The personal stylist in your inbox

Style Points is a weekly column on how fashion intersects with the rest of the world.

"I had a friend who was going back to work, had a baby, and was laid off during the pandemic. And she told me literally said, "Would you just send me five links and I'll buy these things?"

This was the genesis of Five Things You Should Buy, a Substack newsletter from veteran market writer Becky Malinsky. The simplicity of the concept is there in the title, which Malinsky tells his audience about the best car coats or loafers. The Wall Street Journal alum wants to help readers "not spend all day looking for black jeans." The project is also useful to him. Now that she operates a personal styling business for female executives, it's a way for her to "stick to a schedule, keep my ears open and know what's going on, while creating a sense of service for people who can't afford it. my services." Malinsky calls the company "scrappy": she uses herself as a model, in occasional snapshots taken in her apartment. activity with my child or at a fancy dinner party," she says.

Fashion newsletters have exploded during the pandemic. Just like buying podcasts. But the latest iteration appears to be missives built around commerce, aimed at eliminating the black hole of Google results and Instagram ads in a curated list with an editorial point of view. (A few stars of the genre: Earl Earl by Laurel Pantin, Worn In, Worn Out by Kitty Guo and The Love List by Jess Nell Graves.)

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