Capsule #74 ft. Elle Hunt

Hiiii everyone,

Hope you’re feeling okay as ever.

Now that the dust has settled a little bit, this week’s newsletter reflects on the US election. We’re looking at why people are leaning into self care and community, and how a previous Capsule essay on Ozempic (kind of) diagnosed what was happening, and the Barbie movie as peak woke.

There is also some light relief, don’t worry!!! And as ever, recs for your weekend ahead, and a great Hot & Not list from Elle Hunt.

Have a great weekend!

Holly x

The mood right now…

In the wake of the US election, lots of people have been talking about self-care and community. Some examples:

These are things we come back to time and time again, throughout difficult points in our lives. Your big revelation in therapy? You don’t hate where you live, you’re just missing community. Feeling burnt out? You need to carve out time for self-care and tap into your community. Not sure what the meaning of life is? Again, it’s community.

It’s almost strange how much we need reminding of it, despite how obvious it feels once you realise. There’s a few reasons for that. A few truths worth acknowledging:

1) With busy lives and work, we lean on convenience. Ordering food, cancelling plans that feel hard, generally paying people and services to do things we otherwise could. Always optimising for this means opting out of small moments of connecting with our communities. If we want to feel connected, we also have to show up IRL.

@melissatortega

protect your peace

2) Speaking of showing up IRL, sometimes we block ourselves from having a nourishing time by being cagey about making plans. An example: an old friend wants to hang out on a Saturday, and you feel like you’d be keen to see them but not on a Saturday, the most prized day of the week, reserved for your favourite people. But then the weekend rolls around, maybe you don’t have much on, or you’re falling into a pattern of doing something you do all the time and not feeling super into it, and so on. It’s okay to try different things in pursuit of connection.

3) You have to talk to people even when it feels awkward. Maybe you have a café you go to frequently and you now recognise people who work there or attend at a similar time to you. Make a point of saying hello! Ask them how they are. It’s not weird and you don’t need to jump to bestie mode overnight, but pockets of community like this need watering so they can grow into something that feels real.

4) Be brave enough to organise stuff around your needs and interests. I’m a huge advocate of doing the stuff you’d like to be doing anyway but with other people. This means asking friends to run errands with you, or asking to do theirs with them. Dropping off some stuff at the tailors, buying some birthday cards, then grabbing a coffee? A perfect day. Equally, if you wish you had more time to do art, for example, host your friends for a creative afternoon. Connecting in the mundane moments and through the things that bring you joy is an excellent way to stop feeling gloomy.

Another election thought…

I saw this tweet this week:

And it made me think bag to my Capsule essay on Ozempic. Specifically this quote:

And there it is. Trump did better with young women this time around than in 2020, and our cultural touch points have shifted since then as well. I said to a friend recently that I think we reached ‘peak woke’ with the Barbie movie, and even that felt a little past the moment, and we’ve been in decline since then. A lot of people didn’t like being told that they were wrong, and have been making mistakes on the grounds of their identity for their whole lives without realising. On the left, a lot of people didn’t like that a shiny movie funded by Mattel would be the prominent feminist vehicle of our times. We’re using Barbie as a symbol, but the same could be said for how the election panned out. People on the right refusing to feel bad for who they are, and those further on the left feeling uninspired by platitudes and minimal action.

So where next? As pointed out earlier, it feels like people are turning inwards and looking at their own lives, desires, and shortcomings, figuring out how they want to live. I don’t think it’s a bad place to start, and is something we’ll keep coming back to throughout different periods in our life. It’s kind of all we’ve got. And as for the analysis, we’ll still be here looking at fashion and internet culture and the small moves pointing to something larger.

Some light relief…

Our queens @loveofhuns shared this list of irrational fears this week:

I want to invite us to do the same. Here are mine:

• Being asked what kind of music are you into

• Taking 15 items to a fitting room and genuinely having the 6 items at a time rule enforced

• Feeling extremely gassed about the food you order in a restaurant and then it arrives and you find it’s a) tiny and b) actually a cold main

• Being asked to kick off ideas after accidentally zoning out in a meeting

• Going to the gym before work and forgetting to pack spare underwear

• Similarly: arriving on a trip somewhere, washing your face to do some fresh makeup, and realising a key component of your makeup bag remains at home

• Eating pizza out with someone who starts using a knife and fork to eat it

• Showing a photo to your grandparents on your phone and watching them begin to swipe across for more

Share yours here!

And finally…

Fashion and pop culture news you may have missed this week:

• Jared Ellner (stylist to Emma Chamberlain and Sabrina Carpenter) has launched a collection. Here are the bags you’re about to see a lot of

• GQ Men of the Year is here again — honourees include Jude Law, A G Cook, and Fontaines DC

• Sabrina Carpenter announced her Christmas special with Netflix

• Speaking of Sabrina Carp, of course she’s doing this

• “Nothing is ever really lost.” These words used to announce whose pregnancy?

• Kendall Jenner got a bob

• Photographs of Peckham Car Boot made it to Vogue!

• Charli xcx is the new face of Acne. This shot is great. Capsule also awarded her Chic of the Week on Instagram for this look 

• Kim and Kourtney’s Dolce & Gabbana feud found closure via a Skims campaign

• And that special Alaïa collection had a great editorial moment with Zendaya for Vanity Fair

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

Elle is a freelance journalist whose work has been published in the Guardian, GQ, Grazia, New Scientist, Slate, the New York Times, Stylist, Vogue, Kinfolk and more.

📺 Watching: Gladiator II in the cinema, finally! And some fun shorts: the new Tyla music video, the trailer for the new Bridget Jones film (very important you click), and Paul Mescal on Hot Ones.

📖 Reading: SZA’s British Vogue profile, which is well worth your time, for the little details like that she visited Kew Gardens every day she was in London earlier this year. Also this article from Lili Anolik on her new book about Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, this sweet Zendaya interview, and just in today: Molly-Mae talks to British Vogue.

🎧 Listening to: The Arca remix of Addison Rae’s Aquamarine, Young-Girl Forever, the new album from Sofie Royer (start with ‘Indoor Sport’ if you need convincing), and this lovely episode of Modern Love, which includes the essay ‘When Your Greatest Romance is a Friendship’.

Here’s a fun idea: “temporary tattoos” are currently searched at a record level and over the past week, “christmas temporary tattoos” increased +190%. We’re often talking about fun, different things to do with your friends, and Norman said you could even look to your furry friends for design inspiration, for example x

If you’d like to adopt Norman 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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