Independent editorial by Audrey Mast
The Drift
How taste, tech, and trends move.
Essays, observations, and occasional overthinking about the things we make, wear, use, and believe.
Recent stories
-
In Which I Cast On and Immediately Lose the Will to Live: Swatching, ADHD, and the Bureaucracy of Knitting
The yarn is beautiful. I want to be clear about this. The yarn is a gorgeous fingering-weight merino in a colorway called something like “Fjord Dusk”…
-
Let Us Now Praise Japanese Pens
I didn’t intend to become a person who has opinions about pens. I want to be clear about that. It happened incrementally — the way most…
-
Big Feelings About Big Clothes: On the Oversized Trend and My Ongoing Internal Negotiations
There is a silhouette currently stalking the runways, the street style blogs, and every fashion-adjacent Instagram account I follow, and it goes like this: billowing, voluminous,…
-
Why Everything Looks the Same Now: A Small Inquiry into Design Homogeny
There’s a peculiar moment that happens when you open a new direct-to-consumer website. A faint déjà vu drifts in: the clean sans-serif font, the soothing beige…
-
Why Everyone Is Suddenly Talking About Sovereign Wealth Funds
If you’ve been skimming headlines lately, you may have noticed a curious phrase popping up in places it didn’t used to live. Sovereign wealth funds are…
-
Cottage Cheese’s Comeback: A Case Study In Food Culture
There are certain foods that carry emotional baggage, and cottage cheese is one of them. It is not neutral the way toast is neutral, or the…
-
The Boob Light: A Cultural History
of the World’s Most Ubiquitous, Unkillable Overhead Fixture Every apartment has one.Every renter has cursed one.Every landlord defends it like it’s a beloved heirloom. Yes, we’re…
-
Zara dot com: Where Functionality Goes to Die*
*wearing an impossibly chic trenchcoat. Zara’s website is not a website. Zara’s website is a conceptual art installation about the futility of human desire. It is…
-
If Homeopathic Remedies Are BS, Then Why Are They So Huge In Europe?
Homeopathy is the wellness world’s Schrödinger’s cat: simultaneously ineffective and beloved. In the U.S., most of us file it under “polite placebo.” In Europe, however, it’s…
-
QUIZ: Which Analog Hobby Is Right for You?
Finally, a quiz that tells you whether you should be knitting smug little scarves or whispering emotional confessions to a sourdough starter. Welcome to your personalized…
-
Household Objects That Secretly Judge You
There are things in your home that love you. The blanket that holds your warmth. The mug that understands your morning mood. The one pen that…