I paid to be bored

what a week of doing nothing taught me about rest, restraint and collapse - plus a minimal packing list and June kick-off

New: Savette Macrame Pouch

Restocked: Leset Nando pant

Worth the sale price: Toteme poppy red trench

Just ordered: Rohe Sarong skirt

Beyond the wardrobe: Memoire notebook & Stationery set

Restaurant to know: Martino’s London

I’ve come to think of boredom as a luxury. Not the everyday kind — the real kind, the sort you can only reach once you’ve stopped running long enough to feel aligned with yourself. Which is a strange thing to admit, because I’d spent a long time avoiding it — filling every gap, until I was too exhausted to notice the gaps were the point.

Planned boredom wasn’t my idea at first. My beloved’s only birthday wish was to escape somewhere sunny and do nothing for a week, so I booked Gran Canaria with five days’ notice. And yet, by celebrating him, I felt he’d given me a gift too — rediscovering how important doing nothing is, even though it felt very uncomfortable, I admit. Maybe that was his intention after all? He’ll never tell me.

A week with my phone face-down taught me the difference between rest and collapse — two things I’ve been treating as the same for too long. You rest so you don’t collapse, and once you’ve collapsed there’s no resting your way out of it quickly, so really it’s just learning to stop before you have to. The corporate world taught me the opposite — there, exhaustion is a flex, the late night worn like a medal, email answered at midnight a sign you’re indispensable rather than simply wired. I learned the hard way that none of it was true. It took me the better part of six months to recover from realising I couldn’t run a full-time finance career and these fashion ambitions at the same speed forever — and I’m not sure I’m fully out of the woods even now.

All of which is to say I arrived wanting less of everything — fewer clothes, fewer decisions, fewer of the small daily negotiations with a wardrobe that’s honestly too big. The vacation edit was as minimal as the itinerary — mainly whites. Because white is what you pack when choosing a colour feels like one demand too many. Which, as it turns out, is what the rest of the world is reaching for too. Pantone gave the year to Cloud Dancer — a serene white that’s basically an instruction to slow down. I’d packed the zeitgeist by accident, though I’d like it noted I got there first.

Packing list:

• Leset whites: Margo, Laura slim fit, Laura-Margo tees; Nando pant, which takes a flip-flop happily, but a low white heel turns it Row-prescribed — which is why I’m on a continuous hunt for the Liisa kitten heels in white. My life feels incomplete without them…

• The Row Ivera skirt — of course.

• Slow Label spaghetti strap everyday tank — criminally under-hyped.

• Miu Miu poplin dress — the only dress I packed — found in Bicester Village last year; this year’s even better.

• Dagmar Capri shorts and Rohe open back top — meant as an outfit, but neither needs the other.

• Khaite Kerrie jean — denim on holiday isn’t obvious, but a tee and good jeans is balm for my millennial soul.

• Four accessories: Juju vera cuff; Maison Magdalena scarf on double duty — neck by day, shoulders when dinner runs late; Tiffany necklace and Vincent Boulevard sunglasses.

• Footwear, three pairs in black — variety in shape, not colour: Havaianas, St Agni wedge sandals, and The Row Liisa pumps.

• Lie Studio Grace tote for the airport, The Row Terrasse to-go — for everything else.

• Eres bikini (briefs) — still no competition.

• Toteme sarong — mine’s old, but this is the one I’d buy now.

Little did I know, I got home to a heatwave and a city behaving like it had never seen the sun, which — fine. I’m looking at the June ahead with fresh eyes now — the biggest headliners have the same thing in common. They all made strong comebacks in the past few years, after years of absence — or, in Chanel’s case, creative stagnation. Marc Jacobs, doing beauty again. Chanel have been giving out Diet Cokes to the queuers outside their Bond Street boutique since the day of Métiers d’Art collection launch. Phoebe Philo made her first delivery for Collection E, each drop better than the last. I got the message! The world doesn’t stop, but you can, and come back better for it.

Speak soon,

Victoria xx