Capsule #96 ft. Georgia Graham

Hello hello,

Hope your weeks have been okay!

Today’s newsletter comes off the back of a trip to Spain, and two realisations I had about Capsule while away.

Holly x

˚⋆𓇼˚⊹ 𖦹 ⁺｡° Holiday reflections ⋆｡𖦹 °.🐚⋆❀˖°

Sometimes making a concerted effort to switch off from work actually creates space for you to have some ideas without pressure. In that spirit, I wanted to share two observations I had about Capsule-type things during my recent trip to Tarifa, Spain.

The first one comes from a conversation with my friends at a dinner one night about trend prediction, marketing, and our shopping habits. I was talking about how the trend cycle works, and the ways in which it’s mutually beneficial for brands, agencies and media to all work hand-in-hand to push a certain agenda. Since engaging with the Pinterest Predicts report at the end of last year, for example, I’ve seen the trends pop up everywhere. Fish jewellery, nautical bag charms, and fisherman knit jumpers, particularly big at Free People and Anthropologie, speak to the “Fisherman Aesthetic” trend. Glossier, Summer Fridays and Fenty Beauty are putting cherry at the fore of their new product launches, and I’ve seen cherry flavouring on more drinks and food menus (“Cherry-Coded” was another trend). And then there’s the Pinterest x Primark collab, encouraging shoppers to buy items that align with aesthetics like “dainty decor” (bows and frills, that kitschy style we see a lot), or “cosy cottage”. It’s easy to see the flywheel in motion, and natural to question how many trends are an organic response to cultural shifts and how many are little seeds planted to help forecast for quarterly sales targets.

Sometimes when I talk about this stuff IRL, I wonder if I sound like someone who shops a lot. To whittle off what different brands are doing through product and marketing and be able to track that back to a trend report is kind of like taking shopping to the to the nth degree. But as I told my friends this week, since starting Capsule and following all of this stuff more closely, I’ve actually bought fewer new things than ever before.

Getting to grips with how the trend cycle works has allowed me to watch certain styles emerge and see them for what they are — something that will be en vogue for a little while but ultimately be replaced by something else. This also counts for the some of the stuff we declare to be timeless; watching your preferences shift over time helps you admit that a lot of the stuff you thought you’d never part with actually does fall out of favour. Understanding this process has prevented me from pulling the trigger on so many purchases, and almost eliminated a category of spending I used to have.

I remember having a crappy week and wandering into Urban Outfitters to find something that might make the weekend ahead feel more appealing. That very behaviour has the opposite effect on me now, to the point where I sometimes feel a sickness in my stomach if I buy something I’m not 100% set on (is that normal lol?). While this sounds like a shift to some kind of strict regime, with fun nowhere to be found, it actually feels like the opposite. Continuously buying new things actually isn’t all that fun, for me at least. It’s a short-term high with longer term consequences that I’d rather address up top. It feels grim to look at a pile of clothing that failed to make you feel better, counting the money and resources wasted. Months spent procrastinating with Vinted or charity shop trips. Or clinging onto stuff for years, out of guilt, forcing an overflowing drawer to close with t-shirts sliding down the back.

Buying less has also given me more confidence in my own taste and the things I really do enjoy wearing. Which brings me onto the second Capsule-adjacent thought I had on my trip, which was also about getting dressed.

We stayed in an apartment with no full-length mirror, and without a mirror at all in my bedroom. I tried to glance at myself in the glass balcony doors a few times, but other than that, my outfits were put together without much critique or fiddling. This, plus packing lightly, reduced my time spent getting ready significantly. This was further aided by bringing a collection of items I know inside out: a jumper I have worn every week for about four years, oversized t-shirts that get put through the wash every week, skirts and shorts I know to be comfortable. Having a wardrobe of items you know really well, and trust to work in a way that suits you, essentially means that your clothing works for you, and not the other way around. Instead of getting ready through the lens of “I need to make this dress work because I’ve just bought it,” the experience is flipped. Clothes genuinely become what they were designed to do - dress you for the activities ahead. Having a strong sense of familiarity, and, without sounding too deep, trust, in your clothes means they act as a companion in your life, not the main character. And that’s the whole point, because while it feels exciting to plan an event around wearing a certain item, the other side of that experience is hours spent in the mirror, changing and discarding, spiralling into a pit of despair.

All of that is to say, buying fewer items and loving the ones I have more deeply made space for me to have a good time. The clothes were along for the ride but it is me who moves around the world, my wardrobe equipping me for all that is to come.

And finally…

News across fashion and pop culture you may have missed this week:

• Lorde popped up at Washington Square Park to promote her new song

• The best celeb photos of the week

• …closely followed by this

• Gucci sales are down 25%

• Another Protect The Dolls t-shirt sighting

• Kendrick Lamar is a Chanel ambassador

• Why has this got such April Fool’s energy

• Coco Gauff will wear Miu Miu to her next competition 🎾

• Another brand using normal people in their campaigns

• Hailey Bieber sharing her experience with ovarian cysts has started lots of chat amongst women

• Lena Dunham and Carly Rae Jepsen are bringing this rom-com to Broadway

• And Addison Rae officially confirmed her album title and release…

• …which fits nicely into this album art canon

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

Georgia is the mother to Threads of Conversation, a podcast and newsletter exploring the emotional and cultural stories we tell through style.

📺 Watching: Toxic Town on Netflix, this video essay on Katy Perry and the death of liberal feminism, and Addison Rae on Elle’s Ask Me Anything (there are some nice pearls of wisdom if you stick with it).

📖 Reading: Jessica DeFino’s latest advice column on having gap teeth and whether to fix them. Very timely given the current chat around Aimee Lou Wood (and Margaret Qualley and Ayo Edebiri). Also ‘The Anatomy of a Marriage’, Annie Mac’s take on long term partnership and what it means for her.

🎧 Listening to: ‘What Was That,’ the new Lorde song, ‘23’s a Baby’ by Blondshell, and ‘Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl’ by Maggie Rogers and Sylvan Esso.

Todd is here to deliver some nice insights off the back of Earth Day, which was this week. “Upcycling” has spiked every April with Earth Day for the past 15+ years in the US, and over the last year, people searching upcycling are also searching for "creative reuse" and overconsumption. This is great to see, especially when faced with all the data about fashion’s problem with sustainability…

If you’d like to adopt Todd 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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