Not Just Fashion + the July playlist

Everything is terrible right now. This is not news to anyone, except maybe someone who’s been Sleeping Beauty-ing it up for the last few months. And there’s not a whole lot we can do about it right now except social distancing and wearing our masks (for real, wear your mask- it’s literally the least you can do to help reduce infections). But I don’t want to talk about the bad right now. I want to talk about a little bit of good.

First off, I wanted to talk about RYSE, which is a youth center in Richmond, CA (the city where Darling Marcelle operates). RYSE creates safe spaces grounded in social justice for young people to love, learn, educate, heal, and transform lives and communities. With so many people hurting right now and many of us learning more about the Black Lives Matter movement and the ways that racism is still wrecking lives, I wanted to do something concrete to help. To that end, Darling Marcelle is donating a portion of every purchase to RYSE from this point forward. I may expand to supporting other worthy nonprofits in the future, but I really wanted to start with an organization that’s doing good in the place that Darling Marcelle calls home. I hope you’ll check them out and feel good about the fact that your purchases from Darling Marcelle not only helps a woman-owned small business grow, but also supports the safety and education of the young people of Richmond.

The other thing I wanted to tell you was that I just finished July’s playlist, which is called The New Happy. As the pandemic has dragged on and on and on, I have come to realize how important music is to me for keeping my mood elevated. Obviously, no one can live in a perpetual state of happiness, but as someone who tends towards melancholy in the best of times, I try to balance out that tendency. Right now especially, with COVID-19, economic worries and racial injustice roaring through our timelines and our lives, it’s easier than ever to fall into endless doomscrolling and misery. Without the normal happy-making recreational activities available, like hanging out with friends and going out to restaurants, life seems a little more anodyne and brittle, with the slightest disturbance leading to my mood absolutely cratering. I’ve noticed that if I’m doing something difficult lately, or a task that I don’t enjoy, and I put on gloomy or even angry music, I cannot cope with the difficulty at all.

The thing is, I LOVE sad music. Sad music is basically my default preference. In normal times when not everything is awful (or it’s at least easier to ignore the awfulness), I can listen to sad music all day without getting sad myself. At this moment, however, I think it hits too close to home. And I figured since we’re all in the same boat, that you could probably also use some happy tunes to get your mind off of the all the dooming. When I was trying to brainstorm about what kind of happy music I wanted to curate, I remembered all of the electropop I used to listen to on repeat in the early aughts, like LCD Soundsystem, Ladytron, ADULT. and Crystal Castles. I hope you enjoy this playlist and it gives you a little respite from the current events.

 xo, 

Kaelen