I paid to be bored
on remembering to do nothing, minimal packing and a June kick-off
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. You rest so you don’t collapse, and once you’ve collapsed there’s no resting your way out of it quickly — so really the whole thing is 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. 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 even now, I’m not certain I’m fully out of the woods yet.
All of which is to say I arrived wanting less of everything. The vacation wardrobe was, intentionally, as minimal as the planned boredom itinerary. It felt good to carry less, in every sense. Packed mainly whites — which is what the rest of the world decided it wanted too. Pantone gave the year to Cloud Dancer — a white so serene it’s basically an instruction to slow down. Turns out I’d packed the zeitgeist by accident.
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 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
