Luxury and Pleasure vs The Spiral
Licking cheese dust off your fingertips.
Hello from here. Sometimes I struggle with how to start these letters - this is one of those times. I’m thinking about so many things and feeling very NEW YEAR amped up and I want to just do and make and write and hug the universe and try to wear a tie and MAKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT, and dye my hair blonder and start lifting weights and be better, and I want it all now now now. I feel like I can’t really synthesize my thoughts, it might be because I’m on day eight million of the winter break and I haven’t gone pee without at least one child in the room for over fourteen days, or it might be the Love is Blind reunion I have playing currently in the background, but I’m in this manic state of grabbing THIS and THAT and THIS OTHER THING so this letter is all over the place. But that’s also the topic of this letter.
I’ve said this in every letter for the past few weeks - but I keep thinking about luxury. The idea of luxury. I saw a lot of in/out lists at the end of 2024 declaring “quiet luxury”as being out, which I’m happy about in terms of “quiet luxury” being a blanket term for shades of beige elitism group think, but I’ve been simultaneously reading a lot of things about the decline of the luxury industry, luxury at retail, etc etc etc. I am neither articulate enough nor well-read enough to summarize those points - I am not a journalist, I am an expert in myself and my feelings and I’m smart enough to recognize that. BUT! I can’t really stop thinking about LUXURY.
First thought, I believe there is a cohort of shoppers and fashion-interested people who are not as obsessive or enthusiastic about it as I, and their entire concept of luxury and what luxury means comes from….Quiet Luxury. That this thing which started out as a term to describe an aesthetic has morphed into the…how do I say this….visual definition of something that is, in reality, much bigger and much more personal.
Obviously there is a bonafide LUXURY industry and business and, like I said, I AM NOT YOUR GIRL TO DISCUSS THAT. And that’s not what I’m talking about here. THAT IS NOT WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.
Second thought, I think a lot of shoppers and fashion-interested people have been trained to believe that luxury is determined by price. And yes, many of the big L Luxury items are very, very expensive, but this is the (more obvious and also less interesting) point that I’ve really been marinating in. This is the very bland and very basic and college-freshman level thing I’ve been thinking about: what is luxury?
I’m blessed with a strong sense of pleasure. I like the finer things! Which, of course, translates to clothes and shoes and jewelry, but also has a lot to do with things like doing stretchy legs in fresh sheets mid-afternoon (to read in bed all afternoon!), or dabbing the last bits of cheese dust out of the corners of a bag of Pirate’s Booty and licking it off my fingers. That is pleasing to me. That feels like luxuriating. Doing whatever I want, when I want, in the precise way I want to do it is a luxury.
There is an element of ease and freedom to those things that is at the root of that pleasurable, lovely feeling, and I need a lot of quiet in my own head to get there.
Now, when I feel the manic hyperactivity I described before, I do not feel pleasure. I start grabbing at random things, trying to stuff them into my life to see what makes me feel at peace. Literally filling a void. It’s not a bad feeling, but it’s hard to sit with and do nothing, it’s hard not to reach out and grab the first thing your nimble fingers find, it’s an excited hunger that makes me restless and unable to think clearly. In the past, I used alcohol and THC to numb that feeling out. It makes me want to drink, it makes me want to overcommit myself to things I don’t plan on following through with, it makes me want attention and validation, but mainly it makes me…as a first instinct…want to shop.
But that buying to fill a void….no matter how nice or how expensive the things are I’m buying….that isn’t luxury! That isn’t pleasure! I don’t know what the fuck that is but it isn’t good! And the more stuff I have the more stuff I feel I need to wear, and the more pressure I put on myself to wear it. And then I feel like shit when I don’t, and I feel overwhelmed and angry at LA for being a car-culture city and missing NY for being a walking-city and then I hate everything, and I start to feel itchy and like something is wrong, and then….I somehow feel like shopping again.
Today, while I was driving, I started feeling my anxiety creep up and my urge to run my credit card or take an edible kick into such a high gear that I had to make myself a voice note of less stream of consciousness spiraling, and in it I said - is this for Substack or for my therapist? (I don’t currently have a therapist, I only have a Substack. And a Sponsor).
Ok, so what does this have to do with luxury. Guys, probably nothing.
As I’m starting this new year, and I think my fourth (!!!) year of Earl Earl, I feel so excited and energized and wanting to DO DO DO and MAKE MAKE MAKE and reach and grab and cobble together everything (and also read everything, watch everything, research everything, learn French! learn to wax my own legs! start a collection of vintage Isaac Mizrahi!)…my brain is telling me these are urgent needs, and vital to my survival. However, I have the luxury of working for myself, and not having a boss freaking out at me for not having a rock solid strategy for awards season coverage GOD FUCKING FORBID. I get to do this the way I want to, and part of the way I’ve wanted to and have done it, is with blinders on and a fully open heart. I have the luxury of loving so many things and finding joy and delight and PLEASURE in so many things. I didn’t mean to turn this letter into a promise of what 2025 will bring, but again, I’m just letting the wind take me where the wind takes me.
I’m going to carry this feeling of desperately grabbing for things and trying to fill a void in my heart - and also the feeling of pleasure via style and getting dressed - as the two opposite ends of my own personal spectrum of luxuriousness. Mindless grab bagging = bad. Horny, rich, and lazy = good. For your sake, I hope this isn’t the first in a series of thoughts on what luxury is, but I think that might be in the cards.
YOUR FRIEND I MEAN IT (friendship is IN for 2025)
Laurel
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Same girl! Love what you said about filling a void vs. being. LIke. BEING. Where is my mind? What am I doing? WHY AM I TALKING!? Being purposeful IS luxurious. It doesn't have to equal $$$ name brands, though they are nice and give me a sense of ... power? Superiority?? So maybe that's not good either! Anyway, thank you for your stream of consciousness.
The “is this for my therapist or is this for Substack” got me. I’m constantly struggling with the line between my inner voice and my inner outer voice. How much of this is something I need to work out in public, with others, and how much of it needs to be done behind those doors? Especially when everyone else is sharing everything out loud!! All the time!!
Also the urge to do All The Things and Be Everything is sooo so strong right now.