Retail Therapy 042: Girl Dinners & Founder Shade
Plus Taylor Swift's garbage and The Idol.
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Well, something I learned this week: If you enter a weekend of Dead & Company shows with a sinus infection, you will leave said shows with a worse sinus infection. Apologies for the tardiness of this week’s listener digest — I’m just now back on the saddle after having a long weekend with a sick day tacked on as well.
Let’s talk about Taylor Swift’s garbage.
Apparently Taylor Swift’s garbage is piling up in New York City to the tune of about $3,000. Per Curbed:
New York City requires property owners to maintain the sidewalks outside their buildings — tree pits and paltry little strips of grass included — and the 18 inches of street beyond their curbs. But Taylor Swift, according to the New York Post, is not doing that. Per the Post, Swift has been ticketed 32 times for sidewalk trash and improperly disposing of other garbage since purchasing her $18 million Tribeca townhouse in 2017. The trash includes cigarette cartons, which possibly corroborates former Ticketmaster CEO and Every Single Album: Taylor Swift co-host Nathan Hubbard’s recent theory that the singer has taken up smoking.
It’s possible that Taylor herself is not responsible for the bulk of the trash. And neighbors told the paper that there are other, dirtier buildings in the neighborhood.
And while I’m not a smoker, I don’t hate that this doesn’t rule out having a future drunk cig with Taylor Swift on her stoop.
Aime Leon Dore’s… Boat???
Randy, ring the damn bell because (of course) we’re talking Aime Leon Dore again. While I wanted to avoid them this episode, they did what absolutely no one is doing in the retail game — releasing a “Inquire for Price” boat.
While I did get the Early Access email with this boat included in it, I can confirm that I did not buy it.
Girls Dinners > Everything
I used to call them “Protein Tacos” but, in reality, it was just a “I’m broke” dinner that I’d toss together the night before payday. See, you take lunch meat and put it in a Kraft single which acts as the tortilla for the taco. Toss a little yellow mustard in there as your salsa, and voila — a really depressing dinner.
Is this kind of a Girl Dinner? Well, technically yes. Unfamiliar with what ‘Girl Dinners’ are? Here you go from The New York Times:
Typical girl dinners may include some kind of fruit, a block of cheddar, sliced salami, a sleeve of fancy crackers and a dish of olives. Girl dinner is “both chaotic and filling,” as one TikTok commenter put it, requiring none of the forethought, cooking or plating demanded by an actual meal. As another commenter observed: It’s “no preparation just vibes.”
The trend started when Olivia Maher, a showrunner’s assistant currently out of work because of the writers’ strike, posted a video on TikTok this spring extolling the virtues of a humble, medieval-peasant-inspired assemblage that she called “girl dinner.”
She decided to debut the phrase on TikTok. “This is my dinner,” Ms. Maher says in the video, flipping her phone camera to display her spread: hunks of butter and cheese, part of a baguette, some grapes and pickles, and a glass of red wine. “I call this girl dinner.” Since she posted it in May, the 15-second clip has been watched more than a million times.
My two-year-old son cannot wait for his next girl dinner.
(Which will probably be tonight.)
The brands are getting shade.
If there’s one thing I love, it’s ready subtweets (are subthreads a thing yet?) involving brands, high-ranking officials, or a combination of the two. This week, we saw some interesting behavior from one brand and one person adjacent to the brand they started.
Let’s start with Canadian minimalists, JJJJound.
While there’s definitely a spin zone where this is a positive tweet, I still think JJJJound’s social was looking to fire off some missiles here.
But this story wasn’t nearly as tasty as Ty Haney’s negative comments on the Outdoor Voices Instagram profile, which you can see here via noted listener, The Real Kat Pat. Below are a couple examples of the #shade being thrown:
Together, Barrett and I go through the thought process that must exist to get to this point — the point where you’r down-talking a brand you started. Yes, I think I could get there if someone bought Sunday Scaries and turned it into something I loathed. But given the fact that Ty Haney once cancelled an interview with The Sunday Scaries Podcast an hour before we were supposed to record, I truly have no reason to protect her against people saying this is a bad look.
Because, well, it is.
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
Manresa Corn Neck Shorts ($105) —LinkAdidas Adilette 22 Slides ($60) — Link
Football: Designing the Beautiful Game Book ($45) — Link
New: Stussy Heavyweight Pigment Dyed LS Tee ($65) — 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
Birkenstock EVA Arizona ($50) — Link
OAS Bohemia Swim Shorts ($90) — Link
J.Crew 6” Tech Dock Short ($70) — Link
Made In Carbon Steel Griddle + Press ($199) — Link
Barrett avoided adding anything this week in favor of asking listeners for short recs!