Five Things I Can't Stop Thinking About

1. Chanels Métier D’Art and an Etsy Rabbit Hole

This collection has been firmly lodged in my brain for months. Why? (If you haven’t seen it watch the whole show on You Tube and we can form a discussion group). It scratches several itches at once for me. The clothes are glamorous but wearable, a crewneck with a sequin pencil skirt, a trench thrown over your handbag, denim paired with extraordinary jewellery. But, most importantly, it feels FUN. When you wake up and think who do I want to be today you’ve got options. And all of them are great. A Venetian countess. A 1950s screen siren. An Upper East Side eccentric with an alarming brooch collection. A Tribeca gallerist with excellent taste in both art and earrings or a college girl with great hair and a quarter zip who might get scouted on the subway.

The vast majority of us are not on a Chanel salary, so my solution is to shop my own wardrobe (you could also dip into your mother’s) before disappearing down an Etsy rabbit hole. I cannot recommend entering “Art Deco bird earrings” into the search bar highly enough. I spent a very pleasurable hour scrolling. The results are above. You’re looking for a jacket that appears to have belonged to someone called Contessa Fiametta della Roccaforte.

2. Not Enough People Have Art in their Bathrooms

   If you’re on Instagram you’ll know I’m very taken with this house, but it also serves as a very useful illustration to my long-held belief that not enough people have art in their bathrooms.

   I’m sure it stems from an ingrained notion of dampness damaging paper. To which I would say: have you heard of an extractor fan? If it bothers you that much stick to oil paintings but I am firmly of the opinion that the bathroom is one of the most important rooms in which to have very good art. What could be nicer than lounging in your tub with a geranium on the bath rack with proper time to contemplate your collection? If you look closely you’ll see that the Erdem household heartily concur, having hung works on cupboard fronts and doors as well as the walls. Take a leaf out of their chic book and get your hammer out.

   

3. Andrea Sham’s Individual Pavlovas

   I've had these saved since November. Repetition is one of the oldest styling tricks in the book; one thing, repeated over and over for maximum visual impact. I'm increasingly convinced the same could apply to pudding. Currently planning an entire menu starting with these. If you don’t follow her already, might I suggest that you should.

   

4. Yellow Mesh Slippers

   I had absolutely no need for yellow mesh Venetian slippers. Then Le Monde Béryl launched them and they're now stuck in my head. There’s a Mayfair pop-up if you feel inclined to study them in real life. Their sale is equally problematic. The tiger print pair I had been stalking on Vinted now has 50% off in my size... Anyone unswayed by my Metier d’Art-induced eccentricity can stick to sensible black but be sure you make it shiny

   

5. Whistler at Tate Britain

   I went to this exhibition today. I’ve been obsessed with his work ever since I was doing art A Level and I’m thrilled my eldest daughter appears equally fascinated.

   I’m here for all of it. The subject matter, the Japanese woodblock print influence, the muted colour palettes, the multiple transparent layers of paint, the gestural brushstrokes which focus on atmosphere rather than realism. I won’t bore on (my husband is an artist and art teacher and I studied History of Art at univeristy. We have a strict agreement not to talk to each other during exhibitions so we don’t bore each other to death. Discussion is permitted only once we’ve finished looking).

   I will definitely go again but today I was unexpectedly taken reading some of the wall text and just how contemporary Whistler was. He rejected the prevailing Victorian tastes of the day and instead created rooms that looked radically different to those around him (sparse, with artefacts from East and South Asia, if you’re interested). He also allowed his studio space to be a place where work and his social life collided. He invited journalists, artists and fashionable society to dinner parties and studio breakfasts. Reading that it could very easily be Instagram in 2026.

   The lesson, perhaps, is that the most interesting people don’t follow fashion too closely. They pay attention to what's happening around them and then quietly decide to do something else.

   More soon

   Twig x