Capsule #115 ft. Hannah Beer

Hello!

I’m excited to share today’s newsletter with you because it felt so different to write than my recent rhythm. That’s because I’ve just returned from a few days in the Scottish Highlands and you best believe it brought all those unplugged revelations you’d hope for.

Enjoy your weekends!

Holly x

For the first time since starting Capsule, I spent fashion week outside of London. Not only was I away from the city, I was just about as far as you can get. I flew to Inverness, the most northern city in the UK, and then drove into the Highlands for a long weekend to celebrate my friend’s 30th.

In the airport downtime, my Wikipedia boyfriend shared a bunch of facts with me about Inverness. Then he graduated onto his next travel ritual: using Google Gemini to compare our home city to our destination. Gemini confirmed that London and Inverness couldn’t really be more different if they tried. Where London is densely populated, the Highlands are extremely sparse. Gatwick has 40x more passengers moving through it than the tiny airport of Inverness, which is more akin to a small train station in size. And where London has culture, media, and endless entertainment, Inverness has next to nothing in comparison.

Of course the greatest offering of the Highlands and the reason most people flock there is the nature. Tightly packed forests with mossy floors, mimicking carpet. Crystal lochs, sometimes calm and reflective, sometimes dark and choppy, depending on the wind that day. And of course the mountains, or Munros, their vast outlines creating a sense of freedom, expansiveness, of being far away. This landscape is navigable by a few undulating country lanes, used by no more than five cars an hour and punctuated with very polite “passing places”. On one run, two cars passed by me in quick succession and I thought it was busy.

Our days were made up of activities and preparing large group meals. We went for a hike and drank manganese-infused water from a high-up stream. We did Tarot readings in front of a log fire, revelling over and over again at the repeated appearances of the High Priestess card. We heated up in a sauna, chatting akin to the smoking area of a club, before sprinting to the loch for a dip. We swore we couldn’t do it again after the first piercing dip, but then proceeded for more once the dopamine hit.

The offline nature of this lineup is by design: our house had zero signal, tapping into any mobile networks required a 30-minute drive, and we were left with a finite supply of internet via a Starlink that we’d been warned not to overuse. No videos, no streaming, no calls. Enough for simple web browsing, but not to make being online the focus of your time.

Between placing pieces in a jigsaw puzzle and making industrial amounts of lasagne, I looked online at London Fashion Week content. I saved photos and made some notes in my phone, attempting to make writing this week’s Capsule easier. But it all felt strange and distant. I struggled to connect with the images on my screen: models looked serious and unhappy, outfits looked familiar or too strange to wear, and exclusive event photos reminded me of one LFW party I attended once where nobody talked to anyone outside of their existing group.

The truth is, spending a few days in a beautiful, remote part of the world with a big group of friends was nourishing me in ways I hadn’t realised I needed. I often rely on culture to fill my cup. As a reader of Capsule, you’ll know I get excited by trends and long-form interviews and album rollouts. But with physical distance from a cultural hub, limited screen time by necessity, and a turn towards simple, analogue activities, I felt myself decompressing. I could not comprehend feeling bored or needing more stimulation, I felt entirely full.

A couple of things stood out from fashion week, despite the disconnect. Those were:

1. The Chilly’s water bottles at Chopova Lowena

The Chopova Lowena show is one of the more fun and playful at LFW, and stays true to its folky house codes. This season they collaborated with Chilly’s to make reusable water bottles, which, when you’re in Scotland wondering how to dress for a hike and feel like yourself at the same time, suddenly become very appealing.

True utility pieces will always be cool. As Pavel from Chilly’s (a former Capsule Hot & Not guest!) said:

2. The never ending summer at Susan Fang

The best kind of spring/summer shows are the ones that pull you out of the current season and climate and remind you of the joys of warmer weather. Looking at the Susan Fang collection quashed any of the recent urge to live in coats and cardigans and instead made me yearn for golden hour cocktails on a sunny island. The colour combinations were modern and understated, the 3D printed flowers (which Fang creates with her husband 🥲) bring warmth and delicacy to the idea of using technology in fashion, and the sheer skirts proved once again that something we diagnosed as a 2025 microtrend is here to stay. Sheer skirts were also at Conner Ives and Simone Rocha, which was reassuring for the trend cycle.

3. Burberry leaning into music and festivals

After a big summer of music (Glastonbury, the Oasis reunion, the never ending Dua Lipa tour), Burberry’s Daniel Lee leant into the style of musicians. Burberry is the biggest and most exclusive brand we have at LFW, but it’s cool to see them inspired by the same stuff as us.

And now back to the Highlands. What was gained during those four days in Scotland far outweighs what was lost. I write this newsletter from London each week, and so much of the content is a bi-product of my life here. But it’s reassuring to know that there is life and inspiration beyond this city, if not at least because not all of you live here. I know some readers live in other cities - New York, Manchester, Chicago, Bristol - and others in smaller towns and villages, either with parents to save money or as you opt for a slower pace of life.

Capsule was never meant to be about chasing everything and doing it all, it was designed to be a small slice of the stuff you enjoy - like a time capsule - that you can dip into each week instead of the overwhelming experience of the algorithm. Fashion and pop culture sometimes feel like a never ending treadmill, where stepping off the conveyor is daunting because it takes so long to catch up.

Spending a few days in a faraway place shifted my mindset completely, and reinforced that original mission more intensely than I’ve felt for a long time. Consider this a renewed commitment to keeping honest, measured, and authentic.

With that in mind, I’ll leave you with this lovely quote from Solange from the new issue of Love magazine:

Here’s to embracing slowness when we need it, and trusting the rest will come.

And finally…

News from the Capsule universe you may have missed this week:

• Loved the name of Rihanna’s daughter

• More Charli wedding photo dumps for our perusal

• PinkPantheress is selling her clothes on Pinterest

• The Diesel Easter egg hunt looked great

• Demna’s Gucci has had a warm first reception

• Hannah Montana and Hilary Duff have already announced their 20th anniversary returns. The next in that lineage is Laguna Beach

• Speaking of Hilary Duff, her next era promo has kicked off with an appearance at the Fendi show

• Didn’t expect the next Vegas residency to be this artist

• Here is the Primavera lineup

• Of course Greta Lee is already wearing SS26 Luar from last week’s runway

• And Nara Smith has a good sense of humour!

This week, Hannah Beer popped into Capsule to share what’s 🔥hot🔥 and what’s not 🙅‍♀️ …

Hannah is an author from the North West who lives in London. Her first novel, I Make My Own Fun, is a sapphic satire of celebrity culture and parasocial relationships that was published in March 2025. She writes the newsletter Emotional Speculation about celebrity gossip, pop culture and whatever she's obsessing over in that moment.

📺 Watching: One Battle After Another in the cinema, this Laufey performance at the Guggenheim, this Annie Mac interview with Lola Young, and the music video to ‘Thirst Trap’ by Audrey Hobert (the best song to put a pep in your step right now).

📖 Reading: The first proper installation of Tender Tips, Elle’s new advice column by Jemima Kirke. This one is on friendship. And this great list from Mina Le of ‘Movies To Make You Smarter.’ Tis the season for a film recommendation…

🎧 Listening to: The Art of Loving, the new Olivia Dean album, ‘Cinder Block,’ the new Samia song, and the BBC 6 Music discussion with Hayley Williams on her album.

In news that will shock absolutely no one, Percy is here to share that if Google search data is anything to go off, brown is the colour for autumn. “How to style brown” is being searched more than ever, “brown cargo pants” is a breakout search over the past month, and “chocolate brown knee high boots” has doubled over the past month.

If you’d like to adopt Percy 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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