Capsule #35 ft Divya Venkataraman

Hiiii and happy Friday to you 🖤

A special hello to a flurry of new subscribers this week who came to us via Journo Resources 🤗 super happy to have you. This newsletter is a weekly dose of fashion, pop culture, and trend stuff, infused with that sort of knowing wisdom you get from a big sister who has your back.

In this week’s issue, we’re talking about the value of endings and/or disappearing, inspired by boygenius, Adele, and Edward Enninful. Plus we’re looking at some recent cowgirls and laughing at a few wild first dates. 🌹

Divya Venkataraman is also here to share her Hot & Not list with us :)))

And if you’d like to see who got this week’s Chic of the Week award on our Insta, click here…

Have a wonderful weekend, 

Holly x

On not being afraid to disappear 

After winning three Grammys for their music as boygenius on Sunday, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus cleared the photos from their Instagram accounts. Phoebe even unfollowed Lucy, Julien Baker, and the boygenius account, fans noted. And most of us knew why: in a Grammys red carpet interview, Lucy shared that it had been the plan all along for the band to take a break after the album rollout and tour. “It was what made this year possible”, she said, “we can’t sustain this level of doing shit”. The band were buoyed by the promise of an ending, the knowledge that the success wouldn’t need to continue into forever. It was just a period in time, albeit a really good one. 

At The Hollywood Reporter's annual Women in Entertainment Gala in December, Adele also reinforced the importance of breaks in her career, the main one being to raise her son. She said: “I chose to reject the scarcity of success and the idea that you have to be constantly relevant to be successful.”

These are just two examples of successful people actively bowing out to preserve themselves, and there are so many more. It’s obviously easy for us to say that this is a privilege only afforded to those with huge levels of commercial success, and that’s true, of course. There’s no worrying about paying rent going on here. But there is still something we can take from it, as not all super successful people choose to pause (T Swift, Kim K).

Life is always going to ask more of you. More work. More plans. Constantly reaching upwards, needing to get better. But to what end? To constantly shift the goalposts, setting new goals and then what? It could go on forever. I’m not suggesting we all walk away from our commitments tomorrow, but rather remember that there will always be more to do, in all areas, and there’s literally never a good time to cool off a bit. It’s on us to carve that out for ourselves in whatever way we see possible, because nobody is chasing us to do so. 

Speaking of endings…

Have you seen Edward Enninful’s final issue of British Vogue? Not my favourite cover in the world in terms of the creative, but what a feat to get 40 of the busiest women in the world a) in the same room together and b) to agree to a photo they all like. It’s hard to make plans that even six people can make, and getting good photos is even harder, so we have to applaud here. Would we have liked to have seen a bit more of a concept? Sure. A high school ‘class of’ photo could have been cute. I’m also envisioning the group of them sat in a cinema screen, all peering up, and guess what, it’s us, the reader, they are looking at. Or the Vogue title. You get what I mean. But the logistics are the achievement here, and I do think it’s a lovely way to celebrate the end of Edward’s era. I also like how most of these people look a bit more normal than we’re used to seeing - like Cara Delevigne, who could almost pass for a girl you know from school.

The cowgirls are coming

They came for us last year, they came for us the year before, and they are coming for us once again. Take Beyoncé at the Grammys, kitted out in the Louis Vuitton we recognise from Pharrell’s menswear show last month. Or Bella Hadid, who is a legit cowgirl, and always dresses the part. If you thought we were done with Western, you were wrong. We’re now trotting towards Coachella, then it’ll be Glastonbury and we’ll be Googling “Sienna Miller double denim”, and then, my loves, it’ll be time for Lana to release Lasso (if it’s still called that). TLDR: giddy up!

And finally…

Valentine’s Day is next week and what better way to get in the mood than some first date comedy. These videos from comedians Grace Campbell and Christopher Hall are worth a watch, and I think their reactions to hearing each scenario are the best bit.

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

Divya is a London-based writer and editor, whose work explores the murky side of fashion, art, sustainability, and culture. She was previously a writer at Vogue Australia, and she now contributes to publications such as Harper's Bazaar, Grazia International, The Guardian and the New York Times Style Magazine. She has also just launched a brand spanking new newsletter called The Fuse with her friend and author Diana Reid (check out issue 1 here!). Divya is currently developing her debut work of fiction.

📺 Watching: The TV reboot of Mr and Mrs Smith with Donald Glover and Maya Erskine.

📖 Reading: The poet Hera Lindsay Bird writes a great advice column for the New Zealand site The Spinoff, and this week’s was all about what romantic love should look like. It’s worth a read! Good quotes to pull you in:

🎧 Listening to: The Kate Berlant episode of the Seek Treatment podcast, which is great for a long run or a day spent home alone, and the new Maggie Rogers song.

You see that around Xena’s neck? That’s a ‘pop of red’ accessory, which were all the rage last year. Tights, bags, bows. But listen, this neat way of sprucing up an outfit isn’t going anywhere, and we couldn’t be happier about it. Dakota Johnson showed us this week that crimson accessories are still a solid way to breathe some personality into an otherwise safe look, and like Xena, we’ll be sticking with the method too. We even awarded DJ our Chic of the Week award for it…

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

See you next week 💋