Stella coat is sold out. Last week, DÔEN released an $800 brocade and faux fur coat, which sold out in hours. I am aware that the Penny Lane style of coat has always been popular, but theses are robe-ier, Madame Zeroni-er.
My feed didn’t care that those were all sold out — it still showed me photos of Lila Moss and Sienna Miller and Hailey Bieber and Laura Harrier in that beautiful damn Conner Ives coat. But a shift occurred over this past weekend. My TikTok and Instagram feeds suddenly turned into fashion school for people who wanted to DIY (Do Ives Yourself) The Coat. One creator called the Conner Ives coat “the most beautiful coat in the world,” and noted the uptick in vintage sellers recreating the look with vintage robes and furs. She rounded up 50 silk jackets for her Substack readers to buy, and encouraged them to pair them with a vintage fur from Etsy (or Amazon). Another combined a fox fur stole from eBay with a $50 silk jacket with the help of snap closures and safety pins. Some used sewing machines, some used needle and thread, but they were all trying their hardest to save a few thousand dollars and still participate in this trend.
Last night, I closed my eyes and imagined the incoming holiday season as a sea of colorful silk jackets fastened with at-home attempts at fur lining. Would vintage fur stoles fall to the floor, like small rodents in New York City brownstones? Would the eBay silk jackets get wrinkled on subway rides to private dining room buyouts for the company holiday parties? Or is this a much brighter scenario, a renaissance for the women of New York learning to tailor and design their own clothes? I emailed the experts – Becky Malinsky, Lynette Nylander, and Rachel Seville Tashjian – to get their thoughts on this trend.