Weekend edition
A Saturday outfit, a Sunday book, two dinner options in NYC, and what the hell is going on with dating.
The Saturday outfit
Slouchy low-rise denim (AGOLDE Criss-Cross or Citizens of Humanity Le Jean are good options) with a fine-gauge knit or vintage tee tucked deep into the front. A butter-leather jacket from The Frankie Shop or something vintage, preferably draped at the shoulders. Mesh ballet flats. Alaïa or Le Monde Béryl if the budget says yes; Pêche are a more afordable but equally amazing option. Add a small rectangular bag (we can't help but keep loving The Row and Bottega's Andiamo but there are a lot of options). And after dark you can just swap the tee for a lace-trim slip top in cream or black.
The trick is really the shoulders. The jacket goes on and off, never buttoned, never cuffed. And best of all each piece is meant for capsule wardrope and outlasts whatever the trend cycle decides next.
Where to eat
If you're in NYC or heading there soon, two reservations worth getting.
Le B is Angie Mar's room in the West Village, 283 West 12th. Haute French through her Chinese heritage, intricate plating, the famous Le Burger that Vogue called the Birkin bag of burgers. But be warned and give your credit card a pep talk because the experience comes with Hermes pricing too. 4 people can easily spend $1500.
One warning: while Le B is woman-founded it's still a boys' club in certain ways. On our last visit, the staff handed the business cards for future reservations to the men at the table while the women paid the bill. We pay the fucking bill. It was brutal but hopefully one day they'll fix this old school methodology.
The other one is Ambassadors Clubhouse, the NYC outpost of the Sethi family's London Punjabi institution. It's in NoMad and opened in February. The vibe includes dark timber, hand-painted Indian tiles, copper tables, a vast menu, and over all big production. Walk-ins are possible if you're flexible but if you hate to wait you might be best waiting until you can snag a reservation. No credit card pep talk needed for this.
Le B is perfect for an anniversary or a reset-the-quarter dinner. Ambassadors Clubhouse for when family in town or you just need a good time out.
The Sunday book: Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw's Backtalker
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw's Backtalker came out Tuesday. This is the right Sunday to read it before everyone starts misquoting it.
Crenshaw coined "intersectionality" and helped develop critical race theory, two ideas that started as legal frameworks and got dragged into the public square, flattened, weaponized, and turned into panic objects. Backtalker is her memoir. An origin story of a woman who noticed what the law, feminism, and civil rights in a way that politics kept failing to see.
The book traces her life from Canton, Ohio, through Cornell, Harvard Law, Anita Hill, the backlash to CRT, and the long fight over who gets to name power accurately. NPR's Fresh Air profiled it this week. Publishers Weekly called it "outstanding."
The dating apps quietly split in two
Everyone we know is sick of the apps and finally the companies are feeling it. Match Group's payers are down 5% year over year. Bumble's are down 21%. Whitney Wolfe Herd is now talking about killing the swipe, which tells you the swipe has started to look less like innovation and more like unpaid emotional labor with push notifications. Dating-app revenue had its first annual decline in 2025. Users aren't shocked. They're tired.
Two replacements are showing up: AI for the company part, Feeld for the body part.
A recent Ipsos survey found young Europeans are using ChatGPT and Claude for personal stuff and finding it easier than talking to a psychologist. More of your friends are doing emotional processing with a bot than will admit at dinner.
Feeld is where everyone is going for the body part. Started as a haven for non-monogamous and kink-curious users, occupied that lane while Hinge ate everyone else, and is drifting more vanilla as new users find it. The premise still works: state what you want, find people who want the same, skip the pretense of dinner as expensive moral cover.
Who really knows what this means for society but is being single and independent really so bad?