Corporate Girlies and Coastal Cowboys

after school weekend edition

Welcome back to After School Weekend Edition. Think of the daily letter as the CliffsNotes; this is the extended version for paid subscribers. Thanks for reading — your support makes this possible! 💫

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Though summer is technically still a few weeks out, it feels like we’ve officially entered it in NYC. On Friday evening, I was in the West Village, and every single restaurant was overflowing with attractive people soaking up the sun and sipping on spritzes. All the pretty Gen Z girls were wearing long, baggy pleated shorts like the ones my mom used to wear in the ‘90s; she called them “walking shorts” and I remember thinking they were deeply uncool — sorry, mom — and it’s hilarious to see girls much cooler than me swishing around in them as going-out attire.

If Friday night was any indication, a Corporate Girl Summer is upon us. (Of note, #corporategirlies has 259.8M views on TikTok; if any editors are reading this, there’s a story to be written about Gen Z women’s collective embrace of corporate culture, contradictory to the idea that Gen Zers are all anti-capitalist quiet quitters.)

Speaking of [Adjective] Girl Summer™, don’t miss “Why Do We Brand the Summer?” by Callie Holtermann in the weekend New York Times.

Summer is coming, and with it the yearly onslaught of attempts to label a season that has not yet happened. Media outlets one-up one another’s outrageous guesses, and influencers compose mood boards for their followers to emulate. Themes pile up on social media, where almost no activity is safe from being named a seasonal microtrend. Just lounging outdoors in a lightweight dress? Welcome to your Amy March Girl Summer.

Today we’re talking about Ozempic Girl Summers and Greece Girl Summers and Disney Adult Girl Summers, and we’re also talking about:

• Travel spending is up

• Luxury goods spending is down

• Fendi’s $10,000 plexiglass basketball hoop

• Tommy Hilfiger’s $50 Mickey Mouse ears

• Victoria’s Secret’s Pink relaunch

• Bath & Body Works’ Y2K Cucumber Melon revival

• Clinique’s biggest activation in 10 years (50,000 samples, 24 million social media impressions)

• The skirt every hot person in New York is wearing

• The sock trend that’s suddenly everywhere (red carpets and Bedford Avenue alike)

• The coolest bag of the summer (it’s £15 and it’s not Uniqlo!)

• #BookTok drama

• #SwiftTok ubiquity

• The “I deleted Hinge” meme

And everything else that happened this week in brands, trends, and internet culture. As always, scroll to the end for everything I’m reading, buying, watching, and listening to.

Before we jump in, please watch my favorite TikTok of the week which has brought me endless joy. I hope your Sunday is as exhilarating as hers.

@madisonmurphPASTA AND LOBSTA italy edition

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