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The internet loves this L.A. Chinese herb shop. Can its ancient prescriptions really improve your health?

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The internet loves this L.A. Chinese herb shop. Can its ancient prescriptions really improve your health?

Based on the number of local L.A. content creators that have visited Tian Xiang — a small, nondescript herbal medicine shop in Los Angeles’ Chinatown — you might think it’s the single best Chinese pharmacy in Los Angeles. Its TikTok star, in particular, is rising. You can find more than two dozen videos on the platform of customers touring the business and documenting their alternative healthcare journeys.

One TikTok user, who goes by mooneyegoddess, traveled 2½ hours by train to L.A.’s Union Station in May, then walked several blocks to Chinatown to see the herbal doctor at Tian Xiang. Why?

“After being frustrated with modern doctors not listening to me when I go in, I decided to go to what my spirit connected best with, an herbal doctor,” the caption for her video read.

“And I’m telling you guys, I feel amazing!” she raved in the video.

Another customer gushed over the customization of the herbal prescriptions.

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“Oh, you can’t find this in the store, uh-uh, not this, baby!” the user actressamira voiced over a TikTok video of raw herbs being sorted.

Huang at his desk inside the clinic.

Huang at his desk inside the clinic.

From top, left: Dry herbs, roots, and spices inside Tian Xiang.
From top, left: Dry herbs, roots, and spices inside Tian Xiang.

From top, left: Dry herbs, roots, and spices inside Tian Xiang.

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The appeal is clear. Tian Xiang’s shelves are packed with dried herbs, roots and flowers that make a prism of colors and textures. A wall of wooden drawers stores loose herbs; bulk bins contain varieties of ginseng, goji berries and medicinal spices such as cinnamon and dried turmeric; a display behind the checkout counter showcases bottles of pre-made herbal supplements for nearly every imaginable condition: digestive issues, allergies, immune support, menopause, liver, heart and lung function among them.

What sets the store apart from other retail outlets, though, is the tiny clinic, jammed in a back corner beside a stack of unpacked boxes, barely larger than a walk-in closet. There, a man who goes by Dr. Huang — wearing a plastic surgical glove and medical mask — sits at a small desk behind a protective divider. (He did not go to medical school but has practiced traditional Chinese medicine, he says, for more than 50 years.)

There’s no weeks-long wait to see him, as is so often the case with, say, the U.S. healthcare system. Customers simply drop by, sans appointment, and pay $15 for a few minutes for Huang to assess their condition and prescribe them a customized, herbal remedy. It runs, on average, about $80-$95 for 10 days of daily use. The pharmacy will mix the herbs right there and send customers home with directions for how to prepare the loose tea.

There are more than 50 Chinese herbal apothecaries in the Los Angeles area, according to Willie So, sales director of Chinatown-based Solstice Medicine, a leading distributor of traditional Chinese medicine products since 1979. (He said Solstice Medicine has been providing inventory to Tian Xiang since the store opened.) And while Tian Xiang is a well-stocked and conveniently located one, its social media success is a mystery — even to the people who work there.

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David He, the store’s manager, says Tian Xiang began seeing an uptick in business in 2020, at the start of the COVID pandemic, that has become amplified on social media over the last two years.

Portrait of David He.

Store Manager, David He.

A container of dried fruit at Tian Xiang.

A container of dried fruit at Tian Xiang.

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“Many Asian people from China and Cambodia and Vietnam came to get medicine for COVID because they believe more in traditional herbs to boost the immune system,” he said through a translator. “And at that time there was no vaccine. The customers felt good, and they posted about it, and then more people started coming. So it’s word of mouth.”

The type of wellness that Tian Xiang was peddling at the time was ripe for TikTok, says Freddy Tran Nager, a digital media professor at USC.

“A lot of alternative wellness trends do exceptionally well on social media, especially since the pandemic, as people look for new ways to be healthy,” he says. “And Asian culture, in particular, has been gaining more popularity online, whether that’s boba drinks or K-pop music — and Asian wellness goes along with it.”

That Tian Xiang is situated on Broadway, a main thoroughfare in Chinatown, didn’t hurt, he adds.

I was intrigued and decided to check out Tian Xiang for myself. I’m currently nursing a gym injury and open to anything that might help ease the pain in my neck and shoulder.

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Tian Xiang's location on Broadway, a main thoroughfare in Chinatown, provides it visibility to the curious wellness seeker.

Tian Xiang’s location on Broadway, a main thoroughfare in Chinatown, provides it visibility to the curious wellness seeker.

Tian Xiang has been in the neighborhood for more than 40 years, though it has changed ownership multiple times. It’s a lively place, with a steady stream of customers — “mostly older, mostly repeat visitors and mostly Asian and Hispanic,” He says. They come regularly to treat everything from colds and the flu to infertility and back pain. The late-August afternoon I visited, I saw customers perusing the aisles and consulting with He, who frequently steps out from behind the counter, rubbing his belly or tapping his chest to demonstrate how the herbs might aid their ailments.

Nearby, two employees prepared a prescription for a customer, moving with assembly line-like efficiency in a precise but fluid dance: one ground herbs with a mortar and pestle while the other measured slabs of marbled ginseng on a traditional handheld gram scale. They alternately layered scoops of one ingredient or a sprinkle of another onto pieces of pink paper laid out on the counter top. Side by side, the piles of mixed herbs were like still-life paintings, each sparking with texture. Finally, a third employee packaged the herbs, sealing them in plastic bags.

“The doctor’s ready for you,” He told me, interrupting the mesmerizing show.

Our consultation was quick and to-the-point. Huang had me fill out my name and age on a small sheet of paper. Then he took my pulse. As he cradled my wrist, his forehead wrinkled in concentration. Then he tapped the keyboard on his phone for several minutes, writing into the Google Translate app, before pushing the phone toward me: “Poor blood circulation, weak spleen and stomach, disordered hormones, and a bit,” read the screen.

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Portrait of Huang inside the clinic.

Huang inside the clinic.

Huang takes reporter Deborah Vankin's pulse.

Huang takes reporter Deborah Vankin’s pulse.

Huang hands over his prescription for Deborah Vankin.

Huang hands over his prescription.

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Dry herbs, roots, and spices for Deborah Vankin's customized medicinal tea.

Dry herbs, roots, and spices for Deborah Vankin’s customized medicinal tea.

How did he know all this without examining me? He didn’t even look at my tongue, which is typical of a traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, “tongue and pulse consultation,” I learned from a doctor at UCLA’s Center for East-West Medicine, while researching this piece.

“Experience,” he says through a translator. Huang has been working at Tian Xiang for more than 20 years. Before that, he practiced traditional Chinese medicine for 30 years in the city of Taishan in the Guangdong province of China. He’s a third-generation TCM doctor.

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My neck stiffness, he says, is from poor blood circulation — he can tell that by listening to the rhythm and patterns of my pulse on each wrist, not just the number of beats per minute.

Herbal remedies in traditional Chinese medicine have been around for thousands of years, though their efficacy is debatable. Some, such as Dr. KaKit Hui, director of UCLA’s Center for East-West Medicine, say the right combination of herbs for the appropriate ailment can “save lives,” though he stresses the importance of practitioners being properly educated.

“Many conditions — coughing and upper respiratory infections or GI problems — can be helped,” Hui says. “They use herbs for lupus and cancer in China. But you don’t want to use herbs to replace necessary medications or [receive treatment] from someone who doesn’t know what can be mixed with what — herbs can interact with medications — you need someone who knows how to monitor it.”

Others, such as Dr. Craig Hopp of the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, which researches medical approaches outside the Western mainstream, note that Chinese herbs, like supplements, are not FDA regulated and there can be concerns about the purity of the plants and their provenance.

“It can sometimes get a little murky as to where [the herbs] come from,” Hopp says. “Lots of plants look alike and are called similar things, so the taxonomy and the nomenclature can be confusing. Unless you have a very well-trained botanist who knows what they’re looking for, you could be getting something else by the time it gets to an apothecary.”

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My prescription — which came in three large plastic bags for six days worth of tea — was $63. It included 16 ingredients, Indian mulberry, golden eye-grass, the deciduous perennial Asian lizard’s tail and the carrot-like plant Szechuan Lovage among them.

The interior of Tian Xiang, a Chinese herbal remedy shop.

The interior of Tian Xiang, a Chinese herbal remedy shop.

He wouldn’t say where, exactly, the herbs come from, just that the store gets them from distributors in Monterey Park and Alhambra, who source them mostly from China, with some coming from Korea, Vietnam and Japan. He did say the herbs are “high quality.”

“My father, he’s 80 and he just had gallbladder surgery and the herbs seem to help,” one customer, Dericia Witalina, said while awaiting herbs her dad was prescribed. Her family lives in the San Fernando Valley and despite the drive, “if we need something, we come here,” she said.

Most, however, visit because it makes them feel healthier, He says.

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“Many customers come here not to kill this germ or kill this virus, but it’s more about boosting the general body function.”

No matter how much better TikTok users claim to sleep or feel after drinking their prescribed herbal tea, the consensus on its taste seems to be less enthusiastic. One patron, who goes by 123aram5 on TikTok, summed up their review in two words: “Uh-uh — nope!” Others complained about the woodsy, pungent flavor.

I proceeded with caution, simmering the herbs for about an hour, per the store’s instructions, until they were mushy and the tea was a deep, murky brown. My home smelled like a forest after the rain, which was actually kind of pleasant and soothing.

The taste, however, was rank, nearly impossible to get down. I made a note to next time use a dollop of the honey and yuzu mixture, sold at the store. If there would be a next time.

That night I slept especially deeply. Was it the herbs? A placebo effect? The hot yoga I’d done earlier? Who’s to say. But I’ll take whatever I can get.

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Grace Xue contributed reporting for this article, including translating interviews.

Lifestyle

Make Way for the Investment Bank Influencers

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Make Way for the Investment Bank Influencers

It’s 5:30 a.m. Allison Sheehan switches on the light in the bathroom of her New York City apartment and stretches in front of the mirror. “Welcome back to another morning in the life of an ‘investment baker,’ which means someone who works at an investment bank but also makes cakes,” she says at the beginning of the video, which she uploaded to TikTok in early 2025.

Tying an apron over her pajamas, Ms. Sheehan, now 26, proceeds to pipe lilac buttercream ruffles on a heart-shaped funfetti cake she had baked the night before.

At 6:50, she heads to the gym, filming herself doing crunches before heading home to shower, put on makeup and pick out an outfit. By 8:20, Ms. Sheehan heads to her wealth management job, at Goldman Sachs (she didn’t reveal the name of the bank in her videos while employed there).

In 2023, Ms. Sheehan, who has since made cakes for brands including Goop and LoveShackFancy as well as the model Gigi Hadid, was posting on social media as “The Investment Baker,” a persona she created for her custom-cake business, Alleycat.

On her Investment Baker Instagram and TikTok pages, Ms. Sheehan posted familiar influencer content like “What I eat in a week” and day-in-the-life videos, along with breakdowns of her corporate wardrobe. At the time, her DMs were inundated both with cake orders and with young women seeking advice on how to break into finance.

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The finance industry remains one of the most sought-after sectors for college graduates. In 2025, Goldman Sachs saw 360,000 students competing for just 2,600 internships — up 15 percent from the previous year. It has also historically insisted that employees maintain a low profile on the internet. Ms. Sheehan was careful never to disclose the bank at which she worked in her videos, and she never filmed herself in the office, per her employer’s rules. In fact, she never discussed finance much at all. Still, the tension between the “two worlds of baking and being a financier was the whole allure,” Ms. Sheehan said.

Yet Ms. Sheehan was informed that her baking content was seen as a “reputational risk” for the firm. She was instructed to delete every post on her TikTok and Instagram and to change her handle so that it made no reference to the word “investment.” When Ms. Sheehan drew comparisons to the firm’s chief executive, David Solomon, who moonlights as a D.J., she was told she could not compare herself to him. She pushed back, saying that the firm’s policy should apply to everyone. “It doesn’t work like that,” she said she was told.

Like Ms. Sheehan, Sahilee Waitman, 28, used the fact of her employment at an investment bank as a hook for her TikTok videos. Ms. Waitman moved to New York City from Amsterdam to work in compliance at an investment bank in 2023. She soon started posting day-in-the-life content, detailing everything from her workouts to what she ate for lunch, with the goal of building financial autonomy outside her corporate role. Both women were clear that while they worked at investment banks, they were not investment bankers, often a point of contention or confusion in the comments section.

The New York Times reached out to many of the investment bank employees on TikTok, but they declined to comment for this article, fearing the risk to their reputation. The New York Times also reached out to 14 different banks, among them Goldman Sachs, but none responded to requests for comment regarding the matter of social media use among employees.

Despite these fears, investment banking content is going viral across social media. Nearly 60,400 videos tagged #investmentbanking have appeared on TikTok in recent years. Time-stamped 100-hour work weeks and late-night keyboard A.S.M.R. regularly draw hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok. Part of the appeal is that influencers offer a more realistic depiction of the world of work than can be gleaned from shows like “Industry” on HBO or from actual recruitment events.

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Ms. Sheehan was determined to show that even bankers could have a life outside work. In October 2024, a year after posting her first video, a meeting with her manager appeared unexpectedly on Ms. Sheehan’s calendar. At first, she thought it might be good news. But the excitement was short-lived when she was greeted by three compliance officers. “We see you have an online persona called ‘The Investment Baker,’” she recalled them saying.

At present, there is no widely agreed-upon policy regarding employees’ personal social media use. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the largest independent regulator for brokerage firms in the United States, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, a government agency that regulates the entire U.S. securities industry, have rules and guidance dictating that employees cannot share any information that is deemed confidential or in any way sensitive. But how firms apply their own internal policy is at their discretion.

Hannah Awonuga, the former head of colleague engagement at Barclays U.K. and a cultural transformation and inclusion consultant, sees both parties as at risk. Employees might find themselves on the wrong side of human resources. For employers, “once you allow staff to post freely,” she said, “you run the risk that they might express an opinion on a Saturday that goes against your values.”

For decades, “workism” — the belief that work is central to one’s identity — has infiltrated the American ethos, particularly for many city dwellers, whose hobbies and leisure activities can fall by the wayside. Increasingly, younger workers are pushing back, demanding a healthier work-life balance and actively working to decouple their identity from their careers.

The world of high finance is one of the last sectors to catch up. “Once you work in these industries,” Ms. Waitman said, “you’re essentially taught to choose one lane.” You are either a “serious professional,” she said, or a “creative.” “I just don’t believe those things are mutually exclusive,” she added.

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Ms. Waitman, who is Black, hoped that by posting on TikTok, she would be promoting diversity in the industry. She received the occasional negative comment, insisting she must be a “secretary,” but a majority of her messages were positive, she said, and came from other women seeking her advice about pursuing careers in finance.

At the time, Ms. Waitman did not receive pushback from her employer on her videos, though she made sure to declare any outside business activity to compliance and her director. “I think firms are just now catching on to this,” Ms. Waitman said. “Once they find out, you have compliance on your neck.”

A recent glossy fashion spread in Interview Magazine entitled “Meet the Finest Boys in Finance” highlighted what can happen when young finance professionals attract the wrong kind of publicity. The designer-heavy photo shoot was mocked and meme-ified online for violating Wall Street’s sacrosanct rule against flashiness.

Across social media, some women were quick to point out the double standard at play. “But women get fired from Goldman for being influencers …” read one comment left on a TikTok video about the spread.

In fact, many of the people posting influencer-like content are young women, which is at odds with the traditionally male-dominated world of high finance.

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A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs told Bloomberg that the interviews in Interview Magazine were not approved by the firm.

After the compliance meeting, Ms. Sheehan did as she was instructed and archived all her social media posts. Three months later, though, she put them back up. “I didn’t see my posts as a violation of the bylaws,” she said. Immediately, another meeting with compliance landed on her calendar. This time, her cake business was taking off, and Ms. Sheehan decided to hand in her resignation. (Goldman Sachs did not respond to requests for comment.)

As banks are forced to iron out their policies in an ever more online world, workers sharing the minutiae of their days is likely to become an increasing headache for compliance. “If you have five followers, there’s no need to make anyone aware,” Ms. Awonuga said. But, she added, “as more Gen Z’s come into the workplace and grow in their roles, I just don’t know how feasible it becomes to say you’re not allowed a social media presence.”

Ms. Sheehan, meanwhile, has no regrets. “I cannot believe,” she said, “that they were concerned about me making pink cakes when people are insider trading.”

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She’s the so-called Womb Witch of L.A. Here’s why her clients keep returning

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She’s the so-called Womb Witch of L.A. Here’s why her clients keep returning

Leigh McDaniel always knew she was destined to become a witch. Growing up in Hawaii, she came from a long line of “kitchen witches,” she explains — women who intuited measurements, spices and when a cake was done from the next room. “There was always a part of me that was like: Yeah, I’m a witch,” says McDaniel from her California sun-soaked studio.

Today, McDaniel — who calls herself a “womb witch”— practices a different kind of magic: pelvic care bodywork. Based in a bright studio in Glendale, McDaniel serves clients of all genders. Before each session, McDaniel invites clients to share their personal histories, and then McDaniel performs bodywork through touch as sage smoke curls in the air.

“A person who left today had their first session and was like, ‘I’m so much lighter in my body,’” McDaniel says.

McDaniel’s work is rooted in holistic pelvic health and touch therapy, which she discovered after giving birth to her second child at age 46. Before her daughter was born, McDaniel says she met her in a dream. The child introduced herself as “Luna.” The name stuck. After her birth, McDaniel theorized that her daughter had “reorganized her pelvic bowl.” When she sought out answers from her midwife and OB-GYN, they were dismissive; the experience prompted her to explore alternative care.

“It sent me down a few rabbit holes,” McDaniel says. “Previously, I had studied naturopathy with the intention of going to a naturopathic school — herbalism, Reiki and light touch therapy.”

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Leigh McDaniel says that after one session her clients often feel an immediate shift in their bodies.

(Dania Maxwell / For The Times)

While body wisdom and alternative healing are framed as part of the Goop-conscious modern wellness movement, McDaniel explains that these practices are not new. She cites Ubuntu, a South African philosophy that informs her healing approach. “Indigenous practices knew how to hold people in trauma,” she says. “We’re only just beginning to figure it out.”

After an explanation of the nervous system, consent and the pelvic floor, her sessions begin with McDaniel burning sage or mugwort while the client is on the table. She asks for consent before touching the client and offers a prayer or blessing. McDaniel explains she’s feeling for energy before moving on to the abdomen, where she applies various levels of pressure. She compares it to a guided meditation as she incorporates breathwork while asking clients to breathe into her fingers. She emphasizes that the client controls the pace and asks for consent at each step.

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“I think consent and boundaries are so critical to taking care of your body,” she says.

The intimate nature of McDaniel’s practice has garnered attention — and occasional skepticism. Comedian Ali Macofsky, for example, says with a smile, “I go in person to this womb witch,” on “The Endless Honeymoon” podcast. The hosts are baffled and intrigued. Macofsky adds, “It feels very old school the way women have to go through things.”

Macofsky discovered Leigh through actor and comedian Syd Steinberg who highly recommended her work. “I went to help with some CPTSD [complex post-traumatic stress disorder] and TMJ [temporomandibular joint] pain and she helped,” says Steinberg. “She really is a miracle worker.”

Macofsky was intrigued by the whimsical title of “Womb Witch.” “I was like, I’ll make an appointment and see what happens.” After a phone call, McDaniel explained that she helped clients with physical intimacy and sexual trauma through bodywork. The comedian was hooked.

Macofsky notes that in a culture where female pleasure is not prioritized, it’s hard to know where to seek advice. After a session with Leigh where she discussed advocating for oneself sexually, Macofsky began to see the results take hold in surprising ways. “It’s helping me in other areas where normally I’d be uncomfortable to advocate for myself or speak up about what I want.”

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Clients seek out the womb witch for a variety of reasons. Some report physical discomfort during sexual encounters, while others come after experiencing sexual assault, abuse or consent violation. At other times, clients may experience stiffness or pain that McDaniel believes may be a reaction to trauma.

Her session also focuses on sexual health. McDaniel gives her clients a tutorial on pleasure anatomy and consent, most recently teaching sexual health lessons to a gathering in Silver Lake. “I like to show a lot about the pleasure anatomy, the mobility of the uterus, and where the cervix is at different times of the month,” she explains.

McDaniel argues that pleasure is an important part of daily life. “Female pleasure is finally being noticed,” she says. “Pleasure is a birthright. There’s pleasure and there’s grief. To be full-spectrum humans, we need to be feeling pleasure.” McDaniel cites that recent studies claim the clitoris has 10,000 nerve endings.

Leigh McDaniel holds a bowl of coconut and castor oil that she often uses with clients.

Leigh McDaniel holds a bowl of coconut and castor oil that she often uses with clients.

(Dania Maxwell / For The Times)

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McDaniel says that everyday stress — including sexual harassment and misogyny — manifests in the body, often leading to chronic pain. “In patriarchy, the comments land in your body, and you find yourself bracing every time you pass them,” she says. “They can seem so small and harmless, but even those little things add up. They’re felt. It’s part of feeling unsafe in the world.”

Though many people struggle to navigate the American healthcare system, more Americans are turning to a spiritual wellness approach. The National Institutes of Health reports that holistic care methods such as meditation, acupuncture and yoga have grown significantly in recent years. Ancient Chinese medicine techniques have gone viral on TikTok, capturing the attention of Gen Z. “People are more willing to look outside the Western medicine model,” McDaniel explains. “I have people that come here to see me because of medical trauma too.”

Dr. Tanaz R. Ferzandi, director of urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery at Keck Medicine of USC, believes that holistic medicine can be a potent adjunct to more traditional remedies. She has recommended acupuncture to her patients who have experienced sexual trauma. “The whole idea of acupuncture is you’re lying there, and coming to peace with yourself and your body,” she explains. “It’s a forced therapy where you can be alone with yourself and shut out the rest of the world.”

Simultaneously, Ferzandi believes a healthy amount of skepticism is good. “We have to stay scientific — what’s the evidence behind it? As long as women understand that we don’t know if there’s data to support some of the things they’re doing,” she says. “I’m very cautious about touting certain things that are somehow going to be a panacea.”

McDaniel’s explains its rare she encounters skeptics at her practice. “I never try to convince anyone to come in for a session,” she says. “There are scientific studies on the efficacy of different types of work that are adjacent to, or similar to what I do, but nothing exact.”

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She acknowledges elements of her work are difficult to quantify. “There is also a mysterious space between bodies, the client and myself, where something happens that I cannot really explain, but it feels magical,” she says. “I don’t think any of this would convince anyone who is inherently skeptical though.”

McDaniel views her daughter Luna’s birth as the inciting incident into her true calling — becoming the “Womb Witch.” “Everything that happened to my own body after her birth, it was a calling to do this,” she says. “I’ve done so many things, and this is the first time I really feel settled in what I do.”

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N.F.L. Style Will Never Beat N.B.A. Style

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N.F.L. Style Will Never Beat N.B.A. Style

You want to see some real fashion ingenuity? Watch the N.F.L. draft.

I’m not saying it’s all good, but where else are you going to see someone in a double-breasted suit made by a company better known for making yoga pants? Or an Abercrombie & Fitch suit jacket so short that it exposes the belt loops on the pants beneath?

On the whole, the style on display at the N.F.L. draft last night was very overeager senior formal: a lot of suits in colors beyond basic blue. The quarterback Ty Simpson wore a custom suit by the athleisure label Alo, which, I have to say, looked better than I would have envisioned had you said the words “Alo Yoga suit” to me.

I thought it might have been from Suitsupply, but the conspicuous “Alo” pin on his right lapel put that idea to rest. Simpson, smartly, unfastened that beacon before appearing onstage as the 13th pick to the Los Angeles Rams. He had, perhaps, satisfied his contractual obligations by that point.

Earlier in the evening, as the wide receiver Carnell Tate threw up his arms in exaltation after being picked fourth by the Tennessee Titans, his cropped Abercrombie & Fitch jacket revealed a swatch of rib cage. He looked like a mâitre d’ who had just hit the Mega Millions.

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During the N.B.A.’s extended fashion awakening, its draft has become a sandbox for luxury brands to cozy up to would-be endorsers. The Frenchman Victor Wembanyama broke a kind of cashmere ceiling when he wore Louis Vuitton to go first overall in the 2023 N.B.A. draft.

The N.F.L. draft has none of that. The brands you see are often not brands at all, but custom tailors that reach the league’s neophytes through a whisper network among players. The draft is also a platform to raise the curtain on longer-term brand deals that better suit these rookies. We may, for instance, never see Simpson in a suit again. Nearly every photo from his time at Alabama shows him in a T-shirt or hoodie. It makes sense for him to sign with Alo.

Football is the most mainstream of American cultural entities. And it’s one that still hasn’t, in spite of the league’s best efforts, taken off overseas. Few players, save some quarterbacks and a tight end who happens to be engaged to a pop star, feel bigger than the game itself. If you’re a new-to-the-league linebacker, you’ll most likely never harness the star power to grab the attention of Armani, but you might have just the right pull for Abercrombie.

The N.F.L. draft is therefore one of the few red carpets where the brands worn by the athletes may also be worn by those watching at home. How many people watching the Oscars will ever own clothes from Louis Vuitton or Chanel? People may comment online about Lady Gaga wearing Matières Fécales to the Grammys, but how many of those fans and viewers could afford to buy clothes from it?



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Yesterday, I published a deep dive into how a newish crop of Japanese designers are soaking up all the attention in men’s fashion right now. This was a piece I was writing in my head long before I sat down and finally started typing. I remember sitting at a fashion show in Paris over a year ago — I believe it was Dior — and being asked by my seatmate if I’d made it over to a showroom in the Marais to check out A.Presse. That Tokyo-based brand is now part of a vanguard of Japanese labels that, on many days, seems to be all anyone in fashion wants to talk about. I spent months talking with designers, store owners and big-time shoppers to make sense of why these brands have kicked up so much buzz and, more than that, what makes their clothes so great. You can read the story here.


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