The Gas Station #14
The print of the season, my favourite new songwriter, and the best dating site for over 40s
Hi everyone,
Here is my weekly round-up. I hope you’re having a good one.
Style
Perhaps it was the 2019 viral Zara dress that temporarily sounded the death knell for polka dots but they’re back with a vengeance with numerous articles this week in the style sections about their resurgence as the print of the season. This piece quotes from Emma Hope Allwood’s Substack, who pointed out that we can probably trace back the spot’s newfound popularity to Miu Miu, after they sent Mia Goth down the runway in a sheer polka dot skirt for Autumn Winter 2023.
I’ve spent years pulling out my cashmere in the autumn to find moth-ravaged holes in them and now I freeze and defrost all my sweaters and scarves before putting them away for the summer and I swear it works. Curiously this is absent from some wardrobe experts’ top tips for how to store your winter clothes over the warmer months. Still, don’t listen to me, read their advice!
Popular Australian brand (and influencer favourite) Dissh launched for the first time in the UK last month at Selfridges. One writer tried on the entire summer collection. Yes, there’s a polka dot dress.
For Jimmy Choo’s 30th anniversary, creative director Sandra Choi tapped designer Conner Ives and fashion journalist Alexander Fury to help curate a capsule collection of eight designs from 1997 to 2001 that capture the brand’s history (naturally it includes the heels that cause Carrie to miss the Staten Island ferry). The Bow ones are outrageously good:
Culture
We had a musician friend over for drinks this week and he was telling me about a new artist whose record he produced who had started to blow up. I made a note to have a listen. That artist is Cameron Winter and turns out it’s not the first time I’d been told about the 22-year-old’s debut album Heavy Metal. A radio host friend had texted to ask if I’d heard it because it was “very for you”. And last month Nick Cave wrote about it in his newsletter, which I always read, saying Winter had, “a glorious, emotive voice with brilliant, blistering words”. Well I have now listened to Heavy Metal and basically haven’t stopped. Best thing I’ve heard in a long, long time. And turns out he really is blowing up. Despite the album being released in December, he was profiled by The Guardian a couple of weeks ago and this week i-D interviewed him alongside the rather wonderful headline ‘Cameron Winter Summer’. If you aren’t familiar, don’t sleep on him like I did. Can’t recommend enough.
Really interesting piece about how Mubi became the billion dollar power player it is today (the company was started in 2006 by Efe Cakarel with the aim to create an artsier alternative to Netflix after he couldn’t find an online copy of In The Mood For Love while on a trip to Tokyo). And at Cannes, the company just spent $24m on the rights to Die My Love, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, about a new mother who enters psychosis after developing postpartum depression.
Very much enjoyed reading this profile about 35-year-old east-London artist Rachel Jones, who has a new show Gated Canyons at the Dulwich Picture Gallery from next month. One of her works recently sold at auction for £910,000 despite a pre-sale estimate of between £40,000 to £60,000 and she even modelled for Loewe last year. I’ll be checking it out.
Beauty
I don’t do a ton of beauty treatments but a pedicure is a non-negotiable (one friend insists I’m so tall because I have what he calls “nature’s heel”). As I’m surrounded by salons, I will often go to wherever will fit me in so I appreciated this round up of what to ask for when getting a pedicure, for example, to always have the nails cut completely straight and to request dry pedicure prep. I learned a lot!
The internet is quite divided on whether vitamin IVs work but if you’ve ever been intrigued as to why celebrities love them so much, this writer shares her in-depth experience of getting one. As it so happens, I was invited to have something called a Skin Health Drip from Get A Drip this week and while my skin feels well-hydrated, I can’t say I look totally radiant (I’m also running on five hours of sleep at the moment) but my hair does feel totally luscious. The practitioner confirmed to me that a lot of people get the IVs when they’re hungover which is a markedly pricier treatment than Panadol and a bacon roll.
Some of you might know by now that I’m always fascinated by the millennial-Gen Z dialogue about trends. Here one writer points out that most of Gen Z's favourite beauty looks - from star-shaped pimple patches to clean-girl skin - come straight from millennials on Tumblr.
Life
Looks like British tourists will soon be able to use e-gates when travelling to Europe, avoiding the lengthy post-Brexit queues (well, from October at the earliest). Thrilled for everyone who doesn’t have a child (who aren’t able to use e-gates) and an American husband to slow them down. Or maybe they can just catch me up at the pool.
The best dating app for over 40s? Match, apparently. Old school. But there are plenty of others too rounded up here.
I try to be thoughtful about how I use Airbnb but with a young child it often just makes more sense for us when travelling. Still, I’m not sure I’ll be using its new Services, well, service, in which you can book from 10 categories including private chefs and prepared meals, manicurists, spa treatments and photographers that will all come to your Airbnb. Like, it’s nice to actually go outside and explore when you’re on holiday.
Motherhood
A growing number of women are choosing to hide their pregnancies from social media, citing reasons such as growing social awareness of infertility and pregnancy loss, work concerns, and an overall distaste for online mummy culture. But still, some women say it can feel deceitful to keep their pregnancy a secret. I can relate. By eight months I hadn’t shared my ‘news’ online so did a baby shower post just to get it out of the way.
I’ll be honest, while I meticulously slice grapes and am sure to spread peanut butter thinly, I hadn’t really given much thought to ice cubes being a choking hazard for children under five. In response to the warmer weather, Dr Niamh Lynch has warned about their dangers and the video is worth a watch.
Hailey Bieber opens up about motherhood and her labour in her new Vogue cover feature. She shares that she had to be induced, just as I was, which is a pretty brutal experience. “That shit was so crazy. That was not fun. They broke my water. I went into labour and I laboured for a few hours. No epidural, nothing.” I’d have used a few more expletives to describe the situation but I concur.
See you on Friday,
Gillian