Repeller

Notice of Wind Down & A Publishing Update

Leandra M. Cohen — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 00:13:58 +0000

As of Friday, October 23, 2020, Repeller is closed. The site will no longer publish new stories but the archive will remain available to access. Thank you to everyone who has contributed their talent and effort to this brand.

And thank you, the audience, for having chosen to spend time here.

I wish you all the very best.

The post Notice of Wind Down & A Publishing Update appeared first on Repeller.

How to Decorate Your NYC Apartment on a Budget with Street-Scavenged Gems and Vintage Trésor

Beth Sacca — Mon, 19 Oct 2020 13:00:00 +0000

I come from a family of expert-level dumpster-divers and road-pickers.

My grandfather once found two flat-screen TVs on the side of a road in his neighborhood in Florida. He picked them up, put them in his car, and drove home—where he set them up in separate rooms, so that he and my grandma could watch their different soap operas every night, in peace.

The next day, my grandpa walked up to the house where he’d found the TVs—then knocked on the door and asked for the remotes.

Looking at the cast-off or once-loved/now abandoned objects in alleys and stoops and dusty thrift store shelves and seeing possibility— this is a trait that runs in my family. Moving into a new apartment after graduating from college meant beginning a new chapter, as an official adult—and wanting an official, adult apartment. For me, this meant spending my entire summer searching for cheap furniture and sorting out how I wanted my apartment to look. Here’s how I did it, with a mix of tried-and-true online and NYC shops.

Mother of Junk ($)
567 Driggs Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Junk is the ultimate spot in Brooklyn for well-priced treasures. I mean, I grew up upstate, so I know I could find almost everything in their store for half the price back home, but within the five boroughs? This place is a goldmine.

Skip it if you’re not in the mood to hunt: I’ve found all of my gems here by trial-and-error: rifling through painting after painting, stepping on glass on the second floor, and going to the store at least once a week for a month. Unfortunately for those of us inclined toward wheelin’ and dealin’, they do not like when you try to bargain or bundle. I’ve tried.

I got these three framed exhibition prints, which fit perfectly on the wall above my couch and dining set.

Habitat for Humanity ($)
6201 Northern Blvd, Queens, NY 11377

Habitat for Humanity, although better upstate, is great for used furniture—and they have a store in Queens! Everything here is sold to support their nonprofit work, through which volunteers build affordable homes for families in need.

At Habitat, I purchased a large mantle, which I later painted white. I also picked up a lamp, a record player, a midcentury dresser, a picture, and a frame.

Dobbins St. Co-Op ($$$)
310 Graham Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Dobbin’s Street Vintage Co-Op is a dream. It’s not cheap, but the prices are reasonable for what they are selling, which is amazing vintage furniture. I often go just to look and dream big, big interior-decorating dreams.

Remix Market ($$)
33-56 11th St, Queens, NY 11106

Located in Astoria, Remix is a small store with a wide variety of home goods—plus they’re super active on Instagram, so it’s easy to stay up to date. I have had success bundling here—like with a recent purchase of a dresser, lamp, and painting, all for under $100. Remix also gets five stars for its friendly workers, who won’t mind helping you load furniture into an Uber.

ONLINE ONLY

Facebook Marketplace

The only reason I have not deleted my Facebook is because of its online market. Sometimes before bed, I’ll go on just to see what people around me are selling: I’ve found mushroom lamps, mirrors, couches, and everything else under the sun. (Often, the good vintage furniture is in New Jersey.) If you’re looking for a cheap coffee table or armchair, have at it, and make offers fast—most people here are moving and want to get rid of their items quickly.

We got this cute little yellow chair, which fits perfectly in our dining room, for free!

Craigslist

Craigslist: Scary, yet some amazing finds, like beautiful vintage speaker systems, record players, dining room tables, and more. We purchased a green chair here—barely used and in perfect condition, for $100!

OfferUp

Offerup may very well have the cheapest furniture online—check it out if you’re not on Facebook. I expect the prices here to be half what they are at a shop like Remix.

Etsy

Etsy has everything: If you can’t find what you’re looking at the shops above, Etsy will have it—whether it’s the perfect grandma-style afghan or a vintage exhibition print. Etsy is full of small vintage shops from all over the world, and many are reasonably priced. If something’s still too much, message the seller and share your budget—it doesn’t hurt to try!

StoopingNYC

Last but not least: my favorite instagram account. StoopingNYC posts free stuff from the sidewalk daily—like perfect-condition dressers and couches that (probably) don’t have bed bugs. Personally: I would think twice about taking upholstered furniture from the side of the street—but hey, that’s up to you, and my grandpa would totally do it.

Be careful if you follow this account—it is difficult missing out on exceptional pieces.

I found a mirror and frame on the sidewalk—I painted it a butter yellow!

While I was at it, I also painted my pot holder and the outer glass that holds my candle in a messy white and yellow check.

Happy treasure hunting and make sure you bring a friend with you to pick up anything. Wear a mask, and be smart!

What’s the greatest thing you’ve found for cheap or on the side of the street?

The post How to Decorate Your NYC Apartment on a Budget with Street-Scavenged Gems and Vintage Trésor appeared first on Repeller.

Am I The Only One Who Doesn’t Want To Look Like Glass?

Jessica DeFino — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 13:00:00 +0000

Glass is lifeless. Invisible. It’s nothing, really. It exists to be seen through. It possesses no beauty of its own. It refracts the light and bends the truth.

I do not want to look like glass.

And yet! There are 348 emails in my inbox telling me I should. There are 402,000 Instagram posts suggesting the same. There are over one billion Google search results for “glass skin,” a mélange of articles and blog posts and product pages, all offering advice on how to make my skin look less like skin and more like an amorphous solid.

Erase Your Pores In 3 Easy Steps!

Decimate Your Dead Skin Cells Overnight—The Right Way!

A Handy Guide To Hiding Your Pimples, Dry Patches, Acne Scars & Other Signs of Existence!

17 Resurfacing Treatments To Give You The Glow of A Recently Refinished Hardwood Floor!

How To Completely Replace Your Human Skin With Better, Dewier Dolphin Skin!

OK, fine, these headlines are made up—but the energy behind them isn’t. The pursuit of glass skin really is this ridiculous and unrealistic. To embrace glass as the aesthetic goal is to abandon (and worse, injure) the skin’s inherent functions.

There is a reason skin does not look like glass.

The aesthetically inclined have been glorifying glass skin for a while, since 2017 at least—long enough that the K-beauty creation is no longer a beauty trend but a beauty standard. Like all beauty standards, glass skin is a physical impossibility, and as such, the path to Windexed perfection is paved with products that always need to be repurchased. (How convenient for capitalism!) It’s unending. It’s addicting. It burrows into the brain. It inspires that specific kind of obsession that comes with coveting the unattainable.

I gave into this obsession for a time. I lamented the fact that my textured, sensitive skin would never look like glass. Or a glazed donut, or a seal, or a steamed dumpling, or Saran Wrap or a peeled egg. Insert shiny-skin catchphrase here.

Then I realized: It’s a good thing that glass skin is unattainable IRL (honestly, have you ever seen glass skin outside of social media?), because all the features I’d need to erase in order to get that smooth, glassy glow literally exist to protect me.

Like pores! Pores are outgoing channels for sebum and sweat, the skin’s natural highlighter-slash-moisturizer and the body’s temperature regulator-slash-detoxifier, respectively. You cannot shrink your pores and you wouldn’t want to. Without pores, or with too-small pores, you would overheat and/or explode.

And dead skin cells! Heads up: They aren’t dead. They serve an important biological purpose as part of the all-important skin barrier. Dead skin cells also store NMFs, or Natural Moisturizing Factors—basically, they’re the skin’s very own hydration station. The young, fresh skin cells underneath (you know, the ones you expose in an effort to look like glass) don’t do that. That’s why over-exfoliation can lead to dry, flaky skin.

And pimples! I’ve come to think of pimples as communications from my body, alerting me to what it needs. Cysts on my jawline? Time to take a hard look at my hormones. Closed comedones? My skin’s not into my product lineup. Inflamed cheeks? My body might be begging for a vegetable instead of another everything bagel with cream cheese. Even if I could Zamboni the blemishes away, I wouldn’t. They’re sharing need-to-know information, people!

Really, any type of texture is a communication from within—even the glass look itself. “A waxy, glassy, shiny forehead is incorrectly associated with a ‘glow,’ which it is not,” Dr. Barbara Sturm, the founder of the skincare line of the same name, once told me. “It is the sign of injury.” Seriously: Skin that looks like glass is skin that’s lost its essential skin-ness, its humanness, its health. If you can see your reflection in your complexion, it’s probably trying to tell you something—like, “Look at what you’re doing to me!!!” or perhaps, “Please stop.”

If glass skin is both unattainable and unadvisable, why do we want it?

Well, for one, it’s a natural progression of unnatural beauty standards. It’s the age-old pressure to look like a Barbie doll, updated for modern times: We’ve simply swapped plastic for glass (so eco-friendly!) and the male gaze for self-objectification (attempting to emulate an inanimate object is self-objectification in the most basic sense of the word).

But I also think our phones and laptops and televisions are to blame. In an increasingly virtual world, everything we see is behind a shiny glass screen—and as glass is wont to do, it creates a barrier. It places you on the outside, peering in at all the perfect people. Nevermind that the people are actually pixels. It’s human nature to want to join them, to want to be beautiful, to do almost anything to belong. I feel it, too.

If I’m being honest, when I say “I don’t want to look like glass,” what I mean is, “I wish I didn’t want to look like glass.”

I wish I didn’t internalize this impossible standard. I wish I didn’t have to justify the existence of my pores and pimples. I wish I didn’t let the state of my skin determine my sense of self-worth. I wish I didn’t doubt it, just a little bit, when my boyfriend tells me I’m beautiful. I wish I didn’t feel compelled to convince us all that it’s OK to let our skin be skin, but here I am.

Skin is skin.

It is not glass, and it is not supposed to be.

It always has texture and pores, and it sometimes has acne and oil slicks and inflammation.

It’s alive, it’s dynamic, it’s divinely designed, and it’s talking to you.

Do you really want to silence it for the sake of looking like a transparent shard of molten sand?

The post Am I The Only One Who Doesn’t Want To Look Like Glass? appeared first on Repeller.

I Found the Best Going Out Top for Staying In

Elizabeth Tamkin — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 12:00:00 +0000

I never believed in the concept of a “going-out top” until about a month ago. In college, I remember changing no less than 100 dramatic times before going out—my go-to was always a combination of big tees, sweaters, and a blazer, which (shockingly) didn’t feel right on a weekend evening.

Just a few weeks ago, though—during what we may later describe as the all-time peak of NOT going out—something made me a believer: this top on Instagram. I wanted to nudge my 21-year-old self: This is it! This is a going-out top! It has a square-ish neck, dives deep into the armpits, shows some décolleté, and yet is still a knit (ribbed!). Bonus: It’s cozy enough for cold autumn evenings.

If I were going out anywhere, this would be my going-out top. At present, it will be my most fashionable staying-IN top, a phenomenon I am determined to make happen.

Left: Khaite Spring/Summer 2020; Right: Khaite Fall/Winter 2020 via Vogue Runway

Do you remember when Khaite walked this neckline down the runway in both spring and fall 2020 runways shows? If you don’t, I’m here to let you know they did! (Here’s a similar version of it, with an investment-level price tag.) Now, I’ve started noticing this neckline everywhere, and I’d like to suggest this as the starting point for a deep dive into going-out/staying-in tops. One thing I’ll note is that the top I found is “one size fits all,” which I acknowledge does not truly mean one size fits all. Therefore, I’ve provided some great options below in a range of sizes so you can emulate the lewk!

Khaite

Repeller

Notice of Wind Down & A Publishing Update

How to Decorate Your NYC Apartment on a Budget with Street-Scavenged Gems and Vintage Trésor

Am I The Only One Who Doesn’t Want To Look Like Glass?

I Found the Best Going Out Top for Staying In

What’s The First Light Jacket You Wear Come Fall?

New Mom Ryan Norville Makes Practicality Meet La Mode

Lauren Servideo Makes the Case for “The Fall Cloak”

Mi-Anne Chan Loves Lime as Much as Dakota Johnson

Abisola Omole‘s Cropped Green Jacket She’s Wearing for a Special Trip to… The Market

Sydney Scott’s Light Jacket with Fringe Benefits (Pls Don’t Hate Me for That, Sydney)

Bianca Valle’s Sunny Chic Workwear

The Best Vintage Clogs, Laura Ashley Sweaters, and Glass Goblets, Just for You!

1. The Ingredients for the Perfect Cocktail

2. Double-Breasted Blazer

3. Oh, These Sunglasses? They’re Vintage.

4. A Collarless Jacket

5. Clogs Keep “Coming Back”

6. Vintage Laura Ashley Cardigan

7. Oxblood Leather Jacket

8. And a Sleek Red Trench!

3 Instagram-Inspired Interior Design Trends to Buy, Like, Immediately

1. The Checkered Explosion

Checkered Rugs to Dress up Your Floor:

Statement Vessels:

A Splash of Checkered Decor:

2. A Soothing Palette of Pastel

A Splash of Pastel on Your Wall:

Pastel Ceramics for Candles and Cookies and Flowers:

Pastel to Curl up with/on/by:

3. Organic Shapes Everywhere

Curvy Statements:

Hands, Boobs, Fruit and the Like:

A Statement Vessels for a Fresh Bouquet:

Never say “How Are You?” Again! 5 Alternatives To Shake Up Your Small Talk Repertoire

Praying for Pregnancy During a Pandemic: ‘My Wife Said ‘I Feel Like You’re Manic Right Now’’

Business, but Make It Risky: The 12 Best White Button-Downs In Town

1. The Original Favorite

1. The Origina l Favorite