Crème de Sens

Category: AESTHETICS

  • Strange Darling: Terribly Beautiful. Humidly Unsettling

    Strange Darling: Terribly Beautiful. Humidly Unsettling

    // not all who run are victims

    This movie had been sitting on my watchlist for a long time, and for some reason I kept postponing it, saving it for one of those moments when there’s absolutely nothing left to watch. And then, not long ago, I stumbled upon it during a flight and thought, fine, I’ll finally give it a go.

    And you know how there are movies that don’t just “entertain” you, but get under your skin and stay there, like a splinter you can’t ignore? Strange Darling is exactly that kind of movie.

    It was shot on real 35mm film, and you can feel it immediately. The image is gorgeous—warm, slightly vintage, like watching an old VHS tape from the ’90s. Muted colors, visible film grain, none of that clean digital sterility. Everything is intentionally old-fashioned, and it works incredibly well.

    What really hooked me is that the movie doesn’t move in a straight line. The storytelling is nonlinear—scenes are shuffled, like fragments of flashbacks. And it’s not done for style points. It genuinely heightens the tension. I kept revising my own judgment of what was happening. Who’s the victim? Who’s more dangerous? Or maybe nothing is what it seems? It feels like a Tarantino-style thriller, but without his trademark chaos. Here, everything is tense—almost stretched tight, like a wire about to snap. They take the classic “maniac and girl” setup and slowly, carefully turn it inside out.

    The music is almost a character of its own. Very atmospheric, old-school in spirit, but not cliché. The tracks are woven into the story rather than just playing in the background. The actors deserve a separate mention. The chemistry between them is palpable. And Kyle Gallner’s porn-stache alone could stop your heart—he’s dangerously bad-boy charming. After this movie, I immediately wanted to watch everything he’s ever been in.

    “Love… doesn’t have to be something that develops. The purest, most primal kind can hit you like a wave… in a moment … or over the course of one night.”

    — The Lady, Strange Darling

    I wouldn’t call the movie deep, but it definitely has its own temperature. Somewhere around a scorching car hood after a high-speed chase. The plot, for me, isn’t the main thing here. The feeling is. A mix of adrenaline, mild discomfort, and that lingering thought: damn, that was good.

    // WHAT IT AWAKENS

    ∙the urge to watch every movie with Kyle Gallner
    ∙ a soundtrack you didn’t expect to carry with you all week
    ∙ VHS-shaped nostalgia
    ∙ a quiet whisper in your head: “watch it again”
    ∙ the subtle desire to visit a small American town and just watch someone fix a car outside a motel

  • numéro: every page like a gallery

    numéro: every page like a gallery

    Numéro is one of the most iconic fashion magazines in the world. But for me, Numéro isn’t really a magazine. It’s a perfectly legal way to get a hit of visual pleasure. It inspires even without reading, just by flipping through. I know a lot of people genuinely don’t get why anyone would spend money on paper in 2026 when everything exists digitally. All I can do is shrug and say: sometimes you just need to zone out like this and feel that the world can still be insanely beautiful.

    So what’s the actual pleasure of a physical magazine for me? First of all, it’s not scrolling. You’re holding a heavy glossy object. You feel the paper, the weight, the smell of fresh print. And you’re instantly pulled in. The photos are huge, often full-bleed spreads, with impeccable print quality. The light in them makes you want to touch it — sharp shadows, hard highlights that feel like they’re hitting you straight in the face. Models stand in poses that literally take your breath away: sometimes uncomfortably close, sometimes cold and distant. Skin shines. Clothes cling or hang dramatically. Black is everywhere — deep, matte, glossy, all at once.

    And the way the text lives on the page. Sometimes massive letters cover half the image. Sometimes tiny type hides in a corner. It’s both aggressive and elegant at the same time. The empty space around everything feels heavy — it forces you to stop and stay with the image longer. The spreads are their own trip: one page black-and-white, the other in color, the transition so abrupt it clicks somewhere inside you.

    Every time I stumble on an image that hits especially hard — a radically mutated silhouette, or a body bent into something alien — I feel an actual wave go through my body. Warmth, goosebumps, that full-body reaction. Not sexual — purely visual. Like the brain just drowns in beauty and everything else shuts off.

    I can sit for hours, flipping back and forth, returning to the same page again and again. The smell of paper, the weight in my hands, the soft sound of turning pages — all of it matters. Moments like this make it very clear why glossy magazines still exist. They’re not about information. They exist so you can get lost in images where every detail is intentional — from the model’s posture to the way the shadow falls.

    You flip through and get pure visual pleasure: black-and-white silhouettes, dramatic lighting, leather, edge, mutated silhouettes. For me, this is a magazine for people who value fashion not as clothes, but as a statement — as art and atmosphere.

    And yes, after that you open other glossy magazines and think, well… this just isn’t it. A classic that still holds the bar very high.

    // What it awakens

    a desire to wear black and not explain
    a craving for leather, light, shadows, and edge
    a fascination with imagery as art
    feeling fashion as a mood, not a trend