beepbeepbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.0
didn't really have a lot to say
lene_kretzsch's review against another edition
slow-paced
1.5
DNF at 42% There is just too little here that's interesting or meaningful to continue. Stagg appears to have nothing new to say about celebrity, fashion, art, or media and she just goes on and on and on pointlessly and with no flair. A waste of time.
d0n0t's review against another edition
4.0
literally everything in the world is about loneliness lmao. uneven but it worked
petersonline's review against another edition
4.0
"I was so completely in love and heartbroken thinking that maybe it wasn't the last time I would be. I remembered being alone on my roof in the summer, single, and enjoying it. Had I enjoyed it, or had I taken photos of myself to feel distracted? I could be alone again, I thought, as long as I didn't know that's what I was." -Natasha Stagg, Sleeveless: Fashion, Image, Media, New York 2011-2019
Sleeveless: Fashion, Image, Media, New York 2011-2019 (shortened to "Sleeveless" throughout this review) was an interesting follow-up to Natasha Stagg's curious but ultimately anticlimactic 2016 novel Surveys. In Sleeveless, fashion and culture writer Stagg delves deeper into the themes she presented in Surveys. Those themes included musings on celebrity and monetizing your social media presence. When Surveys was written, the term "influencer" had not yet gained popularity. As a response to the tsunami-like rise of "influencer culture," Stagg decided to revisit those themes and write Sleeveless.
Sleeveless is a hodge-podge of fashion writing, cultural critique, and autofiction. The pieces are slapped together into four sections: Public Relations, Fashion, Celebrity, and Engagement. I was most intrigued by the Fashion & Celebrity sections of this book. Stagg is a compelling fashion writer, as she was the online editor at V Magazine for several years, and some of these pieces are relics from her time there. In this section, she writes about Abercrombie & Fitch, scammers, and fashion films like Zoolander 2, among others. Stagg is also known for moderating and writing introductions to celebrity interviews (my favorite is the introduction she wrote for an interview between Lana Del Rey and Courtney Love), and her musings on celebrity culture were endlessly fascinating. I was particularly interested in a profile about a woman named "Ally" (it's unclear if that's her actual name, or if Stagg changed her name) who rose to internet fame as a friend of Hari Nef and Petra Collins (two people who are imperative to know as an "it girl" of the internet). There was a certain comfort to some of these essays, reading them felt like thumbing through an old issue of Teen Vogue, or one of my Rookie Yearbooks that sits and collects dust on my bookshelf.
Sleeveless, as engaging as many of the essays were, felt like it took a lot longer for me to read than it actually did. I read this book in exactly a week, but it felt like I had been reading it for about a month. I think it may be because, while these stories all fall under the same category as being musings on "culture," they were so disparate that it was hard to keep track of them. I should have taken notes on particular ones, but certain essays started blending together while others just didn't interest me at all. Stagg's detached narration style in these essays works for her celebrity musings, but for the ones that get a bit more personal, her fly-on-the-wall way of telling a story began to grow tedious. Stagg, throughout much of her writing, holds the reader at arms length. I appreciate the mystery, but sometimes there's no personality or flavor in the writing.
It's refreshing, however, when she shows bits of herself and explains parts of her life in the more autofiction style essays. In an essay near the end, the longest one in the book, Stagg writes a series of flash essays separated by dingbats, various vignettes that all connect back to her life. I liked hearing her stories about dating, about how she seeks out men who are either offline or don't care about social media/fashion/culture in the way that she does. This resonated, as I often joke with friends that I want to be the "social media/blogger bf" while my boyfriend will be the "offline bf who works in a humble industry like plumbing or maitenance." It makes sense that Stagg, someone who is always surrounded by "it" people, wants to chill with less pretentious figures in her personal life. I enjoyed reading the small bits she let us know about her love life, and found that it made me feel more connected to her as a narrator.
After publishing this book, Natasha Stagg sort of disappeared from the immense cultural coverage she was involved in throughout the years that these essays were written in. When I looked up more recent writing by her, I only saw one post written for the art magazine Frieze. She has deleted Twitter and Instagram, and is apparently focusing more on her role as an advertising consultant. After reading Sleeveless, we can only hope that she eventually returns to posting regular musings about fashion and celebrity, but we can also understand her exhaustion and realize that a lifestyle consisting of keeping up with the rich and famous might just be needlessly tiring after all.
Sleeveless: Fashion, Image, Media, New York 2011-2019 (shortened to "Sleeveless" throughout this review) was an interesting follow-up to Natasha Stagg's curious but ultimately anticlimactic 2016 novel Surveys. In Sleeveless, fashion and culture writer Stagg delves deeper into the themes she presented in Surveys. Those themes included musings on celebrity and monetizing your social media presence. When Surveys was written, the term "influencer" had not yet gained popularity. As a response to the tsunami-like rise of "influencer culture," Stagg decided to revisit those themes and write Sleeveless.
Sleeveless is a hodge-podge of fashion writing, cultural critique, and autofiction. The pieces are slapped together into four sections: Public Relations, Fashion, Celebrity, and Engagement. I was most intrigued by the Fashion & Celebrity sections of this book. Stagg is a compelling fashion writer, as she was the online editor at V Magazine for several years, and some of these pieces are relics from her time there. In this section, she writes about Abercrombie & Fitch, scammers, and fashion films like Zoolander 2, among others. Stagg is also known for moderating and writing introductions to celebrity interviews (my favorite is the introduction she wrote for an interview between Lana Del Rey and Courtney Love), and her musings on celebrity culture were endlessly fascinating. I was particularly interested in a profile about a woman named "Ally" (it's unclear if that's her actual name, or if Stagg changed her name) who rose to internet fame as a friend of Hari Nef and Petra Collins (two people who are imperative to know as an "it girl" of the internet). There was a certain comfort to some of these essays, reading them felt like thumbing through an old issue of Teen Vogue, or one of my Rookie Yearbooks that sits and collects dust on my bookshelf.
Sleeveless, as engaging as many of the essays were, felt like it took a lot longer for me to read than it actually did. I read this book in exactly a week, but it felt like I had been reading it for about a month. I think it may be because, while these stories all fall under the same category as being musings on "culture," they were so disparate that it was hard to keep track of them. I should have taken notes on particular ones, but certain essays started blending together while others just didn't interest me at all. Stagg's detached narration style in these essays works for her celebrity musings, but for the ones that get a bit more personal, her fly-on-the-wall way of telling a story began to grow tedious. Stagg, throughout much of her writing, holds the reader at arms length. I appreciate the mystery, but sometimes there's no personality or flavor in the writing.
It's refreshing, however, when she shows bits of herself and explains parts of her life in the more autofiction style essays. In an essay near the end, the longest one in the book, Stagg writes a series of flash essays separated by dingbats, various vignettes that all connect back to her life. I liked hearing her stories about dating, about how she seeks out men who are either offline or don't care about social media/fashion/culture in the way that she does. This resonated, as I often joke with friends that I want to be the "social media/blogger bf" while my boyfriend will be the "offline bf who works in a humble industry like plumbing or maitenance." It makes sense that Stagg, someone who is always surrounded by "it" people, wants to chill with less pretentious figures in her personal life. I enjoyed reading the small bits she let us know about her love life, and found that it made me feel more connected to her as a narrator.
After publishing this book, Natasha Stagg sort of disappeared from the immense cultural coverage she was involved in throughout the years that these essays were written in. When I looked up more recent writing by her, I only saw one post written for the art magazine Frieze. She has deleted Twitter and Instagram, and is apparently focusing more on her role as an advertising consultant. After reading Sleeveless, we can only hope that she eventually returns to posting regular musings about fashion and celebrity, but we can also understand her exhaustion and realize that a lifestyle consisting of keeping up with the rich and famous might just be needlessly tiring after all.
ndabholkar's review against another edition
3.0
Sometimes I wish I lived in LA, so I could drink cold pressed juice, let my body atrophy and be some sort of bohemian layabout. Instead I am in New York, so I read Natasha Stagg for her searing and detached commentary, ready to be dispensed as novel and interesting insights at parties. I take the train, walk fast places and no longer come off like an airhead!
hannahyang's review against another edition
3.0
very mixed feelings on this collection of essays. my favorite section was by far 'celebrity,' pgs 127-175.
some of stagg's observations/reflections are genuinely interesting and do provide a very 'real' feeling look into the fashion/media industries. her essays on the kardashians, microinfluencers, and the sections which were like portraits of the 'quirky' people she's met, stood out to me particularly. and many of her feelings about these people -- about coolness, authenticity, image, jealousy, rivalries -- are the kinds of things that i think about (and hate that i think about). for me, seeing these resonant sentiments in print coupled validation (this nyc cool girl notices these things...) and disillusionment (even the cool girls are not that cool... or they try too hard to be cool... but what's so bad about trying hard or selling out... i don't even know).
this book is weirdly atmospheric. reading it feels like being in what-people-think-nyc-is-like. it's like an invitation to judge and a satisfying confirmation of suspected 'out-of-touchness': an ultimately offputting (yet crave-able) combination of rawness, shallowness, cynicism, self-deprecation, and self-assuredness. i have no idea if that makes sense, but then again, i have no idea if this book made sense either.
some of stagg's observations/reflections are genuinely interesting and do provide a very 'real' feeling look into the fashion/media industries. her essays on the kardashians, microinfluencers, and the sections which were like portraits of the 'quirky' people she's met, stood out to me particularly. and many of her feelings about these people -- about coolness, authenticity, image, jealousy, rivalries -- are the kinds of things that i think about (and hate that i think about). for me, seeing these resonant sentiments in print coupled validation (this nyc cool girl notices these things...) and disillusionment (even the cool girls are not that cool... or they try too hard to be cool... but what's so bad about trying hard or selling out... i don't even know).
this book is weirdly atmospheric. reading it feels like being in what-people-think-nyc-is-like. it's like an invitation to judge and a satisfying confirmation of suspected 'out-of-touchness': an ultimately offputting (yet crave-able) combination of rawness, shallowness, cynicism, self-deprecation, and self-assuredness. i have no idea if that makes sense, but then again, i have no idea if this book made sense either.
partypete's review against another edition
4.0
The essays "Consulting", "Internet as Horror", "Bellwether Boots", "Good-looking People", "The Micro-trend" and "Thonging" are excellent. This book is front-loaded in that most of the good essays are in the first two sections of the book (Public Relations and Fashion), which makes sense given Stagg's field of expertise. When the book drifts into interviews and bios on influencers and internet celebrities, it loses me - they're well written, but I found the treatment of the subjects tired and relatively predictable. I guess they're necessary given the 2011-2019 timeframe of the book. Wasn't a fan of the fiction but I liked "Out of State". Recommended for the entire city of New York, and people who listen to podcasts or like Joan Didion, Chris Kraus, and Eileen Myles.