Kristen Stewart’s chunky necklace
Remember when “statement necklaces” were a thing, and everyone was walking around with these hulking plastic disks around their necks? It offset the weight of the chunky buckles and the chunky wedges.
The #neckmess trend brought the emphasis back on maximum accessorising, but instead of brightly coloured paperweights, it was piles of dainty gold, silver and candy-coloured necklaces. A reader asked about this necklace, which Kristen Stewart often wears to appearances (again, going as far back as TIFF in 2018). Kristen is not one to bow to trends and she is one of the only fashion ambassadors to not be weighed down by her house (which is why I thought this necklace might be Chanel).
I was wrong, it looks like the James Colarusa by Broken English Jewelry. Spendy, but you can find similar by looking for a thick paperclip necklace.
Sienna's sweater
Over the break, I received a request for a yellow sweater shirt worn by Sienna Miller (who is not someone associated with athleisure at all!). It’s cute, it’s cropped and it’s a staple in her closet – photos from 2018 show her in the very same sweater. This tells me that she loves it and she really takes care of her clothes.
Sienna’s looks like Rachel Comey and this exact version is no longer in her line (here it is in a slightly different colour on The Real Real). There are a few other styles floating around on resellers. I’ve tried to find a similar style but there’s no luck this season – this is a wait-and-see-for-spring purchase.
Here she is with the team at Chloe, in the most Sienna dress imaginable.
Michelle Obama’s Great Print
This request is from November (Dragana I’m sorry!!!!) and you were right to check DVF, that’s the first place I would have gone as well. This is Etro and it’s actually a two-piece outfit.
TV Messes Me Up
I’ll admit this one lingered in my inbox for a minute but I can firmly say it’s not my fault it is sold out, I swear. This is a plaid jacket from My Dead Mom and it was easy enough to track at Dynamite (bet you weren’t expecting that). But, TV clothes are always a gamble because of the filming schedule, by the time the show airs the clothes are usually out-of-season. This jacket is from 2023.
The Walmart Birkin
Have you heard of the bag that is eating up TikTok? Now I HATE a TikTok fashion trend (drivel for people who derive their personality from an algorithm - no one is dressing like a mob wife!!!) but this one caught my eye because it’s kicked up quite a fuss in bag forums.
It’s the Walmart Birkin. Bags that look like Birkins but are proudly from Walmart.
It’s a dupe, which I view differently than a knockoff, which is PRETENDING to be a designer bag. A dupe is a replica but it isn’t pretending to be anything but a copy. I think that’s an important distinction.
Second, Hermès is the most expensive of the expensive bunch, still independently owned with very high standards, while other luxury houses seem to be cutting corners and raising prices (I’ve even heard whispers that the Chanel lambskin flap bags are NOT what they used to be, despite astronomical price increases). Birkins are famously hard to buy, require a consistent shopping history with Hermès, and are meant to be exclusionary. This has led to a massive secondary market with ridiculous price markups.
Because they are collector items, most are kept in pristine conditions (some die-hards even have climate-controlled closets) and are bought-and-sold in secret. These bags have also become a favourite of Housewives who want to prove they aren’t in tax debt. But that was not what they were made for.
Jane Birkin wasn’t about prissy, uptight style at all. Her Birkin was famously stuffed and floppy and spilling over with life. That’s how the Olsens use their Birkins as well. They are meant to be lived in, but for most the bags are too expensive and too coveted to be used as actual bags, so they become dusty show pieces.
(Lainey: this connection between the Birkin and the Olsens is interesting because one of the things that keeps coming up on #BagTok, if there is such a thing, is how Birkin popularity might be decreasing while The Row’s Margaux, which is less expensive, is picking up popularity. And by “less expensive” I mean that the Margaux goes for around $8K-ish, HAHAHAHAAHAHA.)
The justification for the exclusivity of the Birkin is that only so many are made a year - the cows are raised a certain way, the sewing is done by the best in the world etc. You won’t get that with a bag from Walmart, either in the material or the factory conditions - we don’t know where it comes from or how it’s made.
Any bag is worth what someone will pay for it. Hermès can sell its croc Birkin for $25k or whatever, that’s what the market will bear (and I’ve seen them go as high as $130k on reseller sites); it’s fair to question whether this is the free market at work or a case of “the emperor has no clothes.”
If a person doesn’t like a Birkin, they won’t like the Walmart bag. If they love the style, this bag is accessible the same way Zara, H&M, Mango and other mall retailers make it possible to buy clothes that “look” like YSL or Gucci or Balenciaga. Depending on your worldview, this is the continued democratization of fashion and rebuking the materialism of name brands, or another example of race-to-the bottom consumerism that lacks history and care for craftsmanship.
For a nuanced take from someone who can actually afford a Birkin, here’s Bethenny Frankel. She is a jump scare on social media and drives me nuts (my armchair analysis is that she was a top-tier Housewife and hates that she was so good at it and that the Bravo universe continued to thrive after she left). Her very specific skill set and economic status make her uniquely qualified in this department. She’s obnoxious but that doesn’t mean she’s always wrong.
@bethennyfrankel This bag has disrupted the luxury space and broken the glass ceiling #bag #handbag #hermes #walmart #knockoff #dupe #luxury #disruptive #fascinating
♬ original sound - Bethenny Frankel
