Capsule #111 ft. Runnner

Hello hello,

Happy end of August 🥲

No points for guessing that this week’s issue is about Taylor Swift’s engagement, and why I was surprised at my reaction. Interested to hear how the news found you too!

There’s also lots of fun news you may have missed this week, recs for your weekend, and a great Hot & Not from Runnner, who I’m excited to have in Capsule!

Enjoy your weekends,

Holly x

How did the news of Taylor Swift’s engagement find you this week?

I was genuinely shocked at my reaction: full body chills, goosebumps that appeared at first on my arms and then on my legs. I looked at the bumps on my skin and felt embarrassed. I’m not even a Swiftie, I thought to myself. (Although I was deep in Eras Tour lore last year.) I ultimately had to stop and look at myself and ask: why do you care so much? And are these feelings genuine?

The spectacle of celebrity is a really odd thing. Despite rationalising that these are strangers with unrelatable lives, polished for us to observe in a very specific and calculated way, it is hard to not feel a sense of proximity to them. Not all celebrity news will hit in the same way, but each of us has our people we care more about, and pieces of news that resonate more emotionally. I know a lot of people were gutted when Zoë Kravitz and Channing Tatum broke up. There are many people waiting for Jennifer Aniston to finally settle with The One. And I very much cried at the Kourtney and Travis engagement episode of the Kardashians. But when it comes to the world of Taylor Swift, more of us are invested en masse, whether we realise it or not. That’s partly because she is the biggest pop star in the world, as the continuous record breaking shows us, and partly because her entire catalogue and its surrounding marketing has invited us to speculate about her romantic life.

Marriage has been on Taylor’s mind for a long time. A few lyrics to remind us:

• “He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring / And said, "Marry me, Juliet / You'll never have to be alone” (‘Love Story,’ Fearless, 2008)

• “Ooh, ooh we could get married / Have ten kids and teach ’em how to dream” (‘Starlight,’ Red, 2010)

• “I like shiny things, but I’d marry you with paper rings” (‘Paper Rings,’ Lover, 2019)

• “‘She would’ve made such a lovely bride / What a shame she’s fucked in the head,’ they said” (‘Champagne Problems,’ Evermore, 2020)

• “All they keep asking me is if I’m going to be your bride” (‘Lavender Haze,’ Midnights, 2022)

• “At dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger / And put it on the one people put wedding rings on / And that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding” (‘The Tortured Poets Department,’ The Tortured Poets Department, 2024)

You don’t have to know all the Taylor Swift b-sides to know that her music career has charted her search for The One. Before now, you could plausibly accept that some of her lyrics draw directly from her own experiences (lest we forget the saga of Jake Gyllenhaal and the red scarf from ‘All Too Well’), while others are embellished for effect, or made up completely to create a story (like folklore, which features songs written from the perspectives of fictional characters). After all, love provides an endless well for creative inspiration, the most timeless and universal of all topics, drawn upon by artists for literal centuries.

But a real life engagement breaks the fourth wall. It reminds us that Taylor is a real woman living a real life, in love with a real man. Unlike all of the pre-planned Easter eggs, the songs written three years in advance, and the meticulous album rollouts, the engagement (while obviously orchestrated on Travis’s part, with fans already spotting that the proposal scene is much like the setting of one of her Lover promo shoots) is a genuine moment. It is a rare glimpse at Taylor’s actual life, which feels novel, even though we see so much of her.

The closest thing we get to real life authenticity from a star this big are the live shows. Although TikTok concert culture has done much to ruin surprises or the illusion of exclusivity on tours (you see stars deliver the same opening gambits and jokes night after night), there are moments on stage where we get to experience real, spontaneous emotion. Like when an artist gets choked up singing a song they’ve performed a thousand times, or when particular instances of audience participation or a banner triggers some fresh, unscripted conversation. But beyond these snippets, we understand that what we get from a celebrity is the finished product: the shiny veneer, save for a few vulnerable Instagram stories or captions, destined to be deleted.

This distance is why births, deaths, and marriages are still the most significant aspects of a celebrity’s life to us. These are the events to which we can most relate, bridging the gap between us and them, confirming to us that we are all just people with similar traditions. It is not surprising to hear that influencers receive the most uplift in engagement around these key life moments, and indeed why some people have pointed out the interesting timing of the launch of Travis Kelce’s collection with American Eagle (one day after engagement announcement). We’re all sat for the big moments!

Marriage is profound for a lot of reasons. It provides a moment for people to come together, pulling old friends back into the mix and accelerating bonds with new ones, and it’s an opportunity for a couple to step out of daily life for a moment to do something significant. At my brother’s wedding last weekend, I felt like I was levitating all day, truly experiencing a natural bodily high.

Marriage is also one of few very concrete, very public ways we have to confirm that feelings are real. It’s a physical manifestation of emotions that are usually trapped inside our brains or scribbled in messages, or, in Taylor’s case, songs. And when a celebrity embarks on it, we feel like we know that at least one thing about their public image is real and true. The veneer dissolves.

Over the next few months, the Taylor-Travis engagement will transform from a brief moment of authenticity into a big content moment. Editorials predicting the dress and essays deep diving into the gown once we see it. Speculation around the maid of honour, bridesmaids, and speeches. What does Taylor Swift say at her own wedding? Lots of analysis on engagement ring trends and explainers on lab grown diamonds, plus glossaries deciphering the difference between an elongated cushion and an emerald cut. In other words, the run up to the wedding will feel again very celebrity, a mini universe in which there are multiple streams to boost engagement and generate revenue. But for a second, it’s been nice to use this proposal to examine our relationship to the mega-famous, and ponder why traditions still mean so much to us. The older I get, I’m often surprised at the depth of feeling these rituals manage to create over and over again. I think it’s a pretty magical part of being human, famous or not.

And finally…

News from the Capsule universe this week:

• Of course the Taylor/Travis engagement post going to broke the IG record

• Rachel Sennott is coming

• Such a great appointment

• Another Zoë Kravitz slay

• And thats not even mentioning the Harry Styles news

• And also: expect to see more baseball tees

• Miley managed to get Fleetwood Mac to collab

• And another first: Miley is also the first ever face of Margiela. Go Miley!!

• Controversially enjoying the name of the next Lana album

• And if you’d like to hear more about LDR’s married life, here is the place

• What if we kissed at the Addison Rae VIP sound bath experience

• Love the Charli covers for Pop magazine

• Queen Cate Blanchett rewore another dress

• The next khy collab is with Grace Ling, whose SS25 collection we loved last NYFW

• Rihanna is releasing not an album but some 20-year anniversary merch

• And not us all being fooled by Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson’s PR relationship… 😩

This week, Noah Weinman aka Runnner popped into Capsule to share what’s 🔥hot🔥 and what’s not 🙅‍♀️ …

Runnner is an indie rock musician based in LA. His new album A Welcome Kind of Weakness comes out August 29th on Run For Cover Records. He'll also be going on tour and the show is going to be great, promise!

📺 Watching: The Roses in the cinema, Wolf Alice covering Olivia Dean, this Audrey Hobert interview, and fans of Miley’s old backyard sessions are going to love the Hayley Williams equivalents (‘Kill Me’ (In the Garden) and ‘Glum’ (In the Park)).

📖 Reading: Kyle Chayka’s essay on the aesthetics of internet brain rot, the teaser answers for the new Jemima Kirke advice column for Elle, and this great piece on alcohol from Moya Lothian-McLean for her newsletter.

🎧 Listening to: The Passionate Ones, the wonderful new Nourished By Time album, Essex Honey, the new Blood Orange album, Man’s Best Friend, the new Sabrina Carpenter album, and of course A Welcome Kind of Weakness, the new Runnner album. Lots of new material!

Last week we shared the increased searches for office decor and customising your desk. On a similar theme, this week Eddie is here to share that Google searches for “work outfits” reached an all-time high this year, and people searching it this year are also searching for “rachel green outfits.” “Corporate outfits” also reached an all-time high this year and “corporate girl outfits” has more than tripled in search interest, with “preppy work outfits” and “boho chic work outfits” as the top trending “work outfits” aesthetics this year. I can feel a workwear edition coming on…

If you’d like to adopt Eddie or one of his friends, click here to learn more.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear how you’re finding Capsule - let me know here. And if you have a friend who might like it, do refer them! 🥺

See you next week 💋

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