Racked

On the mysterious, quasi-aspirational allure of Dolly Parton-themed tchotchkes.

“How a movement intended to lift up women really just limits their acceptable emotions. Again.”

No one is original anymore, not even you.

A cultural survey of the myth of murders’ eyewear.

When used clothes at outlets like Goodwill don’t sell in the US, Mexican citizens buy them discount to sell in Mexico. The brisk resale trade embodies the porous nature of border culture and economics, and it offers a wise use of otherwise wasted resources. So why is it illegal?

Capitalism is framed as both a choice and an inevitability. It allows the consumer to buy whatever we want, but what’s available to purchase is due to the pressures and whims of the market. “It’s about the fact that American business have choices,” writes reporter Meredith Haggerty “and how we pretend they don’t.”

From giant Victorian tent dresses to oversized 20th century sacks with drawstring waists, maternity clothes have long been designed to hide women’s pregnancies. They also shame and other women. Stephie Grob Plante’s personal and cultural history of these contentious, temporary items offers reasons for hope amid relics of the status quo.

Waiting in line is the thing that seperates us from the animals. We waited in times of scarcity; when there were more people than goods, and soon lines became a “symbol of bloated bureaucracy.” But today waiting is a kind of privilege, where it’s more common to wait in line for a new sneaker or a trendy dessert.

Apparently making pants for fat people is so radically difficult from making pants for thin people that it will take years of additional R&D.