Edition 46
Fake weddings are the best new party trend, fashion's most wanted It-bags, should you be taking testosterone and more
By far the most exciting thing I did this week was go with my mum to see David the Medium at the Opera House. I sat next to David at a dinner earlier in the year and he was absolutely delightful but so normal that I think I possibly underestimated what he did. (Not my mum though, who had spent the days before the show deep in DavidTok and was ready to have her mind blown, wearing waterproof mascara in the ready and everything.) Now it’s six days later and I still can’t keep thinking about what I saw. The things he knew about people, the messages he passed on to them from their loved ones who had passed were so uncanny. I had chills the entire time. Unlike my mum, I didn’t have the foresight to wear waterproof mascara and was a streaky mess. He still has a few cities left on his tour if you want to be a streaky mess, mind-blown too.
On to the links…
ChatGPT is going to be relaxing its rules and allowing sexbot activity as of this December. (Hardly surprising given that, according to Bloomberg, “Roughly 30% of the prompts being typed into general purpose AI assistants including ChatGPT are romantic or sexual in nature.”) What could possibly go wrong?
The biggest party trend in India right now amongst young people is the fake wedding, says the Independent. (A wedding is the only party I ever really enjoy, mostly because I’ve never been to any other kind of party where people dance quite so often to Daryl Braithwaite’s Horses, so I can very much get behind this.)
Jummaa Ki Raat, an event organiser in Delhi, was among the first to launch what it labelled a “Fake Sangeet” in February. Co-founder Sahib Gujral says the idea began almost as a joke when they experimented with floral décor that resembled a wedding stage.
“You dress up like you’re going to a wedding, dance to the songs, decorate like a wedding, that’s about it,” he explains to The Independent.
There are no mock rituals, no exchange of vows or garlands – only the parts of a wedding that guests most enjoy.
At one of the fake weddings in the capital, guests joked about whether they belonged to the “bride’s side” or the groom’s even though neither existed.
Strangers posed for family-style photos, others broke into choreographed moves and by midnight the dance floor looked less like satire and more like pure celebration.
The events are no longer a niche youth fad either, bringing together a broad spectrum of people.
Young professionals and students mingle with older attendees who missed celebrating their own weddings during the pandemic. A 21-year-old man who attended Jummaa Ki Raat’s fake sangeet says the atmosphere was more inclusive than at a nightclub. “Usually I wouldn’t go to a club by myself but here people don’t just stick to their groups, they try to include everyone,” he adds.
Resale fashion site has released its 2025 Ultra-Luxury Resale Report, compiled by analysing “millions of data points across search, engagement, follows, add-to-bag actions and completed sales from January 2024 through May 2025.” It named the year’s It-bags as Alaïa’s Le Teckel, then The Row‘s N/S Park Tote, and Bottega Veneta‘s Andiamo. It also noted the continued and surprising rise of Goyard.
Looking ahead to 2026, Fashionphile predicts the rise of artificial intelligence will fuel a return to authenticity, tactility and warmth. “There’s an appetite for imperfection and personal history,” Leger said. “The dress code next year is human.” Along with a resurgence of vintage pieces, the platform expects to see continued growth in satin, velvet and embossed finishes. Some of the key trending searches as we head into 2026 include neutral bags (up 200%), satin (up 181%), vintage (up 108%), metallic (up 65%) and heart bags (up 60.4%).
The Goyard obsession in particular can be at least partly explained by this quote from Erika Andreetta, partner at PwC Italia, who just presented their ‘Trends in luxury fashion: Consumer survey 2025’ conducted via 268 consumers in Italy, Germany, the UK, France, and Spain, across baby boomers, Gen X, millennial, and Gen Z luxury customers, and presented at a retail conference last week in Rome: “Luxury fashion is undergoing a profound and irreversible transformation. The new generations are no longer content with just buying a product; they want to understand its value, history, and impact. Gen Z and millennials are redefining the rules of the game, pushing the industry towards more sustainable, inclusive, and digital models. Consumers are more informed, more curious, and more demanding. They clearly indicate where to invest: in experience, circularity, and trust. For companies in the sector, this is a real opportunity to rethink their positioning and build long-term value. The future of luxury is already here, and it speaks the language of awareness.” We want value and sustainability when paying $5k+ for a bag? How radical.
I want so much for Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre’s book to be a huge success to give her at least a little posthumous revenge, and although I’m too protective of my mental state these days to read it myself, I’ve devoured all the reviews. Tina Brown’s was, of course, the most thorough and contextual. The idea that these two monsters wanted her to have his baby and hand it over to them is just horrific.
…anyone who supports Trump pardoning Maxwell, Epstein’s imperious, Oxford-educated adjutant, who cruised high school exits and upscale spas (she first spotted Virginia working at the Mar-a-Lago spa), looking for fresh teenage targets, should consider that Epstein could never have groomed so many hundreds of young victims without Maxwell’s reassuring, pedigreed feminine overtures. In her book, Giuffre observes Ghislaine’s insecurity when she turns 40 and starts to resent the nubile Virginia, whom Epstein, like a perverse child, always demanded to be tucked in by at night. Maxwell “began lashing out at me during our threesomes…she would grab a larger-than-life dildo and use it to hurt me. If I complained, she hurt me more.” Giuffre finally resolved to escape Epstein and Maxwell’s “house of shame” when they pressured her to have Epstein’s baby and sign over all parental rights to him. “What if the baby were female?” Giuffre wonders. “Was the plan for Epstein and Maxwell to have me bring that little girl up until she reached puberty, then hand her over for them to abuse?”
Women are taking testosterone at levels much higher than the standard dose that can be prescribed in Australia in an effort to bring back their energy and sex drives—even if it means dealing with moustaches and hair loss in the process. From the NYT:
Both Medina and Lin are taking an amount of testosterone that’s brought their levels higher than what women produce naturally at any point in their lifetimes. The way they and many women on these high doses talk about their relationships sometimes has the ring of romantasy: fantastic tales of sexual rejuvenation and newfound intimacy. One woman in her 50s told me that after years of revulsion at so much as the thought of her husband’s breath, she now looked forward to having sex with him almost every night; even in the middle of sex, she said, she was thinking about the next time they could have sex. Another woman told me she’d had more orgasms in the past two years on testosterone than in the entirety of her previous life; a third said that after years of “wanting to rip someone’s face off” if her husband so much as touched her, she now actively pursued sex with him — if anything, she now worried, she wanted it more often than he did.
Below the paywall:
The Moscow finishing school for future oligarch wives and the weirdest story of four cool NY girls rearranging their lives around a faceless Substack writer
Ozempic is killing the business lunch-and taking the deals done with it
Fancy restaurant ‘water menus’ are on the rise
There’s a new 67, lucky us
Everyone’s suddenly looking for a partner who’s ‘chalant’
Brissie, Melbourne and Sydney rental markets among the most affordable in the world, according to a global report that must have only surveyed landlords
So weird: thousands of people are having dreams about the same mall
Clean girl makeup is out, party girl make-up is in (and just in time for parties)
How long your social battery can really last
Pink cocaine is not nearly as cute as it sounds
The kids really don’t want to be posted on your instagram…
… and some from Harvard have come up with a five step program for getting off the socials altogether…
…which may involve having ‘analogue bags’ at the ready (like a hospital bag for pregnant women, except full of things to entertain you when you feel the urge to scroll.
Why is being a bridesmaid getting more and more expensive?
Trad sons are the new domestic influencers
Feeling stressed? A scream club could be the answer
Ireland is bringing in a basic income for artists
Is nothing real anymore? There’s an app that makes fake vacay photos
Finally, a way to humblebrag about holidays you didn’t even take
