I’m trying a new thing here where I’m reading these essays to you - I like listening to other people’s newsletters while I’m driving, but the AI isn’t the best, so let me try and do it myself. Right? Let me know if you like it, it will get better over time, my mouth won’t sound so sticky and nervous.
This isn’t about sex, and this isn’t about politics. Or not exactly but maybe a little bit. I’m noticing two things happening in inverse proportion to each other: the state of politics, and the state of freedom in the US is nosediving, and horniness is on the rise. Horniness is having a moment, and it feels both tied to and entirely separate from the awful things happening domestically, the one I’m referring to specifically here is censorship. The feeling of being muzzled, watched, and not in a sexy way, in a life-threatening way.
I’m not surprised that the response to that is a little subversive, that there’s an undercurrent of charged and gently bitten flesh in the air. A wink and a grin. That Zoe Kravitz and Harry Styles are hooking up (doing the lord’s work!) and letting us all fantasize, for a minute, about what that must be like. On the surface, horniness is an escape, and a way out of a hellish reality to something pure. This is important: horniness is different from sexiness - sexy is sexy. Horny is….different.
I know I talk about horniness as a concept a lot - I say, I’m horny for this license plate design, or the look is very horny - and again, it’s not about sex. When I think about it more in-depth, it’s actually about curiosity.
What does it feel like? what does it smell like? what does it taste like? is it bitter? sweet? yummy? can I feel the sun on my back when I wear it or will I feel suffocated? will I like that?
To me, it feels also in rebellion to our phones—to be curious, you can’t know too much. Curiosity comes when you’re on the surface. My phone gives me too much information, I can google what Cupro feels like, so I never have to push to describe my new blouse from The Row as having the texture and translucency of vellum. Our smartphones may be doing a lot of things to cockblock us, but the big one I’m thinking about right now, is…they’re making us too smart. It’s hard to be curious when the answer to every question is at our fingertips, and if the answer doesn’t exist, we have AI to invent one for us. I wish we were all just a little bit dumber, a little bit more tactile, a little bit hornier.
It’s curiosity plus being really, really, really into something.
When I was figuring out my style, in my early and mid twenties, I didn’t have a full length mirror. This wasn’t an intentional strategy, I just didn’t. I had to guess what my clothes would look like in new combinations, I had to literally use my imagination. There was a lot less self-consciousness and a lot more impulse doing it that way. A lot more experimental and in-my-body out-of-my-mind. I was curious about what something might look like with some unlikely pairing, and curious about what I would feel like wearing it. Curiosity leads to experimentation, which leads to all sorts of good outcomes. I was horny for clothes, I loved it so much, and while I’ve since gained a few full-length mirrors, I haven’t lost that visceral interest in feeling.
It makes me think of the teasers Loewe released today of their new collection (click through the whole thing):
And the statement Jack and Lazaro made about it:
The campaign begins to define a tone, a spirit, and the beginnings of an intent. In it lies a vibrancy and tactility rooted in craft that feels fundamental to the House, a sunniness and sensuality that feels inherent to its Spanish roots, and ultimately an optimism and spirit that we recognize as deeply personal to us as individuals.
There is a real optimism to it, and an optimism to horniness, and curiosity I think. A willingness to try to find something, if not better, then at least good, and right now…that feels not just good, but urgent.
It’s the start of a new season on the fashion calendar, and so many designers making their debut in big new jobs, and there is so much optimism. The big shows in New York felt a little beige, but outside of those names there was so much friction and tension and weird weird weirdness, and even more in London, that wonderful beacon of strange, curiouser and curiouser, and now we’re onto Milan, probably the horniest city of them all, and what wonders might await us at the hands of those daring Italians! I’m probably projecting but it does feel subversive. Finding meaning and comfort in artistry and sensuality and subtext feels subversive, and I get ramped up on the joy in that until I remember what it’s all in spite of.
There’s not a lot, realistically, we can do right now. People are being punished for speaking up in a way that is, frankly, terrifying. If I’m being honest, things feel bleak and wrong as hell. I don’t recognize the place I live, I don’t recognize my fellow Americans and when I think about it too hard—especially raising children in this gun-toting nightmare—it’s suffocating. Not in a good way, to answer the question from before.
And I don’t want to completely check out, I don’t think that’s the answer either. I don’t have the answer, but I think curiosity will get us there. Curiosity about textures and tones and fabrics and smells, but also about people and who they are and what they love and the things they hold sacred. Maybe it’s an openness that will save me, a hunger for..hmm, not knowledge, because I’m happily surface level… experiences, and feelings, and unexpected delights.
Like Demna’s Gucci debut, which I was prepared to loathe based solely on the frames in the images but thirty seconds later I had a full about-face and I admitted I judged wrong and I actually love it. I want the freedom to prove myself wrong, or right, but I want to be in control. Not everything needs to mean something. Or let it mean something, but let me guess what it is. Or let me give it my own meaning! Let me touch and feel and squeeze and snuggle, let me get there when I get there, but God, please just let me get there.
Your friend,
Laurel
