Rage Bait? Its In Fashion
+ raging against the fashion machine, RIP (?) Trapstar, NYC models files AI lawsuit and more
Hey, hi, hello! Welcome back to Fashion Tingz.
We’ve arrived at that time of year where everyone’s starting to jet off on their summer holidays, and my feed is full of glorious looking beaches in Italy and Portugal alongside pretty epic cityscapes in Japan, Vietnam, and Seoul.
As someone who has no trips booked for the foreseeable future, the green-eyed monster may be starting to kick in a little. But it’s got me thinking about how I can incorporate more global content into the Fashion Tingz ecosystem.
I have so much I want to do with this space, from covering Thai fashion and brands such as I wanna Bangkok to the costuming in Wong Kar Wai films to Vietnamese fashion baddies and more. Would you be into this? Let me know…
— J’Nae xoxo
IN THIS EDITION: Fashion’s rage machine shows no signs of slowing just yet. The Cutting Room Floor is levelling up its media portfolio. London streetwear favourite Trapstar enters administration. NYC model Francheska Pujols files lawsuit over AI imagery. Former Prada chief takes the reins at McQueen.
‘Rage bait’ wasn’t just a buzzword in 2025; it was coronated into everyday language. When Oxford University Press named it the Word of the Year, it formalised something we already knew: we’re living in an economy where attention is currency, and outrage is one of the fastest ways to earn it. Naturally, the fashion industry, never one to miss a cultural pivot, didn’t just adopt rage bait in any simple means. It tailored it, styled it, and scattered it across our feeds for the whole world to see, gossip and gawk over.
Because what else do you call a pair of deliberately “ugly” Givenchy Marshmallow sandals, a latex breastplate worn deadpan, or a thong complete with a built-in pubic wig courtesy of SKIMS? These are more than clothes and viral fashion markers; they’re prompts for wider discussion. Designed less to be worn and more to be reacted to. Confusion, mockery, outrage; it all counts. In fact, it’s kind of becoming the whole point.
Welcome to rage-bait fashion, where the look is secondary and the comment section is the real front row.
This didn’t just come out of nowhere, keep in mind. Luxury brands have been quietly perfecting this formula for a while now. Balenciaga has turned “destroyed” and “dirty” into a high-fashion language, daring fans of the brand to question whether they are in on the joke or the butt of it. The Row plays a subtler game, astronomical pricing on ultra-minimal basics that spark disbelief (“it’s just a white T-shirt!”), which then circulates endlessly online. Diesel leans into taboo set design, such as its mountainous backdrop of 200,000 Durex condoms for FW23. All of this feels engineered to provoke a double-take, then a screenshot, then a post or two or three.
If you thought the luxury rage bait shenanigans were over, think again. For Chanel’s Resort 2027 show, Matthieu Blazy sent several pairs of half-finished sandals down the runway. These shoes went where few shoes have gone before, forgoing roughly three-quarters of the sole and leaving more than half the foot in direct contact with the ground. Practicality? That’s beside the point. The internet, predictably, fixated on the absurdity, leaving Chanel fans stumped in disbelief. All this is to say that in today’s fashion landscape, design doesn’t always need to make sense; it just needs to make people talk.
And lately, the examples have become harder to ignore. Sydney Sweeney’s “great jeans or great genes” ad didn’t just sell denim; it ignited a cultural firestorm over messaging, aesthetics, and intent. Duran Lantink sent out a hyper-realistic, jiggling breastplate top on a male model at Paris Fashion Week, blurring the line between satire, commentary, and pure internet spectacle. Kylie Jenner fronting a Miu Miu campaign sparked debates about whether the brand had diluted its once cerebral identity for mass appeal.
Elsewhere, some moments feel less like fashion and more like cultural flashpoints: Ye’s “White Lives Matter” T-shirt stunt, or Marilyn Manson opening Enfants Riches Déprimés’s FW26 show under Henri Alexander Levy. Elena Velez took it further, casting internet looksmaxxing persona Clavicular as a finale model, complete with a live-streaming videographer trailing him down the runway. This is fashion for content’s sake, optimised for algorithms, curated for discourse and not a whole lot more.
Even the more polished end of the spectrum isn’t immune. Lauren Sánchez’s Vogue cover became less about fashion and more about reaction — who, why, what does this mean? The image itself almost becomes secondary to the swirl of commentary it generates. At some point, you have to ask: are we still designing clothes, are we still imbuing fashion with meaning and context, or are we designing reactions for social media hype and clout?
These are murky waters we find ourselves in, where rage-bait fashion thrives on a fundamental shift in values. And in a saturated digital landscape, positive and negative engagement are where two become one. A thousand people loving a look and a thousand people hating it produce the same result: clicks upon clicks, visibility, virality, and relevance. Outrage has become more of a strategy than a risk as we reach peak spectacle. Not just visually, but emotionally too. Every collection, every campaign, every memeable fashion moment seems calibrated to cut through the noise, even if that means becoming the noise.
Of course, fashion has always flirted with controversy. But what’s changed is the speed and scale. The current feedback loop is instant, addictive, and measurable. Brands can see the outrage working in real time. Some have tried to frame this era as satire: a wink, a knowing commentary on excess, capitalism, or the absurdity of fashion itself. But this particular argument is starting to wear thin. Rage bait, more often than not, just… pokes. It provokes without necessarily progressing the conversation.
Which raises a more uncomfortable question: has late-stage capitalism pushed designers into a corner where the only way to compete and get attention is to escalate? To be more extreme, more controversial, more shareable than the last? When attention is finite, and the scroll is endless, subtlety can feel like a losing game.
And then there’s the audience. That’s you and me, folks. Because rage-bait fashion doesn’t exist without participation. Every quote tweet, every “this is ridiculous” comment, every repost with a side-eye emoji, it all feeds the machine. We critique it, mock it, dissect it. And in doing so, amplify it. There’s no real escape. It’s all for optics, because the more eyeballs, the better!
In this chaotic environment, rage bait makes perfect sense when you think about it. Why aim for quiet admiration when you can guarantee a social media shit storm? Why go for high brow when you can go low blow?
So is all fashion just a big troll fest now? Not entirely. There are still designers and brands working with sincerity, restraint, and depth. But the gravitational pull of outrage is becoming harder to resist, especially when it delivers results. Could the real shift be that fashion isn’t just becoming more controversial; it’s that controversy has become the product? Either way, until we stop rewarding the rage bait, the industry will keep casting the line.
Fashion’s favourite podcast is growing up. The Cutting Room Floor, hosted by Recho Omondi, has inked a multi-year partnership with Patreon, cementing its evolution from a cult-favorite podcast into an independent media company. Since launching in 2018, Omondi has built a fiercely loyal audience by asking the kinds of questions the industry prefers to sidestep. That approach has paid off: the show now ranks among the top 1% of podcasts on Patreon, where it has operated exclusively since 2021. As part of the three-year agreement, Patreon will support the show through joint marketing initiatives and investments in production and team infrastructure. Financial details were not disclosed. Also, I find it super shady that no publications would cover this, given it’s such a huge fashion media story. A reminder that you need to be your own best advocate, because no one’s coming to do that work for you.
For more than two decades, Trapstar turned scarcity into a strategy and exclusivity into a global brand. Now, the London streetwear pioneer has entered administration after failing to secure fresh investment. The company, which employed 57 people immediately before the filing, is now attracting interest from a number of potential buyers. This one hits a little close to home, as I grew up witnessing their trajectory and influence on the London streetwear scene. It was incredible to see how a brand that began with three friends printing tees and selling them around Portobello Market built its following through word-of-mouth, limited-edition drops, and a carefully cultivated sense that if you had to ask, you didn’t need to know. Its blend of cryptic branding, scarcity-driven hype, and cultural clout resonated far beyond West London, finding fans in everyone from Rihanna and Stormzy to Jay-Z.
With France still basking in the afterglow of PSG’s Champions League triumph, Jacquemus is making its own play for football glory. The French fashion house has unveiled a new collaboration with the French Football Federation and Nike, set to be worn by France’s national team as a pre-match shirt during the FIFA World Cup 2026, which kicks off across the United States, Mexico, and Canada. The collaboration arrives at a moment when football’s influence extends far beyond the pitch.
New York-based model Francheska Pujols has filed a lawsuit involving fast-fashion retailer Rainbow Shops, raising questions about the ethics and ownership of AI-generated modelling imagery. Pujols alleged that after hiring her for a catalogue shoot, the company used those photographs to create entirely new AI-generated images without her consent. According to the complaint, the tech placed her in different environments and altered her poses, effectively creating new campaigns from an existing likeness. She further claimed that a cease-and-desist letter sent to the retailer was ignored, while the disputed images continued to appear on the company’s website and across digital and in-store advertising. The lawsuit has since been dropped. Pujols’ attorney said the parties are “seeking to resolve this matter privately,” moving the matter out of the courtroom — for now. Even so, the case highlights a growing tension within the fashion industry. AI may be capable of generating limitless content, but questions of consent, compensation, and creative ownership remain decidedly human concerns.
Kering has appointed Gianfranco D’Attis as CEO of McQueen, handing the former Prada chief the task of steering one of fashion’s most emotionally charged houses through its next act of reinvention. His brief is clear: oversee restructuring, sharpen positioning, and help translate the house’s fiercely theatrical legacy into a commercially coherent future. It’s a familiar modern luxury equation: protect the mythology, fix the margins, and ensure the drama still sells at scale. If you want my two cents, the challenge here is maintaining creative voltage while satisfying corporate calculus. Or, put differently, keeping McQueen unmistakably McQueen, just with a better bottom line.
After months riding solo following his split from Under Armour, Stephen Curry’s been entertaining pitches from the likes of Nike and Adidas, but has since decided to partner with Chinese sportswear giant Li-Ning. He announced the partnership on Instagram on Monday, securing a 10-year agreement that’s far more than just any old shoe deal. According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, Curry’s portfolio will span basketball, athleisure, lifestyle apparel, and even a signature golf line — effectively turning his personal brand into a full-fledged sportswear ecosystem akin to Michael Jordan. Perhaps even more interestingly, Curry won’t just be the face of the label; he’ll have the authority to recruit and sign other signature athletes under it.
For all her fame, luxury, and Instagram-worthy lifestyle, Choupette, Karl Lagerfeld’s beloved feline, has discovered that even cats can’t outmanoeuvre the taxman and the legal system. Although Lagerfeld reportedly set aside $1.5 million for his feline friend before he died in 2019, Choupette has yet to see a single euro. Yikes. The reason is delightfully mundane: French law doesn’t recognise cats as legal heirs, no matter how impeccable their pedigree or how influential their social media presence. Instead, Choupette now lives in Paris with Lagerfeld’s longtime housekeeper, Françoise Caçote, alongside her family and a rescue cat. While the inheritance remains tangled in legal realities, Caçote says she is doing her best to honour Lagerfeld’s wishes.
Loved this piece, I've thought this way about Demna's Gucci and Duran Latink but I don't think riling up the public is the only way to get attention. If you look at the new Bottega and Chanel, the love of the brand is rooted in craft. Down to the trolling!
Couldn’t agree more and wrote about this recently too: https://culturecodes.substack.com/p/117-the-age-of-the-viral-product?r=4wrt4&utm_medium=ios