Web3 Skincare and the $5,000 Face

after school weekend edition

Hi friends! Welcome back to After School ✨weekend edition✨, an extra long and extra opinionated youth culture digest for paid subscribers.

Today we’re going to talk about:

• The family-owned fashion brand quietly building a next-gen lifestyle company

• The Gen Z-beloved fast-fashion retailer that went belly up

  julia fox Stan account @blutakhamstring

  Do you ever go for a walk round H&M and be like ah yes the only 2 ways anyone can dress, Office worker and Olivia Rodrigo

• The frankly random Midwest town that’s suddenly all over TikTok

  tia witcher extraordinaire @cursedhive

  the “i get my news from tiktok” crowd is so insanely frightening

• The #1 place Gen Z homeowners are moving to

• What young people are doing with their money (it has nothing to do with crypto, bless)

• And what I’m reading/watching/buying (i found the impossible: hoop earrings comfy enough to sleep in…I need everyone to know about these things!) AND SO MUCH MORE. Hope you enjoy!

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⚡ Biz ⚡

• The Yes, a shopping app that billed itself as a totally “new way to shop” but always felt like a pretty normal way to shop, has fascinated me since it was founded two years ago. They have a flashy founding team, raised a wild amount of money right out of the gate, and had what appeared to be a truly enormous marketing budget, at least based on the billboards and subway ads covering NYC at launch. And though it was “AI-powered,” to the casual shopper they really had no distinguishing factor from, say, Nordstrom. Which makes Thursday’s news that the retailer has been acquired by Pinterest all the more interesting…!

  • Deal terms were not disclosed, but the acquisition will help to establish a new strategic organization within Pinterest to help drive the company’s shopping efforts, including the development of features for both shoppers and retailers, the company says. OK!

• Missguided — a fast-fashion retailer that seemed, to me, to be as successful as Asos and Princess Polly — just went belly up, potentially leaving thousands of customers out of pocket. This could have some biiiig implications on fast-fashion on the whole.

  • As an aside, I’ve been watching a lot of Frasier lately (don’t ask), and at first glance, I thought this headline was alerting me of a Missguided x Frasier collaboration. Too bad.