Like a fine wine, it seems like the more time passes the more expensive I get. The other day I found an old (old, like, ooooold) Delia's catalog stuffed in the bottom of my closet. One of the pages I had circled as a potential buy was a pleated skirt that cost $35. And then I remembered how my mom refused to buy anything from Delia's for us because, at >$30, it was too expensive. Fast forward to today, when I'll fork up $30 for a fucking hair ribbon (note: I have a pixie cut).

Money management, like math skills and far-sightedness, does not appear to have been genetically bestowed upon me. Suffice it to say, this makes Black Friday + Cyber Monday a bit of a deathtrap for someone who loves brands that never go on sale because they're "high quality" and "ethical" and "pay their workers". Still, though I was certainly tempted, there were some things that I was able to resist buying. Here they are, from the ridiculously expensive to the kinda-affordable-but-totally-unnecessary.  

Marni Embellished Sandal from Totokaelo

Nothing screams opulence like glueing gemstones into your most disgusting outer facing body part (and source of perverse fascination for a select few). Perfect if you ever wanted to recreate that scene in Ducktales when Scrooge McDuck straight-up dives into that pool of money, except instead of diving you resign yourself to dipping your toes (get it?) in the jewel kiddie pool.  

Original Price: $1260 (*sob*)

Sale Price: $757 (*sob*)

Lizzie Fortunato Belt from Need Supply

I'm immediately drawn to anything that would make me look like an Italian surrealist. This belt is both completely unnecessary and 100% indispensable to my intellectual self-esteem. I

Original Price: $265

Sale Price: $198 (ANYTHING ABOVE $10 IS TOO MUCH FOR A BELT!)

Maryam Nassir Zadeh Slides from The Garmentory

The thing that kills me about this is that it falls in the heart-breakingly anxious category of This Is Probably The Cheapest I Will Ever Find Any Nassir Zadeh Shoes At And I Can Technically Afford Them But Who Am I Kidding I Still Need To Pay Rent *sob*.

Original Price: like $300 or something

Sale Price: $178 

Mari Giudicelli Mules from Vestige

Same.

Original Price: straight up this shit was $600 or something

Sale Price: $300 

Black Crane Pleated Dress from Need Supply

Not to sound like my mom here but I was temped to buy this before realizing that I could probably just make it for myself with some mint fabric and some strategically placed elastic. I mean, come on. It doesn't even have finished hems! Cute pleat job tho. 

Original Price: $235
Sale Price: $190.99

Yellow U Pouch from Baggu

Look at this lil pouch. It is like a minion for your purse. 

Original Price: $28
Sale Price: $21

Things I did buy: This Baggu bag, a set of Glossier serums (winter is coming, I think?), and a lot of Zara. Keeping my eye on that lil purse minion, too. 

-M

Oh, happy day!!

- M

As a career Armie Hammer enthusiast, you can pretty much count on me to see any movie he's in (tolerated the Lone Ranger, hated J. Hoover). This was not the sole reason for my Thanksgiving deep-dive into Luca Guadagnino's upcoming "Call Me By Your Name" , but it was a welcome plus. If you haven't heard about it, the film is set in the 80s in Crema, Italy, where a teenager and his dad's grad student fall in deep, beautiful homosexual love to the sweet sounds of original Sufjan Stevens compositions. Everything about this movie looks gorgeous. Between this film and Stranger Things, 2017 is the year of 80s nostalgia felt by kids born in the 90s. It's a beautiful thing to behold.  

Graduate school apps are keeping me from seeing the light of day and I haven't been able to watch more than a few trailers, but this in no way confines my ability to form an opinion out of thin air. Here are six things I'm looking forward to seeing in this film as soon as possible. 

1. Setting.  Did you know that Crema (the film's setting) is the only place you can get sweet tortelli (tortelli cremaschi)? That's about the only fun fact I could find on Crema, which tells me that the place must be so beautiful that it doesn't need to whore itself out to UNESCO. Hear that UNESCO? NOBODY NEEDS YOU.  

2. Soundtrack. I will listen to any movie where the main characters dance to Psychedelic Furs or take long bike rides in the country to the tune of sensual piano music. This one has both. 

3. A Picture of Academic Paradise. I'm actually 90% sure a summer villa in Italy outfitted with antique furniture, the bank account to actually pay for it, and a son who can speak three languages is what every liberal arts grad student envisions when they look into the mirror of Erised.  

4. Reviews. The last time a movie was so universally beloved by critics was, like, "Thor: Ragnarok", and even they were a little surprised about that. NPR has a really beautiful review where Glen Wheldon points out how refreshing it is to have a movie about two gay men falling in love that doesn't end with one of them getting AIDs or withstanding a beating by a passing witness, even though the movie is set in deeply Catholic 80s Italy. Vanity Fair called it a "heavily decorated classic in the making". My favorite, of course, is Vulture's, which said, "It's always a sign when guys are really into the Greeks"

5. Supporting Cast. Maybe I can't have everything I want and Louis Garrel isn't in this movie but his sister is and that's good enough for me. 

6. This still, which is 1000% something I would do if I were in the vicinity of my crush while simultaneously holding a priceless artifact of ancient history. 

-M

A little-to-well-known fact about me is that there is nothing I love to waste more time on than watching foreign soap operas. Chalk it up to being South American, but nothing makes my lil heart thrill more than a pair of sullen teenagers who hate each other so much they end up together, butlers named Braulio, or a classic evil twin reveal. And nothing makes my lil heart skip a beat more than when the setting for these dynastic dramas is Seoul, South Korea. 

I began watching Korean soap operas (or dramas, as they're called) during my senior year of high school. At the time, my sister was obsessed with Korean pop, so I picked it up in the slow, disinterested way older siblings will pretend not to like things they haven't discovered first. Five hours of rich boarding schools, extremely chic Devil Wears Prada-esque in-laws, and a class system to rival Argentinean aristocracies later, I was hooked. To this day, they are my primary sick day activity of choice, even though reading subtitles is literally the last thing you're supposed to do when your brain is operating at 5% capacity. 

Like many fans, one of my favorite part of Korean dramas is the music. But I'm not kind of person to get swept away by the grand pop numbers of the title credits. No, I'm a big fan of the filler music. You know, the slow, acoustic songs that always seemed to follow our heroine when she's aimlessly walking around Seoul, languishing the fact that she's the daughter of The World's Most Embarrassing Dry Cleaner, or staring at her crush with longing from across the front desk of a porridge restaurant. Ahhh, young love!

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The thing is, nothing soothes those quiet moments of youthful melancholia quite like the soft filler music of Korean dramas. It's like the elevator music you'd hear if you were stuck on the Goldman Sach's elevator on Valentine's Day. Still, the genre of these tunes eluded me when I tried to create my own playlists. I can't read or type Korean, and I can hardly google "Elevator Music But Korean" on the internet. Where was I going to find the perfect soundtrack to my unrequited porridge crush????????

Enter Oohyo (apparently, not pronounced "ooooooh, yoooo!" like I want to pronounce it). Like the Korean dramas I consume during my sick days, her music is equally soothing and dramatic, the perfect soundtrack for those moments where you find out you and your porridge crush can never be together, but your only response is to gaze sullenly at a river somewhere nearby. Spotify classifies Oohyo's music as "K-Indie", but I think that shortens the scope a bit. The truth is, I don't really know how to classify her music. Is it a compilation of Korean slow jams? Music to contemplate your class-driven love triangle to? Elevator music playing in a future Seoul Glossier showroom? Honestly, all of these situations fit the bill. For me, Oohyo is my companion in late night subway rides and the soundtrack to my nightly Korean skincare routine. I can hardly ask for more. 

I mean, man! How about that Spotify algorithm? When it knows, it knows!

-M

May it guide you through your travels in the land of the Sunday Scaries. 

-M