September 16, 2026
The issue of September 16, 2026
Every question from this issue, with the answers, the hints and the reading behind them.
Play the September 16, 2026 issue
House: Alexander McQueen · Designer: Alexander McQueen · Season: Spring/Summer 1999
Alexander McQueen's "No. 13," Spring/Summer 1999, staged at a former bus depot in Victoria, London, on unvarnished floorboards under a low, lit ceiling. No celebrity front row, no fanfare, McQueen turned away Victoria Beckham herself so nothing would distract from the work. The show opened with Paralympic champion Aimee Mullins walking in hand-carved cherry wood prosthetic legs, designed by McQueen to whisper of sculptor Grinling Gibbons, and closed twenty minutes later with Shalom Harlow spray-painted by two robots hired from a car plant. A synthesis between technology and humanity. Themes of agency and self-love, and this idea of control, or lack thereof.
So much in society is jostling for control, and so many of our circumstances are out of our control. The circumstances of our birth, the circumstances of our death, the circumstances of our triumph and tragedy. But we cannot allow ourselves to be victims, and we must try to gain some yardage, inch by inch, to grapple back our sense of self-worth in a world that prides itself on stripping us of ours. We use the machines and machinations we create as a tool of flagellation. We pay to supplement the circuitry of our souls with the veins of the mainframe. Still, we must grapple and stand, sometimes without soles, on wooden feet, and we must carve and engrave a sense of self-respect into it, so that its sap can flow into the rivers and feed our starving people. A legendary show for a reason!
Sources: AnOther Mag
Answer: 4810000 $
Marilyn Monroe wore this dress on May 19, 1962, to sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to JFK at a Democratic Party fundraiser at Madison Square Garden, an early celebration of his 45th birthday, just ten days before the actual date. Designed by Hollywood costumer Jean Louis, the gown was made of sheer, flesh-toned silk gauze/soufflé and covered in over 2,500 hand-stitched rhinestones, so sheer and skin-tight that Monroe reportedly wore nothing underneath and had to be sewn into it just before walking onstage. It originally cost $12,000 to make. The performance itself, breathy, sultry, unmistakably charged, became one of the most famous impromptu moments in American pop culture history, and only fueled decades of speculation about a Monroe-Kennedy affair. Less than three months later, Monroe was dead of a barbiturate overdose at 36.
The dress first sold at Christie's in 1999 for $1.26 million to investor Martin Zweig, who kept it preserved in a climate-controlled display case. In 2016, it resurfaced at Julien's Auctions and sold for $4.81 million to Ripley's Believe It or Not!, at the time a world-record price for a dress at auction, only narrowly missing the record set by Monroe's own "Subway Dress" from The Seven Year Itch ($4.6 million in 2011). In 2022, Ripley's controversially loaned the dress to Kim Kardashian to wear on the Met Gala red carpet; conservators later confirmed the fragile, decades-old fabric sustained damage from being worn again.
Answer: Air Jordan 6, Nike Air Griffey Max 1, Nike Air Tech Challenge II
Air Jordan 6 (1991) — Designed by Tinker Hatfield, inspired by Michael Jordan's Porsche 911 Turbo, right down to a heel tab shaped like a spoiler. Jordan wore the "Black/Infrared" colorway to win his first-ever NBA championship with the Bulls that season.
Nike Air Griffey Max 1 (1996) — Ken Griffey Jr.'s first signature shoe, designed as a training shoe with a bold midfoot strap Griffey personally requested to carry his number, "24." Released alongside Nike's "Griffey in '96" ad campaign.
Nike Air Tech Challenge II "Hot Lava" (1990) — Also designed by Tinker Hatfield, worn by Andre Agassi at the 1990 French Open, his first-ever Grand Slam final. The wing-style lace supports were a nod to the Air Jordan 4, just one of several crossovers between Hatfield's tennis and basketball designs.
adidas Kobe 2 (2001) — the trap answer. Despite the "Kobe" branding feeling very '90s, this shoe actually debuted in 2001, styled after Kobe Bryant's Audi TT Roadster. A lot of people hated on this shoe and think it's ugly, but actually I think it's ahead of its time in a lot of ways. His actual '90s signature shoe was the adidas KB8 (1997).
Answer: Silk
Silk comes from the cocoon of the domesticated silkworm, Bombyx mori, a moth that's been selectively bred by humans for so long (over 5,000 years) that it has completely lost the ability to fly. According to legend, Chinese princess Si Ling-chi discovered silk around 2640 BCE when a cocoon fell into her tea; the hot water dissolved the gum holding it together, letting her unravel it into one continuous filament. China guarded the secret of silk production so fiercely that smuggling silkworms out of the country was once punishable by death, only finished woven silk was allowed to leave, which is exactly why the Silk Road became one of history's most important trade routes. Producing it is labor-intensive: it takes roughly 3,000 cocoons to make just one pound of raw silk. Interestingly, spiders produce a version of silk too, one that's actually stronger than steel by weight and used today in things like surgical sutures and bulletproof vests, but it's never caught on for clothing since spiders can't be densely farmed the way silkworms can.
Roberto Cavalli 2005 S/S Green Strappy Crocodile Heels