Fashion

“I Don’t Want a Larger Profile”: Halsey on Her Debut Poetry Collection

The singer releases her first book of poetry and speaks with Vogue about the BLM movement, being honest about abuse, and how she’s staying healthy during the pandemic….

In January, after the release of Halsey’s third album Manic, she was slated to hit the road for one of her biggest tours yet. But instead, the pop singer, born Ashley Frangipane, found her plans on pause. Like much of the world, she has spent most of this year at home—and she’s embraced the coziness. In fact, when we speak in the days leading up to the presidential election, Halsey is peak-hygge, flaunting her newly shaved head, wearing a Barbie-esque Biden-Harris sweatshirt, and bundled in a giant, plush blanket. “I look like, I don’t know, a gym teacher or something,” Halsey quips on Zoom from an office in Los Angeles, where she lives.

Yet the multi-hyphenate never gets too comfortable. Halsey has remained quite busy: She has been on the frontlines of the Black Lives Matter protests, landed her first acting gig in the forthcoming Sydney Sweeney-produced series The Players Table, performed alongside Bruce Springsteen for a remote COVID-19 benefit for her home state of New Jersey, and filmed a conversation series with Senator Bernie Sanders. Tomorrow, She releases her debut collection of poems, I Would Leave Me If I Could.

Halsey has never played coy when it comes to the most intimate details of her life, whether that’s talking about sex, miscarriage, or struggles with bipolar disorder, so it’s no surprise that she continues in that vulnerable mode with I Would Leave Me If I Could. In fact, before she signed a record deal, she garnered a massive following on Tumblr for her poems—one breakup poem was even reblogged 820,000 times.

“I’m not treating it like it’s this fucking opus,” says Halsey of her new book. “It’s no different to me than what I used to do on my Tumblr. I used to write poetry and post it on my blog every day.” The book features poems about everything from the stark realities of bipolar disorder to sexual assault.

Below, the singer speaks with Vogue about her New Jersey roots, the director she’s hoping to work with someday, how she’s staying healthy during the pandemic—and shares an exclusive excerpt from her book, the poem “ordinary boys.”

“The poem is about a guy that I knew I wasn’t supposed to be with,” Halsey says, “but I kept trapping myself in the relationship with him. … In moments where I feel powerless, one of the ways that I gain awareness and control over a situation in my life is that I write about it. Once you’ve put someone down on paper, you’ve reduced them to a character, and they no longer have the power that they do in real life.”

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Entertainment

A$AP Rocky Turned An Entire Manchester City Kit Into His Album Rollout

Photo: DannyB Photos / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

A$AP Rocky doesn’t do album rollouts quietly, and this one recruited an entire Premier League club to help. Manchester City, PUMA, and Rocky teamed up on a limited apparel run tied to “Don’t Be Dumb,” his 2026 album, timed around his September 5th show at Co-op Live.

The centerpiece is a long-sleeve PUMA King jersey in black and archive gold, with “DON’T BE DUMB” running down the sleeve and AWGE branding worked in throughout. A bold “MANCHESTER” graphic covers the back. Fans could also add limited “A$AP 11” name-and-number printing onto the club’s actual Home, Away, or Third kits, while supplies lasted at retail.

There’s a players-only version too, and it never went up for sale. That one sticks closer to City’s usual sky-blue identity, with its own sleeve detailing and back graphic — the kind of piece that exists purely because a handful of people got lucky.

The whole rollout kicked off with a one-night pop-up on September 4th, when PUMA turned a spot in Manchester’s Northern Quarter into a pop-up cafe for the night, mixing football, music, and street style into one room before the wider release hit the stadium store the next morning. Some of those jerseys even came with golden tickets to the concert or that Saturday’s match.

Rocky has called the project true to his own design language, and it’s not even his only club collaboration this cycle — a similar drop with AC Milan landed around the same time. At this point, the line between fashion week and matchday has basically disappeared.

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Entertainment

Quavo And Lids Are Going All In On Atlanta With Their New Cap Pack

Photo: Finish Line / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Quavo has never been shy about his hat obsession, and Lids just gave him another outlet for it. Their new “Atlanta” pack drops September 12th, marking another round in a partnership that’s been running strong since 2019.

The collection is a love letter to the city, spread across three very different caps. One mashes up pinstripes, script lettering, and Braves branding into a single design, working navy, red, white, and light blue into the mix. Another goes the opposite direction entirely — fully iced out in crystal detailing, done up in black and red, with both the Falcons and the Braves showing up in the design. The third strips things back to an old-school “ATL” trucker cap in red, white, and gold, the kind of understated piece that lets the city’s name do the talking.

None of this is new territory for Quavo. He’s talked before about waiting on hat releases as a kid, and that same excitement seems to be what’s kept this partnership going years past most celebrity collabs. His earlier Lids run leaned on one moment — the Braves’ 1995 World Series win — but this pack pulls from the city’s whole sports history instead of just one highlight.

Lids has called Quavo one of the rare voices who can blend music, fashion, and sports without it feeling forced, and this drop backs that up. Given how fast his past releases have moved, Atlanta might want to set an alarm for September 12th.

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