My Vogue Runway colleague Laia Garcia-Furtado and I are back on the podcast this week, covering for Chioma and Chloe, and our first order of business was to discuss a strange new trend invading popular culture: Everyone is breaking up. Just over the last couple of weeks, we’ve found out about an endless stream of celebrity couples calling it quits. The list includes: Rosalía and Rauw Alejandro, Ricky Martin and Jwan Yosef, Sofia Vergara and Joe Mangianello, Tini and Rodrigo De Paul, and Dalton Gomez and Ariana Grande (whose rumored new boyfriend has sent X, formerly know as Twitter, down a SpongeBob Squarepants-shaped rabbit hole). We don’t actually know why everyone’s splitting up, but what we do know is that it’s really none of our business—despite how good the “uncuffing season” memes are.
A couple (of besties) that won’t call it quits, however, are legendary street style photographers Phil Oh and Tommy Ton, who were our guests this week. Tommy and Phil started their careers as bloggers, not unlike how Laia and I made our way to becoming Vogue Runway writers. In a sort of street style roundtable, we asked them to walk us through their career trajectories from amateur bloggers to Style.com, Vogue Runway, and Vogue.com-approved photographers, at the same time outlining the evolution of street style from an “if you know, you know” pastime to a pillar of fashion week #content. We also discussed their favorite images, and how they feel about the transformation of street style from something organic to a full-fledged business strategy outlined during brands’ marketing meetings. There’s a little bit of shade, some jadedness, lots of jokes, and some things to look forward to—this is one conversation you won’t want to miss.
Also in this week’s episode, we ponder the existence of extraterrestrial life after three military veterans testified at a highly anticipated congressional hearing regarding UFOs and UAPs (aka “unidentified aerial phenomena”). The thought of the government having recovered “non-human biologics” from alleged crash sites has made us spiral, so now we’re bringing you along.
Oh, and speaking of aliens, I had the honor and privilege of attending none other than our resident “Alien Superstar”’s Renaissance world tour this weekend at MetLife stadium in New Jersey, and my life will never be the same. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m talking about one Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter., and we discussed her many dazzling tour outfits (styled by Shiona Turini, Julia Sarr-Jamois and KJ Moody), and, most importantly, how much it means to see her embrace the unabashed queer energy of the culture that inspired the music she made for all of us.
One of my favorite parts of the show was to see the stage transform into a ball, with her dancers voguing on-stage—amongthem Carlos Irizarri of the Haus of Basquiat and Honey Balenciaga. It’s a beautiful thing to feel seen by someone whose inner light is as glaring as Beyoncé’s. On that note, this past Saturday, July 29, while some were dancing and singing along at the Renaissance concert, a young Black man of the name of O’Shae Sibley was fatally stabbed at a gas station in Brooklyn after being targeted by a homophobe for voguing to Renaissance. O’Shae was a talented dancer and a member of the House of Du’Mure-Versailles. May you rest and Vogue in peace, O’Shae.
