Plus da Vinci on the euro, and Colonel Sanders' bow ties at auction

Internet Microdoses

Leonardo da Vinci might be on the new euro. The European Central Bank shortlisted him for the €100 note in the currency's first redesign since 2002, alongside Maria Callas on the €5 and Beethoven on the €10 — and there's a vote. So it's kind of like Eurovision, but with a lot more money at stake.

The Colonel Sanders archive is up for auction — briefcase, Bible, bow ties, and a 1964 planner scribbled with spice blends, all preserved by one Kentucky family since 1974. His whole estate is on the block too, including the Victorian hall where he hosted franchisees. Finger-lickin', with provenance.

A man spent 50 years building a staircase to the stars. Charles Ross, now 88, has been carving "Star Axis" into a New Mexico mesa since 1976. The $10 million project will have 147 steps aligned to the North Star and be done by winter. Hopefully they don't get hit with snow.

Everyone's wearing dancing shoes now — jazz and ballet flats have swept the runways from Celine to Miu Miu, and Repetto's 1970s "Zizi" back from the dead. Meanwhile NYC Ballet's shoe colorist got a documentary for 15 years spent hand-tinting pointe shoes to match every dancer's skin. If all the world's a stage, why not try some fancy footwork?

Coca-Cola reached for nostalgia, grabbed Marlboro. The warm, familiar throwback landed a little closer to a 1960s ad for smoking. No wonder they call these things "fridge cigs."

Aesthetic Study · All Puffed Up We have never thought harder about our own dimensions — the size we were, the size we want to be, the size we order. And now, the sizes are exploding, piled on where the body gets scrutinized most — shoulders, hips, thighs, midsection. Where Dior caged the body to force an hourglass, Balenciaga treated the air between fabric and skin as a building material: the balloon jacket in 1953, the sack dress in 1957, weight moved off the waist so the clothes hung like canopies. The sack dress got mocked as an erasure of femininity, then became the blueprint for modern ease. Comme des Garçons founder Rei Kawakubo weaponized it in 1997, sewing down pads into gingham slips at the hips and belly, growing tumor-like lumps exactly where the decade wanted a woman flat. Suzy Menkes called it disfigurement; the glossies photographed the pads removed.

The current wave started at the hips — one designer's cartoon curves two seasons ago — and has since crept across the whole body, into uneven-breast corsets, structured leg sleeves, boxy inflated PVC. The trend arrives while we're knee deep in the Ozempic years, where shapes and bodies are being scrutinized and edited more than ever before.

Revisiting Comme des Garçons' "lumps and bumps" →

Is "flattering" out? The runways think so →

Balenciaga and the architecture of negative space →

Why playful is replacing minimalism in 2026 →

Amy Smilovic was asked for years which box Tibi belonged in, bohemian or minimalist or classic. She never had the perfect answer, because she didn't believe people were any one thing, so she made up her own word for it: Creative Pragmatism, the balance of high-level creative self-expression with grounded, everyday functionality. She's built her brand around that conviction, keeping Tibi independent since founding it in Hong Kong in 1997. Here she goes deeper on the three places she goes to clear her head, and rearranging people in her mind like a Lego Man.

Do you have any projects coming up you'd like our readers to know about?

So many things are in the works: a new fragrance with Abel, a series of Color Theory books coming in the fall, and a workshop we're conducting on Sea Island, GA in November for 85 women.

What do you do when you hit a creative block?

I step outside the office or my home. I purposely do things I've never done before. When I'm sketching, I force myself to use my left hand. There's something very freeing about making yourself do the unusual, walking the different path, that opens up your eyes and gives you new perspective. It does it for me every time. So simple.

Where do you go to find peace?

Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France; Austin, Texas; and my back porch. These are three places where I can clear my head.

Who is your forever inspo?

I don't have one thing or person. I take people's attributes: someone's mind I love, someone's energy, someone's heart. I rearrange them and put them together like a Lego man

Write us a fortune cookie message.

Life is happening at you right now.

Follow Amy and Tibi on Instagram, and Tibi on Cosmos.

Object Love · Aperitivo Bowls

Small rounded glass bowls, sized for the shared middle of a table — nuts, chips, pickled things — with Swarovski crystals set into the sides that disappear the moment you fill them. They're from Sophie Lou Jacobsen, the Brooklyn designer whose Ripple Cup sold out a run of 1,000 as a COVID staple in 2020. These are from her new Disco Aperitivo collection, which she built after a year of aperitivos in Milan and a soft spot for 1970s Italian disco.

The aperitivo is supposed to be a ritual — the slow handoff from day to night. But you know where these items usually end up: full of Froot Loops at 8am, holding your keys by the door, hiding the cigarettes you keep meaning to quit. That's what makes it a lovable object, and an even better gift — a good bowl doesn't stay precious long. It gets embedded into the everyday.

Shop the set, or browse the rest of Disco Aperitivo — the plates, the Capri catchall tray, the Roma coupes.

Quick Hits

A streetwear brand just gave UNO a brutal "Black Out" redesign.

A24 and Joya melted Backrooms dread into a candle.

Issey Miyake's Satoshi Kondo dressed a contemporary ballet.

Disney/Pixar's Toy Story 5 crossed $1B to top the year.

The National Portrait Gallery acquired a portrait of Charli xcx.

Padded out,

Tania

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