Bourgeois – Julie Fredrickson

The beginning of the post Great Recession (or The Global Financial Crisis) recovery was just getting traction in 2014, not so much that everyone you knew felt like their goal in life was to become a product manager at Meta or Google.

And this turning point provided a surprising amount of freedom to try to turn an aesthetic into a business. Previously most were happy with an advertising campaign from a big brand and now every constituent part is its own fully monetized subculture.

Money was being thrown at any authentic form of culture that could be commoditized during turn Zero Percent Interest Rate phenomena years. I didn’t know it then but everything I considered to be the day to day culture of my friends was about to be hovered up first by venture and then by private equity and turned brands.

Coolhunters didn’t sell out they were eaten by the inexorable logic of attention economies. More than one Style Forum guy has gone on to success. One of them even runs national security now. No really.

Just as an aside, Freeman’s is still a thing and the New Musuem is involved. Some fashion substack (that is hired an editor who used to run fashion blogs) alerted me to this fun fact. I genuinely feel for folks in fashion as it feels as if culture has simply devoured itself orosbourus style into a null space.

In a post chronological world at the end of history style has nothing to do but recycle drink ideas and how tight or baggy a pant is will determine your swag within your very specific age bracket and algorithmic context.

I’m very grateful I’m not an Instagram addict (just a Twitter one but hey that’s part of my work right?) as I dread the all encompassing algorithmic cycle. Today’s podcast viral hit with Jeremy Giffon reminds us if it is important it will reach you.

And I agree. Being cool has always meant doing your own thing. And we are all just here to be entertained. From Gladiator to Accellerando, our lightcone demanded to be entertained.

So as I flip through Substacks of Condé Nast defectors I feel like they are stuck in my past. Substack works is mostly packaging takes and have yet to package what a crisp market editor would deliver me once a month from the old guard even if it’s already my summer itinerary.

Honestly the first generation of beauty bloggers giving product reviews. What are we even doing anymore? Ipsy turned a YouTuber into a makeup sampler and Allure turned into self into a sampling service. Albeit the best of the sampling services, but still who are we even meant to trust anymore?

Maybe that is why the only style anyone can ever really have honestly comes from study of themselves and their life. What is empathy of not conform to the rules that help make others feel at ease. Manners are after all, meant for the comfort of others not yourself. I am sure that can make it very tempting indeed to only say nice things. Which should be easy as editor of taste. Only tell us about the good stuff.

When I was a sophomore in high school I lived in France. As part of an exchange program I attended a private Catholic school in Evreux which is a a town midway into Normandy. The family I lived with was almost quintessentially French. The patriarch of the family Didier was a perfumer that worked in fragrances for Chanel. And this is where American bourgeois and French bourgeois diverge. In our washing up.

I was accustomed to showering every single day. I was a horseback rider, as was the daughter in the family with whom I lived. I thought it perfectly reasonable to rinse off the barn smells on a regular basis. This was not a view shared by the family. While they were immaculately groomed, their routines involved wash cloths and eau de toilette. Washing one’s hair was a once a week affair.

I was slow to pick up on this cultural norm. They would politely point out that I showered a lot. I was gifted a number of Chanel cosmetics and fragrance products. Did I perhaps prefer Allure to Number 5? They kept coaxing me. I kept not getting the hint. Finally I was told point blank I was running up the water bill and I needed to knock it off.

Lucky for me the habit stuck. That old joke where a woman tells her suitor she can’t go on a date because she’s washing her hair? That’s me now. Well, sort of. Every Sunday afternoon I set aside an hour for the full scrub down routine. I like to go into the week with freshly styled hair. If you catch me on Wednesday or Thursday you can see my hair slowly getting less coiffed. I’ll typically do a rinse and condition on Thursday but thanks to my French family Sunday remains the only full hair washing day. And I still kind of dislike perfume. But don’t tell Didier.