The Taste Report™: Saveria Mendella
A chat with the French fashion journalist and thinker on the importance of process, the state of Parisian culture, and why fiction matters.
Welcome to The Taste Report™, an interview series exploring and explaining taste from people who have supremely good taste.
What is really happening in Paris? That was a question I was hoping to solve in this recent visit to the city, a place that has taken up a lot of metaphysical space in my heart and mind and — much like Los Angeles — similarly is a product of the global imagination. The center of fashion and a major influence on global (Well, western.) thinking and politics, I was curious to connect with someone who not only has exceptional taste but who could offer a way into the psyche of the city.
I was able to find that with , a journalist and literal PhD in fashion who frequently contributes to Vogue France, GQ, and previously Harper's Bazaar who has a popular style and fashion podcast featuring expert guests. She is very much a French cool girl, who describes herself as more Chanel than Rick Owens but with the flexibility in her style and outlook to incorporate anything that “fits” into her vision of the self. This self is heavily considered too, less in the “I have to look like this.” sense and more in an intellectual capacity, that she is someone who dissects and scrutinizes fashion in the way that such a global industrial-creative force should be approached. For example: before we got into the meat of our chat on taste and fashion, we briefly chatted about the issues facing worlds like luxury fashion, that the space has effectively pivoted from their girls-and-gays cultural approach to courting men, getting into sports to unsubtly say, “Men…it’s time for you to take charge, to grab your credit card and flex your power with Louis Vuitton.” Saveria pointed out how the industry has always, in many ways, trivialized women, doing little for them while profiting from them. Case in point: she mentioned how Kendrick Lamar is the new Chanel ambassador, which is benign enough until you realize that Chanel is a womenswear brand. Hm.
Saveria has lived in Paris for a decade, originally from the south, from Marseille. As a lover of that French city and as someone who lives in the Mediterranean myself, we briefly discussed what drew her to Paris. “I was so bored in Marseille,” she said. “I wanted something special…They are all vibing down there.” This I deeply felt, as my own struggles with Barcelona have been that everything is too relaxed, that everyone is too checked out, which fosters a sort of cultural flakiness that results in people never being around and for community building and culture building to be difficult (which pairs poorly with, say, conservatism and nationalism): but I digress. This was why I was in Paris to begin with, to meet more like minded people and to “network” in my larger EU backyard. Saveria moved to Paris because she wanted more, because she wanted her life to be more than the “just vibes” mentality of the south. Talk about an expression of taste! Then there was her Celine sunglasses and knee-high leather boots, the smart cardigan and pencil skirt combination that evoked that of MiuMiu without the literal brand markings or requisite office siren, Bella Hadid approved Y2K mini-glasses.
Meeting at a hip coffee-chocolate shop in the 11th, we chatted for well over an hour where we defined her taste, analyzed how trends distract from culture, investigated how restaurant openings collapse community, and dug into the importance of reading (and likely end of autofiction).
KRF: How do you define taste? What guides you when you're looking for clothes but also in picking out a restaurant, when cooking, when buying something from your apartment like art? Yes, fashion is one expression of one's taste — but, as we know, people who have really good taste also have really great apartments and can cook really good meals. That doesn’t mean they are rich but that they know how to foster a really good life, a curation of ideas and gestures of living. How do you approach this?
SM: It’s a balance between emotions, culture, and history. For example, speaking about food, something very easy can make me emotional — like pasta with pesto. In a way, it’s too easy. I'm sure there are many more good meals in the world than this kind of pasta but it’s the little things. I really love the color pink: it gets me emotional too, when I see it. It’s not a color I wear but, when you enjoy something physically and you can't explain it, there’s a history and culture that is still relevant to you in your style and your state. Emotion is good but, if you really want personal taste and to create your personal taste, you need more than just emotion. You can’t just say, “Oh, I love this and that style.” with Egyptian and antique references, putting it all together. I start with emotions then I keep going with history to find good storytelling for myself.
KRF: I love this idea of emotion and backing it up with information. If I only viewed the world by my emotions, I would end up with everything, with too much stuff — and it wouldn’t make sense. Needlessly accumulating stuff is a sure sign you don’t have a lot of taste, that you haven't really figured out your point of view because you're saying yes to everything. To be able to confidently say “This reflects me.” says a lot more than piling things into a giant closet. It’s the same as having a repertoire of things you can cook: yes, anyone can cook anything — but to zoom in and be able to make pasta from scratch in ten different ways says so much about you and your history and knowledge and values.
SM: It takes time. But, I mean, we have the right in this world to be materialistic — but I think we should be more interested in our objects. It's so crazy thinking that you can buy something because it has a history and, if you buy it, you're gonna add some history to that. This is like liking or commenting on social: it’s a way for us to be involved in democratic politics and society by doing very little. Liking, commenting, and buying are the only power we have left. Then there’s voting.
KRF: People take all that for granted. You can have everything — but you shouldn't. We’re in a moment where, for the past 15 years with social media and cheaper and cheaper things, you become a bit anonymous, losing your individuality to “stuff.” You dehumanize yourself, limiting your own life. That’s how we end up with run clubs because people are trying to figure out how to be human again. There are myriad reasons why, say, something like vintage is having a moment: there's too much shit in the world and people are trying to be individuals when, in a lot of ways, your own history and lived experience is the answer.
SM: But another way of having taste is never saying no to anything. For example, I'm not into the style but I'm sure I could find something at Rick Owens. I’m maybe more like a Chanel girl or a Parisian girl — but having taste is being able to find something good everywhere.
KRF: That’s a valid point.
SM: Seeing the world with an open mind.
KRF: And adapting, taking risks and trying things. There's a lot of exporting of our thinking, to creators and loud voices versus personal development. This is how we end up in the “there are no new trends” or “we’ve reached the death of trends” story: that is more a response to being unable to predict what’s next. As someone who works in, writes about, and is interested in fashion, how do you identify movements? How do you navigate so many designers and creatives offering inputs? Navigating noise is a lost art.
SM: When I was very, very young, I already loved fashion — but I never cared about trends, even in high school. With my PhD, I started studying anthropology and fashion, I understood the cycles of trends. There are two kinds of cycles because there are two types of trends: there are long term and short term. Barbiecore is short term. The mini skirt is long term — and so on and so on. We move on over the years, caring and not caring. As a fashion insider, I always remember that we don’t always know when we are in something. We only know when it’s over. For example: body positivity and gender-playing fashion. We know it’s over. I wrote a lot about that and participated in creating the trend. Now that it’s over, I can see it was a trend — maybe a mid-term trend — but it was of a moment. My job is not to say “This is trendy.” My job is to say, “I’m going to write about this and why all the people in the industry like it with cultural insights.” Sometimes we’re trendy, sometimes we’re not. I mean, I’m really into feminism and, these days, that’s not trendy — but two days before it was. When you have taste, you start to see how these views fit and don’t fit into viral conversations and into society. It’s the same in fashion. Yes, I can see the trends, the short ones, — but I don't like them. They’re funny for one minute.
KRF: Trends can inform the bigger picture, yes, but they’re never “everything.” For example: we're in a chocolate shop and the Dubai chocolate trend is big right now. That in and of itself is a part of a larger conversation about, one, viral foods driving eating habits and, two, that spaces like this can exist to begin with. They go hand-in-hand, yes, but for the casual participant the Dubai chocolate is never it, existing outside of a context like pistachio shortages. There is a desire by, say, tech and political forces to keep you thinking without context, to think about what’s important today as if it will be important forever. People lose themselves in the process.
SM: We can be mesmerized by every trend these days. We are all talking about the long skirt because, if the long skirt is back, it means that we are in an economic crisis. But, if the long skirt is back next season, then skirts will become shorter and shorter and shorter. We need to think more about everything. Trends are just living life — and trends are living their own cycles too. This is sometimes pushed by fashion or by cinema and whatever, while we are playing with the trends at more or less the same time. This should not say everything about a society.
KRF: For that reason — and maybe you’re the same way — I don't like to play the game of “What do you see is coming next? What are you forecasting?”
SM: That’s a really medium question.
KRF: It negates an understanding of how things change. But you said something really important: being mesmerized by today is a problem. This is a state of mesmerization, whether it’s something Trump did or a type of chocolate. When we become mesmerized, we don’t do anything. Then there are real problems because we got stuck watching the TV.
SM: There is a French writer that I love, Neige Sinno. She wrote last year a very famous book about the rape she suffered from her stepfather. love one sentence she had in the book: If you’re stunned, you can’t think. I don’t want my readers to be stunned. If they are, they won’t get anything out of the story. Try to withstand everything you learn or read.
KRF: That’s true. It’s nice that things can stun but, when everything is stunning, it gives every little thing power which means nothing has power. That then means you become overwhelmed easily. There seems to be a mass stunning now, in politics and in culture.
SM: Everything is really political.
KRF: Which is maybe why everything is related now, like how the tariffs are getting people to learn a bit more about how supply chains work. You mentioned a little bit about this but I’m curious about Parisian culture now as it occupies so much of the international imagination. How would you define that now? What gets lost from the outside and by the media? This city has an influence so I’m curious what’s the real feeling at the moment.
SM: Three years ago, I would have said it's about books and vernissage, opening exhibitions. These days it's really more about food and a bit of cinema. It’s more about the opening of a restaurant, the new chef. One day it’s about food, the next it's about fashion, as the city is living between fashion weeks and restaurant openings and summer season and Christmas. It’s weird. I was talking about this with some friends like two days ago. I can’t say what’s next because everything feels so in between because of the political climate. I don’t know how to define global culture anymore. It’s going to sound stupid but we had the Olympic games, which drove cultural activities of the city for two years. Now that it’s over…what’s next? What’s next for the summer?
KRF: A hangover.
SM: Exactly. A hangover. It was a time to meet as world citizens in one city, to watch competitions and attend parties linked to the games and culture. Even if that was a three week event, I don’t know what’s next this long after it.
KRF: I don’t think that feeling is unique to Paris. I can only speak for Los Angeles and Barcelona but so many cities are going through a very similar change, figuring itself out. Because Hollywood is fading and reconfiguring itself — and because of the fires — there’s a big undefined space in LA. There’s an aimlessness. Barcelona is similar for completely different reasons. So much of city culture now, regardless of the city, is about what the new restaurant is. I love new restaurants! But I feel like this is a symptom of a loss of cohesion, that everything is about going somewhere and starting all over again versus being intentional and building a culture in one place, hanging out again and again in one way. Being a regular! I feel that in the art world too. A lot of this is fueled by the Internet and Covid — but chefs becoming the “new” creative director means everything becomes ephemeral and quick. It’s food. It’s a dish. You eat it and it’s gone.
SM: It's a shared feeling. Maybe it's also because now the biggest part of culture is digital. We can’t put a finger on something material that represents our lives because it is driven by digital things. It's crazy. We had so many social revolutions these past few years: Black Lives Matter, feminism, queerness. When we think about that, it’s crazy. The only cultural field that created something was cinema which is immaterial. There were no new museums. I know some artists who were elevated but little changed.
KRF: That's clearly why food has sort of stepped in because it is so tactile, it is so literally sensational. But a lot of this is from that loss of people hanging out, sharing these subjects together in real life versus online. I saw this TikTok recently of a guy who has a book club that hadn’t met in four months because people kept skipping. It got a lot of attention because people felt the same. I ran a book club for years in Los Angeles that survived and still thrives because of being — one — regular which — two — holds people accountable to creating a culture. I didn’t even care if you read the book! You just had to show up and try. Commit. That really is lost. That’s why everything from small businesses to luxury are struggling because we’re missing out on these obvious connective cultural tissues involving sharing.
SM: And we are really driven by the result but not by the process. Being in a process requires keeping quiet and working. It’s not sexy. It’s actually the contrary. Life is like a process, training our brains to get a result. The result is the process.
KRF: It would be interesting if people just got together and cooked, versus going to places and having everything be perfectly completed for them. Everything is done for us now. Everything gets taken for granted. Then no one gives a shit about anything! It’s frustrating and fascinating.
SM: We are still positive though.
KRF: True. Everything takes time. It’s all “Everyone wants a village but no one wants to be a villager.” In Barcelona, we’ve made a lot of friends just by going to restaurants later and hanging out into the night versus coming at meal time and leaving. You’re a part of something versus being a brief patron.
SM: It’s a good metaphor for our life these days, the way we are looking for movies at night. At 8PM, you turn on Netflix and, at 9:30PM, you're still looking for something. You finally manage to find something and then you fall asleep.
KRF: Exhausting. Do you think there’s a similar feeling in fashion?
SM: It depends. I sometimes feel that people — at least people I know working in fashion —when the mic is off, they will admit that there are too many clothes, that the reasons for making them are not correct or viable. But they are bold, driven to be part of it anyway. And I get that. I mean, me too. I’ve worked in fashion for ten years and, even having a whole masters research about how fashion workers are treated in France, I’m still here. People are still harassed and assaulted by directors. Fashion is art. It’s an amazing way to express yourself but it is also an economic industry. Sometimes you take the empty glass approach, that this is complete bullshit, that this is too impossible. But then you have a full glass — and it’s great. You get to watch someone create something with their own hands, seeing a garment you would wear your whole life. That feeling is amazing and it makes you feel privileged.
KRF: I think that’s an accurate reflection of the larger industry. There would be a lot more of those experiences if people — both audiences and creatives alike — slowed down, to enjoy things but also to allow themselves to be wowed, to take time to really look at something.
SM: It is about reading the world. For me, fashion is my door to culture, to personal expression, to many feelings. You know the feeling when you don't know how to dress and so you don't want to go to the party anymore? It becomes like that. If I buy something crazy, I'm like, “Okay. What can I do this week to wear this?” I can't separate from this anymore. Even if I can see the bad part of the industry, I've learned this language and I love this language. Fashion is my way to speak to the world.
KRF: That’s a good point.
SM: It’s not perfect. Then you see a collection by Jonathan Anderson, you're like, “My god. I did not know the artist but I need to know more.” I actually feel like everything is like this.
KRF: So many industries are going through that reckoning, of reality with the idealized version of the industry. I see that with the book world and the art world and Hollywood. I don’t think food has that — unless certain climate-related systems collapse — but there are a lot of problems and no one is taking the time to fix it. You’d need a really radical approach taken by someone big to change the system. Jonathan is a good example, as someone like him is needed to innovate beyond design but more to the system so new ways of thinking trickle down. Maybe Millenials and Gen Z really are going to change it. Anyone older than that seems to have checked out.
SM: Millennials now have institutional knowledge. They are able to go further. But they can’t just say “Racism is bad.” and leave it. You can’t just talk in mantras.
KRF: True. Millennials are at an age and point in their life and careers where if they’re not making change they need to shut up. Not all Millennials have power but many do — and if you’re not actively speaking up now that you have expertise and seniority, you’ve lost. The thinking has always been that someone else will fix it. That’s not true. I talk about this a lot but taste and change are expressions of how you want to see things, either your life or your world. They go hand-in-hand, as a full worldview or expression of yourself.
SM: Well, you spend half your life trying to identify your taste and then the next part expressing it. You then don’t want change.
KRF: That’s fair. What are you watching as far as evolving taste and style?
SM: I’m really into literature. My goal was to read all the French literature classics before 20 — but I did not succeed. In the past five years, I'm really into personal narratives, which is also maybe why I am into documentaries. I'm really into science fiction too because I think now I need something more real than real. I read a lot of what we call “autofiction” and I think we’ve reached the maximum. It’s playing out now as the trend on TikTok is creating your own narrative in videos, where a girl is writing on a computer and then a narrative voice comes and narrates that she’s writing on a computer. To me that shows we’ve reached a maximum in autofiction. I hope we move more into fiction because we need to think out of the box. Without fiction, we can’t think much further. If all we do is talk about ourselves, it’s going to be so boring in ten years. Even in fashion. With TikTok it’s like a disaster. With accounts like Loewe, it’s funny and great — now — but it’s not really fashion.
KRF: It’s social media before actual fashion.
SM: It’s social media. Like, guys, you have the power and the money to hire the best directors in the world. You have a platform dedicated to videos, to create one video campaign a month. Why aren't you using Tik Tok to create something crazy? But it’s all trends instead. I hope we are starting a new phase, which is more into fiction and less about personal narratives.
KRF: I hope so too. We need it. There’s a real value to science fiction, to imagining and learning from the imagination. I’m reading a really great book called Small Boat that gets at this, a French book by philosopher Vincent Delecroix that has been nominated for the Booker that imagines the conversation between a navy woman and a police officer after the navy woman more or less allowed a boat of migrants to sink in the English Channel despite their calls for help — all because the boat was more in English waters than French. It’s based on a true disaster, where nearly 30 immigrants died in a boat sinking, and the book imagines the callousness and heartlessness that must go through someone’s mind to allow such a tragedy, to not send help. It’s a good use of fiction.
SM: That’s a real dilemma. Fiction — especially science fiction — helps us think about the future then, to think outside the box, to completely see the world.
KRF: It’s so important. You have to slow down to see it though and not abandon the process.
SM: It makes you so humble. For example: for my PhD, I loved learning new things — but I would feel like I could never learn everything. It felt like a drop of water as I spent three years reading scientific books nonstop, like ten books a week. The process should be more sexy because it’s everything we have. It is so worth it though.
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yes to showing up and trying>>> you don’t have to keep shilling out money for simulated experiences if closeness