Dirty Martini Manicures and Candy Cane Blush

after school weekend edition

Welcome back to After School Weekend Edition, a not-so-brief trends debrief for paid subscribers. Your support keeps this newsletter going! 💫

Today we’re talking about:

• Nuuly, Graza, and Pepe the King Prawn meme

• Christmas Setmas is canceled

• Matilda Djerf backlash (and the future of her business)

• The Parke x Set Active drama

• Parade’s comeback

• The “it” item all the corporate girlies are wearing to their holiday office parties

• Glossier’s color cosmetics launch (and what fans are saying)

• “Uber Eats Roulette”

• The viral Luigi Mangione “I can fix him” sweatshirt

• Gen Alpha’s parents are giving them Ivy League names

• The hottest gift of 2024

Plus everything else that happened in style, beauty, and culture and what I’m buying, reading, and listening to. But first, my favorite TikTok of the week:

@frick_my_pea_puffs#temu

Tiktok failed to load.

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A fascinating duality in Gen Z’s relationship with brands and influencers has played out across my FYP over the last week.

Young consumers reward relatability, humor, and accountability, but they are very quick to call out what they perceive to be hypocrisy or inauthenticity.

They value transparency, and they maintain a degree of cynicism toward (and thus are very quick to call out) brands or creators that fail to meet their expectations.