Capsule #81 ft. Alice Snape

Hello hello,

First up, sending big love to any readers affected by the California wildfires. What a scary week.

This week’s issue of Capsule takes a look at what we can expect this year from fashion. Plus, your 2025 predictions, newsy bits from this week, and recs for the weekend ahead.

Alice Snape is on the Hot & Not!

Enjoy your rest,

Holly x

First up…

Your predictions for what will happen in 2025! If you spot any of these things this year, reach out!

Next up… 

I wanted to look at fashion in 2025 and share some stuff that might shape the year ahead. Here we go!

1️⃣ Creative director change ups. Seven of the major fashion houses have new creative directors this year (Chanel, Bottega, Givenchy, Celine, Tom Ford, Calvin Klein, Lanvin) and there are still some roles to fill (Margiela, Fendi, Helmug Lang, Carven). There are different ways to do a debut collection - broadly a safer nod to the heritage or a bolder new direction - but we can bet that at least a couple of these will land with a bang. I’m particularly excited for Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel in the wake of the “Chanel flops” discourse, plus Sarah Burton’s Givenchy, a fashion house once led by Lee (Alexander) McQueen. I also have high hopes for Veronica Leoni’s Calvin Klein, who brings experience from Jil Sander, Phoebe Philo’s Celine, and The Row. Between the three of those, I think we’ll see:

1. Headline-making decisions: Blazy’s Chanel has to steer away from the lacklustre reception to Virginie Viard’s Chanel — we don’t know how he’ll get there, but he’s been hired for creativity and innovation, and his often whimsical take on Bottega was a big hit.

2. A focus on artisanal details: Burton is an expert at attention to detail and execution. I think her showstoppers for Givenchy will be delightful in a skilful rather than gimmicky way, garnering total admiration for artisans.

3. Clothing for normal women: Leoni is a designer who describes her style as a “sharp point of view on femininity with an edge.” Her former positions present this too, and I imagine her take on Calvin Klein will be rooted in a sense of realism of how women actually live, and what they need their clothes to do.

Either way, the big conversations during fashion weeks this year will be about change rather than consistency.

2️⃣ The luxury struggle. All that being said, besides a few knockout brands (Miu Miu, Loewe), luxury sales struggled last year. The household names aren’t even safe - Gucci is particularly vulnerable, leaning hard on celebrity ambassadorships to keep it afloat. Interested to see what methods will be deployed to turn sales around this year… What random sports will brands start aligning with… Which It Girl will be secured for a large sum… Who’s betting it all on the clothes… Of course normal people like you and I cannot help these sales, but the brands that soar tend to be a mega hit in culture more broadly. That means we do matter! 💅

3️⃣ A chaotic skew. The Pinterest Predicts trends for 2025 showed us one thing for sure: Gen Z’s influence is pushing many aesthetic categories to skew towards the chaotic. Less millennial grey and clean lines and pristine homes, more colour, unusual pairings, and ugliness. Let’s keep an eye out for instances of “chaotic decision making”, where brands could have played safer but leaned the other way to appeal to young people. Also just to say that another one of the Pinterest trends for 2025 was “Cherry Coded”, and this week Glossier launched a Black Cherry collection with lip and blush products. The prophecy…

4️⃣ Choice fatigue. Aside from the specific haul corner of the internet, I barely see any positive sentiment towards the major fast fashion brands these days. People are dissatisfied with online shopping, nobody has time to scroll through 38 pages of results, and those “what I ordered vs. what I got” comparisons are getting progressively worse. The Business of Fashion x McKinsey State of Fashion 2025 study reported that 74% of fashion shoppers have abandoned an online fashion purchase this year because of excessive volume of choice (relatable). Some retailers are already responding to this — ASOS plans to reduce their inventory by 46% by the end of 2025. (Although I think this is a move based on struggling sales rather than appealing to a forward thinking and more ethical shopper.)

5️⃣ IRL is the best place to shop. All of this choice fatigue is leading more of us to believe that the best place to shop is in store, and some people will commit to only shopping in this way. That means refraining on clicking on targeted ads, and resisting the habit of losing an hour to scrolling through a bunch of stuff you know is likely to let you down. There is still a convenience to the online experience and not everyone has a great range where they live, but I think we’re collectively marching towards a mindset of trusting our IRL experiences more, and collecting items as we go. The opposite of haul culture. The best thing is being in a random town and seeing a cardigan you like, trying it there and then, and deciding you’ll treat yourself. Not only does the item forever feel special and tied to memory, it also has none of the upfront work tied to it.

6️⃣ Less interest in jumping on a trend. I’ve said this a few times but we’re well past peak-micro trend by now, and that’s not to say there won’t be other instances popping up, but I think there will be a slower or reduced adoption of new fads. Enough time has passed to see these trends for what they are (often fun, great for marketing, not worth a big spend unless it’s totally up your street). Although I don’t think this will lead to reduced spending overall — it will just refocus energy towards “investment pieces” and justifying shopping with cost-per-wear rationale rather than the quick dopamine hit.

@notsophiesilva

Tag that one influencer ✨✨ i’ll go first @ notsophiesilva. See how many micro trends you can find in this one video HAHA #notsophiesilva #... See more

7️⃣ Continued hyper-fixation on a colour. This is just a thing. Colours have their moments, it will continue. It’s a win-win for brands and consumers — it’s easy to add a pop to any outfit via accessories, socks, and hair accessories to make you feel a little bit new. Although this year’s Pantone colour of the year feels a little done already?

8️⃣ And lastly: I think the influencers who vlogged about reducing their closets at the end of last year (Emma Chamberlain, Mina Le) will be spotted in a bunch of new stuff, end up having to address their rationale, and explain they might have over-corrected. The happy medium is having daily staples that work for the life you live, but space for delight, personality, and risk. This is tied to confidence, harbouring a lust for life, and dealing with mortality. Not to be too deep but lots of things come back to a fear of time running out.

And finally…

News from the Capsule universe this week:

• Here are the moments and looks worth seeing from the Golden Globes. A* for Ayo in custom Loewe referencing Julia Roberts

• Another cool Golden Globes moment: Cate Blanchett wearing the same dress as she wore to the Cannes Film Festival a few months ago. This never happens!

• I’m sure you heard Zendaya and Tom Holland got engaged… The streets are saying Zendaya liked a photo of the ring on Instagram in 2022. I scrolled back to check and it’s true

• And it looks like Robert Pattinson and Suki Waterhouse got married in the Caribbean

• The brand Y/Project is closing down after failing to secure a buyer

• Kendall Jenner is the new face of Adanola… huge get!

• Taylor Russell is still a Loewe girl

• Dr Martens creative director is stepping down after 10 years

• Lucy Dacus is recruiting hotties for her new music video

• An excellent post-breakup look from Lily Allen here

• Great photos of Stephanie Hsu for the cover of Vogue Singapore

• Bret Easton Ellis said the new Luca Guadagnino American Psycho with Austin Butler is fake news 👀

• And the name of the upcoming Japanese Breakfast album got people…talking

If you enjoyed this read, please consider referring a friend! 🖤

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

Alice is a freelance writer, devoted rescue dog mum, and tattoo collector. She often writes about both of those things, and spills her secrets like an internal monologue for publications like Cosmopolitan, Red, Metro, Kinship, among others. She recently wrote Tattoo You for Phaidon Press. Sometimes she speaks about tattoos on places like Woman's Hour but mostly that freaks her out so she prefers to write from home.

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📺 Watching: Babygirl in the cinema. And this Q&A where Lucy Moon shares what it’s like to be 3 years sober. Also if you missed An Evening with Dua Lipa over Christmas, you can watch the whole thing here. It’s wonderful.

📖 Reading: This article from Molly Gordon about her extreme compulsion to write (295,233 words in a Google doc!) during pregnancy, this list of Lit Hub’s most anticipated books of 2025, and this beautiful look at Colman Domingo’s midcentury-modern house for Architectural Digest.

🎧 Listening to: Perverts, the new Ethel Cain album, ‘IT girl’ the new JADE song, and this episode of Tasteland with Emily Sundberg, which explores why some things feel less special these days.

Last week we brought you some of the New Year insights emerging in late December, and this week Lea and I have the stats on what the first week of January actually looked like. Lots of people are doing dry January and have questions: “withdrawal” search interest is currently at an all-time high and “stages of alcohol withdrawal” is the top trending "withdrawal” query over the past 7 days. And the struggle is real: “headache” is the top trending topic searched with Dry January, and “dry january bad for you” is a breakout related search. Keep going my loves 🫶

If you’d like to adopt Lea or one of her 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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