022 Rigorous exuberance

Life lessons from Watches & Wonders, always meet your internet friends, balancing the mental load and brushing past Greta Lee.

Let’s go with I meant to wear my top backwards to a Cartier party this week!

Should I blame deadlines for the lack of newsletter in recent weeks? Moving house? Or the fact that lately I feel like I’ve been on a plane so often I feel like I’m at sea inside my body? Anyway, my theory for that is the shorter the trip the less chance jet lag will paralyse you.

New house is starting to come together. Teddy calls this room ‘mummy’s ‘alaxing’ room.’

Sometimes people ask how I travel so much (and get away it is the subtext), and the truth is it is easy and hard. Mostly you are too busy and absorbed to feel too homesick but then in New York you will see four year-olds holding hands as they walk through Central Park on a school excursion and your heart will physically ache. I’m very lucky to have a husband who doesn’t feel that the mental load is the work of the mother. This man runs a tight ship! He is the one who remembers that it's a wear yellow day at school, say (because he puts everything in the shared calendar) and his plaits have improved dramatically. I’ve been thinking lately that my expectations of a partnership were in some ways established by my father. My mum was a nurse who often worked night shifts and then often people would call in sick and she would work a double shift. I can only now fathom how bone achingly tired she must have been. So often it would be dad who would take us to piano lessons (he actually took up piano lessons when I was learning and his duet with my mother at the end of year recital was mortifying then, triumphant to me now!) or be up late icing a birthday cake. When I got my first period in grade six it was my dad who came to the school with approximately a year’s supply of pads and handed them to me hurriedly. My children are loved by a lot of people - we have a family who pitch in and this is a great blessing. Especially when I am away from them - chasing dreams that I hope are going to be worth it.

In the past few weeks I’ve been to Geneva, London and New York.

When I say Geneva though I mainly was in a convention centre at the annual Watches & Wonders trade show. It is, quite frankly, Disneyland for watch nerds. It’s when around 60 of the top watch brands present their novelties for the year ahead and it is the week I most lose track of my real life outside the Palexpo! I think it’s the lack of fresh air or maybe too much contact with incredibly expensive things at once? Or perhaps it’s simply because for five days I exclusively consume a daily diet of 12 espressos, Swiss chocolate and champagne?

A moment of serenity, despite the espressos!, in the Cartier booth with the truly wild - and wildly fabulous - new Panthere watch

Anyway, I LOVE IT. Yes, for the watches, but also for the people. Here are six lessons from Watches & Wonders that have almost nothing to do with the specifics of the watches I tried on.

1. Always meet your internet friends. I’ve emailed with Hodinkee style editor Malaika Crawford for a few years now - the woman gives excellent quotes. We were seated next to each other at a Bvlgari dinner on the first night and got along like a house on fire. It can be strange meeting people ‘IRL’ when you already have a parasocial relationship with them. You just need to kind of start again. And real conversations are so much better, always.

2. Like anything - visiting an art gallery, watching a fashion show - developing your own taste is about paying attention to what you like. And, crucially, what you don’t like! It’s easy to get caught up in the ‘right’ things to like but this can be at the peril of honing your own eye.

3. Wrist watch shots are an under-appreciated art form - these are not easy to do well!

4. Don’t worry too much about knowing everything. In the watch world - like any, really - there are people who will talk at you and over you about what they know and make you feel like you don’t know enough to speak up. Let alone ask a question. But here’s the thing, you should never feel afraid to ask a question because you worry you will sound dumb! It’s much dumber to pretend to understand something. Also, a lot of people are almost guaranteed to be grateful that you asked it. Nobody knows everything anyway, and always it’s better to stay curious.

5. Try not to get stuck in Geneva on a Sunday! But if you do, always visit the swans - they’re aggressive but pretty. And that’s a quite compelling combination.

6. Now is the time to be a fan. If you love something, say it; if you admire someone, tell them. Hardly anybody is going to mind if you barrel up to them to say that you love their work! Rigorous exuberance is a philosophy I believe in, more than ever.

On this, here are some things I’ve loved these past few weeks:

I watched Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door with glorious Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore and yes, it was illuminating on topics of assisted suicide and the value of a life and exquisite to look at (the houses! The porcelain! Julianne and Tilda!). But oh my god Julianne Moore’s sweaters! Perfect colours, perfectly slouchy. I arrived back home in Sydney and immediately purchased this green one from Assembly Label to copy her autumnal wardrobe.

The vibe I am trying to recreate this autumn.

I visited the iconic Casa Magazines in New York City while I was there and accidentally spent $50 (aud!) on a copy of The Gentlewoman but actually I regret nothing. It was full of things I wanted to read! I also picked up the latest copy of US Vogue and can’t stop thinking about this line from Jeremy O’Harris in his piece on the role of style in his life ahead of the complicated theme for this Monday’s Met Gala.

“Shame is the enemy of all exuberance. Shame comes from fear, and fear is the enemy of style.”

On eschewing shame - the top image of this newsletter is me wearing my favourite new Harris Tapper top BACKWARDS without realising it. I’m going with avant garde, and that I did it on purpose. Actually, I think I pulled it off? Anyway, the truth is, nobody is thinking about you like you think they are, and a woman chased me down on the dance floor to ask where it was from.

Speaking of style, I was mere centimetres away from Greta Lee - practically brushing up against her - last week and she is as chic as we all think. Those in possession of true chic are magnetic.

BOOKS

I tore through Graydon Carter’s memoir and yes of course it made me nostalgic for a time I never lived in (specifically ‘90s New York media and budgets) but it also really made me think about how the only protection against AI and indifference is to make something really, really good (right?!).

I also LOVED The Wedding People by Alison Espach - set in Cape Cod it unpicks class and love and the complexities of people in such a warm-hearted way, allowing its characters to change.

I’ve also started reading a biography of the socialite and terrific gardener Bunny Mellon who tended to her incredible gardens in custom Balenciaga gardening outfits. A level of chicness to aspire to.

Love,

Annie xx