Capsule #7 ft. Daisy Alioto

Hello!

I’m excited to welcome so many new readers today, lots of which came from the Dirt newsletter. 🍄 I’m such a fan of Dirt so I’m pleased to have you here and hope you’ll enjoy it! Make sure you scroll to see Daisy Alioto’s hot and not list…

For the benefit of the newbies - a little overview. Capsule lands every Friday in your inbox, and was born out of conversations with my friends, many of which boiled down to the same complaint: there’s too much stuff to wade through online. These are people who love fashion, pop culture, and trends, but don’t want to increase their screen time to keep up with the things they like. Capsule hopes to be a slice of the good stuff, without demanding too much of your time. I know your free time is better spent in the real world.

The sections - so you can hop to the bit you want:

• Open tabs - four things you’ll actually want to engage with

• Special guest - a cool person shares what’s hot and not right now

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

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

Thank you for being here, and do feel free to let me know what you liked or would love to see in future at the (anonymous) feedback form here.

Holly

I want to talk about Kylie Jenner…

But not for the reasons you might expect. I’m thinking less about her rekindled friendship with Jordyn Woods (which we love, normalise not holding grudges forever, etc) and more about a recent IG post. She shared a carousel of hot pics with the caption “posting these now before they get lost in my camera roll”.

I felt kind of embarrassed at how much I could relate (shout out to my not yet posted Glastonbury dump that I’m too shy to release a month late). In this case, a ‘lost’ photo is one that other people haven’t seen. But what happens if we don’t post a photo, or don’t even take it in the first place? My 25,000-picture camera roll is hard to navigate. The experiences in my life that have brought me the most joy aren’t on camera; they are a fleeting fire burning intensely for a few minutes before something else enters the frame. And isn’t that what makes joy so good? The way it happens upon you without force, and leaves with the promise it’ll be back again? Thirst traps don’t need to be this deep, of course, and I still love Instagram, but our collective desire to document (and post) could be getting in the way of starting more happy fires. This is something Haley Nahman writes so well on - I recommend this essay if you want to dig deeper.

It’s July 21st so we’re finally mentioning…

Barbie. Are we excited? Does it feel like an obligation? I’m keen for the movie, but I can’t absorb any more marketing. A quote from a great podcast I listened to this week: “Are we all just watching long form commercials now?”. Mattel has partnered with more than 100 brands for the film to ensure there’s something Barbie for every type of consumer. An ASOS collection for the y2k girlies, dolls and toothbrushes for the actual children, Aldo heels for the classy girlies, a limited edition surrealist Barbie designed by Mark Ryder for the art girlies, Crocs and jibbitz for the Croc girlies… I could go on. We know products are being manufactured at these rates all the time, but there’s something heightened when we see it exposed through a pink microscope. Where will it all go once the hype has died? Will we start eyeing up a Zara x Hot Wheels collection instead?

I don’t want to leave us on a total downer. I do think it’s fun to look at the pink garments you already own that you might wear to the cinema if you are that way inclined: reappraising a top you didn’t think was great on you but might be cute with a white tee underneath, actually. The early Barbenheimer memes were undeniably good too, before we inevitably reached fatigue. And it’s given us a revived Ryan Gosling to use as small talk with just about anyone, like talking about the weather.

Another icon of the week/century…

Jane Birkin, rest in peace. I discovered her as an early teen via Pinterest - around the same time I looked at photos of Alexa Chung and Brigitte Bardot and eyed up books with titles like “How to be French”. The nice thing about Jane Birkin as a fashion icon, aside from that near-perfect fringe, is the simplicity of her looks. They aren’t about daunting layering or accessories you’d never actually own, but rather uncomplicated, flattering pieces, elevated by the ways in which they are put together. As my auntie would say: she wears the clothes, the clothes don’t wear her. And I think that’s a vibe we all secretly desire. If you want to read a proper obituary, Rachel Tashjian’s piece for the Washington Post is the way to go. For now, I pulled together three of her looks to take inspiration from this summer. White on white, scarves as belts, baskets as bags.

The loss of a style icon also makes you wonder who from this generation we’ll herald in the same way in decades to come. Rihanna? Bella Hadid? Emma Chamberlain?

That’s it on icons…

Here’s something about us. Caron Callahan shared this quote to their Instagram story and I wanted to share it with you. Food for thought as we remember to take time off, make space to do a bit less, try things that are fun but not useful, and stop thinking three steps ahead.

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

Daisy is the CEO of Dirt, a newsletter and sprawling pop culture universe. You should definitely subscribe! It’s one of the few newsletters I open consistently.

📺 Watching: Break Point on Netflix to plug the Wimbledon gap, and the ‘Rush’ music video from Troye Sivan, of course.

📖 Reading: This article from Rebecca Jennings about what we get wrong about travel (overplanning, trying to reproduce experiences we’ve seen in photos, not allowing enough time to just be). I think there’s a lot in here to help reframe what we expect from travel, which may actually help us enjoy it more when we get there.

🎧 Listening to: The new Palehound album (listen to ‘Independence Day’ into ‘The Clutch’ if you aren’t sure), and ‘Vampire Empire’, the new Big Thief single.

Lana Del Rey was spotted working at a Waffle House in Alabama this week. Next year, the seminal film A Cinderella Story (Hilary Duff, Chad Michael Murray) turns 20. Right now, the #lazygirljob hashtag on TikTok (AKA remote, office work with little to do) has 17 million views. All of this is to say, Texas thinks Diner Girl Chic may be a thing of the future, whether sartorially via short sleeve collared shirts, cinched in the right places with a little skirt, or professionally, as young people eye up a more active job to make money to support their side hustles or creative pursuits.

If you’d like to adopt Texas 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. See you next week 💋

Trivia answer: As you might expect, woven baskets are super old, and have been commonly used since at least 3000 BC. But handbags aren’t that far behind. The world's oldest purse was discovered in Germany in 2012, a number studded with dog teeth and dated from between 2,500 and 2,200 BC.