A curated list of fashion Substacks we’re loving
IMAGE VIA @VIVTHEMOLE/INSTAGRAM
WORDS BY JULIA KITTELTY
Endless inspiration straight to your inbox.
There’s something delightful about hearing the ping of your phone and knowing it’s not another work email, but your favourite Substack writer chiming in with a new essay on what’s in their closet right now.
Launched in 2017, the newsletter and blogging platform allows users to write, read and curate to their heart’s content. Whether you’re looking for recommendations on where to get designer pieces at the best prices, thrifting know-how or apartment tours, you’re in the right place.
Looking for more fashion news and features? Head to our Fashion section.
Often complete with kitschy graphics, mirror selfies and niche pop culture references, it’s like reading an email from your coolest, smartest friend. Below, we’ve put together a list of our favourites so you can inject some new life into your inbox.
Digital Tinz
NYC native Tina Zhang blends her love of clothing, design and the internet into cozy, diary-like essays. Whether you’re after moodboards, musings or digital scrapbooking, her writing is intimate, down-to-earth and accessible to all kinds of fashion lovers. And as seen in her essay ‘There Is No Such Thing as a Capsule Wardrobe’, her writing effortlessly combines cynicism with aspiration.
Gumshoe
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New Yorker Harling Ross Anton, formerly of Man Repeller, blesses us with great graphics, fashion deep dives and lists – so many lists. Lists of pieces she’s saved in the bookmarks of her internet browser, lists of items she wants (badly) and lists of clothes she already owns. It’s a digital fashion diary and a peek inside the world of a vintage fashion obsessive. A believer in variety when it comes to personal style, no two-word TikTok aesthetic could ever pin her down.
Elle Dresses Well
A self-described “fashion obsessive” American writer Elle Sundberg believes in looking for inspiration in unexpected places, whether it’s the person in front of you in the coffee line or a really cute book cover. Her favourite fashion proverb, that ‘creativity thrives within limitations’, is an idea I can get around. It’s all about using what you already have to create something new.
Smooth Brain Thoughts
Sydney-based content creator Ali Whittle likes the not-so-serious side of fashion, but also the practical stuff. Find out what’s worth the money and what’s not at both ends of the spectrum, whether you’re into designer sample sales or rifling through thrift shops. Browse endless reading lists and gift and thrifting guides curated with a little help from her “coolest friends”.
smoothbrainthoughts.substack.com
Screenshot This
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A mainstay in the Australian fashion, beauty and lifestyle space, Zara Wong’s Screenshot This offers smart analysis of how celebrity, fashion and brand intersect. Read her takes on personal taste, runways, our current style icons and fashion media, and browse curated recommendations, playlists and designer edits. It’s slick, clever and glossy; a magazine in newsletter form.
Misplaced Style
Melbourne local Amelia Crook is challenging consumer culture and creating a personal style strategy that focuses on the life you live in your clothes, rather than on the clothes themselves. Learn how to fill the gaps in your wardrobe by knowing what not to buy, avoiding the trend cycle and going for pieces with a longer shelf life and more sentimental value.
Angel Cake
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Emily North is a 26-year-old self-identifying “responsible party girl” who thinks a lot about good clothes. Obsessed with where fashion and pop culture meet, Angel Cake bridges the divide between what celebrities wear and what we wear. She’s about how clothes make her feel, rather than how they look, and advocates for looking outside the internet for sources of inspiration. She also loves a full ballerina skirt.
The Molehill
San Francisco-based writer Viv Chen describes herself as an “eBay gremlin“. She can teach you how to shop, make you ponder the legitimacy of athleisure and explain why style isn’t bought, it’s found. You’ll find candid thoughts about life, culture and fashion’s ‘cool girls‘.
For more Substack recommendations, head here.
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