The Devil Wears Prada vs. AI: Human taste is the currency AI can't match
Plus: a spring edit for the anti-trend era, a fragrance primer, and why Alex Eagle is the muse of the moment.
Rich in taste 💅🏻
The moment fashion lovers have waited two decades for arrived this weekend: The Devil Wears Prada 2.
The storyline has evolved to reflect a new reality (spoiler ahead): tech is reshaping the dynamics of fashion. The plot twist proposes that culture “must be left behind” — evolved and replaced by AI in the name of keeping up. “You go with what life throws at you.”
I’m a proponent of AI as a tool — but dismissing what shaped us to this point is where I part ways. The film served looks, delivered nostalgia, and left me with something more important: the conviction that the future of taste remains human.
I recognize what AI offers. But we are the taste-makers. We create meaning, carry emotion, cultivate culture, build community. Now, more than ever, self-expression is the advantage in a world of sameness. Your identity is brought to life through what you wear, how you live, where you spend your time, and who you spend it with.
That’s the work at the core of Modern Socialites: curating lifestyle with intention. Every week, I bring you the ideas, people, and places shaping culture — and help you close the gap between who you are and how you live.
So, let’s get into it.
What's Worth Your Attention
The Fragrance
Scent is one of the most underrated tools of self-expression — it shapes how you show up before you say a word. Brands like Phlur treat fragrance as an extension of personal style, building scents like Father Figure around a persona rather than a note. Like fashion, fragrance evokes mood — and the notes you gravitate toward say something about how you want to be perceived.
A quick primer on scent families:
Floral — romantic, feminine, classic. Rose, jasmine, peony. Reads as soft and approachable. (Chanel Chance lives here.)
Woody — grounded, warm, confident. Sandalwood, cedar, vetiver. Reads as quietly powerful. (YSL Libre, with its lavender-cedar core.)
Musky / Amber — sensual, intimate, lingering. Amber, musk, vanilla. Reads as magnetic. (Chanel Coco Noir and Phlur Father Figure both play here.)
Citrus / Fresh — energetic, clean, modern. Bergamot, neroli, grapefruit. Reads as effortless.
Oriental / Spicy — bold, complex, evening-coded. Incense, cardamom, oud. Reads as deliberate.
The self-defined woman doesn’t pick one lane — she has a wardrobe of scents, the way she has a wardrobe of clothes.
What I’m wearing this season:
Chanel Chance — light, fresh, quietly empowering
Chanel Coco Noir — sultry, flirtatious, a date-night signature
Phlur Father Figure — sensual, modern, magnetic
YSL Libre — confident, grounded, signature-worthy
The Spring Edit
There’s an “anti-trend” trend in the air — essentially, a return to basics. I’m taking it further: basics, elevated through accessories that carry personality.
The Muse
Alex Eagle, Creative Director.
Alex Eagle is the kind of creative director whose work refuses to sit in one category. Her shop, her interiors, her personal style, her curated objects — they all speak the same language. She's built a world where fashion, home, and lifestyle aren't separate departments but expressions of one coherent point of view. That's what makes her worth studying: not any single piece she puts out, but the consistency of taste across all of them.
The Idea
Modernism as a mindset.
“You’re a collector,” Alex Eagle observes in a recent Vogue piece, framing modernism as “a mindset” and style as “thoughtful accumulation.”
Modern Socialites was built on the same foundation. My work is to simplify and curate with intention, so that self-defined women can build a lifestyle at the intersection of identity and expression. I’m redefining what it means to be a socialite today.
The piece captures something I believe deeply: style, objects, and spaces are interconnected. They shape one another. And they shape you.
From the salon,
— Sabina