spruced by marlene

|| Paid partnership with ARMEDANGELS ||

How do you start?

When you enjoy clothes. And shopping. The thrill of finding something unexpectedly good at the shops. The ritual of unwrapping that something for the first time. When the new season comes, or the next sale, or you simply see a picture on Instagram of a piece that you should probably buy IMMEDIATELY – or it will be sold out. When you’re on a budget.

When you also know that resources are finite. When you are not just aware of the impact the fashion industry has on the environment and the climate, but have found it unsatisfying to go into a shop and mindlessly fill a couple of shopping bags for quite a while now. It just doesn’t feel good anymore. When a closet filled with stuff takes the joy out of getting dressed.

|| Advertisement ||
contains affiliate links

Last Friday morning I stood at the supermarket checkout, exitedly clutching a bunch of copies of the latest issue of Couch featuring our home story.

Friday afternoon we went to the hardware store to buy some plywood and brackets for two new DIYs (I know it’s said that a relationship that survies IKEA can pretty much survive anything. I honestly think that the reason James and I still like each other after all these years is that we enjoy going to the hardware store together. Fine, one of the reasons).

The downside of spending even a little bit of time in Copenhagen, especially during Fashion Week: you immediately want to scandify your wardrobe. Wear long floating dresses with chunky trainers. Add layers of gold chains to a simple white tee and oversized blazer combo. Do the Pernille braid. The upside is that none of these things are particularly difficult to implement in your own wardrobe. Top of my short shopping list for fall: a leather piece.

Paid partnership with Maison Héroïne

My parents still like telling the story of the time I almost missed the train to holiday camp in Denmark, because I was dragging a heavy suitcase behind me. Things didn’t really improve after that. I have gone travelling with idiotic amounts of beauty products, dresses that I didn’t even want to wear at home and at least three more pairs of shoes than were strictly necessary.

Three things happened that converted me to a carry-on only traveller.

So of course I tried the FaceApp aging filter the other week (and, yes, I’m aware that the Russian state now probably has access to all of my data. But I immediately deleted the App!) (After I used it) (We’ll get to my grasp of technology later).

I found the result more amusing than alarming, because how surprising is it that I will look like a dried prune when I’m approximately 95 years old? What occupied me more was the difference between „me now“ and „me then“. The App also has a youthful filter – which made me look less like my actual younger self than a Kardashianised version of myself, and yet I was genuinely surprised by how much more apparent the wrinkles on my forehead and deep creases around my eyes seemed in the original picture, because wasn’t I only 25 yesterday?