Happy first Substackversary to meeeee 🎂✍️
What I’ve learned about myself—and YOU—after 365 days of oversharing on Substack.
Howdy, fashion fans! And welcome back to AND ANOTHER THING.
Today’s a big day for me in the wonderful world of Substack. It’s my one-year anniversary!
Obviously, my first question is: What do I get?
A one-year chip, like in Alcoholics Anonymous?
A canvas tote bag—because it seems a person can never have too many of those—that says, “Too many newsletters, too little time”?
An autopen?
A scented candle? (Just kidding!)
A T-shirt that says, “I’ve been on Substack for a year, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”?
Nothing? But you’re rich, Substack! Didn’t you just raise $100 million?
OK, fine. I’ll just sit here content with the gift of knowing that somewhere between my run-on sentences about art openings and too-long slideshows from fashion weeks around the world, I have found a new, genuine, and meaningful way to connect with people.
Here’s an actual pic of me sitting contentedly:
I didn’t know what this newsletter would become a year ago.
There wasn’t a business plan. (There still isn’t.) I didn’t have a strategy deck. (I still don’t.)
I did make a Google Doc with hundreds of possible newsletter names, including Shocked and Dismayed, Out and About, and Thrilling and Good Willing. But they all sounded a little too much like rejected columns from a 1997 issue of Town & Country. Social Climbing and Overpoured felt too on the nose. I got close to going with The Nerve!, Who Cares?, or That Tracks. And I still love A Cure for Boredom, inspired by one of my favorite Dorothy Parker quotes: “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
But in the end, I landed on AND ANOTHER THING because it reflected the reality that life as a late-millennial writer/content person/media creature is no longer a straight line, and we all have a lot of plates in the air.
As “The World’s Oldest Influencer” (wait, that’s a great title for my next newsletter), my career now consists of doing several jobs for several people across several platforms. I love it, by the way. I’m leaving my dreams.
(I was also into the mental image of myself, three dirty vodka martinis deep after dinner, leaning forward and slurring, “And another thing…”)
Some days, I absolutely love what Substack represents. Here’s a place where I can write whatever I want, however long I want, whenever I want. How nice to have a corner of the internet where I can flex my writing muscle? No character counts. No editors gently asking if maybe we could lose 1,200 words about the horrors of hotel rooms without full-length mirrors.
And then there are the days when I remember the creator economy is a bottomless pit and we’re all trapped on an endless hamster wheel, frantically producing witty, observant, emotionally resonant dispatches while remembering to post Notes, respond to comments, optimize thumbnails—and, holy shit, did we forget to include the affiliate links?
When I started this job, I didn’t even know how to categorize myself on Substack’s leaderboards. Was I Culture? Art? Lifestyle and Design? I ultimately landed on Fashion & Beauty, obviously, although for the record, I’d like it noted that I’m a literary verse.
And yet, despite all of this—the chaos, the oversharing, the accidental 4,000-word essays written at 4 a.m.—there is currently no greater professional thrill than getting one of these push notifications:
Today’s newsletter—my 91st—is a little anniversary, a little gratitude journal, and a little state-of-the-union address from someone who has spent the last year oversharing professionally online.
I want to take stock not only of what I’ve learned about writing, attention spans, and the strange emotional economy of online life, but also of what I’ve learned about the people reading this newsletter every week.
And perhaps most surprisingly: what all of you have taught me in return.
What did I learn about YOU in the last year?
1. People love to complain. Or at least, they love to read about complaining.
My all-time best performing post in 2025 was titled “What’s your fashion ick?” I had hosted a New York fashion week party with Substack and Tory Burch, and noodled my longtime friends like Vanity Fair’s Mark Guiducci, Vogue’s Chloe Malle, and W magazine’s Sara Moonves, as well as new Substack fashion friends like Emily Sundberg, Hunter Harris, and Liana Satenstein to find their biggest sartorial phobias. Tory hates French manicures. Now you know.
One of my first posts to pop off was a list of my pet peeves. Turns out there are a lot of things that annoy me, so this month I published Part 2, and you better believe Part 3 is already in a draft folder. (Feel free to send suggestions, by the way.)
2. You love gurus.
I thought everyone would come to me to talk about fashion and art, but get this: my most-read post so far in 2026 is an extended interview with my fancy pants concierge doctor, Jordan Shlain, who specializes in longevity. Who knew? (Readers were especially shocked to learn that there are microplastics in IV drips.)
Before that, my conversation with my Chanel-approved dermatologist Amy Wechsler was a hit, too. I apparently sold a lot of Dove soap off this one.
3. Service-driven stories work well around here.
I did a guide to my hometown, and the response was fabulous. But, now that I think about it, I wonder if those were just my childhood friends, happy to see that I still remember where I come from?
I made an Obsessions list from Milan Fashion Week last fall, hoping for Missoni socks in my holiday stocking. But nope, nothing.
4. We often have the same muses.
The week that the final episode of Love Story aired, we were in peak JFK Jr. and CBK mania, and I wrote about how it’s possible to be both obsessed with the show (the style, the soundtrack—the 90s!) and accept that it’s almost entirely fantasy fiction. That post had legs.
I loved that everyone loved Lauren Santo Domingo as much as I do. I did a Q+A with her last summer—spontaneously via text, it was very low tech—and it was my top-performing post of the month.
My Q+A with Alexa Chung to celebrate her birthday was a hit in the fall, but then, how could it not be when there was not one but two pictures of her with Lana Del Rey? Excuse me, as Alexa said, “I think you mean Her Royal Highness Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, Lana Del Rey.”
Diane von Furstenberg has been that girl for more than five decades:
Interestingly, the Kardashian effect isn’t as strong in here as it is in other worlds. I posted 30 pics for Kendall Jenner’s 30th birthday, which had a great open rate, but not as many likes or comments. To be clear, I love Kendall, but she’s no Joan Didion in Substackville.
Two of my favorite stories from the last year were my profiles of Tracey Emin, which was commissioned by W magazine, and Deeda Blair, who was the subject of my Harper’s Bazaar column, The Dispatch, for last year’s September Icons issue.
5. We like tech. But we don’t love tech.
Do you have any idea how fulfilling it was to be quoted by Derek Thompson?
6. You love Fashion Week as much as I do. (Almost.)
I gave you a glimpse into the glitz and glam with 67 pictures from Paris in the fall and 103 in the spring. (The 67 got far more love—is that your subtle hint to me that less is more?)
In my first Ask Me Anything about Fashion Week, I revealed my all-time favorite fashion show and shed some light on how much models are really getting paid these days. (Should I do another one of these?)
And looking back on my recent recaps of Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel Cruise show in Biarritz and Jonathan Anderson’s most recent Dior collection in LA, I was reminded of Alicia Drake’s 2006 book, The Beautiful Fall, which details the rivalry between Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld in the 70s. (Saint Laurent was dead when this book came out, but Karl wasn’t, and he hated it.) It looks like the fashion world is setting up Blazy and Anderson to be the new heated rivalry—sorry, I couldn’t resist at least one Heated Rivlary reference; it was my most read post in January, after all.
7. I write too much.
I know, I know. None of the newsletters was “short.”
Not even the dispatches from a mere 9-hour trip to LA or a 21-hour jaunt around London.
And I’m fully aware that my one zillion-word diary about my Golden Globes weekend performed so well because Connor Storrie was in the thumbnail. (Sarah Pidgeon was on my other side, but this was a few weeks before Love Story changed her life. This week, her new Balenciaga ad, directed by Celine Song, dropped.)
I’ll work harder on this next year.
8. People like the vulnerability stuff.
Turns out I was far more sentimental in the last year than I had planned to be, like when I detailed the 25 things I learned in my first 25 years as a New Yorker. And you thought you came here for fashion history lessons?
It was an honor to write about my grandpa-in-law, the late, great Samuel Butler, as well as Catherine O’Hara.
I was on the fence whether or not I should write about the other F word (the six-letter one, not the four-letter one), but I was buoyed by some of the responses. Check out this comment, which I screengrabbed and saved on my desktop:
Even this piece about my secret crush on Ricky Martin for i-D’s CONFESSIONAL zine was flooded with supportive reactions. It seems I’m not the only one with a taste for la vida loca!
What did I learn about MYSELF?
Humor is usually more memorable than authority.
Writing every week forces you to stay awake to your own life. You start paying attention differently because you know you may eventually have to explain why something mattered.
There’s so much conversation now about digital toxicity, shrinking attention spans, algorithms, outrage, AI, polarization, loneliness, doomscrolling, the toxic and fucked up administration. But over the last year, Substack’s corner of the internet has consistently felt warm, funny, curious, intelligent, and alive. That may sound naive, but I mean it. The internet does not have to be a place that makes us feel worse. It can, of course. But it doesn’t have to be.
I’m still a momma’s boy:
Almost every story I told—whether it was about a couture show, an artist’s studio, or a bizarrely glamorous dinner party—was secretly about the same thing: people trying to create meaning, identity, and connection.
I noticed how often I returned to the subject of atmosphere. Not just fashion or beauty, but the feeling of places. Lighting. Music. Flowers. Table settings. Hotels. Maybe because atmosphere is one of the few things left that can’t be automated. Take that, AI!
I’m never satisfied:
I’m nostalgic, and I love that about me.
Style and substance were never opposites. The people I admire most—artists, designers, writers, hosts, editors, even great dressers—understand that beauty can be a form of communication. A way of telling people who you are and what you value without having to say it directly.
Lastly, I’ve learned that I’m an insomniac, and launching my own newsletter hasn’t helped. And neither have these two, whom I’m ultimately doing everything for:
Thank you for reading all the way to the bottom!
(Believe it or not, I tried to make this a short one.)
I’m appreciative to you for reading, subscribing, replying, correcting my typos, indulging my tangents, sending recommendations, forwarding newsletters to friends, and tolerating my inability to write under 2,500 words. (I really fucking hate typos.)
Thank you for reminding me that voice still matters.
Thank you for proving that people still want wit and curiosity and beauty and stories.
Thank you for making a safe space to be creative and sentimental.
Please like, comment, subscribe, blah blah. It’s been a year, you know the drill.
See you soon. Until then, stay safe and chic,
Derek C. Blasberg
I, too, do my best edits after I press post! Why!!!!
Thank you as always for including links to past posts and videos, I always enjoy!
MORE MORE MORE!