What’s Happening: As brat summer winds to a close, girlhood and coquettishness seem poised for a goth-inflected evolution if Sabrina Carpenter, Jenna Ortega, Naomi Osaka, and Elena Velez are any indication.

The Download: After two years, are girlhood and coquettishness loosening their cultural vice grip? Signs point to more of an evolution: as summer gives way to cooler temperatures and shorter days, the trend is taking a dark, goth-inflected turn of its own. Over the weekend, reactions to Sabrina Carpenter’s music video for “Taste” made the rounds on social media as Carpenter, everyone’s favorite fan-casting for Bubbles the Powerpuff Girl, duked it out with Wednesday star Jenna Ortega in a stylized, slasher-inflected spectacle. The music video’s thumbnail—and scene de résistance—depicts the duo as a couple of funerary-chic femme fatales.

Two days later, the fashion designer Yoon Ahn introduced Naomi Osaka’s “‘lolita’ goth” look, created with Nike for Osaka’s competition at the U.S. Open. Its preponderance of bows, tulle, and a vampy black satin bomber coat balance Osaka’s love of Harajuku fashion and Sailor Moon with an armor-like edge. As the U.S. Open winds down, New York Fashion Week will ramp up. This season, front rower–favorite Elena Velez—whose previous collections have paired undone corsets, cascading ruffled trains, and ribbons with raccoon eyes, chokers, and black lipstick—will return to the runway after a one-season hiatus. In between her February presentation and next month’s runway show, she had her hands full crafting a steampunky, black Victoriana gown for Taylor Swift’s “Fortnight” music video this past spring.

In Their Own Words: In her interview with the New York Times, Osaka gave a ringing endorsement for the galvanizing power of the color black: “For me, black is strength,” she said. “For me, that’s the super-suit color. I feel a little bit like Black Panther.”

Surface Says: Of anyone, Lol Tolhurst can surely offer some insights on goth’s staying power; he wrote the book on it.

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The color green holds a special significance in Moroccan culture—Islam associates it with paradise, the national flag sports a green pentagram, and lustrous zellige tiles adorn mosques throughout the country. It’s also the standout feature of a newly finished lecture hall at Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique, a young private research university designed tip-to-toe by Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura in Rabat-Salé. The Barcelona-based studio has spent the past 13 years seeing through the fledgling university’s master plan, with the namesake’s two sons taking over following his death in 2022.

The lecture hall, called the Centre de Congrès, is an emerald-hued sanctum illuminated by a monumental white plaster dome above. The café is also doused floor-to-ceiling in the same glistening emerald green to breathtaking effect. Also dramatic is the building’s inner drum—students pass under soaring limestone arches before entering, foreshadowing the wonders within. For connoisseurs of the Catalan firm, such masterful use of color is no surprise. Bofill’s otherworldly buildings have become selfie hotspots for the Instagram generation and inspiration for the sets of entertainment blockbusters like Squid Game. “I wanted to create space powerful enough to make normal people who know nothing about architecture realize that architecture exists,” Bofill once said. With Centre de Congrès, the next generation will have no doubt.

Dimitrios Tsatsas didn’t expect to follow his father’s footsteps into refined bag-making and set off to study industrial design. After meeting his wife, the architect and event designer Esther, the couple sought the perfect travel bag for their frequent work trips and decided to make their own. The positive response compelled them to launch the namesake Frankfurt-based brand Tsatsas that specializes in minimalist leather bags and accessories lovingly hand-crafted down to the very last detail, from an ongoing collaboration of sleek calfskin leather cases with David Chipperfield to the sky-blue lining inside each that celebrates Dimitrios’s Greek heritage.

Matthew Malin and Andrew Goetz have always loved gardening at their Hudson Valley home, savoring the earthy scents of freshly harvested tomatoes. For those stuck in cramped apartments seeking temporary escapism from city stenches, the work-and-life partners’ skincare label recently concocted Tomato Home Spray to replace unsavory indoor odors with fresh herbaceous scents—aromatic basil, calming lavender, fresh green pepper, and, of course, the sweetness of ripe tomatoes. The alcohol-free formula binds with malodorous molecules to neutralize unwanted smells. It won’t do your week-old pile of dishes for you, but it’s the olfactory equivalent of opening your windows to a fresh vegetable garden in the heat of summer. $52

Studio PCH is a creative studio located in Venice, California, that designs warm, exciting, and sophisticated spaces, with a focus on high-end hospitality. Encompassing both architectural and interior design, Studio PCH has completed recent projects such as Nobu Los Cabos, which was shortlisted for a World Architecture Festival award.

Surface Says: This California-based studio, led by French architect Severine Tatangelo, continues to bring the characteristics of home to hotels, restaurants, and commercial spaces.

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