ADVENT CALENDAR | DAY 19- NEW YEAR’S EVE

What are we doing for New Year’s eve? After the year we’ve had, we are partying like its nineteen ninety-nine all over again. We are dressing up, putting on some slap and showing up even if we are celebrating solo or with a lot less people than we’ve done in the past. Look, we survived 2020, if that isn’t a cause for celebration, I don’t know what is. This time last year we were preparing to conquer the New Year and nothing could stop us, except of course the pandemic that was waiting on the other side, like you mother would when you thought you could sneak back in the house after a night out. Remember those days? So we are thankful to make it to the end of what has been a trying year for most of us.

I get the roaring twenties now, after the bleakness of the war people were itching to get out and let rip which they did. I reckon we might see something close to that if not the exact same scenario when this is eventually all over. Albeit with a slight twist, we have learned the lessons of excess so we are going to be more mindful as we consume and purchase. There is no need for fast fashion, matter of fact it is not good for us and the environment- you cannot deny that COVID also impacted the environment but in a different way to humans. The air was fresher, water was clearer and fish swam in clean seas. The canals of Venice were allowed some respite and the sediments were able to settle, the locals got their town back for a time. In London the smoke cleared and the air was the cleanest it had ever been. In Wales, sheep roamed the main streets. Call me philosophical but I still think the virus was a way for Mother Nature to cleanse herself. Hence we will be careful about the volume at which we consume things and we will care about the ethics of brands, their mission statement and most important, how true they remain to that vision. Brands will be held accountable.

However, this will not hinder the way in which opulence will come to erode our lives going forward, not opulence to the extent of vulgarity but we will use everything we have in our homes and wardrobes. There will be no special garments for special occasions, being alive is special enough. If we learned one lesson this year, trust me, it was that.

To that end we are slipping into something we already have in our wardrobes; who didn’t buy a slip dress in its hey day? Check. Slip dresses are easy, breezy, beautiful… yes, cover girl ready too, so throw on a slip dress, make sure you have chilled your bottle of champagne prior because that will be our drink of choice. On the menu is a most decadent take away, something we threw together like a cheese board or good old pizza and champagne.

And go softly softy into the New Year o. Iré a Kárí