Quick disclaimer before we start — I was a little sick when I filmed this, so if I sound a bit like I am narrating from inside a cave, it is because I kind of was.

In October 2026, Hermès announced that Grace Wales Bonner would become the new creative director of menswear — replacing Véronique Nichanian, who held the role for 37 years. Wales Bonner is British-Jamaican, 35 years old, and the first woman of color to lead design at a major luxury house. She is taking over the world's oldest family-owned luxury brand in the world. This episode is about what it means. And Stuart Hall — one of the most important cultural theorists of the 20th century — gives us a framework far sharper than celebration or cynicism.

What I cover in this episode:

Stuart Hall's encoding&decoding theory. And why the same event means completely different things to different audiences.

New Ethnicities (1988) — Hall's argument about the politics of Black representation and what visibility actually does and does not change .

Who Grace Wales Bonner is, what her creative practice has actually been about.

What Hermès is encoding with this appointment — and what different audiences will decode from it.

The uncomfortable question: is this historic or is this strategic? And can it be both simultaneously?

From the Shelf is a faceless fashion and culture podcast applying theory to the fashion industry. New episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

In 1967, Guy Debord said capitalism had replaced real experience with images: life as a performance, a spectacle. It sounds like Instagram. He meant the shop window.

This episode looks at the shop window as the original spectacle: how it shapes how we see products, how we shop, and how we want, and why it feels so familiar on our phones today.

From the Shelf, the fashion podcast you never asked for.

If Brandy Melville offered a membership program, would you sign up? In the first episode of our brand profiling series, we meet Glowny, the Seoul brand that turned baby tees, soft cardigans, and a “you glow differently” philosophy into a community with tiers, perks, and dinner invites.

Hi, and welcome to my brand profiling series. In this episode, I talk about:
– How two sisters built Glowny and what makes it more than a Brandy Melville look-alike
– Who actually shops there: notes from my visits to the Hannam and Apgujeon stores
– Why a membership is standard in Korea but almost unheard of for European fashion brands
– Glowny through Keller’s customer-based brand equity model
– Where Glowny sits on the luxury pyramid, and why it might be a new kind of masstige

From the Shelf: the fashion podcast you never asked for, looking at retail through consumption and behavioral theories.