Reissue of Capsule #92 ft. Annie Hamilton

Hello hello,

Hope your weeks have been okay! This is your second email from me today — so sorry about that. I opened the newsletter and realised an early draft of Capsule sent, meaning all the work I did this morning hadn’t saved. This is due to a bug with my newsletter platform, Beehiiv. I’m more gutted than I expected to be about this happening :(((. I’m working with Beehiiv to ensure it can’t happen again.

In today’s issue: three formulas for spring transitional dressing, a closer look at some recent marketing campaigns (and what they say about our current times), a great Hot & Not from musician Annie Hamilton, and recs for your weekend.

Scroll and enjoy,

Holly x

🌿🌷 Dressing for the in-between 🌷🌿

I don’t want to jinx it but it seems we’re over the hump of terrible weather 🥲. But it’s still a bit cool in the shade, and in the evenings. My friends, it’s officially transitional dressing period, and I’m here to guide you with three outfit formulas for the next few weeks.

1. Long sleeve top, jorts, boots

The first time I wore my jorts with a pair of boots my life was changed. It’s such a perfect mid-point between jeans and a mini skirt. Perfect airflow and perfect coverage. At this time of year, it can be enough just to wear them with a long sleeve top and some fun accessories. Perhaps a light jacket if you’re out for the night!

Links: Top (Zara), jorts (Pull & Bear), bandana (Urban Outfitters), necklace (Lemon Lua), belt (Weekday), boots (Miista)

2. Long skirt, t-shirt, loafers, bomber jacket

I think if you’ve been on the fence about this style of long skirt - I like the cotton ones with a yoke / dropped waist - I’m here to tell you that you’ll appreciate how versatile they are. You can style them pretty much in the same way you would a pair of jeans: with a t-shirt, loafers or trainers, and a waist-length jacket like a bomber. Add a white sock and a pair of sunglasses and you’re good to go, feeling comfy all day.

Links: Skirt (Massimo Dutti), t-shirt (Topshop), jacket (& Other Stories), sunglasses (Le Specs), bag (Topologie), loafers (M&S)

3. Loose jeans, cami, cardigan, clogs

There’s something about wearing a camisole, a cardigan, and some Birkenstocks that just feels endlessly chic. It says: I’m running errands… I’m at peace with myself… I know what makes me happy… I’m on my own timeline… I have space to breathe… I drink loose leaf tea… I feel comfortable in my decisions… I might pick up some fresh vegetables from the market… If you too want to feel like This Kind Of Girl, you know what to do. No scratchy cardigans allowed! Fun necklaces encouraged.

Links: Jeans (Pull & Bear), cami (Massimo Dutti), cardigan (Gap), necklace (Urban Outfitters), bag (Free People), clogs (Birkenstock)

👩‍🌾🌱 Touching grass marketing 🌱👩‍🌾

A few weeks ago, I wrote an essay on how being offline seems to be the trendiest thing you can do right now. Following up today to say that this theme continues, with “evidence of life” or calls to “touch grass” finding their way into marketing campaigns.

First was Hailey Bieber’s FILA campaign, complete with fresh tumbling groceries. The image positions shopping for food as an aspirational activity, which seems a little absurd, until you realise that buying organic groceries IRL is the sort of thing not everyone does these days. A week or so later, Klarna announced the signing of DoorDash as a partner. I guess that’s the antithesis to the FILA campaign - ordering groceries and food on a payment plan - affirming its position as aspirational.

Another worth seeing is from Glossier, who are sending PR boxes with gardening gloves and seeds to promote their new fragrance, You Fleur. This reminds me a lot of the Emma Chamberlain x Lancôme campaign from last year. Are gardening gloves the next big thing?

I’m not so sure, but the main point is worth remembering: brands are selling us the simple stuff. Maybe it’s a recession indicator, maybe it’s just a good moment to remember that we have much of what we need right here. We’re about to see more of the sun and make the outdoors our playground. So much of it is free. How lucky are we?

@berfbarak

since the beggining of 2024 its been a rollercoaster but thankfully another chapter is closed and done 💃everything happens for a reason @d... See more

Also leaning away from perfection and into a more genuine reality is Toco Swim, a small swimwear brand based in the UK. For a recent campaign, they recruited members of their community, including those who have been shopping with the brand since 2017, to star in their photos.

The result is a Dove-esque campaign without the tokenistic feel: real women invited to be part of something they genuinely like. It’s a savvy move as well: according to Pretty Little Marketer, 61% of customers now trust recommendations from customers over influencers, so it makes sense to spotlight the brand’s biggest advocates. I know every campaign won’t be like this, and nor would we want it to be, but at a time when perfectionism has reached eerie heights due to stuff like technology and Ozempic, it’s refreshing to see.

At the same time, H&M just announced their use of AI models (I knew it wouldn’t be long!). The models are replicas of actual models, created with permission from their agencies. This is one of those scenarios where you don’t know the whole story, but do wonder how much agency people feel like they have if the choice is say, Let us clone you or don’t get booked. I also wonder where this leaves everyone else involved in the creative process - photographers, stylists, hair stylists, MUAs - something H&M admitted it doesn’t yet know all the impacts of.

And finally…

Stuff from the Capsule universe you may have missed this week:

• A photo dump that says: I’m in love

• The English Lit girlies are not happy with this first look at Margot Robbie in Wuthering Heights

• Fans waiting to see Paul Mescal after A Streetcar Named Desire in New York were treated to this star instead

• This fashion relic is back with a great cast

• Reflective takes on Adolescence are rolling in, like this one

• FKA twigs put out the ‘Childlike Things’ video with North West

• My best dressed this week!

• I’m into the new Kappa x Acne Studios collab

• And I can’t get enough of the Abracadabra dance videos. Don’t skip this flash mob in Brazil

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

Annie is a Sydney/Eora-based multi-disciplinary artist and designer. Her constantly-shifting sound enters a new era with the release of her sophomore record stop and smell the lightning, melting down the building blocks of indie-rock and alt-pop that provided the foundation of her self-titled EP (2020) and introspective debut record, the future is here but it feels kinda like the past (2022), and fusing them with unexpected electronic and organic elements with a fresh, playfully extroverted tone.

📺 Watching: Black Bag in the cinema, Alex Consani on Chicken Shop Date (a great one), and this Popcast interview with Justin Vernon, in which he talks about getting happier (not unlike Lady Gaga!).

📖 Reading: ‘You Can’t Have Sex in Your Skims’, a great essay by Ismene Ormonde for Haloscope on how shapewear promises perfection but takes the “sex” out of “sexy”.

🎧 Listening to: Forever Is A Feeling, the new Lucy Dacus album, MJ Lenderman's cover of This Is Lorelei's ‘Dancing in the Club’, and the Troye Sivan remix of ‘Physical’ by Dua Lipa. Summer is coming 🥲.

The spring cleaning stats you didn’t ask for but actually might find interesting, from Roxy: “what is overconsumption” was a breakout search in the past month, and “fast fashion” was a top-related search. In the same vein, “how to declutter” rose +140% in the past month, which means that a lot of us are using spring exactly how it’s designed: to think about what’s serving us, cleaning out the old, and looking forwards.

If you’d like to adopt Roxy 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 💋

In some of the products we recommend, we may earn a small affiliate commission. We only ever recommend things we genuinely like and would buy, and this small revenue driver goes directly towards keeping Capsule going. Thank you for the support. 🫶