Throughlines and Plotlines
Paris Fashion Week Recap & The Queen of Romantasy: Sarah. J. Maas on Call Her Daddy
Hi Friends,
Shorter piece today since the first episode of Let’s Do Drinks is officially coming tomorrow! And I thought I would never have things to run out of to talk about, let me tell you finding things to talk about for twenty minutes unfettered has been a STRUGGLE. But, two fun topics today: Paris Fashion Week Recap & Thoughts on the Queen of Romantasy: Sarah J. Maas. This year seems to be flying by at the speed of light (I have referred to it as Chaos incarnate to multiple friends by now). I got my manuscript back from my editor this week so I am hiding from edits by procrastinating by…working on other things. So let’s get to it.
Paris Fashion Week Recap
I’ll be honest, I’ve been working so much the last few weeks that I really didn’t pay much attention to the Paris Shows. Or Milan. I saw the looks that came across my feed, sure, the headlines , like Mark Zuckerberg sitting front row at Prada?!?!? - Which as I typed that I couldn’t help but scream out to my empty kitchen “Sorry my Prada’s at the Cleaners? Along with my hoodie and fuck you flip flops,” like Andrew Garfield in the Social Network. Now that I think about it, all the headlines were claiming he was there was because of a potential MetaGlasses partnership, but I wonder if some millennial PR agent told Mark it was a good way to show he’s chill, and in on rather like Anna Wintour going to the Devil Wears Prada premiere 20 years ago. Still Think she’s an icon for that. I don’t love the nerdy, evil men who have collectively brought about more bad in our society in the last 20 years seeking the coolness factor associated with the Fashion Industry. It’s also made me wonder more about the state of the industry. I’ve seen plenty of post-mortems about Paris, but this one article from Vogue Business really says it much more succinctly than I can. Fashion is catering to the male gaze. I get that fashion is supposed to be provocative, but I don’t think provocative comes at the expense of othering. Take early 90s Alexander McQueen. The ‘Bumster’ trousers were provocative and scandalous, but he was appreciating the beauty of the female form in a very non sexual way. I don’t know that having Marylin Manson, who walked at Enfants Riches this season, and has multiple accusations of abuse or Bryan Johnson, the right-wing influencer who is bringing incel terms like looksmaxxing and their problematic views of hypermasculinity into the mainstream, who walked at Matières Fécales this season - even if these collections were supposed to satirize the 1%. Biohacking is just men rebranding Anorexia, by the way.
Anyways the fashion! I’ve seen a few pieces declare purple is the new color for the season - and let me tell you as someone who accidentally adopted it as a signature color a few years ago, welcome to those of you who are catching up. My beloved Schiapparelli was a great collection, if a little tame by Daniel Roseberry’s creative standards. Tom Ford was really interesting for its Patrick Bateman coats. Louis Vuitton was very fun for the first time in awhile, and we got a shot of the Queen Zendaya and her likely wedding band. Very much tempted to get a bob after seeing hers, tbh. And Sarah Burton at Givenchy is everything to me. Oh, Sarah, the woman that you are. I am still not convinced by Jonathan Anderson’s ready to wear. The Accessories are incredible - those Lily Pad sandals were inspired. But Ready to Wear does not seem to work yet, at least for me. Mathieu Blazy at Chanel is of course the hands down favorite. I am OBSESSED. Every single show. And all that harping on how no one is going to buy it, and his first collection has only been on shelves six days in Paris and there are multiple articles about how the stores can’t keep anything in stock and it resembles the jungle scene from mean girls (The collection hits New York tomorrow. Don’t worry my appointment is in the morning 😉). It does feel like fashion history in the making, right before our very eyes. It’s very exciting to be a part of that energy, particularly when everything else feels particularly dire in the world at the moment.
The Queen of Romantasy
So I’m still obsessing over Sarah J. Maas on the Call her Daddy Podcast last week.
If you are not on Booktok and haven’t been forced to read A Court of Thorns and Roses or any of her book series by me yet (text me, I’ll make sure you do! I’ve converted many friends to this particular cult), I’m here to convince you otherwise. ACOTAR is her second series, which first debuted in 2015. I have a very personal relationship to it, and consider myself one of the OG fans, before booktok really gave it - and the Romantasy genre as a whole a global platform due to the pandemic.
Back in late 2014 I was an assistant at Allure. And one of my jobs was to open all the packages that came from Publishers of Advanced Pre-Publication Copies and see if any books that were sent could possibly be used as coverage in the magazine. This meant mostly beauty and health nonfiction, but they sent all the fiction anyways. All the ones that weren’t acceptable for magazine coverage or deemed as such by the Features Editor went through me before being placed on the giveaway table.
I had always loved YA, but I was a young professional working in fashion. Young Adult - and Particularly fantasy seemed to juvenile for the life I was attempting to build for myself. But then this one book - billed as a cross between Game of Thrones and Beauty and the Beast came across my desk. I took it home, and devoured it in a single night. I finished the book, right as the sun was coming up at 6am, and I would have to be up in an hour or so to head back to work at One World Trade.
But, it reignited my love of Young Adult, and taught my not to be ashamed of it because it was no longer juvenile - and man do those sex scenes prove that point, LOL. And somewhere in the neighborhood of six months later, while doing another reread of the book, I indirectly came up with the idea for my own YA novel on a communte downtown on the A train. So, I love Sarah J. Maas for the ability to create a wonderful world alone, but more personally for helping me find my own path. Now? Just a few days ago I’ve gotten my own manuscript back from my editor, as I go on the agent hunt again.
I loved how unexpected the series felt. How modern, despite the medieval-esque fantasy setting. The accurate depiction of relationships, including sex. The male anti-hero is where we get morally grey book boyfriends from. And it’s wonderful escapism.
While watching the Call Her Daddy podcast where Sarah announced the next two long awaited iterations in the series, I had several observations that I wanted to share. Highlights are below if you don’t want to sit and watch 2 hours of conversation.
At first I could tell she was nervous, talking about her past and her personal life, but she eventually leveled out when she started talking about writing in a way that really resonated with this writer.
There have been several attempts at making big screen versions of the series. She shared she now has her full rights back (like Taylor Swift!) This felt very on point to me - I think we will see more creatives owning their rights in full as the Studio and Streaming system is twisted by monopoly hell and consolidation and propaganda happy owners (LOOKING AT YOU PARAMOUNT SKYDANCE!)
There is a short conversation between Alex Cooper and Sarah about putting women in boxes and how if you write anything with sex it completely undercuts any seriousness. Super layered given Alex’s own history with CHD podcast, where the third ever episode discusses the best way to give blow jobs. I don’t judge here, and don’t blame Alex for that at all, but it really made this point hit home, especially with the success the podcast has seen. She’s since obviously interviewed the Vice President of the United States before the 2024 election. And we’ve seen it with the genre of Romantasy since. In Game of Thrones “It’s period appropriate” 🤮. In these books? It’s smut, and it’s “ruining women and giving them unrealistic expectations” the double standard is ASTRONOMICAL. This article from the Telegraph? Fairy smut refers to this series specifically, as one of the originals. But the article is mysogynistic garbage in my opinion.
Alex: “sometimes people don’t give a shit and they want to misunderstand you”. I felt this deeply in my soul.
SJM: “there’s a tendency for people to roll their eyes at things that bring joy and things that bring women joy especially”. Teen fans who are largely young girls are viewed as unserious, and yet there is so much money to be made of them. See: One Direction, Twilight, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, etc. It’s the same side of the coin of Timothee Chalamet’s comments this week about Ballet and Opera being less serious.
I still have that first advanced copy of the book by the way.
Stay tuned for the First Episode of Let’s Do Drinks tomorrow in time for Happy Hour!
XOXO,
Casey