Thoughts on Tap: 004
on boring influencers, Meghan Markle's Netflix series, and finding your stride at Valentino
Have you ever made an ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ kinda meal that involved using up as many ingredients in your fridge as possible? (If you haven’t, you’re better than most of us). That’s basically what ‘Thoughts on Tap’ is- a stream of consciousness, anything goes type of experience that can be inspired by a number of things. This is a hot take, but I think a person who consumes nothing but fashion content is greatly stifling their creativity. So while that is what we love, it is not all that we are.
So……let’s talk about some things!
The latest docket includes:
“Boring Influencer”-gate
The Duchess of Sussex’s new aspirational show
Gushing about the F/W 2025 Valentino runway show
Normalize having lukewarm opinions on the internet again
In case you missed it because you’re gainfully employed and have other things to do, a small creator (@martinifeeny) based out of NYC blew the lid off of the aesthetically inclined side of TikTok when she made outlandish comments about the current state of the influencer industrial complex. What were her scathing remarks, you ask? She said that “NYC influencers are boring”. Scandalous. And who did she specifically take aim at with these remarks? Well, nobody. Which is why the outsized reaction to what she said was so telling. The ladies who moved to the big city from places where thick skin is not a prerequisite definitely let their emotions get the best of them, which resulted in a barrage of comments and video stitches from every girl with an Octobuddy phone case.
My take on all this? OP was right. The current state of the internet is very underwhelming and the average influencer is part of making that happen. Also, the elephant in the room is that a lot of influencers, especially with very large followings, have turned a corner in their careers to the point where they are more or less ‘sentient ads’. Brand partnerships are how most people pay their bills and if you want to be ‘brand safe’ it’s often at the expense of having a personality. Influencers alone don’t bear the responsibility for this but it manifests through them and their content, which is being pitched as just a glimpse into their real lives.
Honestly, I see it as a natural evolution of what would have been a host on the Home Shopping Network. The big difference is we were much more transparent about the fact that we’re selling things on HSN than we are on TikTok, but the situations run parallel. The people with the most mass appeal are rarely the most interesting but they tend to be the most lucrative.
And on that note….normalize rich people not trying to ‘relate’ to everybody
In case you missed it, Meghan Markle’s new Netflix series ‘With Love, Meghan’ dropped on Netflix earlier this year. Recently it has gained traction and as with almost anything involving the Duchess, people are projecting their unrealized desires onto her. Speaking candidly: I’m sure a lot of people don’t think that a biracial once divorced C-list American actress deserved to marry into the British Royal Family lol. (Including the Royal Family, because those stories didn’t get leaked to the press on their own.) And as a result of this thinly veiled jealousy, everyone has made it their business to roast everything she does.
Now look….I am not remotely interested in anything Royal. For that matter, I’m not remotely interested in Meghan Markle as a personality. But I DO love a cheesy cooking show. And “With Love, Meghan” has all the makings of a good cheesy cooking show. Beautiful country kitchen, heartfelt stories that vaguely tie back to food, and guest cameos that feel staged. I love all of those things. I let Ina Garten tell me I was going to Hades for cooking with store-bought ingredients for years, so I have no problem with watching someone be entertainingly unattainable. But apparently, other people do.
Everyone’s criticism (that they hide behind because their real truth is just too full of haterade) is that Meghan’s show is unrelatable. And to that I say….DUH. How many duchesses have you met in this lifetime? Of course, her life is unrelatable. That’s partly why people like this type of content; voyeurism is a nice departure from the reality of your life. I would be insulted if the Duchess of Sussex tried to pretend that she does weekly Trader Joe’s runs and was in some beat-up kitchen recreating birria tacos in her old college sweatshirt. The question is….why do you think she is obligated to tone down her life for your comfort?
And speaking of toned down…a maximalist learns restraint at Valentino
Even though I lean towards minimalism, I love looking at maximalist things. And I have always been vocal about how Alessandro Michele breathed new life into Gucci and has done one of the best jobs at creating emotion for a clothing line in a very long time. But public sentiments changed around 2020 and people wanted to pare back aesthetically. That saw Gucci sales take a slight dip which led to a huge mistake in giving Alessandro Michele his walking papers and Gucci/Kering has not known a moment’s peace since then.
What they failed to realize (and which we’ve mentioned in talks before) is that the ‘quiet luxury’ aesthetic can be found at any pricepoint, so you’re buying it for 40x the price because you love Gucci. (And most people don’t love it to that extent.) And maybe logomania wasn’t the answer anymore, but looking like upscale Zara wasn’t either. I have said before that Kering should have stayed the course with Alessandro, working to meet somewhere in the middle of his maximalist nature and trying to find a way to do that in a more subtle way. And I think that’s the approach we’re seeing in the recent F/W ‘25 Valentino collection. There are still those playful elements that we’ve come to expect- the Valentino kitty is fun and playful- but overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the sheer wearability of the clothes. The collection was full of great separates, if you can see past the runway styling. I think Alessandro is finally hitting his stride :)
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-xoxo Jenn