Retail Therapy 039: Everything Showers & Luxury Auctions
Europecore, Tomato Girls, Luxury Week, and everything in between.
Listen to Retail Therapy on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube (see above), and anywhere else podcasts are found.
Welcome to another listener companion for the Retail Therapy podcast. Apologies that this is coming a day late — I was clearing my head in Northern Michigan all weekend and while I knew I should’ve sent this yesterday, I simply wanted to take advantage of my vacation instead.
Better late than never, eh?
Let’s dive in.
These showers are everything.
“Everything Showers.” I said it in the episode but it wasn’t a term I had heard long before last week, but it was a term that I immediately had some familiarity with. But if you’re not in the same boat, here’s what a February 2023 column from Allure said about them:
With more than 95 million views, the everything shower trend is taking over TikTok and inspiring people around the world to take time-intensive showers that tap into their self-care routines. The concept involves incorporating a full range of rituals before, during, and after a shower, including exfoliating, deep conditioning, shaving, and moisturizing.
The "everything shower" is meant to feel like a moment of luxury in your day — but to really make the most of it (and preserve the health of your hair and skin), the order of operations matters. To provide some clarity on the correct order to do everything in the shower, we turned to the experts.
And if you don’t have time to fully dive in, here’s a taste we recently put on Instagram:
For our personal Everything Showers (and maybe some slight critiques of the concept itself), you’ll simply have to listen.
Cynthia Houlton, Global Head of Fashion and Accessories at Sotheby’s
This week, we also had the unique opportunity of talking with Cynthia Houlton who is the Global Head of Fashion and Accessories at Sotheby’s. It’s currently Luxury Week in their neck of the woods, so we didn’t hold back.
We discussed the process for items to come to auction, investment pieces, high-end handbags, sneakers, and so much more.
Aesthetics of the Week
It wouldn’t be an episode of Retail Therapy if we didn’t dive into some aesthetics that have popped up over the last few weeks.
If you understand what “Tomato Girl” aesthetic means, please let us know. I’d embed the tweet here for you but Substack and Twitter are notoriously beefing so that capability simply isn’t there.
Europecore, however, was much more our speed. Per Nylon:
A ceramic espresso cup on a plastic table, a Natalia Ginzburg novel resting on a volcanic black pebble beach, a flowing ruffle skirt blowing against the backdrop of a fresh flower market — when opening social media during the summer months, it’s easy to feel like everyone is currently on vacation in the Mediterranean. But with the prices for flights across the Atlantic Ocean surging, fewer people will actually be planning a holiday there this year, despite what their outfits may suggest.
Enter “Europecore,” the latest aesthetic that captures Americans’ desire for international summer escapism; puffy sleeves are encouraged, and reading A Certain Hunger in front of the Eiffel tower is peak Instagrammable content. Participating in Europecore is all about wearing the type of flirty and frivolous clothes you feel comfortable wearing on vacation, but wouldn’t usually wear at home. It’s the hyper-feminine romanticization of your wardrobe, with extra lace, frills, pearls, and silk pieces that represent the idea of a European vacation more than they reflect actual European fashion trends.
Lace? European vacations? Flirty fits? Yep — very on-brand.
Of course, we closed things out with our wishlists and imminent cops.
For 2023, we’ve hit the reset button on our wishlists and made them a bit more digestible for the year ahead. To access the complete version of our 2022 wishlists, look no further than our final Listener Digest of 2022. New items in bold.
Will’s Wishlist (2023)
YSL Patent Tortoise Le Loafers ($895) — Link
AYR Sweatpants ($145) — Link
Pebble Strike Match Holder by Houseplant ($125) — Link
NikeCraft General Purpose Shoe —Link(Bought/Returned)Sangre de Fruta Garden of Earthly Delights Body Wash ($48) —Link(Purchased)New Balance 574 Legacy (MKT) — Link
Bode Kids Lace Shirt ($198) —Link(Too ridiculous)Aime Leon Dore Eyelet Knit Shorts (Sold Out) —Link(Tried on, too heavy)Birkenstock Kyoto Suede Leather Gray ($220) — Link
New: Manresa Corn Neck Shorts ($105) — Link
Barrett’s Wishlist (2023)
Loewe Puzzle Cardholder ($335) — Link
Bottega Veneta Credit Card Case ($420) — Link
R13 Beige Kurt Sneakers ($470) — Link
Le Labo Fragrances ($220) — The Matcha 26 | Another 13
Homme Plisse Issey Miyake “Color Pleats” ($325) — Link
Polo Country Ball Cap ($55) — Link
Moscot Yontif Sunglasses in Blonde ($340) — Link
John Elliott Patchwork Military Shirt Jacket ($998) — Link
Todd Snyder Seersucker Weekender Shirt ($118) — Link
New: Birkenstock EVA Arizona ($50) — Link
New: OAS Bohemia Swim Shorts ($90) — Link
New: J.Crew 6” Tech Dock Short ($70) — Link
Listen to Retail Therapy on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube (see above), and anywhere else podcasts are found.
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