Things to Read #29

Stella Bugbee, editorial director of The Cut, gets the Coveteur treatment at work.

Danielle Steel, romance novelist and couture enthusiast.

Are fashion ads just made for the web now? Zeitgeist-tapping has gone all meta on us.

“The milliners of Paris, attuned to current events that could be translated into quick profits, commemorated the momentous event with an allegorical headdress dubbed the pouf à l’inoculation. Perched atop a woman’s powdered and pomaded coiffure, it depicted the serpent of Asclepius, representing medicine; a club, representing conquest; a rising sun, representing the king; and a flowering olive branch, symbolizing the peace and joy resulting from the royal inoculation. In commemorating the royal inoculation, the milliners and their female clients helped to publicize it, and the practice—like the pouf—instantly became all the rage.” How inoculation became a fashion trend, and how fashion quelled anti-vaxxers.

How Playgirl went from ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves’ to dicks and Dog the Bounty Hunter. *shudder*

The amount of shit that Björk has had to put up with is rather worrying.

This isn’t new, but the ultimate guide to DGAF is always worth GAF about.

“I mean, obviously, he said, they had to have come from somewhere, but there wasn’t the same feeling of your hometown waiting to claim you, that sense of preordination that he had miraculously felt himself climbing clear of as he first rose above the clouds.” The most accurate description of leaving Tralee (or any small Irish hometown) as yet committed to paper, by Rachel Cusk.

A case for the Leslie Knopes of those world – though as a happy Liz Lemon, I still endorse this.

Susan Meiselas’ compelling photobook, Carnival Strippers, is forty years old

Mimi Brune’s Instagram feed is a still-life delight.