ERL Flip Flops, and other stuff
This Week In Fashion
I’m turning 28 in two days and as someone who feels totally normal and not anxious at all around my birthday, I’m doing really well this week, haha (:
Anyway, let’s get into it.
I’ve always been a really big fan of ERL and it’s often had really little to do with the clothing (although I do tend to like those as well). It has more so to do with the brands imagery and the stories it tells with the clothing. Which I suppose makes sense considering that in a conversation with Andrew Bolton for System, Eli Russell Linnetz mentioned how he considers himself more of a director than a designer.
There’s a really wonderful storytelling that happens within the lookbooks and campaigns, and this flip-flop launch is no different. It’s so good. Those photos are so hot and steamy, and remind me of a time when things were still actually erotic. About the launch, he told WWW, “It’s funny to me to hear that now they are trending because flip-flops are part of my everyday life. It’s kind of like what we’ve always been doing, especially as a California-centric brand. It’s also funny because it didn’t even occur to me to sell flip-flops for such a long time, but I think now it makes sense to release them.” It’s definitely timely, but it also just makes sense with the brand and its heavy California surfer/skater influence. There’s something very warm, sunburned, and sleepy about it all that feels like a familiar hug.
That same familiarity parallels the nostalgia that the brand manages to portray in all of its imagery, in a way that we haven’t really seen done in a long time; it’s what pulls me to it the most. It taps into emotion with each piece feeling like a family relic or an artifact uncovered at your neighborhood thrift shop— upcycled materials being passed down from generation to generation to create something new. The Americana football shoulder pads, wrestling singlets, tie-dye knits, childhood sleeping bag down hoodie— it all comes together to create a dreamy Hollywood, undiscovered liminal space in the past, but also dreams of the future.
In that same WWW piece, Linnetz spoke about the low, big, and huge sizes of the flip-flops, saying, “With my background in 3D animation and film, I love to play with proportion and scale in a 3D space where there’s no sense of reality. That’s how these came to form.” The concept of nostalgia becomes the imaginings of an idealized past that might not exist exactly the way we remember it. Over time our memories get warped, just the same as the proportions of his clothing. In Adorned in Dreams, Elizabeth Wilson argues that “fashion is dress in which the key feature is change… fashion is always about looking backwards and forwards at once.” There’s a sense that the clothes are made for a cast of characters in a film about adolescence, suburbia, or the golden hour just before the dream ends and adulthood begins.
Then there’s also something very Bruce Weber for Abercrombie & Fitch about it all, which a lot of brand’s imagery has been leaning into recently. Except that Linnetz’s approach feels more tender and less aggressive— it’s curious and vulnerable. It feels relevant to what Shaun Cole says about queer fashion and homosocial spaces in Don We Now Our Gay Apparel, writing that “The locker room, the football field, the beach— all these spaces offer sites of both masculine bonding and homoerotic potential.” There’s an exploration and even perhaps a fetishization of masculine culture that still feels innocent. The fact that these lookbooks often feature young, boyish models heightens that sense of arrested development. These aren’t fully grown men, they’re boys on the cusp of becoming, navigating desire, identity, and cultural inheritance.
ERL makes clothing for that fractured self— for the boy who didn’t know how to be a man, and for the man who misses being a boy, for all of us caught between memory and myth.
- I forgot to talk about Kylie Jenner for Miu Miu last week because it is so uninteresting. I think it’s funny and makes sense that Kendall is a Prada girl and Kylie is a Miu Miu girl, and I understand Miu Miu’s young, cool, it-girl approach, but… is Kylie that? Do we really care what she thinks and likes anymore? Is her influence still relevant. There are so many other Miu Miu girls that make a lot more sense to me than Kylie. I know she wants us to think she’s this cool, smart, artsy, well read girl— and maybe she is, I don’t know her— but it’s not convincing with all the information we have been provided thus far. There’s also the fact that the KarJenner’s don’t really have a niche, they kind of just do everything and often dilute the branding trying to come across. The only brand campaign that ever really made sense for me from Kylie was the Acne Studios one, but even that wasn’t groundbreaking.
- The subject of Sofia Coppola’s first documentary is Marc Jacobs. Love this for me.
- Did y’all see the latest Phoebe Philo drop? Her best one yet. So weird, so cool. Those freak nasty sandals with only a nub of a heel are everything to me.
- Just the coolest being the coolest in a nylon suit and polkadot tie by ERL.
- One of the few people whose personal style I actually ever want to talk about. Everything in this post is scrumptious.
- I love this so much! Bad Bunny wore this Valentino look to the premiere of Happy Gilmore 2, and I love how country club it is, given the gold of it all in the movie. His fun with menswear is always so, so good. I also love that Valentino logo, because it just looks like a chevron print instead of being super in your face. My favorite part is definitely the shoe.
- This is a fine dress. It’s not the best things she’s ever worn, but even through the Sabato de Sarno of it all, her Gucci looks stayed pretty consistently good. I wonder how involved she is in her styling process, because I really never loathe anything she wears. The draping gets a little funny closer to the slit, almost like it’s unraveling, and not intentionally, but I do love the green sheen of the dress. Its metallic quality feels like a nod to Silver Surfer, while the blue fits in with The Fantastic Four color scheme.
![The Fantastic Four: First Steps' Los Angeles Premiere [PHOTOS]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!MdYE!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fec6850c3-c1c4-41b9-95cc-9512570fd135_800x1200.jpeg "The Fantastic Four: First Steps' Los Angeles Premiere [PHOTOS]")
- Sarah Burton was born to dress women, truly. This looks like thee netting they put around fruits, that kind of tapers towards the opening, but like in the best way possible. Also, stunning color.
- Pedro Pascal has been wearing a lot of Tom Ford recently, and honestly, him and Haider Ackermann are a match made in heaven; the scarves!! However, I did notice that his styling had gotten a little less playful, and it has come to my attention that Julie Ragolia is no longer his stylist, because y’all kept threatening her life after she put him in some shorts and knee high boots. He’s now being styled by Jamie Mizrahi, who is not my fave, but I by no means dislike what he’s been styled in recently. I just hope they still have fun with his styling and don’t follow this exactly formula every time.
- Well, how pretty is this!! It’s a very sweet dress with its color and sparkle, but the way it’s draped gives it that little bit of Miu Miu quirk. I will not be commenting on the microphone clutch.
- I am not immune to Prada’s SS2009 collection and must bring attention to it every time it’s worn. The girls love referencing this one— as they should— but you can’t out-do the doer! I almost bought a dress from this collection for dirt cheap, but someone bought it before I did after I thought about it for weeks, and I will never forgive myself.
- Law Roach has a new client! I really loved the way Wayman + Micah styled her, but I’m sure she’s in good hands with Law too, obvi. I mean, just look at this Alaïa moment!! I believe she’s promoting the new Tron movie, so I love the subtle futuristic vibe of this.
- Are you JOKING?!!!! Pamela Anderson wore Ferragamo Fall 2025 and the way this cape blew in the wind created the most beautiful shapes. Also, the pillbox hat? I repeat, are you JOKING?!
So that was this week. The nail on my middle finger broke off and I only know how to type with long nails, so I have almost broken down into tears while writing this.
TTYL!!!
xx