The engagement party dividing the internet

0:08This episode of Stylish is brought to you by Target. Stylish event dressing to get you top to toe ready for the festive season.

0:19This is Stylish, the podcast for all things fashion, lifestyle, brand and beauty. My name is Madison Sullivan Thorpe. My co-hosts today are Joanna Fleming and Rhiannon Joyce. Hello, hello. Hello, ladies. Happy Wednesday, listeners. I'm loving Rhys' outfit today. Jo said I look like Annika. Yes, she is so talented. She's got like, Like we would call maybe this a parachute pant. Parachute pant. Yeah. Also one of Arnica's brands, one of others. Yes. And a black tank and then she's got a little black bolero over the top. I do. A chunky silver necklace. She just looks very cool. And the slick hair.

0:56You look great. Thanks, guys. But it's giving big Arnica energy too. We were like, does the chair like solidify the outfit? I mean, biggest compliment in the world to say I'm giving Arnica energy. Honestly, that needs to be put on a T-shirt, Arnica energy. Yeah. I would wear that. a point shoe. I don't think I would ever be in a point heel. No, we need to just swap you out for like a Solomon and I think we're done. Yeah, love. Sorted. How are you guys? I'm good. I feel like we were like so set on what we were going to talk about today. And then this morning we got Vogue World content rolling in.

1:28Have you guys caught any of this? I've seen a lot, but mostly from individual creators that I follow. So Hayley Bieber and her stylist have been dropping some outfit pics. Holy crap, she looked hot. She looked unbelievable and her glam was arguably the best glam I've seen her in today. I'll be honest, I haven't seen anything about this yet today, but it is Monday as of our time of recording. So probably by tomorrow, my feed will be absolutely saturated with this content. Okay, so for some context, I saw Vogue World and I was like, I've seen this a couple of years now. I'm like, I think it started 2022, 2023.

1:59But I was like, what actually is this? So I went on a bit of a Google deep dive. Turns out it's actually to raise money for charity, which you wouldn't know looking at all. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. It's like catwalk meets, this year it was about celebrating film and TV, which is why it was in Hollywood. But last year it was about sports and was in Paris coinciding around the time of the Olympics. Like it's a bit confusing. I thought it was Olympic related. You're like a Vogue Olympic event. Every four years we have one. It definitely feels like a spectacle. Like it's a moment, but I never really understood the purpose of it.

2:33I did not know it was for a charity. I feel like that piece hasn't really cut through to me. Yeah, so the whole idea is that they're raising money for charity. I think tickets last year were like€1 ,700,€1 ,800 to be sitting in the third row. Wow. So it's expensive. It's definitely like you want to be seen to be there. It also seems like Anna Wintour is really, really pushing it. Yeah. They really want it to work. I can't help but feel like she wants something kind of like what she's done with the Met Gala, but something that she gets to create to kind of cement her legacy when she goes. It's funny you say that because legacy was the word that was in my head.

3:05It does feel like she wants this to be the thing that she's known for and really be, you know, that was me. I did that. Yeah. Look, all things aside, all confusion, Nicole Kidman opened and closed the show with Baz Lerman and girl, did she eat. Like, talk about like revenge dress. We got it on the catwalk today. I'm so spending my evening deep in this content. Yeah, I want a little texties from you later tonight once you've done scrolled. You will be getting one, yes. Also, Nicole Kidman being everywhere is also the ultimate revenge. Side note. Yeah. Oh, 1 ,000%. He's not opening his phone and avoiding seeing Nicole Kidman.

3:40And I love that for her. I'm here for it. All right. Well, today we are covering the hot topic of influencer Danielle Bernstein's engagement party. Why Grace Wells Bonner being appointed creative director of Hermes Menswear is a big deal. and we'll be unpacking what the heck Group 7 is on TikTok. But first, what do we each want to swap in this week? You two can fight for who goes for it. No, you go. No, I insist. Okay, fine. Really put up a fight there. I'm swapping in a person to follow this week and technically a sub stack as well. So Alexis Barber, have you guys heard of her? No. She is an amazing creator.

4:17She actually used to work for YouTube. She did actually work on launching YouTube Shorts So she seriously switched on. Great rec for the marketing girlies. She's also a creator on the side. She has an amazing sub stack, one called Too Online and another called Too Smart for this. But I actually came across her on TikTok and I've done a full deep dive and am now obsessed. Gone back and read a few of her sub stacks. One of the most recent and my favorite that I've read so far is called The Creator Economy Is Real. Log on accordingly. She is just so smart and switched on and also just cuts through the crap, which I'm really gravitating towards people on the internet right now who have an opinion and just cut through.

4:56I love her. I cannot recommend her enough. Oh my God, definitely checking that out. Yeah. Also obsessed with that name. That's really quite witty. Cool name. Yeah, really clever name. Well, it's my turn now. Yeah, your turn. So mine is a bit of a concept. I'm really loving swapping in a concept at the moment. I promise I'll go back to product next week, but it is to do mundane activities with your friends. So I, yesterday, one of my girlfriends lives in my building. She's like, let's go watch a movie. Like come upstairs, watch a movie. We just had our tracksuit pants on. Then we went to Yochi.

5:27The other week I went to Paran Market, which is the local like food and grocery market on a Sunday. Just like the mundane things like, hey, I need to go to the post office. Do you want to come? Hey, do you want to get a coffee? Like I know we love a wine bar and don't get me wrong. I will never give those up. But just doing the most random things like the Ikea trip, the Kmart shop, do it with a mate, make it a little bit more fun. And it's quite pleasing just to do really boring shit with your friends. It is. I fully agree with that. I love an errand with a friend. Errand with a friend. Oh my God, that's what we're going to call it.

6:01Errand with a friend. It sounds like it could be a jingle. All right, Jo, what have you got for us? Mine is season two of Nobody Wants This on Netflix. I'm saving this because I'm traveling this week and I've downloaded it for the plane and I cannot wait. So I watched all 10 episodes over the weekend because I had a bit of free time and I decided this is now my time. I've got the TV to myself. I'm watching all 10 episodes. I loved season one. It was probably one of my favorite shows of the year when that came out. I loved it. So I binged all of season to the product placement made me chuckle as marketing girlies on this podcast.

6:38I thought, oh, this one's not getting past me. The Estee Lauder advance night repair on the nightstand. And then again, when she's in the friend's bathroom, she steals a little bit of her advance night repair as well. Sneaky, but I see through you. Do you know what? Cash that check. I'm obsessed with TV shows and movies being able to commercialize their product. And you know what? kind of clever by Estee Lauder as well. Like, snaps where it's due. It is. I thought it was clever and I loved that Leighton Meester made a cameo in the series as well because she's Adam Brody's real-life wife. Yeah.

7:13So it was very funny seeing her in that series as not his wife. You're on a full rhyme roster today. This is like your third rhyme of our episode and I'm obsessed with it. Oh, I didn't even realise. Erin with a friend. That kind of rhymes. I don't know. We're clear about what rhyme is. What a rhyme is. You need to go back and watch the 60 Minutes interview with Eminem where he's like, oh, Ryn, Scarbridge. It just, like, makes the words up. Whatever. What? She's really gone on a tangent. We'll let her have it. We'll let her have it. So I loved Leighton Meester's little Chanel two-piece in the series.

7:47I saw that in a social cut down. Yeah. I haven't seen it. It's really cute because the character she's playing, it just really ties into that outfit. And I kind of like the styling in this series. I think the way that they style Kristen Bell is quite interesting. I think the positioning of her character is really reflective of the outfits that they put her in. I don't know. I like the styling of it and it's a very easy series to watch. Okay, I'm excited. They're like 25, 26-minute episodes. Perfect. Like the OC Seth girl in me is just alive and thriving so, so much. I was absolutely a Seth girl.

8:23Yeah. Till I die. You were a Ryan girl, weren't you? Yeah, I think I was. What? Get out. A little bit of bad boy energy for the bad gal, Riri. Well, if the shoe fits, fine in every colour. Next, we're talking about Danielle Bernstein's engagement party drama, but that will be right after a word from today's sponsor. It's about that time of year where the invitations start rolling in again. We're planning our looks for upcoming weddings and birthdays and sending links to the group chat for approval. Party season has well and truly arrived, but it doesn't need to be overwhelming. You just need to know where to shop.

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9:31Shop now in-store or online and thank you so much to Target for making this episode of Stylish possible.

9:39All right so our first headline today is kind of dividing the internet. I think everyone has an opinion on this if they've seen it. So Danielle Bernstein is an American influencer and she's the founder of WeWall Watch if you're not familiar with her already but she has the internet divided thanks to her engagement party dress. While some loved her vintage Kim Kassler's couture gown, other commenters were pretty critical saying the dress looked like a cheap costume. But this isn't the first time that she has created a little bit of a stir online. Actually, I would say that the engagement party dress is the least for worries, given the conversation we're about to have.

10:12But off the back of the engagement party dress discourse, The Cut published an article last week about Danielle's engagement party plans that sparked conversation when she created a TikTok about it in September last year. So in the video, she said she wanted to try something a little bit different for her engagement party. She said, I actually curated shoppable links to dresses that were so perfect for our theme and dress code to make it easier for my guests. The cut said about this video, the idea supposedly was that her guests could save time by following the recommendations if they happened to be in the market for DB approved cocktail attire.

10:45Once a guest bought one of the dresses, they would be removed from the registry to avoid any matching moments. She captioned the post, did the shopping for my guests if anyone wants something new. Should I share the curation publicly? Commenters were unsurprisingly pretty critical of Danielle's idea, commenting things like, God forbid someone wears something they already own. And did you profit off affiliate links too? From there, the controversy only escalated with prominent TikTok creators weighing in on it and several like fashion TikToker Masa Marjo wondering why Danielle had assumed her guest sizes, budgets and tastes.

11:15While it eventually dialed down, the discourse around the shoppable engagement party links has resurfaced because Danielle started sharing content from her engagement party. What do we make from this move to create a curated shoppable list of outfits for your guests? Rhi, you are smirking so hard over there. Guys, sometimes I'm so grateful that this podcast is not full length video because my facial expressions, like when you're reading, I think I did it last week as well. I'm just like preemptively ready to go by showing you my facial expressions. It's also like Rhi and I avoiding eye contact when we're both going like, are you catching a load of this?

11:51So I'm just not impressed. I find. I know where you're going here. Can I jump in for you? Jump in for me. I know exactly why Rhi's hesitating here. And it's because wedding culture is getting bigger than Ben-Hur. And I think where like the hesitation comes from is we all know someone in our life who has taken on wedding and let it become their entire personality and are curating it to the point that it's a production, not a celebration of a marriage. Yeah. And look, the reason why I always come to this conversation and I have hesitations, if I'm fully honest, is because as someone who recently got married, I also have bought into wedding culture in some capacity.

12:35However, as we've spoken about on the podcast in the past is I do feel like I've had really clear boundaries and lines. I actually think it was the episode where this topic came up when The Cut ran their previous article when they were doing a ranking in comparison of the US influencers who got married. Do you guys remember that? Yes, I do. So in that same episode, I feel like I came to that with a bit of a conflict because absolutely I consume wedding content. Absolutely. I've created content about my own wedding. However, I do feel like I've had very clear boundaries around what I would be willing to let people in on.

13:06And with this follow-up article and this follow-up conversation around Danielle Bernstein, it doesn't feel like it's about the couple and the love in the room. For me, it's about being a production, as you said, Matt, that this wedding is an opportunity to create clout, create a revenue stream as well. And coming back to the point in the article, and I guess the main controversy surrounding this TikTok video is the fact that she curated this edit for her guests. I do think it's a way to try and control the aesthetic under the guise of being helpful. 1000 % she has dressed this up as helpful when it is curation and control.

13:43Devil's advocate though. Sure. We don't know Danielle personally. No. No. So she very much could be a very kind-hearted, sweet, helpful person. I'm sure she is. And we're just seeing straight through that and going, oh, she doesn't trust her guest's style and she wants them to look a specific way and meet her standards of dress for her event. Can I reverse this back on like in this debate as well? I think there's an element of that and also not even just her own expectations, but perhaps the pressure she feels externally. Absolutely. I'm not saying Danielle's like sitting in an ivory tower, you know, cackling like an evil witch being like, everyone must wear what I want.

14:20Like, I think she's probably just feeling the external pressure of like, there's articles on The Cut about my engagement ring, about the carrot size, about the influencer sphere and what we're all wearing and what we're doing and who's having bigger weddings. I'm sure it's got to do with external pressure. Yeah, for sure. I feel like it could be a combination of those things, but at the end of the day, I still think it's odd. The assumption is that a lot of these links were affiliate links as well. So are you also profiting off your friends' purchases? Well, that's what I'm really curious to know.

14:47Is it actually affiliate links because that really changes this conversation. My understanding of someone referring to something as a shoppable link is that it is an affiliate. Is that a kickback? Is that correct? Yes. I take that assumption. I have the same assumption. To deepen this, part of me then went into this like conspiracy theory hole. And I want to be really clear, my own personal conspiracy theory hole. She's got a tinfoil hat on. Where I was like, I know, five days, you know, the towel is talking to me. I went into this hole where I was like, wait, did she even ever really send this list?

15:19Or was this just a way to have her followers be like, yes, I want to access the link? Like did her friends ever even really shop it? And this was more about her community wanting to know where, oh, like what have you recommended? What have you found? It's also the classic, like maybe you had one or two people and you're saying, everyone keeps asking me. And it's like, what is the sample size? How many? Like one or two, you can do a curated here or a couple of dresses I like. And Jo, you're probably having this experience. I think you touched on this last time. A few friends reaching out to you saying, what do I wear?

15:49Especially now. Okay. Lots of friends asking me now. Are you feeling the pressure to curate and edit? No. There we go. I'm not. I can't say I'm on my LTK creating a shoppable list of outfits for my friends. But I sent you a photo. Yeah, but if my friends are sending me photos and they're like, is this okay? Or do you like this? Or do you think this is good for the wedding? I'm like, yeah, it looks beautiful. Yeah. Because obviously it's something they're comfortable in. I don't think I would feel comfortable dictating what my guests wear or making them feel pressure to wear a certain thing. Dress code is enough.

16:19You give a dress code, that's all the guest has to adhere to. It is interesting though, because I would say about 50 % of the conversations I'm having with friends in regards to weddings right now are that they're being served very like extensive Pinterest boards or curated visuals of what they should wear to like certain events or to the wedding itself. Like, because I think some people worry that either friends or family won't understand the dress code. Okay. Have either of you ever received a wedding invitation that has had a Pinterest board attached? Not personally. I have. And I would say recently in the last 12 months, maybe one or two times.

16:57Yeah. I do think it is helpful if you have people in your group, like parents or older guests who aren't really familiar with a dress code, or if you actually have a specific theme, which I am seeing more of. Yeah, I had a friend who got married overseas, had a number of festivities, like the most exquisite wedding, not a Pinterest board in sight, but she did kind of, you know, go, I guess, off stream with some of her like themes. She had La Dolce Vita as one of the themes for the welcome. And I was like, oh, I would have really loved a Pinterest board because I was like, what is La Dolce Vita as like a dress theme?

17:30I didn't know if it was cocktail or a little bit more fun and casual. Also, most of the time I think it's for the men. Yeah. A lot of guys don't really understand the difference between a cocktail, a black tie and a formal dress code. Yeah. So I generally find it helpful in that sense. Jo, you're shaking your head like you agree. Yeah. It has been the men that has been the issue for me. Yeah. Not the women. Yeah. The amount of times I have gone to a black tie wedding and usually, unfortunately for them, a destination black tie wedding where someone goes, you can wear navy, right? Or like someone goes, I can wear a tie.

17:59And you're like, black tie is technically a tux with a bow tie. Yeah. And you're like, oh. So I understand it from that viewpoint. Would I necessarily want to see a shoppable link? Would I necessarily want, I mean, actually, no, if I was going to buy a dress, I'd rather my friend make some cash out of it. I was about to say, I probably, if it was one of my best mates, I probably would support them. I mean, for any event, it can be expensive to buy a dress. I would hope that there was a range of high and low options available. But the main piece for me is, was that transparent? Were you disclosing that up top?

18:31because also the assumption that every single person knows what an affiliate link is, is misguided. I'm in the industry. I have my own affiliate partnership with LTK. I know what that is. My mum would have no idea. I agree. Mum would have no clue. For me though as well, it's like, is it like a registry where everyone's expected to buy something? Because great that you've got all these price points, but what if all the dresses for$200 to$500 are gone? You know, is it the expectation that everyone had to buy from this curation? And are we ever going to find that out because a lot of this is speculation and assumption because we haven't actually seen the list.

19:04No. We haven't seen the shoppable dresses and also we don't know if there was a range of styles. We don't know if there was a range of price points because how can you assume that every single dress you choose that is obviously your taste is going to be suitable for someone that is not your size? Yeah that's true. Yeah anything wedding related will always always have debate surrounding it like especially now when they're just becoming like full-blown productions. Yeah, I just, this made me feel icky. I can't lie. I don't think it's the end of it as well. I do think because she has such a public profile, we're going to continue to see her wedding scrutinized by the general public, but also publications.

19:41Coming back to your point, Mads, is that a by-product of her having a public profile on her feeling the pressure? It's a hard one to balance. It just makes me think of the whole term, you know, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Anything that she does, she's going to be scrutinized for. I just think there could have been a little bit more self-awareness about putting this sort of thing out, if it is true, how that was going to be received by the general public and also the publications that are covering it. Yeah. Yeah. I would argue all of this has a little bit of content strategy against it too.

20:09So watch this space. Read it, girl. Our next headline is one that we are all very excited about, and that is Grace Wailed Bonner's appointment at Hermes is worth talking about. And honestly, if Trace was still a thing for the OG stylish listeners. This could honestly warrant one, but last week, British designer Grace Wales Bonner was named Hermes' new creative director of menswear. I would like to shout in just a round of applause on the mic, please. Now, this appointment is such a big deal for so many reasons. Grace is the first black woman to lead design at a major fashion house, and she's one of only a few women at the helm of a high fashion label or house right now.

20:53Yes, there's a lot of men, white men. Yeah. So let's go back a little bit of context. Grace is a menswear designer who founded her label Wales Bonner in 2014. And her label went on to have pretty major collaborations with the likes of Adidas and Stussy. Anyway, she is absolutely acclaimed within the fashion world. Vogue has credited her with quietly changing menswear. She took home the CFDA's menswear Designer of the Year Award in 2021. And with all the reshuffling that's been going on in the industry at many of the major fashion houses over the last year, practically none of the top roles have gone to women, which I think just makes Grace's appointment that much more special and noteworthy.

21:37According to a study done by creative platform One Granary, three quarters of the intake of the British fashion school's central St. Martins are women. So when we flip the majority with how many are at the top. It's like, how did we get from the bottom of the pyramid being so strong and held by female to the top being held by men? Sounds like most workplaces, to be honest. Shots fired. Let's go. So this was actually the fashion school that Grace herself went to, as did many other renowned designers. So the likes of Phoebe Philo, John Galliano and Alexander McQueen. But in the industry, nearly 90 % of top designers are men.