Capsule #22 ft. Emily Peiser Apcar

Hiii everyone,

We have a few newbies this week 🥺 so I wanted to recap what we cover in this newsletter:

• Open tabs - four things in the fashion/trend/internet space worth engaging with

• Adding to queue - what to read, watch, and listen to this weekend

• Special guest - a cool person shares what’s Hot and Not for them right now

• Culture clairvoyant - a special oracle predicts a future trend… 

The whole thing is designed with busy people in mind: you enjoy fashion and pop culture, but don’t want to spend so much time on your phone trying to keep up. That’s where we come in, we scroll for you and bring you the interesting bits. We also know that none of this stuff exists in a vacuum, so we come to topics with an understanding of how it feels to live and work today and what our priorities are as young adults just trying to get by…

All love, and thank you for reading! 

Holly

Looking up to…

Phoebe Philo. For long-time fashion heads, the name Phoebe Philo holds a lot of weight. For newcomers, Philo is a British designer with cult-like status who cut her teeth as Stella McCartney’s assistant at Chloé. After a nine-year stint at the fashion house, first as McCartney’s right hand and then as creative director herself, she took the top job at Céline. This was the late aughts through to the 2010s, and under Philo, the brand reached peak cool, praised for doing stuff like putting Joan Didion in their campaign photos. Philo’s work was adored: her clothes felt luxury, yet still grounded in reality of what normal women need from their wardrobe. Silhouettes minimal and masculine, but never boring. The words “female gaze” were frequently used to describe her approach, as if her pieces carried a knowing wink like, we understand you need pockets here, or these trousers are oversized in a way that makes you feel sexy, comfortable, and able to eat what you like. 

Looking at Philo’s career trajectory this week, I was actually most struck by the way she’d carved out the lifestyle and approach to work she wanted for herself throughout. At Chloé, she became the first designer at a major fashion house to take an official extended maternity leave. When offered the Céline creative director role, she accepted on the condition she could continue to live in London with her family, build a design studio there, and show her collections in Paris. It’s demands like these that allow female designers to progress. 

And now to bring it into the current day: Philo has just launched her eponymous label. Great in-depth write ups exist, particularly in the New York Times and The Washington Post. I mainly wanted to say that this collection made me feel something that fashion often doesn’t: joyful about ageing. There’s a silver Mum necklace, older models with stretched skin, and clothes that are playful, bold, and confident. They feel new, but not in the conventional youthful sense - it’s a different kind of newness, one that benefits from experience, patience, and honouring who you really are inside. Every so often a big magazine will choose an older cover star and we get a glimpse of this feeling, but the Phoebe Philo collection does it less superficially. It’s not just about a face, but a tangible commitment to dressing for yourself, and seeing yourself as a person who is not degrading with age but growing into herself, in the best possible way. 

Also feeling inspired by…

Ella Emhoff, who has started a knitting club called Soft Hands. It’s that time of year where we turn slightly inwards and remind ourselves what we enjoy doing when we can’t rely on the weather. Whether it’s knitting, painting, writing, pottery, book clubs, football, cooking, life drawing, baking, squash, embroidery, let this encourage you to start a little club of your own.

Have you noticed…

The uptick in 90s-style secretary glasses? The reference point is Miu Miu’s ‘Bayonetta’ glasses, after the video game character of the same name. Bella Hadid has been sporting them since last year, and they’ve since trickled down from Ms Hadid to other celebs. Recently we’ve spotted them on: Kim Kardashian in her ad for the new Skims nipple bra, Doja Cat for her VMAs performance (and elsewhere), Caroline Polachek for The Late Show performance of ‘Dang’, Billie Eilish in a recent IG dump, Emma Chamberlain at the Miu Miu show, Gabbriette Bechtel at Eckhaus Latta, we could go on! 

I pulled this out because it’s so textbook of how trends often work: 

1. Tastemaker wears something a bit left field or ugly 

2. Period of time where onlookers think: those are weird

3. Other early adopters jump on the trend

4. Onlookers think: those are cropping up more and that girl is cool…

5. A bit of time passes

6. With time and exposure, trend is seen as hot by the masses

7. Uptick in item, easy to purchase, price goes up on second hand market

8. Top tastemaker moves on 

All this is to say: if you aren’t sure about going full librarian now, your mind may change soon. The good news here is that they should be super cheap in charity and second hand stores, and failing that, you can literally pick up some reading specs from Boots/CVS or Tesco/Walmart, and if you’re still struggling, your mum probably has a pair in her bedside drawer. 

And finally…

A helpful concept for me and for you: 48-hour memory. Coined by Haley Nahman in her newsletter, 48-hour memory is “the mistake of constantly reforming your assessment of how you’re doing/feeling based only on the last 48 hours”. Had a shitty day? Struggling with the dark nights? You and me both. It’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling like everything is doomed and will never be good again. But things always shift, tomorrow is a new day, we just have to remind ourselves. 

This week, Emily Peiser Apcar popped into Capsule to share what’s 🔥hot🔥 and what’s not 🙅‍♀️ …

Emily is a content creator from London. She’s currently working on her own clothing brand release, so keep an eye out… Alongside building her own brand, she works as a social media manager for a tattoo shop called Ushuaia.

📺 Watching: Finally watching The Bear after months of trying to assimilate, and YBS Young Bloods on YouTube. Stick with us on this one - he’s a creator from Australia who struggled to fit into the ‘real world’ due to his ADHD, so he tapped out, lives sustainably off the land, and films it all for us to see.

📖 Reading: This article from Vicky Spratt for Elle, looking at how aspirations around love, marriage and motherhood are changing and what that means for romantic love.

🎧 Listening to: Lahai, the new Sampha album, that new Beatles song (something I never expected to write in here), and ‘What Should I Do?’, a beaut new song from Kevin Abstract.

Will Rosalia’s Björk swan Halloween costume lead to a resurgence of the petticoat? Ernie thinks so, and so does creator Carlita Elizabeth who already has so many of them… Although it might seem a little out there for the everyday, this ruffled number might be just what you’re looking for to pack some punch in those winter party outfits. But perhaps leave the swan head at home… 🦢

If you’d like to adopt Ernie 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, please forward on 🥺

See you next week 💋