Return of the Cam
When 2023 gets so chaotic that it gives the British government a Roaring Twenties-esque nostalgia for…the 2010s?
As I won’t shut up about, I’m planning a move abroad. One of my favourite aspects of researching for said move is trying to understand the cultural nuances that only people who live there would know. The deep-cut lore of the place, if you will. But when I came across this question on Reddit a few days ago: Why do Brooklyn guys dress so alike? (“mustaches, beanies folded just over their ears, baggy pants, oversized leather jacket and boots”) I lost it. Sorry if the question offends anyone reading but it had me rolling, and the person asking was probably trolling. What had me rolling with laughter even harder, though, was waking up on Monday to a BBC News alert about David Cameron’s return to government. Did I mention I was planning a move?
Anyway, welcome to Quality Sheet! If you’re reading this in the bath, kindly get out, chuck your Balenciaga towel skirt on and get cozy. This week’s post is dedicated to frumpy It Girls and eldest daughters.
🍭
“Are we doing a before-and-after piece I don’t know about?” asked the prescient Nigel Kipling in 2006. In 2023, the answer is apparently yes—and the “before” is more sought-after than, well, the after, according to fashion trend forecasters. Dazed’s Hannah Bertolino writes about why dressing hot (whatever that means) is being shunned in favour of looking purposefully undone. It’s always fun seeing how fashion trends reflect our collective mental and seasonal states and tastes, and this one appears to convey a clear message: When nothing in the world makes sense, why should the way we dress abide by any rules?
❤️
Na Mee, an award-winning poet, writes stunningly about the things that get lost, found and kept when a child is adopted and, in her case, the love that binds together all of these memories and mementos.
🌊
With warming and increasingly acidic oceans, scientists are devising painstaking new ways to preserve coral reefs, which we all know by now are being wrecked by bleaching and more frequent storms. Cryopreservation is a hopeful but highly technical procedure that requires freezing and thawing coral samples and while success has been slow, the delicate process could be key to prolonging the animals’ key presence in oceans, Hakai magazine’s Brent M. Foster writes.
🍬
“Women are expected to be nurturers. Firstborns are expected to be exemplars.” This piece by The Atlantic’s Sarah Sloat is for fellow eldest daughters.
🍦
‘Blanding’ has been favoured by household name brands and designers keen to attract younger audiences in recent years. But are pared-back logos and near-identical brand identities doing more harm than good? Adweek’s Stephen Lepitak explores why some brands are modernizing while others reject minimalism.
🚶🏿♀️
“You never know how a new land is going to change you; it never knows how you’re going to change it.” Hanya Yanagihara on the metamorphic power of pilgrimage to awaken curiosity for its own sake.
🙃
Is generative AI coming for your job? Possibly. Odds are higher if you’re an online freelancer. Here are three solutions that could help stave off the impact of the technology on the job market, from the Financial Times’ John Burn-Murdoch.
🍪
On the pros and pitfalls of self-development content that tells you to disappear for months and reemerge as a new person, often at the expense of key relationships and people in your life. Did lockdowns and our fascination with makeover shows trigger a mass desire to drop off the face of the earth to come back as a new person? i-D’s Tara Kenny finds out.
🗺️
“War may be a long-standing mainstay of human life, an inheritance from our deepest past. But each generation gets to decide whether to keep passing it down,” writes Ross Andersen in The Atlantic, about how anthropologists and archeologists have been working to figure out how far back organized violence can be traced and the extent to which war is part of the human condition.
🍡
Of all the mega shopping events of the year, Black Friday must have the worst PR team. How did we go from knock-down-drag-out fights on the shop floor to stores shutting down the day after Thanksgiving in protest against consumerism? And all within a couple of years?? The BBC’s Brennan Doherty highlights the brands no longer participating in Black Friday—and why.
🍫
Last Thursday, I discovered something deeply shocking that made me confront my mortality; something never before seen in human history: the first grey hair. After a brief moment of panic, I’m learning to love my singular silver strand. Read more on my other newsletter, Dyeing Colouring Outside the Lines.
🎁
Thank you for reading. Share with someone you like, love, or just came back from a first date with. Wishing you the best for the rest of your week,
Isabel :)
Get in touch/share links/follow me:
