Introducing CNN’s Big Style newsletter: A portal into a world where clothing meets culture

By Rachel Tashjian, CNN

(CNN) — The late fashion editor Diana Vreeland — who pioneered a spirit of probing whimsy that inflects everything from the Met Gala to “The Devil Wears Prada” to TikTok — was once asked what advice she’d give to young designers.

“I think having a great sense of pleasure, and living a big life — as big as you can take, without interfering in any way with your work,” she said in her plummy transatlantic accent (can an influencer please make their whole personality bringing those back?). You can’t design in isolation, she said, “because there’s no heart in it. There’s no sort of razzle dazzle and excitement in it.”

That answer is the kind of thing that, these days, would become diluted into a bestselling self-help book that you grab at the airport and see every third woman reading at the beach, highlighting half-heartedly.

But in its its purest form, it’s the attitude behind a new newsletter – CNN’s weekly dispatch, Big Style, a portal into the world where clothing meets culture.

Fashion and more importantly style come from a life lived big. Style is in the books we read and on the people we pass on the street, and in places and on people you don’t expect to find fashion, like museum shows, movies, or the billionaires who seem increasingly interested in wearing outrageously expensive clothes. (We won’t strictly talk about good style, you see.)

Topics will emerge from conversation and curiosity, skepticism and at times pure confusion. (Why did Chanel make shoes that are just tied-on heels? Why???)

Every Saturday, you’ll get a missive that expands your sense of what style is, enlivens your mind and hopefully, first and foremost, delights you.

Into it? Sign up for Big Style here.

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