The Very Best of November

Your monthly recap, recommendations, and more.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving, and welcome to Back Row’s November recap! This issue of the newsletter is designed to highlight Back Row’s stories, podcast episodes, community, and shopping picks, plus anything else on my mind that I didn’t cover in the newsletter this month. I’ve avoided talking about Olivia Nuzzi but have been thinking about her since she’s a Condé Nast employee now — and I have a quick word on her at the very end.

I started a thread of gift suggestions in the Back Row chat. If you haven’t yet, please pop over there and comment with your go-to gift ideas and the best gifts you’ve ever received. I’ll compile the suggestions for a crowd-sourced gift guide I’ll publish in December.

Merry merry! (Photo: Amin Alizadeh on Unsplash)

Let’s start with shopping recs.

• The comment section on the story about me trying Victoria Beckham’s clothing line drew a spirited discussion about corporate workwear. Thanks to those of you who responded to my query about what is required in formal offices these days. Back Row reader Lauren said (I added links to these suggestions), “I love a good jacket or blazer; then you can wear a white tee and almost any pair of pants and be set. With sales coming up you’ll have lots of options; try Nili Lotan, Toteme [Ed note: see this also from Toteme if you want something a little different], Khaite, Isabel Marant, etc. Or you can go on the RealReal and pick up a Chanel or Dior jacket in great condition for a fraction of retail. A jacket or blazer in navy, grey, or black will last you forever and go with everything, and you’ll always look like a badass.” And Back Row reader Courtney said, “This [Victoria Beckham] suit would be perfectly fine, but you (I) wouldn’t wear a plain white t-shirt with it. A white silk blouse maybe? Otherwise my go-to suits are Banana Republic and Ann Taylor [Ed. note: flared pant option here]. And totally agree with Lauren, short skirts and pantyhose are definitely not the look.”

• A bunch of you trusted my rec for Victoria Beckham’s Blair dress (on sale on Netaporter right now). Many also went for the rag & bone jeans and Reformation tank featured in that story.

• Rag & bone, maker of the ultimate sweatpants jean, now makes those very jeans with track stripes down the side. I’m into it. (A lot of the sweatpants jeans, called “Miramar,” are on sale for Black Friday. These are my favorites.)

• Rachel Comey sent me a pair of jeans (the “slacker pant”) that I’ve been wearing a ton. They are super comfortable with an elastic waistband but made from regular denim for those of you who aren’t ready to have an image of denim printed on your pants. (My mom saw me in them and asked if “those are the sweatpants jeans.”)

• A bunch of you trusted my rec for the super-comfortable EBY bralette, which was one of the most purchased Back Row-recommended products from November. EBY is doing a buy one get one free promotion right now — buy one bralette, get another free; buy two panties, get two free; etc.

What paid Back Row subscribers got this month.

• After interviewing luxury retail workers for years for Back Row’s “Retail Confessions” column, I decided to start interviewing the clients themselves, too. The first installment is “3 Very Important Clients on Fashion’s ‘Great Reset’”. I’ll drop part two to that story this week for paid subscribers.

• I love the Back Row comment section SO much. (Comments are restricted to paying subscribers.) I read them all and reply to as many as I can and love that it’s become a place for intelligent and nuanced discussion, which is hard to find online. Such as this from Jo-Jo, regarding the VICs: “Fascinating mix of intelligent self-awareness at gullibility and consumption addiction and an inability to stop consuming despite this. What this says to me is an absence of meaning in other areas of life, whether that’s education, art, career, love, children. ‘I realise I’m a victim of a pointless cycle of unimportant things like a handbag being wildly desirable and then losing allure and having to be replaced by another wildly desirable handbag (whether for aesthetics, status or habit) -- but I’m going to keep doing it because I’ve got very little else to absorb me and it stops me thinking about things that depress me (mortality, irrelevance)’”.

• Ryan Murphy’s show All’s Fair starring Kim Kardashian dominated pop culture discourse for a good part of November since it’s one of the worst shows ever made. I know because I endured three episodes in order to write this fashion review: “The characters live in an imagined universe where people dress for work like they’re on a 2017 Balmain runway.”

• Confirming my earlier scoop, the Costume Institute announced that the next exhibition would focus on “the dressed body.” Included in the announcement was the triggering news that Lauren Sánchez Bezos and Jeff Bezos would fund the Met Gala. I wrote, “The 2026 gala is significant as it opens the department’s new permanent 12,000 square foot galleries at the museum. The spaces represent the culmination of Anna’s work as gala planner and the department’s chief fundraiser over the past 30 years. And now it risks being overshadowed by two of the most polarizing members of the American oligarchy.”

• Condé Nast seems to always be in the news for some sort of controversy. Before Olivia Nuzzi took up that mantle, people were extremely upset about the closure of Teen Vogue. I wrote: “Whatever was said about this in Condé boardrooms, it’s still amazing that a teen magazine lasted this long.”

• This month’s “Retail Confessions” about a Neiman Marcus flagship was so good. “She was like, ‘I need a raincoat for this person,’” recalled my source of one wealthy shopper. “And I was like, ‘Burberry.’ I will never forget the look on her face — she was mortified that I had suggested she buy anything Burberry.”

What free Back Row subscribers got this month:

• Anna Wintour dropped her last-ever cover as editor-in-chief of Vogue, featuring Timmy Chalamet floating in space, which commenters said was “giving Canva.” I counted down her top ten most important covers since clearly her Vogue team has been banned from honoring her legacy and barely made any mention of this being her last cover.

• I tried Victoria Beckham’s clothing line to see if there really was something magical about her gray T-shirt. Spoiler alert: not really.

The Back Row podcast is growing healthily and had a great second month. Thanks so much to all of you who have taken the time to follow the show on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube and leave ratings and reviews! All are a great help in getting this show off the ground in its early days. The podcast features audio versions of the newsletter along with original interviews and conversations each Monday. This month’s original episodes:

• Podcaster and reality TV scholar Ryan Bailey stopped by to talk about Victoria Beckham. (I also went on his podcast to talk about Gwyneth Paltrow.)

• Journalist and NYT bestselling author Marisa Meltzer chatted about “It” girls in honor of her latest book, It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin. We discussed whether Birkin, whom Hermès never paid for the use of her name for its most famous bag, was unfairly commodified by the brand.

• The Atlantic critic Sophie Gilbert came on to talk about All’s Fair, Kim Kardashian’s brand of blankness, and help me answer the question of whether or not we’re reaching the end of competency in culture.

• Marketing expert Dr. Mara Einstein, who argues brands are the new cults, came on to talk about the cult-like marketing tactics we’ll see this holiday shopping season.

Tomorrow on the pod we have fashion critic Rachel Tashjian (!!!), who chatted with me about fashion media, greedflation, her new CNN gig, and so much more. Follow on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube so you don’t miss it.

And Finally…

Speaking of Olivia Nuzzi… What most interests me about this whole tawdry story is her “West Coast Editor” job at Vanity Fair, where Anna Wintour recently installed Mark Guiducci as “global editorial director.” After Nuzzi’s ex Ryan Lizza accused her of sleeping with Mark Sanford in a Substack post, Vanity Fair said it was “reviewing” its ties to her. I’ve been wondering what Anna thinks about the whole thing and how Condé Nast will handle it. With the exception of The New Yorker, Condé Nast isn’t really a journalistic institution — it publishes high-end memes in the form of covers and social content derived from events. It’s also not a company that seems to want star reporters (again, outside of The New Yorker). In corporate media, when you become too big, they find ways to let you go, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what happens here.