Best of 2021: Books
This has been a great reading year for me: I am currently finishing my 149th book and there’s more than a day still to go! This is a lot of books even for me and this outcome is mostly down to two factors: 1) the first months of 2021 being slightly less insane on the work front than usual, and 2) me discovering audiobooks, which added a significant amount to my ‘reading time’.
Best of 2021: Beauty, Style, Perfume
In the two years of the pandemic, my makeup, perfume and clothes purchases have slowed down – although not stopped by any means. Perhaps most irrationally, my habit of buying a few evening dresses per year is as strong as ever. But if you are expecting a proper ‘best of’ of fragrance or beauty releases, this I’m not able to provide. Still, perhaps this overview is useful as you are planning your own wardrobes or makeup buys.
What I Wore for Christmas
For years, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Christmas – I guess I found it too bourgeois or something. I was never a hater either, though, and the older I get, the more I seem to appreciate this holiday of gingerbread, tinsel and Die Hard. Perhaps I’m just becoming more bourgeois myself, who knows. Or perhaps living abroad most of the time, spending time with one’s family just feels more special, Christmas or not.
Best of 2021: Skincare
I am happy to report that in general, I have been buying fewer things. Well, with the notable exception of books – things seem to be getting worse on that front. But otherwise, there has been progress. I still have a soft spot for skincare, however, and tried quite a few things this year, some of which were very good. So here they are, in a vague order of application.
On Getting Older (and Golden Capes)
When I first received the pictures from this photoshoot (which, for the record, I absolutely adore), I momentarily considered asking the photographer to touch up my face. While I got over this reaction almost immediately, I cannot deny this happened*. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t have that impulse because I thought I looked ugly (this has happened on countless occasions), but because I looked old. Or perhaps more precisely, I looked my actual age: in the harsh light outside, you can pretty much count every single one of my 41 years on my face.
Natives by Akala: A Brilliant Take on Race and Class
I picked Akala’s memoir-slash-searing social analysis up almost accidentally. It was included in a couple of 2020 round-ups and although I hadn’t heard of him* or the book before, the excellent reviews made me add it to my own list. Based on the reviews, I expected it to be good, but not THAT good.
On the Importance of Trying Things On
If there is one thing that being obsessed with clothes gives you, it’s a good understanding of what works for your body and your style and what doesn’t. I can walk into Zara and leave in ten minutes with a full, entirely functional outfit. Faster, if there’s no queue. (Of course, this is only possible because I have a very standard body in a size that Zara caters to.) (And of course one is trying NOT to walk into Zara for high-speed shopping sprees, but it’s just a more believable example than Gabriela Hearst.)
A Korean Skincare Update
Sometimes I buy beauty stuff even if I don’t need it, or just out of curiosity or because I want to cheer myself up. I know I shouldn’t do that – it’s evidence that I’m trying to fill an internal void with meaningless objects, which in turn is all the result of a capitalist conspiracy to keep me unhappy and coming back from more. This is, broadly speaking, true. If I were a fully content, balanced, worthy individual, I could probably live without a ‘wardrobe of cleansers’. But sometimes I think that buying that new cleanser is a better option than despairing and berating myself over the fact that I haven’t yet reached complete enlightenment and still crave stuff. I mean – it’s just skincare. It could be drugs!
The Classics: A Cream Tweed Skirt
When I was shooting this series (there are two more posts to come), I explained it to the photographer as ‘inspired by Melania Trump’. I was joking, but only a little. The slightly embarrassing truth is that I have a soft spot for some rather conservative clothing categories. I’m not conservative in any part of my life, style usually included, but I do like to have some pieces that project a relatively timeless and polished image.
10 Perfumes I Have Been Wearing Recently
Marina asked somewhere in the comments whether I was going to do a post about my autumn perfumes this year. I have to admit this isn’t quite it, it’s just an overview of things I’ve bought and worn recently, so it has more of an end-of-summer, early autumn vibe than a true, rich October-November feel. Many of these I would wear year round, though, so let’s not get too hung up on seasonality and simply talk about the scents.