chess fashion and the tea habits of world champions

Happy New Year :)

Last Sunday, my husband, baby, and I met my parents and sister at Cipriani Wall Street for the chess world championship. The last time it was in New York was 2016, and I went with my parents then too!

I grew up around chess because my dad has played for his entire life (photo of him playing before my time above) and something I’ve grown to enjoy about the chess world is the drama. There was the 2022 scandal that alleged that Hans Niemann was cheating using vibrating anal beads, and, last week, world champion (and my birthday twin) Magnus Carlson was disqualified from a match for wearing denim, leading him to (temporarily) withdraw from the tournament. My family wore jeans in solidarity.

To be honest, I can’t follow dozens of people playing chess at the same time, so I decided to focus instead on the chess fashion and wondered about the tea habits of world champions. If jeans are disqualifying, what was everyone else wearing?

I couldn’t take photos because we had to lock away our phones after the first five minutes (also a precaution against cheating) but the best outfits I saw were a monochrome beige knit turtleneck and same color pants. I saw another monochrome in the form of Luigi-Mangione-maroon (the not-Margiela sweater that Luigi wore to his first court appearance, matching with his lawyer) but this particular chess player wore a checkered shirt underneath versus white. The obvious highlight was a pilly black Balenciaga sweater w white Balenciaga logo all over it. Based on its condition, it had definitely not been dry cleaned. (Worn by Russian grandmaster Danill Dubov, who apparently has worn this same sweater to every single game for the past several months, hence the pilliness. Separately, somebody needs to get this guy a modeling contract.) There were poorly tailored suits showing lower legs between pant bottoms and socks. I witnessed too-tight sports jackets, and one player in one of those crew neck sweaters that street vendors sell, navy and white with NEW YORK in all caps. Which does make me wonder, why is denim where the line is drawn?

I truly think that luxury fashion needs to get involved in these tournaments and dress the players. I would do tea, replacing the white paper cups with ceramic, and bring in a lighting guy (there was blue prom lighting) But on the other hand, maybe that would ruin the whole thing. The tournament was so FUN. It was kind of like my annual experience at the Sheep and Wool festival actually. As an observer, I love being around people who are so into something (chess, knitting) and to participate without having any true interests at stake. Which incidentally on that note of crossover, I finally picked Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo back up .. just started it over from the beginning, and there’s a scene in it after a chess tournament where Ivan apologizes to Margaret about the lack of women in the room, and she says “We had a knitting group in the other week, they were just as bad.”

Thank you for being here! I’ve been away from the market the past few weeks, so haven’t been sending out the HEALTHY HABITS portion of the newsletter, but picking it back up next week :)

Also, more on the Masha Tea writing retreat in Tuscany in the weeks to come, but if you’re interested, feel free to respond to this email and I’ll get back to you with more info <3