Capsule #85 ft. Rachel Thompson

Hello hello,

Happy Friday my loves 🫶.

Feels like a lot has happened this week, but perhaps no conversation bigger than that of Bianca Censori’s Grammys look, which is why it’s the main topic of this week’s newsletter. Keep scrolling for more post-Grammys stuff, recs for the weekend, and a Hot & Not with author Rachel Thompson. 🖤

Enjoy the next few days, and see you next week! I recommend entering the weekend with the Celine Dion song in Adding to Queue this week ⬇️

Holly x

P.s. if your newsletter gets clipped in Gmail, click ‘read online’ at the top.

On that Bianca Censori look…

A Grammys moment with one of the longer tails of engagement, as we might call it in media, was Bianca Censori’s naked dress. I’m sure you’ve seen the photos, heard a bunch of different takes, and have some feelings of your own.

Broadly, some people feel that Bianca is being controlled by Ye, tapping evidence of his exes’ stories to support their rationale (Amber Rose said Kanye pushed her to dress like a “sexpot”, Kim Kardashian said Kanye told her that her career would be over if she didn’t dress a certain way). They also draw upon Censori’s likeness to Kim Kardashian, and speculate that part of Ye’s motive is some kind of public humiliation tactic, using Censori in a way that makes people feel like they are looking at Kim wearing very little or gesturing towards explicit acts. The connection to Kim is still present as an argument, but declining slightly over time - I would guess because the pair have now been married for two years.

I think this argument holds weight in part because so much of Censori’s public image is incredibly far away from what most women would do, and also because the some of the behaviour, though exhibitioned in elite celebrity settings, reminds people of stuff they’ve experienced. For women who have been publicly shamed by their partner, coerced into doing something, or had their outfits policed with sinister undertones, it can be hard to look at Censori and see anything other than a car crash in slow motion. This feeling isn’t helped by the fact that Censori says very little in the public sphere — her image is the statement, and we don’t have snippets of interviews with someone like Entertainment Tonight like we did with Julia Fox, for example. This silence is uncomfortable for a lot of people, and is met with “blink twice if you need help” comments on social media.

Others argue that Censori is happy and has agency. The broad sentiment here is around choice feminism - she’s a woman and can do what she wants, even if you wouldn’t choose to do the same. In other words, the act of choosing is feminist in and of itself, and we should trust that she’s good. This was the conclusion made by Raven Smith’s column in Vogue:

People often back up this argument by pointing to the candid photos of Ye and Censori out and about — when not doing the death stare to camera, the pair are often pictured laughing together, having fun in a way that seems to say, you guys are bothered about something we’re cool with.

The difference between the couple’s posed photos and stunts and their natural moments reminds me of the way Charli xcx talks about branding. From the early breadcrumbs of the Brat campaign, she told us that everything she does publicly is in service to her art and the brand she was aiming to build.

In her interviews, Charli would expand further:

She makes her mission crystal clear: all comments to the press, posts on social media, and any kind of public interactions are intentional, a meta kind of world-building that expands the artist’s space from the stage or an album to just about anywhere. Charli commends the work of Addison Rae through this same prism:

Back to Ye and Censori, the same thing applies. It’s no accident that Censori has been wearing increasingly more scandalous outfits before culminating in the naked dress at the Grammys. As an audience we’ve been primed to expect these kind of stunts, and pushed to wonder how much further it could go. The punchline to wearing a teeny tiny bikini and briefs (could she be wearing any less?!) is of course… yes, and here’s the naked dress.

The day after the Grammys, Ye shared some Google Search insights to his Instagram story to show his wife getting more traction than other Grammys-adjacent content. Very on brand for someone invested in breaking the internet…

Shortly after sharing this quantifiable impact, Ye shared a photo of the dress, which will be available to purchase soon via YZY. (The black YZY bodysuit Bianca wore to a Grammys after party is already for sale for $20). This is the ultimate icing on the cake; the final conversion moment, proof that performance art is a strong mode of marketing, capable of driving revenue. Like Kim and Kourtney Kardashian settling their Dolce & Gabbana feud via a Skims campaign, or Charli xcx creating a vinyl filled with white powder, this is not art for art’s sake, but marketing as art. Sales underpin every part of the creative process, and for smart audiences who come to expect more deft marketing tactics, “committing to the bit” before offering a final pay-off moment is a strong way to go. Since we’ve accepted that we’ll be constantly marketed to (every third tap on Instagram, every sponsored editorial, the influencer economy at large), what’s left is the need to shock in order to cut through.

As I was finishing writing this newsletter yesterday, a new post from Ye came in.

And there it is: “to make a movie in real life”. As suspected, this duo see their lives as an extension of their art. But like any successful blockbuster, the success is measured in cultural impact and sales. We are just consumers.

A few other post-Grammys bits…

1. As pointed out by Hunter Harris, nobody is dreading the Super Bowl as much as Drake…

2. The internet had thoughts about Pastagate AKA the moment Gabbriette fed her friend Terrence O’Connor pasta with her hands at Charli xcx’s Grammys after party for Julia Fox’s birthday. That sentence could truly only have been typed in 2025. Anyway! People were not on board with the whole hands-as-utensils thing:

3. And music writer Zach Schonfeld predicted that Beyoncé would with AOTY in this way: 

And finally…

Other bits from the Capsule universe you may have missed this week:

• The Met Gala dress code is: ‘Tailored For You’, drawing on the exhibition’s (which is called Superfine: Tailoring Black Style) focus on suiting and menswear. There will be a deep dive on the theme in Capsule just before the Gala!

• All the references and details of Grammys fashion here in case you missed!

• And similarly: all the looks in the new Gaga video

• Sabrina Carpenter is the next in line to release a deluxe version of her album. And this major star has a feature

• Sabato de Sarno is leaving Gucci after just two years. This feels pretty brutal — as we’ve said Gucci sales are struggling, but it sets a precedent for needing to nail it at a new house with immediate effect…

• Great news: Ilana Glazer is working on another TV show

• This week’s best dressed: Anya Taylor-Joy

• I wish Guest In Residence, Gigi Hadid’s brand, was more affordable

• It was a big week for Indie Girls Sitting On The Floor, chin down, looking up, dark clothes

• The latest MSCHF drop is here: a candy ring with a real diamond inside

• And NYFW kicked off with a Caroline Polachek performance at the Saks party

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This week, Rachel Thompson popped into Capsule to share what’s 🔥hot🔥 and what’s not 🙅‍♀️ …

Rachel is an author and journalist specialising in sex and dating. Rachel’s new book The Love Fix is out now. Rachel has another book about violence in the bedroom called Rough, and has written for The Guardian, GQ, The Sunday Times Style, Glamour, Stylist, and many more.

📺 Watching: Videos from the G*VE A F*CK LA fundraising concert for the fires: these of MUNA performing ‘Silk Chiffon’ and ‘I Know A Place’, Hayley Williams covering Björk, and Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley, Hayley Williams & Katie Gavin performing ‘Let Me Back In’. And ‘Terrapin’, the new Clairo video, directed by Ayo Edebiri.

📖 Reading: The Gracie Abrams profile in Cosmopolitan, and this Dear Dolly entry, passed around the girls in my office, each feeling like something had clicked in our brain.

🎧 Listening to: This pre-fashion week, live episode of The New Garde, with Emilia Petrarca (Shop Rat), Rachel Tashjian (The Washington Post and Opulent Tips) and Nikki Ogunnaike (Marie Claire), plus the new Bad Bunny album for workouts, and ‘En Amour’ by Celine Dion, after finding out it inspired Caroline Polachek to write ‘I Believe’. So good!!!

‘Hime haircut’ searches are at an all time high, thanks to Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, and Miley Cyrus, all at the Grammys. Apollo thinks now might be the time to try it if your spirit is pulled that way… Also it’s timeless, especially if you ask Caroline Polachek.

If you’d like to adopt Apollo or one of her friends, click here to learn more.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear how you’re finding Capsule - let me know here. And if you have a friend who might like it, do refer them! 🥺

See you next week 💋

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