There’s a mysterious orange app popping up on everyone’s phones, a “Marty Supreme” shade of orange if you will. Substack is taking over, and everyone is on it. The person next to you on a train, your ex, even Charli XCX are posting there. With so many writers flooding the platform, we’ve put together a list of fashion and style writers who accessorise with a side of social commentary to get you started the right way.
Brain Matter by Gabriella Karefa-Johnson
Gabriella comes from a long line of firsts. And as the first black woman to style a Vogue cover, she did not fall short of the legacy. Stylist, fashion editor, and visual storyteller Gabriella Karefa-Johnson brings deep, honest reflections on culture and clothes straight to your inbox. She uses Brain Matter to discuss everything from what’s actually happening on red carpets to personal stories, such as styling the NYC mayor and first lady for their swearing-in ceremony. Her essays are stylish, smart, and emotionally rich, the perfect bridge between fashion and identity.
Here is our fave by the author:
Gatekept by Morgan Vogel
If 2010 fashion blogs had a wiser younger sibling, it’d be writer Morgan Vogel. Calling herself a fashion social strategist, Gatekept isn’t about telling you what to wear, but why we wear what we wear. She decodes fashion history, cultural context, and personal style philosophy in pieces that feel personal and profound, like thinking about your closet while the world burns.
Here is our fave by the author:
High Brow by Mina Le
Actress, YouTuber, essayist, and all-around culture savant, Mina Le’s High Brow is a breezy, brilliant mix of personal memoir and style observation. From historical deep dives, her experiences with improv, to NYC dining confessions, to how “the damn phone” shapes our lives and aesthetics, her writing is sharp-witted, lived-in, and endlessly watchable (if you’re catching Wuthering Heights for “research purposes,” you’re going to want to keep an eye out for the next post on High Brow).
Here is our fave by the author:
Data, But Make It Fashion by Madé Lapuerta
If you are on the fashion side of IG or TikTok, there is a guarantee you’ve come across Madé Lapuerta’s “data but make it fashion” analyses. To the Harvard graduate Madé, fashion, long hailed for its subjectivity, isn’t so. She brings logic and binary to dissolve high-brow content into simple, digestible metrics. Her substack by the same name goes beyond “mini skirts are back” and into the mechanics behind why something goes viral.
Here is our fave by the author:
Cultural Production by Rian Phin
For commentary that blurs fashion, culture, digital life, performance, and aesthetics, Rian Phin is the voice for the thinking reader. In Cultural Production, she explores runway rituals and the pressures of “natural beauty” culture, teasing apart the spectacle of style with sharp humor and critical groove. Her writing feels like a conversation with your screen, strange but vulnerable.
Here is our fave by the author:
Caught a reading bug? Check out this Black women’s literature list.