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.

That moment when the price turns red, and suddenly the jumper you didn’t need suddenly becomes your whole personality.

This episode of From the Shelf is about sale season. I look at where Black Friday really got its name, and how South Korea’s government launched Korea Sale Festa to get people shopping again. Then we get into the psychology behind a deal: transaction utility, loss aversion, scarcity, and anchoring, plus a UK study that found none of the Black Friday deals it tracked were at their lowest price of the year.

We also ask why Hermès never goes on sale, why Burberry once destroyed its own stock rather than discount it, and how haul videos, Buy Nothing Day, and Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket” turned shopping, and not shopping, into a statement.

Before we click on a sale item this November: am I buying the thing, or am I buying the feeling?

Tell me the best deal you’ve ever got, and whether you still use it. Find From the Shelf on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Threads.

Why do the most expensive things often have no logo at all? 🤔

In this episode of Fromtheshelf, I'm talking all about quiet luxury, the trend where people show status through fabric, fit and quality instead of big logos.

I get into why quiet luxury keeps coming back, the theory behind it (hello Veblen and Bourdieu 👋), and the question I can't stop thinking about: is quiet luxury actually anti-consumerist, or is it just harder to spot?

I also follow the look all the way down the luxury pyramid, from supreme luxury to masstige, and talk about what cheaper brands can copy, and what they just can't fake.

For more, including my luxury pyramid snack series, come find Fromtheshelf on TikTok, Instagram and Threads ✨

Harrods Beauty Advent Calendar 2026: what are you really paying for? In this episode, I unpack the Harrods luxury beauty advent calendar, with brands like Montale, Shiseido, Tatcha, Clé de Peau, NARS and Augustinus Bader, through the lens of consumer psychology and social theory.

34 products, 11 full size, and a £75 CurrentBody voucher. But the real story is why luxury beauty works through visibility. I look at the calendar through Veblen's theory of conspicuous consumption, Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle, Marcel Mauss's ideas about gift-giving, and the idea of beauty capital, where skincare becomes an investment in yourself.

I also compare it with the Liberty London advent calendar: Liberty gives you discovery, Harrods gives you recognition. Plus, why self-care has become a moral value, why we perform our purchases online, and why the advent calendar might be the most honest product in beauty. It doesn't sell you transformation. It sells you December.

This isn't a "everything is a scam" podcast. I've tried most of the products I talk about. I just look at the fashion, beauty and retail industry through consumption and behavioural theories.

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

This video explores advent calendars and their impact on consumers and fashion/ beauty industries today. While some see advent calendars as a traditional, appealing practice, others view them as clever marketing that doesn't deliver the promised value. I examine the advent calendar 'phenomenon' through social and consumer theories to clarify this debate, while unpacking the beauty calendar I got from Liberty London.

Surrealism in Fashion Explained: An ode to Schiaparelli's Surrealist objects and designs through the prism of Freud, Breton and Lacan