Month: October 2018

October 03, 2018 at 03:44AM Listen up, sweat fanatics: I’m about to tell a tale about a very sexy topical topic—skin fungus. Early this summer, a small population of cream-colored splotches cropped on my chest and upper back, slightly paler than the rest of my body. I responded with what was more or less a shrug. Hey! I live in the great concrete jungle of NYC, where the new species I’m exposed to tend to be more of the pizza rat variety. And since my dermis’ new inhabitants didn’t itch or anything, I kinda just figured: “Eh.” Flash forward a few months to when my family and I took a trip to the seaside of Massachusetts where I had the first occasion of the summer season to wear a bathing suit. As I headed to the shore with my younger sister, she took one look at my back and said, “Oh, I’ve seen that before. It’s a fungus.” And that was enough: I promptly got to my dermatologist’s office. There, I learned that, A) my fungus is called “tinea versicolor,” and B) people like me—who spend a good portion of their lives in a sweat-soaked sports bra—are particularly susceptible. (The fungus thrives in damp conditions.) “Oh, I’ve seen that before. It’s a fungus.” Even though my derm prescribed me a special foam cleanser to rid my body of the stuff, I still had a ton of lingering queries about skin fungi. Like, what causes an outbreak? Are there different types besides tinea versicolor? Do

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October 03, 2018 at 03:00AM Let me get this out of the way up front: I adore my husband. We’ve been happily married for two years, and he’s the best thing that ever happened to me. But making his last name legally my own? That’s hands down one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made. When we were dating and even engaged, I thought that sharing the same last name would make me feel like we were more of a family. I thought the outward-facing world would regard us as more of a united front if our house appeared more, well, united. Not in a Game of Thrones House Stark kind of way, but just in the sense that I couldn’t wait to be this man’s family, and I wanted the whole world to know it. The pressure was entirely of my own making—my husband never cared whether I took his name, and he respected my choice to add to my career’s worth of editorial work under my maiden name (I still use my maiden name as a byline). Still, on the day we went to City Hall in New York City to get our marriage license, it took me by surprise when the clerk informed me that if I wanted to eventually take his name, even a year or so down the road, I’d have to decide right then and there, on the spot. I balked at the suggestion. Surely she was wrong. Not everyone who takes a married name has

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October 03, 2018 at 02:57AM Athleisure might have started out as a trend, but it’s now the fastest-growing category in fashion. And its staying power is trickling down to another style of casual dressing: streetwear. At this point, the two words are basically synonyms to most people, because we use them interchangeably to describe a more everyday form of fashion than what you’d find on the runways. One that’s tinged with athletic undertone or overtones, if you will. Streetwear is as much a community, however, as it is a style category. In a lot of ways, it feels like the boutique fitness of fashion. Not only have brands such as Supreme, Kith, and Off-White amassed cult followings and gained reputations for successfully disrupting the traditional fashion model. They’ve also attracted the attention of major investors. Supreme received a $1 billion valuation last fall, making it the Peloton of streetwear startups. The estimate seems to answer the question: Are streetwear brands worth it? In a word: yes. In fact, investors have seeded about $180 million to streetwear startups in the last few years, according to Fashionista. And just like the boutique fitness industry, which expanding at an exponential rate, this influx of interest and capital has some already wondering if it’s creating a bubble around streetwear brands. And if so, will it burst? The resale market for coveted items like Off-White sneakers can see them going for double (often more) of the suggested market value at online consignment. Fashionista notes that sites focused on women’s

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