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Stop! Before you click on that checkout button and pay way too much for shipping from your favorite store, ask yourself — is this really the best summer fit your money can buy? Because if it’s mass-produced and sold at the mall, we’re going to go ahead and guess no. If you really want to stand out, turn heads, and find a way to express yourself in a way that is uniquely you, and not just whatever the fashion powerhouses of the day want you to be, you should consider cobbling your next fit together from the thrift store.

There are a number of reasons you should look to your local thrift store for great fashion. For one, you’ll find truly one-of-a-kind pieces that nobody on the street will be wearing. You’ll also save some money, which means you’ll end up picking up a bigger and better haul. And perhaps most importantly, it’s way more sustainable. The fashion industry produces a ridiculous amount of waste every year. With the state of our climate, we need to totally overhaul the way we do everything and that includes the way we shop.

But where to start? We hit up vintage fashion influencer Emma Rogue for a guide to her ten favorite thrift shops. Rogue has taken her keen eye for vintage threads and built something bigger out of it, amassing a huge following on TikTok and even opening up her own vintage clothing store of the same name. So she’s about as big an expert as we could hope to find on all things vintage.

So whether you’re looking for a new summer fit or seeking out some furniture to transform your home, Rogue’s got you covered. Let’s dive in.

Beacon’s Closet

If you’re looking for a good mix of hidden designer gems and novelty vintage pieces, Beacon’s is the spot. They have something for everyone, catering to all prices ranges and age brackets. I once found these insane Phat Farm jeans for $13 that fit me like a glove. Also scored these crazy Camper x Gosha Rubchinsky snow boots for $50.

L Train Vintage

L Train is the spot to hit if you’re in need of vintage basics. They’ve got a great selection of vintage denim, tees, and flannels — not to mention their size range is super inclusive. In the winter, I always pick up a few new jackets for a great price. They’ve got about five locations throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. So no matter where you are, they’re never too far away.

Procell

If you’re into archival designer pieces and ready to drop a stack, Procell is the spot for you. They cater to collectors and carry the rarest pieces you’ll come across. From vintage Gaultier to crazy rap tees, you’ll definitely fall in love with that one special piece. My favorite piece from them is a 1995 Tank Girl tee that had the perfect fade — it was too good to pass up.

Leisure Centre

My good friend Frank just opened Leisure Centre in the Lower East Side and it is the best hidden gem around. Frank is a master curator and has the coolest vintage sportswear pieces in the City. He also stocks a sick selection of knick-knacks and home decor that’ll level up your living space. He’s got a rotating selection of vendors that sell in his shop, so the stock is always fresh.

Funny Pretty Nice

FPN is by far the cutest spot in Soho. Go there and create your preppy, Hamptons dream fit. They’ve got a great selection of sizes as well as price ranges. They have the sweetest selection of Y2K purses on their handbag wall as well as jewelry. FPN just opened their second location in Connecticut, so no matter where you are on the East Coast they are super accessible and worth the visit.

Bowery Showroom

Bowery Showroom was opened up by my good friend Matt (we both used to sell at Hester Street Fair back in the day). His shop features a great selection of streetwear and designer finds as well as goods from their CBD company, Potion. The showroom also houses new and upcoming NYC-based brands. No matter what your vibe is, you’ll undoubtedly find something you like.

Tired Thrift

Elona and Ledi are the great girls behind Tired Thrift. They opened their shop mid-pandemic and have been killing it ever since. They cater to a younger audience, housing super cute collections of Y2K era pieces, minibags, and shoes. They’ve even got a killer sale bin at the front of their shop with loads of gems. Definitely stop by if you’re ever in Greenpoint, they won’t disappoint.

Awoke Vintage

Awoke Vintage is an NYC staple. They have three Brooklyn locations that are jam-packed with the best vintage Levi’s, tops, and accessories. No matter how hard it is for you to find that perfect pair, the Awoke girls will be able to fit you. You’ll also find the perfect vintage tee to go with them!

Housing Works

Housing Works has a few locations throughout the city. They have home decor as well. You can score designer gems on their website. They have a bidding system set up similar to how eBay works. Your money will be going to a great cause as they donate their proceeds to AIDS and homelessness. Next time you’re in, don’t be afraid to spend!

Rogue

And last but not least, my very own vintage shop in the Lower East Side, Rogue, should be at the top of your NYC destination lists. As soon as you walk in, you’ll be hit with a hefty dose of ’90s and 2000s nostalgia. We’ve got a wild selection of vintage tees, archival grails, and true vintage from the 1960-2000s. On Saturdays, we host pop-ups and launch events with local NYC designers and brands, not to mention free snow cones. Come say hi and jam out to 2000s hits with us while you try on your Y2K dream fit<3

Okay, if you didn’t believe us when we wrote about it yesterday, we’re once again here to say the COVID-19 vaccine will not turn you into a zombie. Promise. And hey, if that’s not enough, this time we’ve got the words of one of I Am Legend’s co-writers to back us up.

Following the circulation of an New York Times article noting the growing number of anti-vaxxers citing I Am Legend as a reason to be skeptical of the vaccine, I Am Legend co-writer Akiva Goldsman took to Twitter to shut down the dangerous (and absurdly stupid) misinformation. In response to a conversation about the article, Goldsman offered a brief and blunt response:

Oh. My. God. It’s a movie. I made that up. It’s. Not. Real.

— Akiva Goldsman (@AkivaGoldsman) August 9, 2021

On top of I Am Legend being indisputably “Not. Real,” it’s also worth noting the film Goldsman and fellow co-writer Mark Protosevich wrote and adapted from Richard Matheson novel of the same name isn’t even about a mutated vaccine. In I Am Legend, the zombie apocalypse is brought on when a pathologist, portrayed by Will Smith, attempts to create a cure for cancer by re-engineering the measles virus, a fact the New York Times even mentioned in the aforementioned article:

One employee said she was concerned because she thought a vaccine had caused the characters in the film “I Am Legend” to turn into zombies. People opposed to vaccines have circulated that claim about the movie’s plot widely on social media. But the plague that turned people into zombies in the movie was caused by a genetically reprogrammed virus, not by a vaccine.

Listen, we know we’re in the middle of a pandemic and there’s a lot to be scared about, but zombie apocalypses should be about forty spots down on your list and well after COVID-19 itself. Since last February, over 600,000 Americans have died from the virus and its complications. As of right now, 166.7 million Americans have been fully vaccinated, according to the CDC, and not but one of them has turned into a zombie. Once again, it’s a movie, folks. Please get vaccinated.

Lil Baby has multiple chart-topping projects and songs, and he’s apparently working on something else that will generate some attention: a collaboration with Drake. He and Drake have linked up on some tracks before, and this time, Baby says he’s actually going to put effort into his lyrics, which he admits he tends not to do.

In a video of him chatting with a jewelry store associate, he said:

“I ain’t gonna lie, I got a song for him right now. I done went to the studio like two times. I ain’t feel it yet. But it’s like a slow song. All the slow songs, they really — and then it takes me longer to rap ’cause like, I don’t really care what I say on a song, you feel me? I just freestyle. But with Drake, I be trying to think about it. And that’s what makes it harder for me ’cause like, I’m thinking. When I don’t even think, I just rap. So then like, ’cause it’s Drake, I get kind of like, damn… So I gotta make sure. Now it’s kind of like, eh. But my next album, I’m writing it. Every song, I’m writing it. So it’s gonna be more detailed. Right now, I freestyle, only the top of my brain comes out.”

That’s not the only collaboration Baby has coming: he and The Weeknd seem set to appear on Kanye West’s first Donda single, and he seems to be working on something with Andre 3000 as well.

Check out the clip below.

Earlier in the summer, Sufjan Stevens and Asthmatic Kitty labelmate Angelo De Augustine announced their collaborative album, A Beginner’s Mind, which is set for release on September 24. The indie-folkies also released two lovely tracks, “Reach Out” and “Olympus.” Today, they have two more for us, “Back To Oz” and “Fictional California,” the latter of which is based on the 2004 straight-to-DVD sequel to Bring It On, titled Bring It On Again.

Check out the trippy single art below.

In a statement, De Augustine had this to say about “Back To Oz,” which is based on the 1985 film starring Fairuza Balk:

“This was a song that I had written mostly at home in California. We finished its lyrics after watching Return To Oz. The words reference an erosion of a central character’s internal reality. A loss of innocence is the impetus for a journey to find inner truth. In the film, Dorothy returns to the world of Oz to find its landscape in ruins and its citizens frozen in stone. Only she can find the ruby slippers and return peace to Oz. Only we can save ourselves, but we first have to remember who we truly are.”

Stevens added:

“Angelo is mostly known for his intimate home recordings; his music is quiet and confessional/ So for ‘Back To Oz,’ we decided to go for something flashier. The song has a fun guitar groove, so we gave it some bass and drums, and Angelo even recorded his first electric guitar solo. It’s a sad song — being mostly about disillusionment — but it has a great party vibe too.”

Check out both singles above.

A Beginner’s Mind is out 9/24 via Asthmatic Kitty. Pre-order it here.

Stephen Colbert returned to late night on Monday after a two-week vacation and looked appropriately relaxed and refreshed. But it certainly wasn’t from breathing in the salty ocean air on Martha’s Vineyard. Recapping all the news that he had missed while unplugged from the daily news cycle, Colbert rattled off the laundry lists of issues we’re dealing with—and the most pressing matter people have been wondering about:

“There’s a fourth wave of coronavirus, we just got a global warming red alert for humanity, there are wildfires consuming Northern California and Greece. So naturally, there’s one question on everyone’s mind: Did I go to Barack Obama’s birthday party?”

The short answer: No, he did not.

Though he was originally invited to fete the former POTUS, Colbert admitted that when the Obamas decided to massively scale back the guest list to just their few hundred closest friends and family members, he “got massively scaled.” What was more amusing to Colbert was that “the news that I didn’t go might be news to some people in the news.” As he explained:

“The Boston Herald reported the guests included ‘late-night host Stephen Colbert and his wife, Evelyn… who also own property there.’ Which leads to the question: ‘So Steve, what’s your house like on Martha’s Vineyard?’ I have no idea. Boston Herald, could you please send me the address and the keys and maybe the alarm code, because I’d love to stay there someday. I don’t own a house on Martha’s Vineyard.”

Colbert went on to explain that the mix-up — at least about him attending the party — was likely due to the fact that they were invited, and had booked their flight and reserved a hotel, all of which was nonrefundable. So even though they ended up being part of Obama’s B-team, they took advantage of the already-paid-for getaway.

The moral of the story, according to Colbert? “It just goes to show, kids, that if you work hard, put in your time, and get to be the number one show in late-night television, you too can get disinvited from the cool kids party.” But he’s not bitter. “My own 60th birthday is coming up in three years,” he said. “And you, sir… are not going to want to miss it. Please come! I’d be so honored if you can. I’ll scale me back to make room for you and Michelle.”

Spencer Dinwiddie is headed to the nation’s capital where he will step into the point guard role alongside Bradley Beal to form a potent offensive backcourt for the Wizards. Dinwiddie arrives in Washington after a sign-and-trade this offseason that saw the Wizards able to bring him in as a restricted free agent without having to part with any of the players that came their way in the Russell Westbrook deal, as they overhauled their roster this summer with what eventually became one massive trade.

There’s plenty to be excited about with the Dinwiddie and Beal pairing, as the two are explosive off the dribble threats who will apply tons of pressure to opposing defenses and should, in theory, create a lot of open looks for Davis Bertans, Rui Hachimura, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and others. That won’t be the only pressure Dinwiddie is applying in the nation’s capital, though, as the point guard’s love of cryptocurrency is going to send him to Capitol Hill to lobby senators about Bitcoin.

Dinwiddie was joking, at least we think, but it is a great quote for distinguishing ones self from the point guards of the past in Washington. The Wizards are going to be a fascinating team to watch next year for myriad reasons, as fans around the Association will once again be paying attention to how they perform as the entire league continues to hope for Beal’s eventual exit. However, the Wizards have positioned themselves pretty well this offseason to build on last year’s run to the playoffs with a much deeper roster, headlined by Dinwiddie’s addition who will look to prove himself impactful on and off the court in Washington next season.

In what’s becoming a recurring theme for the Georgia congresswoman who run into office on a wave of QAnon conspiracy theories, Marjorie Taylor Greene has been suspended from Twitter yet again for spreading COVID and vaccine misinformation. This time around, Greene implored the FDA to not approve the COVID vaccine because vaccinated people are still getting infected. While it’s true that “breakthrough infections” are occurring, they are rare when compared to rates amongst the unvaccinated. More importantly, the purpose of the vaccine is not to prevent infection, but to protect the recipient from becoming seriously ill or dying. The vaccine has been very successful in that regard, but good luck telling Greene that.

“The FDA should not approve the covid vaccines,” Greene tweeted. “There are too many reports of infection & spread of #COVID19 among vaccinated people. These vaccines are failing & do not reduce the spread of the virus & neither do masks. Vaccine mandates & passports violate individual freedoms.”

Greene tweeted her vaccine misinformation on Monday night, and by Tuesday morning, her account was suspended for the fourth time. According to Twitter’s rules on COVID misinformation, one more violation, and Greene will be permanently suspended. True to form, Greene did not heed this latest suspension as a warning, and instead, issued a statement doubling down on her vaccine remarks and taking things an extra step further by calling the pandemic a “Communist Chinese bioweapon.” She also worked in the Republican talking point of blaming the rise in COVID cases on “illegal aliens” crossing the border.

Via Mediaite:

Why is it “right and moral” to allow tens of thousands of COVID positive illegal aliens into our country and fly them into every state on the taxpayers dime, yet force our children to mask up for school?

But if I dare says the truth, Twitter suspends me because the truth is so offensive to the fragile hypocrites all over Twitter!

I refuse to be silent about these important life changing issues and the Communist Chinese bioweapon COVID.

As her statement full of right-wing greatest hits came to an end, Greene made it a point to include an anti-trans remark just in case everyone forgot she once posted a transphobic sign outside the door of a congresswoman who has a trans child.

“They will allow porn on Twitter. They will allow posts about parents transitioning their children and changing their gender on Twitter. But Twitter won’t allow any real discussion of the truth from an elected Congresswoman because Twitter only cares about the Democrat Communist agenda for America,” Greene wrote. “It’s a good thing my voters couldn’t care less about Twitter.”

(Via Mediaite)

It’s the end of an era. A groping era? That’s allegedly what’s been going down with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who announced that he’s stepping down from his position, a year after he led New York out of the first pandemic wave. This move arrives after recent damning developments, including the governor’s response to the New York Attorney General’s office release of a 165-page report that summarized the sexual harassment investigation against him (including a claim that he groped a state trooper on his detail). And then Cuomo (arguably) made it worse for himself by rolling out a montage of him touching and kissing people. This was his attempted defense, while he attempted to say that he wasn’t a groper, a touchy-feely-kind-of dude. Yikes.

The ill-advised photo montage (which was preceded by the gaslighting of his alleged victims) even provided plenty of ammunition for Fox News to grab the ball and run into toward the end zone.

It was an almost universally panned move. As HBO’s John Oliver put it, “It’s frankly incredible that Cuomo thought releasing an irrelevant montage of photos would somehow exonerate him. Apparently his strategy for literally any crisis is ‘Put together a PowerPoint, and that’s it.’” Yep, and since all of this backfired (and perhaps also due to a fresh investigative report from Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker), Cuomo saw the writing on the wall and resigned in a speech that he streamed on the governor’s website.

Here’s part of what Cuomo said while stating that he was “too familiar with people” but never admitting to wrongdoing:

“This is one of the most challenging times for government in a generation. Government really needs to function today, government needs to perform. It’s a matter of life and death government operations. And wasting energy on distractions is the last thing that state government should be doing. And I can not be the cause of that…. I think that given the circumstances, the best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to government, and therefore that’s what I’ll do, because I work for you, and doing the right thing, is doing the right thing for you.”

Cuomo’s resignation will be effective in 14 days with Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul coming into view as his successor.

Well naturally, people are losing their minds and cannot believe that Cuomo is actually stepping away after appearing to dig his heels in for the long haul. Cuomo did so dramatically (and without taking ownership of his alleged actions), and people noticed.

“Cuomo said he knows people have boundaries,” one of the most telling Twitter reactions declared. “He also told us all he loves us.” Yup.

And on a more serious note… (with Dan Rather getting the last word):

(Via NBC News & Variety)

Among other things, Kanye West has a reputation for not releasing albums on time. His upcoming LP Donda, named after his late mother, was delayed until last Friday but has still yet to be released. The rapper is currently holed up at a stadium as he finishes the album and a collaborator seemingly gave an update on its delay, saying they planned on moving arenas. But it now looks like that may not actually be the case.

West hosted a first Donda listening party at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium last month before he decided to make it his temporary home while putting the finishing touches on his release. But shortly after Donda didn’t arrive as planned last Friday, West’s collaborator KayCyy took to Twitter to say, “We moving to another stadium.”

The tweet was swiftly deleted, but not before it made the rounds on the internet. KayCyy has now issued an update, saying the original tweet was posted by hackers. “4 of my tweets were hacks … I will not be on twitter anymore for the rest of the week,” he wrote.

KayCyy then informed his followers that he and West were not moving to another stadium after all.

The exact date that fans can finally expect to hear Donda still remains unclear, though streaming services now report that it can be heard on August 13. The rapper did seem to have an excuse as to why it didn’t drop on Friday, however. Apparently, West had noticed a mistake in the album’s mixing during his last listening party, which may have contributed to yet another delay.

It’s been five years since Beyonce released her groundbreaking album Lemonade. While the singer has been hard at work on other projects since, like recording the soundtrack to The Lion King and making cameos in projects for other artists, fans have been patiently awaiting her new era of music. The Beyhive can finally rejoice as she has confirmed her music is coming sooner rather than later.

The last we heard about the possibility of new music from Beyonce, the singer had revealed she was cooking up some tunes when talking with her former Destiny’s Child crew. But the singer has now sat down with Harper’s Bazaar for a rare interview where she chatted about her career and the status of her impending release. Beyonce spoke to the difficulties we as a society have faced over this past year, saying that she hopes to offer escapism through song:

“With all the isolation and injustice over the past year, I think we are all ready to escape, travel, love, and laugh again. I feel a renaissance emerging, and I want to be part of nurturing that escape in any way possible. I’ve been in the studio for a year and a half. Sometimes it takes a year for me to personally search through thousands of sounds to find just the right kick or snare. One chorus can have up to 200 stacked harmonies. Still, there’s nothing like the amount of love, passion, and healing that I feel in the recording studio. After 31 years, it feels just as exciting as it did when I was nine years old. Yes, the music is coming!”

Read the full Harper’s Bazaar feature here.