By Rosa Jisoo Pyo
Substack’s favorite fashion writer chats about her soft spot for San Francisco style, how having siblings shaped her writing voice, and the last time she made a mountain out of a molehill.
Viv wears the Fanci Club Hand-embroidered Rose Mini Skirt
Viv Chen is a self-described armchair fashion sociologist who writes The Molehill, a Substack newsletter that disseminates style and culture through an anthropologically savvy lens. Her tens of thousands of readers know her for her deep dives into fashion trends where she spares none from her pen’s sharp cleverness, as she should. She is truly one of the most illuminating fashion writers of our time.
Chen’s work has ranged from interviewing Sandy Liang on the bow tax to her Secondhand Sonar drops where she sources and curates around a theme (her latest revolves around Prada Sport). Alongside being one of Substack’s most popular writers, she has also written for Vogue, SSENSE, The Strategist, and more.
Much like Helly from Severance, she has wispy red bangs she cuts with a Japanese feather razor. Proudly from San Francisco, she is the the Bay area’s greatest defender in the bicoastal style war that often just includes New York City and Los Angeles. When she speaks, every word feels carefully hand picked and organized, much like her writing. It feels like love, even when she’s critiquing something.
Chen spoke to Hauteline about the inherent raw sensuality of the Chopova Lowena Carabiner Skirt, being the eldest child in an immigrant family, and recreating the Uptown Girls dress for her birthday.
HL: Can you introduce yourself? Who are you?
VC: I'm Viv Chen. I'm a fashion and culture writer based in California, and also the founding editor of The Molehill, a leading fashion newsletter hosted on Substack that covers fashion, but with a unique sociological vent. I want to find readers who are into the same side of fashion as I am, which is that we love clothes, and we do love shopping and, totally have the vintage bug, but at the same time, we really love to analyze the deeper meanings of fashion, what it means socially, culturally and politically.
HL: Can you tell us about that journey from growing up loving fashion to then writing your own newsletter on Substack?
VC: I never thought that I would work in fashion. I think a big part of it was being a first-generation Asian American. I was never forced, or even strongly encouraged to pursue any specific career path. I just felt I needed to do something that would help me attain financial stability. As the first child—eldest daughter—there's no one to model your path after so I studied a lot of things in school.
For my career, for a long time, I was working in a local government. First working on municipal improvement and then I worked in public health during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a really amazing opportunity to be at the forefront of so many public health innovations and help marginalized communities during the pandemic. That was kind of the period when I was working from home and had a little bit more time to spend time with my clothes. I really missed seeing people, I missed seeing street style.
So I started posting outfits on Instagram, and my account just sort of started growing. For me, I always find it a pet peeve when people are like, “Yeah, you know, I just posted and didn't have any expectations. And, you know, it just like, grew magically.”
To an extent, sure, but I think we're all kind of lying a little bit if we don't admit that when you post and you are trying to find other like-minded people. I will definitely be honest—it was really exciting to see my account grow. I did think, “Could I use social media to leverage into something that could be a more artistically fulfilling career?”
HL: Is that when The Molehill was born?
It took a little time to get the courage to express myself in written form. When I started writing on Substack, I had had my Molehill domain for a long time before I got the bravery to just write my first post. There was a lot of perfectionism, even though I didn't have any readers. I felt like I wanted to deliver something well thought out, well-researched.
From there, naturally, I started to feel more confident in my voice, tone, and writing style research, and I fell in love with the process of it as well. For the first time since college, I felt like I was coming up with my own writing assignments that were creatively fulfilling. I didn't have any editor who was telling me you have to cover XYZ topic, or to include five shoppable links. There were no criteria.
[The newsletter] really suited my needs as a creative person and over time it became something I knew I had the determination and work ethic to write, and write consistently. My Substack has been monetized for a little while now with the paywall. With this big shift in media as a business, and new media as a way that a lot of writers are making money now, I did kind of catch the right the right circumstances. I do consider myself a full-time fashion writer, and I never expected that I would be able to do that.
Viv wears the Issey Miyake Pleats Please Green Promenade Top
HL: So you write from an anthropological, social, and economic perspective on fashion and culture. I was wondering who and what inspires your writing?
VC: I love incisive voices, whether it's a literary author, a fashion and/or culture writer, or a sociologist. I've read too many books to count in my lifetime, but to offer one example, the book “Free Food for Millionaires” by Min Jin Lee. That's one example of the kinds of books I really loved reading in my 20s, where it's honing in on this young woman character who is a little bit jaded, a little bit cynical, very astute, and observational about the world around her.
Rachel Syme as well, who I recently interviewed for my newsletter. She is a writer at The New Yorker whose stories on and off the avenue about consumer culture have also influenced the way that I think about clothes. I like the way that she incisively picks apart the appeal of clothing, the appeal of a certain type of garment, and how it connects to the zeitgeist.
As a writer, having siblings you're close to or having people who you grew up with who just innately understand your point of view, no matter how weird, has given me the confidence to develop a unique voice that sometimes leads into strangeness or even grossness, repulsiveness. I just never felt alone in the way I talked about the world.
HL: What is some advice you would give to budding writers?
VC: It all just starts with the first post. If there's anyone out there who's listening and is nervous to take that first step of writing, just make your domain, claim that little slice of the internet for yourself, and write something. It really does not have to be perfect. It can be typo ridden, just give it your best shot.
HL: How has growing up in San Francisco affected your style and career?
VC: I grew up in the Bay Area, and I think if you're familiar with what it's like growing up here — I was born in ‘94, so kind of a younger millennial, kind of Gen Z cusp — but there is a really big thrift and vintage culture here. Designer labels were never really how style was defined in the Bay Area. Even as a teenager, it was very much about how you express your individuality through mixing and matching things, and thrifting things.
There's a really heightened sense of social consciousness, especially in the East Bay with the whole history of that [area], San Francisco, and Berkeley. All to say, my home city has really shaped the way I relate to clothes.
Viv wears the Issey Miyake Pleats Please Green Promenade Top
HL: You talk very lovingly about San Francisco, the culture, and how you kind of grew up there. Can you describe the thrifting and secondhand market slash culture?
VC: The San Francisco Bay area is very misunderstood and painted as very one-dimensional in the greater internet fashion discourse. New Yorkers know the stereotype when you think of the San Francisco Bay area. For lack of a better larger cultural identifier, it gets boiled down to San Francisco tech, athleisure, Patagonia fleeces, and sneakers.
I don't think it was always like that growing up. I grew up and saw the evolution of the tech economy, just growing and impacting the region. By the time I was in middle school, on my walk to school there were certain bus stops that were popping up that weren't public bus stops. They were not UC Transit, they were Google shuttles. Even though tech is more visible, there has always been a very rich literary, artistic, creative, and politically engaged people in the Bay Area.
I see outfits in parts of my neighborhood and in San Francisco that inspire me consistently. There are a lot of true vintage, true fashion lovers. Fashion is not driven by the designer label. Style just genuinely exists everywhere, even outside of big cities. I really believe in decentering the idea of the dense urban city as our kind of highest standard of what street style can be. I've traveled to smaller towns in California and in the Southwest that have such a distinct cultural approach to getting dressed, I have such a soft spot for the under-appreciated underdogs of what fashion is.
HL: This talk of vintage as almost luxury in the Bay Area reminds me of this dress that you wore for your most recent birthday, your Uptown Girls dress. How did you go about wanting to recreate this look for your birthday, and how did emulating Brittany Murphy’s iconic look make you feel as you turned 30?
VC: This dress concept did not come together until less than two weeks before my birthday, which my partner and I were going to celebrate in Vegas. I was looking through my closet and thinking, “What do I want to wear for my birthday? What's a fun dress that's fun for Vegas, but also still me?”
I remembered I had this old dress from this vintage designer Diane Freis. She does these really sparkly, beaded, Y2K fairy gowns. It's very colorful. So I bought that dress because more than a year ago, I saw Ivy Getty, the Getty family heiress nepo baby—I'm sure she's cool. She posted for her birthday wearing the dress by Blumarine from the movie. I love that movie, Uptown Girls. It's such a beautiful movie about girlhood, but also as you grow up there's just this grief and poignancy in connecting with your childhood.
Brittany Murphy is such an icon in that movie, and the movie opens with her celebrating her birthday wearing that Blumarine dress. It's just one of those dresses I remember seeing on screen when I was a kid and thinking, “That’s the prettiest dress I've ever seen. It's so sparkly.” I felt inspired to find a vintage version that captured the spirit of the dress.
HL: Can you tell us about the journey for the tailoring project?
When the Diane Freis dress arrived, I saw it has potential, but it needs major alterations. The bust part was very prom dress. Sometimes with big alterations, it's hard for me to motivate myself to spend the time, energy, and money to bring it to a tailor. I remember hyping myself up and thinking, “You know what? Go big or go home,” for my 30th birthday dress. Let's go.
I went to the tailor the very next day, this very sweet, elderly Asian immigrant woman who is so talented. I showed her pictures of the Uptown Girls dress and sketched out some options for how I saw the neckline coming together. My tailor was, I could tell as I was describing it, was getting a light in her eyes. There was a timeline.
The plane was going to leave for Vegas so I needed the dress and I really trusted her. So when I saw even the half-finished alterations, I lit up when I saw it because it felt like the Uptown Girls dress. I picked it up the night before we left for Vegas and put it in the garment protection bag. I felt really special. I really felt like a princess when I was wearing it in Vegas.
HL: My Vegas Dream is to go to the Gordon Ramsey restaurant at the Caesars place.
VC: I actually think that makes so much sense. The hedonistic nature of Las Vegas, as an American, there's a fantasy for you to live out there no matter who you are or what walk of life you come from. Las Vegas is just a city that is so American.
HL: On that note, FUCK, MARRY, KILL the following Hauteline pieces: Pleats Please Issey Miyake Green Promenade Top, Chopova Lowena Bobbie Belted Carabiner Skirt, and Fanci Club Hand-embroidered Rose Mini Skirt?
VC: I would marry the Issey Miyake shirt and fuck the Chopova Carabiner skirt. I guess I have to kill the Fanci Club Rose Skirt...
Viv wears the Fanci Club Hand-embroidered Rose Mini Skirt
HL: What is your reasoning?
VC: I just feel like the Chopova Lowena Carabiner Skirt has a memorable hookup vibe. Part of it is the design and language around it is the carabiner and hooks. The spirit of it has a sensuality to it that's very raw, and powerful. It just has an aura.
HL: *Agreeing noises* It gives horny lesbian.
VC: With Pleats Please, it’s just forever til we part? What’s the saying?
HL: Til death do us part?
VC: It's such a fashion classic. I don't even have that much Issey Miyake, I wouldn't even call myself an Issey fan. In my own wardrobe, I have one dress, but I do really love it. It's versatile. I feel like it supports you in life, you know?
HL: When was the last time you made a mountain out of a molehill?
VC: My all-time most popular piece on my newsletter is a critique of J Crew, not really of its clothes, but of the way that its old catalog branding leans into identity. When the whole J Crew catalog revival was happening, people were so excited about it. I was feeling “Am I making a mountain out of a molehill out of this?” There's something that needs to be said about the way it really romanticizes a certain white ideal and I didn't really see anyone else in my contemporary peer group talking about it.
I wasn't seeing a lot of discussion, it was all positive praise: “So nostalgic.” I was so honestly irked because I was like “Nostalgic for who?” I don't find comfort in these images. My point is not to spoil anyone's fun but for me, it did feel like a mountain issue. In my research, I got really hooked and obsessed with researching the history of American prep and the way J Crew has been able to capitalize on it. I found these great consumer reports that actually broke down the political party affiliation of J Crew's brick-and-mortar zip codes, so I was compelled to dig into the deeper sociological messages that these old catalogs were sending and analyze them from a traditional media studies art historical lens that I learned in college.
HL: Any upcoming projects that you'd like to plug?
VC: You can look forward to a short film where I kind of traipse around San Francisco and observe and do some style-related things.