On June 26, 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored the political upset of the year, defeating Democratic Caucus Chair Joe Crowley in New York state’s 14th Congressional district. Three months later, AOC [this time the Congresswoman and not my website] posed for images by Gillian Laub [IG] featured in “a no-nonsense conversation” with Kerry Washington about American politics and — more importantly — “Martin Luther King Jr.’s concept of a moral universe—the idea that we can operate within a moral framework and tap into something powerful.”

The press went crazy in the US and abroad, with some accusers understanding that Ocasio-Cortez didn’t buy the outfit, but it was borrowed by stylist Malaika Crawford from the Gabriela Hearst PR and Marketing wing.

The right-wingers went after AOC as always, but even many uber-progressives were furious that their future Congresswoman had posed in clothes carrying a $3505 price ticket.

The memes were everywhere about her hypocritical fashion choice, with not one person noting — and not in the interview either — that the Gabriela Hearst suit was designed and manufactured by one of fashion world’s most prominent environmental and sustainable fashion activists.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Gabriela Hearst: Birds of a Feather

Anne of Carversville is a very committed backer of Gabriela Hearst, and we were super pleased to see the future Congresswoman wearing her suit for the interview. No one asked what fragrance she was wearing, and I doubt that Interview Magazine cared.

Not knowing the name of her favorite fragrance, I imagine the Congresswoman enveloped in a scent that is clean, masculine and qualitative. After all, she did take out Joe Crowley, sitting atop the New York Democratic party summit of the political boys club.

That epic voting event happened before the downfall of Governor Andrew Cuomo in August 2021 and the concurrent rise of New York Governor Kathy Hochul. And let’s not forget the brilliant Letitia Ann "Tish" James, the current Attorney General of New York.

This is what happens when Smart Sensuality women like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez start wearing men’s fragrances. Perhaps we all should be wearing men’s fragrances as part of the gender-fluidity movement. Or when you’re in a YSL Smoking Jacket tuxedo mood.

Not Only Men Want to Stand for Independent, Fearless Backbone and Elegance

I’ll bet the Interview beauty team introduced AOC to Bleu de Chanel.

AOC readers know that I am a storyteller at heart, but it’s safe to say here that AOC didn’t run over to the Chanel counter at Bergdorf Goodman and get out her American Express card for a bottle of the famous fragrance. No, No, No.

Like every good working woman in New York — even those who make $150,000 and lots more money than that — she headed straight for an online purchase of the clean, masculine, and qualitative Citrus Ginger [Dossier’s impression of Chanel's Bleu de Chanel]. It’s in the men’s section but they don’t mind sharing.

Listen Up Now. I’m Being Serious

Before you get all “Oh, Anne” with me, there is a significant backstory to this post.

Let me say that I’ve been in a very cross mood with our industry for most of 2022 over the issue of sustainability. My discontent has seeped into these pages off and on, but last week an event pushed me over the brink, leaving me steamed and also very sad.

After watching what seems like 20 models and talents launch, promote and pitch their beauty and fashion brands every other week, big names that do not mention the environment or sustainability once in all their self-promotion, media tours or website specifics I was primed to wail.

Watching the kings and queens of our industry hug a new fashion brand with zero sustainability credentials — not even the packaging is sustainable — left me speechless. In a state of total astonishment, I reached out to the brand and explained that I was so sad. So very, very, very sad over what I was seeing on the website.

My human spirit was truly crushed in an unusually personal way. I adore this person and am so very disappointed in key business decisions made around bringing this terrific concept to market. The fires are raging, burning up ancient sequoias, hurricanes are hammering the Carribean with increasing intensity, and huge glaciers have broken off 100 years ahead of schedule.

Does this reality impact any of these big names in their business decisions? Nope.

Later that day, I spoke to young people in Brooklyn for a sustainability article I am working on that asks what — if any —obligations we have to each other to walk our talk on sustainability and ethical manufacturing in the fashion and beauty industries

After what I saw last week, the answer is NONE. It’s all lip service and 2-letter worse. The first initial of worse is B and you can now say it on TV after the Jan. 6 hearings. Oh heck, the S is for scent, which I am now writing about.

That’s what I think after the last 12 months of observing new talent voices in America promoting their big breakthrough concepts with zero attention to the environment.

If I see said professionals marching in an environmental parade in New York or writing some tearful IG post on concern for our world on fire — and you have launched or are the main spokesperson for one of these beauty and fashion websites with ZERO green credentials — my editorial blast will be heard in Berlin, and I will call you out by name.

For now, I am swallowing my articulate tongue, but this is the last time.

As the great, now-passed Congressman Elijah Cummings said “We Are Better Than This!”

This tough love lesson for Anne that what we say and what we do as fashion leaders has no real-world synergy sent me to Dossier, as an example of how a new company [2018] CAN launch a successful business in New York. After spending hours researching this company, it is way more ethical and sustainable than any of the big-names brands I’ve watch come to market in the last 12 months.

And if I can use my voice for Dossier, using them as an example of not being a hypocrite on the environment, well then that is my role in life. It wouldn’t be the first company I’ve praised lavishly on Anne of Carversville.

A businessperson always, I don’t look at these issues through a simplistic lens. But what I am watching is a total disregard for the environment among mostly young businesswomen hawking their wares in fashion and beauty.

The Dossier website is something to behold. It’s exactly what I hoped to see on the new fashion-industry pet brand that sent me into a super-funk last week.

I knew the name Dossier, but as I scrolled through each page, it was clear that the Bronx brainiac attached to the Green New Deal, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would support this company in a heartbeat. Dossier is as an example of what our young people expect of us as business people in a world with huge challenges.

Anne Therapy

Creatively, I’ve seized an opportunity to get this very upsetting topic out of my system with my little story that ends with the Resistance Revival Chorus at the Gabriela Hearst Spring 2023 show in Brooklyn two weeks ago. The chorus emerged from the 2017 Women’s March the day after Trump’s Inauguration. Dossier got me up off the mat to fight another day, and then I saw the former president of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards walking the Gabriela Hearst show in Brooklyn with all these other bad-ass women wearing sustainable fashion.

The show ends with ‘Oh Joy’ from the Resistance Revival Chorus.

So what’s going on here is Anne therapy and my flexing my own backbone and voice. And just as I found myself on the Washington Post website in September 2021 defending AOC’s appearance in her “tax the rich” dress, at the Met Gala, I’ve dragged her into this discussion. Call it taking some artistic license. I said on WaPo that there was no way that AOC could drive home her Green New Deal without support from the fashion industry.

With three women eager to listen — Gabriela Hearst, Maria Grazia Chiuri, and Stella McCartney — probably attending the event, AOC meeting these women was only a good idea. Seriously, I doubt that the Congresswoman is that easily co-opted — which is what I wrote on WaPo in her defense.

When I remembered AOC’s Met Gala dress and Dossier’s website comment about not being for the 1% but all the rest of us, I knew that ancestral voices were driving my writing car today. Peace out. ~ Anne

Gabriela Hearst Spring 2023 Runway Show in Brooklyn

More about the ethical and sustainable company Dossier, in their own words:

Dossier was founded out of a desire to make premium fragrances accessible to everyone. . . . Dossier decided it became impossible for them to turn a blind eye to the price markups traditionally seen in the fragrance industry .

With Dossier, enjoying clean, ethically sourced, long-lasting, high-end perfume is within the reach of most people. The company eliminates retailer markups, celebrity marketing, and licensing fees to offer luxury scents for 70-90% less than the scents that inspire their creation.

For those who feel overlooked by the industry, who are tired of fragrances being an investment, or who are curious about stepping into a new way of consuming perfumes, Dossier can’t wait to take the journey with you.

To end on a high-note, Dossier understands that perfumes are personal. If you don’t like the scent you ordered, simply ship it back for a full refund. Dossier donates all returns to charity so no bottle of perfume ever goes to waste.