Instagram / @somethingnavy

Arielle Charnas hasn’t had good press lately. The influencer and designer made a series of missteps during the pandemic, including getting a COVID-19 test when they were scarce and fleeing to the Hamptons during the stay at home orders. That led to her being eviscerated in the media and leading me in April to write that she had become “the unwitting poster child for what not to do in a pandemic.” Since then, Arielle has faced further scrutiny, from a snafu with a florist on Instagram, to just this week, facing criticism for appearing on the cover of Cosmopolitan Mexico as a white woman.

It’s under this cloud of drama that Arielle this week launched one of her most ambitious projects to date — a flagship store for her clothing line, Something Navy, in New York City’s West Village.

I decided to go check it out, and walked away with one overwhelming takeaway: Everything in the store, from the items sold to the precautions taken, is perfectly curated for the pandemic. It seems like Arielle wants to signal that she is taking coronavirus seriously, and wants her store to be a one-stop shop for staying at home.

Unlike every other retail store on the street, which I could stroll into as long as I had a mask on, Something Navy’s requirements to shop are much stricter for, according to its website, the “safety of their employees.” You have to book an appointment in advance online. At first, every spot for the next two weeks was booked, even though I was trying to go in the middle of the day. I checked back later and a spot opened up for Thursday.

As I rounded the corner and saw what they were displaying, I had to laugh. The mannequin was decked out in a tie-dye sweatsuit, an outfit that became so popular during the pandemic I dubbed it the “quarantine uniform” in a previous newsletter. It even had a scrunchie on the wrist.

In fact, almost all of the merchandise seems tailored to ~these times~. There were at least four racks of lounge clothes, full of sweat pants, $150 sweat-jumpsuits (this concept is new to me), soft shorts, and simple white and black cotton shirts. While there were a few blouses and booties, most of the clothing seemed purposefully curated to working from home or staying in. I saw no fancy dresses, or even jeans. Even the accessories shelf, full of scrunchies and “#stayhome” pampering kits, fit the mold.

The store also signalled loudly how clearly they were taking safety. While every store I have visited since quarantine has had signage reminding you to wear a mask, that hand sanitizer was available, and that occupancy would be restricted if it got too crowded, Something Navy takes the cake. Along with a big sign near the front door outlining guidelines, the store is filled with little signs reminding shoppers to be safe. Something Navy branded-sanitizer was available for purchase, along with a pile of paper masks for shoppers.

Of course, it makes good business sense to focus on comfy clothes over fancy outfits right now. But the entire experience combined made me wonder if I was getting a glimpse of Arielle’s mindset.

By making the rules of her store stricter than most, by selling what realistically most women want to buy right now, and by filling the store with safety reminders, I had an overwhelming sense that Arielle is attempting to signal that she is not the media monster “Covidiot” she has been made out to be.

It’s a tough time to be in any retail business right now, and time will only tell if her efforts will pay off.

— Stephanie McNeal

I think I like this new TikTok House and I’m trying to process why

TikTok / @thehousenobodyaskedfor

“Houses” on TikTok, AKA collectives of young creators who live together and collaborate, have become ubiquitous. There’s Hype House, Sway LA, Clubhouse, and the list goes on. As far as business goes, combining everyone’s accounts seems pretty wise.

But content-wise, abundance does not always breed better quality. Putting a bunch of nice-looking people — with vanilla personalities — together does not create more interesting TikToks. It just makes a large vanilla sundae swirl. It’s not for me!

However, I was caught off guard this past week when I kept coming across videos from a new TikTok House on my For You page — and enjoyed them. Like other houses, The House Nobody Asked For is a group of eight young TikTokers who each have their own relatively large followings. However, unlike the other houses, the eight personalities seem to have their own...what’s the-word I’m-searching for...ah, personalities!

TikTok / @thehousenobodyaskedfor

As opposed to other TikTok houses, which feature many of same kinds of people melting into each other, The House Nobody Asked For (THNAF) seems to play up each of their members’ shticks. All of the members are comedians, with their own act, so many of their videos are one large sketch cut with mini one-liners. It’s a bit chaotic, but it works. Their bits are funny, and I actually get to know each member individually. They also don’t look like each other, which helps.

I reached out to one of them, Will Mahony, who first formed the group in July because he wanted to quarantine with other TikTokers he liked. I asked him why he thinks their house feels different than others on the app. In a nutshell, he thinks it’s the self-awareness, and being in on the joke.

“We came up with the name just knowing that there were so many houses on TikTok that people were starting to say like, ‘Why is everyone making a house all of the sudden...like, who asked for all these houses?’” Will said.“We just thought it’d be a funny concept just realizing, yeah, literally not a single person asked for this house to come together. It’s just such a random group of comedy creators across TikTok with different styles. Not a single soul was like, ‘Yo, I can’t wait for that Polo Boy x Anthpo collab!’ … Nobody asked for us, but here we are anyway.”

Will added that he and the other members do differentiate themselves from Hype House or Sway, but seeing them as “competition” does a disservice to what they want to accomplish.

“We kinda realized that there really were no house accounts out there making quality content that is genuinely entertaining, so we said, “Aight, let’s just try and make some funny stuff and see where it goes,’” he said. “We never saw Sway or Hype as competition. We wouldn’t want to be associated with them at all because we wouldn’t want their audience and we make completely different stuff than them.”

“Like, we just want to make our stuff, and whoever likes it, likes it, and whoever doesn’t just doesn’t,” he added. “There shouldn’t be two sides that don’t like each other. We just wanna vibe.”

Roger that. We all just wanna vibe to what we wanna vibe to.

Until next time,

Tanya