Last week I walked you through all the makeup taking up space on my counter - catch THE MAKEUP EDITION HERE if you missed it.

This week we go one shelf over, into the SKINCARE.

23 products.

1 counter.

0 gatekeeping.

I’ve been a skincare girl from time - starting my first age approp anti-aging cream when I was 25 - today at 41 I’ve been through them all. The newest tech, the marketing washed ones, the PR gifts, the viral ones, the most expensive ones to the cheapest, the ones from other countries like when SUPERGOOP wasn’t even available in Canada bc of the strict drug regulations up north that I’d run to Sephora in the US to have it. When i say I’m OBSESSED with skincare - I am. I’ve run a whole ass test gammet on my visage.

There’s ones that I keep coming back to - the ones that turn empty there isn’t a rebuy and yes I still continue to still discover new things.

As who reads the ingredient list before the marketing bits (though I do succumb to a good marketing moment), I also rotate my serums like a DJ reading a room - every day is a different formulation because duh this perimenopause skin asks for something different as she should. And as I’ve been on my running streak currently in the Mexican sun often enough I take SPF very seriously.

So this is the real shelf - the Guerlain I’ve loved since 2018 sitting next to a The Ordinary bottle that costs less than lunch, the Korean mask next to my Chanel eye patches.

High, low, and every honest crumb in between.

The two things I’d grab first are right here for everyone. The full 23 and exactly what each one does - is for my paid HYPER FIXIES.

THE GUERLAIN ABEILLE ROYALE YOUTH WATERY OIL

I have been using this since 2018, which in beauty-writer years is basically a marriage. Shoutout to my girl Aïda who worked for them in Montreal at the time and would always put us Toronto girlies on. Every launch, every initiative, every beauty school lesson, which lead me to become obsessed with the brand even more, the emphasis on the education of it all.

Back to the product - It’s an oil that behaves like water - no grease, no film, just this unreal SLIP. That slip is exactly why I reach for it on facial-massage nights: a few drops and my hands (or my gua sha) glide instead of drag.

It also sits like a dream UNDER makeup - nothing pills, nothing slides, everything just looks more alive. Eight years in and it has never once let me down. On the pricier end, but worth it imo.

THE BIODANCE BIO-COLLAGEN REAL DEEP MASK

This is the viral one, and for once the hype earns it. Goes on like a cloudy jelly and slowly turns clear as it dries into your skin, second-skin style. I wear it overnight, OR I save it for a lazy Sunday with zero makeup on and just leave it until it fully dries up and melts into my face. You come out the other side plump, bouncy, everything sitting a little more full. If you want one instant-gratification hit from this whole counter, it’s this one.

SHOP MY TWO HERO PICKS HERE

Thanks for being here !!! I publish 3x a week on things I’m hyper fixated on - fashion, beauty, subculture, grief, love, living in Mexico City, food and drinks - wherever my energy takes me !!! It would mean the world if you could send this to someone to subscribe - its free !!!!

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With love and gratitude XO AMY

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“It costs a lot of money to look this cheap,” she said - laughing, because she was in on the joke the whole time.

I have been sitting with why this one hits different. Because it does. Dolly was the blueprint - think about in the 1960’s when women weren’t as embolden as she was, but she gave them permission by way of just being unapologetically her. And I realize how rare it is, and how much of it we trace back to a handful of women who dressed loud and refused to shrink.

People forget how much she got underestimated. For most of her career people were assumptive of her. The big hair, the big boobs, the rhinestones - a lot of people, and honestly a lot of women, read all of it as unserious. She spent decades being written off by the exact people she was quietly making room to shine themselves.

And she just let them. She never argued. She said “find out who you are and do it on purpose,” and then she went and did it, louder every year.

And her in an interviews I find to be the most fascinating. Somebody should study that - I bet there will be a comms and psych course on that for sure. She could take the rudest, most loaded question a host handed her - the kind built to make her look small - and turn it into the funniest thing you heard all week, and you’d walk off without even clocking that she’d just handled you.

Fifty years of people trying to catch her out and not one of them landed.

Dolly was never only a performer. She was a songwriter. A composer. A creative director. A businesswoman. A philanthropist. A wife, a sister, an aunt, known as Aunt Granny. She wore about forty different cowboy hats and made every single one look like the only one.

The wife part of it all - there’a Carl Dean.

Her husband of nearly sixty years. She met him at a laundromat in Nashville the day she moved to town - eighteen years old, one suitcase, one dream.

Carl never wanted the spotlight. He barely appeared in public with her, gave a handful of interviews his whole life. Imagine being married to the biggest star in the world, right through the whole rise of celebrity and pop culture and the machine of fame - and choosing, on purpose, to stand just off to the side so her light could fill the room. He let her shine without ever attaching himself to it. He was said to be the inspiration for Jolene. The quietest man in the world, married to the loudest woman alive, and he never once tried to even it out.

That is a kind of love we don’t hear talked about enough. Today’s celeb needs to have an equal “calibre” and yes its in quotes for a reason - “equal calibre” type partner. Take us back - please.

She took all of that light of hers and pointed it at kids.

Her own father couldn’t read or write. She said it plainly, no shame in it, just fact - and in 1995 she started the Imagination Library in her home county in Tennessee.

It mails a free book, every month, to any child who signs up, from birth until they start school. It has given away more than 300 million books. Free. It started as a small thing for the kids in her daddy’s county and it went global.

She called herself “the book lady.” A woman the world reduced to her body spent thirty years putting words into children’s hands.

And she stood on the right side of history back when it wasn’t easy or on-brand to. “Everybody should be allowed to be who they are, and to love who they love.” “You don’t even have to believe in anything to be good to people. You should just know you should be a good human being.” Kindergarten simple. And somehow harder to actually live than any of us admit.

There’s this story Julia Roberts tells. They were filming Steel Magnolias in the heat, everyone miserable and complaining, and Dolly was the only one who wasn’t. Julia finally asked her how she wasn’t bothered, and Dolly said: “when I was a little girl, I wanted to be famous and I wanted to be rich, and now I’m both those things. I’m not going to complain about it.”

Julia said she never forgot it. Neither will I.

Look at where she started. Fourth of twelve kids in a one-room cabin in the Smoky Mountains. No electricity. A coat her mother sewed out of rags that the other kids made fun of - so she wrote a song about it and made the rags holy.

Humble beginnings. Dream big. Give back. Be a star. Stay on the right side of it all. A little girl from Locust Ridge, Tennessee became a global superstar and never once acted like she’d left home.

The strange part. I didn’t know Dolly. None of us did. And yet a lot of us are walking around a little cracked open and I think it’s worth naming why.

We have this parasocial thing with the people whose voices raised us. And someone like Dolly got in sideways, before you were even paying attention. Maybe you heard her from the back seat of your parents’ car, on a tape, on the way to somewhere. Maybe you worked a mall job and her songs came on over the speakers while you folded a shelf - shout out Rexdale Plaza the mall my parents has a kiosk so mall music was ours too - and you were memorizing her without knowing it. Maybe you found her much later and fell down the whole rabbit hole of her life at once.

However she got in, she got in.

And I think when someone like that goes, a small private part of us clocks that our own soundtrack is finite too. That the back seat, the mall, the tape - all of it is further away than it was - revisiting that time nostalgically and remembering those who we’ve also lost along the way. Maybe that’s why this one hits different. It isn’t only about her. It’s a little bit about the version of you that first heard her.

She belonged to everyone, too. I knew so many Indian kids growing up whose names were DOLLY - like full government name - kids who’d parents had nothing to do with country music or Tennessee, singing along anyway too.

And a genuine style icon, for the record. Not despite the excess - because of it. The wigs, the nails, the rhinestones, the waist - she built a look so specific and so total it became its own language. One of one. There was only ever going to be one.

She couldn’t read a note of sheet music and could still play the hell out of a guitar with acrylics, long, sharp, fully glam nails. ICON.

The hyper-femininity wasn’t a costume sitting on top of the talent. It was load-bearing. It’s what got her out of the boys’ club, and it’s the reason a whole line of women in country picked up their own guitars and their own pens after her. Nails on, nails off - didn’t matter. She opened those saloon doors.

She makes me want to put my own chaps back on. Dress in a bit of whimsy again. Remove the ‘make it make sense’ of it all and you’ve got your Dolly fit too.

I keep come back to the rhinestones.

She could have afforded the real thing a thousand times over, which she did but she also glorified the fake ones too. She chose loud. She let herself be underestimated because she knew the joke would land in her favour eventually, and it always did.

Jolene and I Will Always Love You were written, famously, on the same day. One day. She sat down and wrote a song about the fear of losing love, and a song about letting it go, back to back - and both of them will outlive every single one of us.

I don’t know exactly what I’m grieving this week. Maybe her. Maybe the back seat. Maybe just the reminder that the good ones do leave, eventually.

HYPER FIXATED ON THE THINGS AS ALWAYS and if no one said it to you today ~ I will always love you - AMY

Four degrees of Pisces, bloody red as a bruise on both knees, and I can’t stop thinking she’s been trying to get my attention for two years.

When an eclipse is in your own sign, it feels like you’re being screamed at by your government name. WAKE THE FUCK UP AMY SHIO.

I was supposed to be out last night. Some event, my name on a list somewhere here in the city. But this past week knocked something loose in me about not running myself into the ground for everyone else - so for once I stayed in and picked me. Cooked fish tacos. Put on a movie. Skincare handled. In bed by 10. And then the dreams came in HOT - sweaty, relentless, all night long. I couldn’t shake it. Woke up multiple times to relive the dreams, remember them and I do. Some dark, some grief filled and some weird (like how all my piercings on my left hear kept falling out - WTF does this even mean?)

September 2024 is when this whole thing cracked open (so I was partially in Toronto and then here in Mexico City), not that I clocked it at the time of the shift that was happening in my sign. Just living my life as one does. The universe doesn’t just do the big fall its slower than that. Tiny hints until the hints stop hinting. A feeling I kept explaining away. A dream I didn’t bother writing down. At that time, I wasn’t writing the things here on HYPER FIXATED. They lived sporadically amongst different chats with different people. I FEEL everything and DO almost nothing with it. **SHAKES TF OUTTA SELF**

Here’s the astrology, if you’re into it.

Moon in Pisces - all feeling, zero armour, basically sobbing “rest, please, I’m begging you.”

Sun directly across in Virgo with a clipboard going: cool, but what are you actually going to DO about your body.

That gap - between what I feel and what I actually tend to? I’ve been sitting in it my whole life. Like I excercise, I move daily, I obsesses over my supplements, I drink that water, I .. I .. I .. rarely take rest days because somehow growing up my DNA immediately associates rest with laziness, something truly weird because if you never saw it happen it needs to be learnt. I’ve always loved the below sentiment, but have I practiced it?

DOLCE FAR NIENTE - THE SWEETNESS OF DOING NOTHING

I won’t retell the falls both physically and emotionally. I’ll only say that when I finally hit the ground - four times since September 2024 (and twice within a week last week), ego gone, knees open - it didn’t feel like punishment. It felt like the last, loudest BANG of something that had been trying to reach me with a few body slams for the last two years. I’ve said this before, falling in your 40’s is ghetto AF. 10/10 would not wish on anyone.

MY WHOLE PISCES LIFE HAS BEEN FEELING THE SIGNS AND AVOIDING THE MEMO.

Maybe she’s not asking me to slow down at all, it’s more like: can I finally believe I’m allowed to?

Me - the human sponge for everyone else’s internal storms, their weather. Am I actually allowed to sit in the tiny bathroom and let someone tend to HER for once.

No tidy ending here, my bad. This chapter closed last night. Two years, to the exact degree. I’m letting it go, wild sweat-induced dreams et al.

I woke up this morning wrecked, like I hadn’t closed my eyes at all, and my husband just goes: today’s a new day. So here’s the new day - work, pilates, a slow run-walk to keep my streak alive, and a pedicure. Pisces are ruled by the feet, so I am counting this as medicinal to ground me right back and allow someone to tend to me (for a price lmao).

So if the moon was in your sign too, or if she was dragging her red thumb across some tender part of your chart - this is your note under the door. You don’t have to fall to hear it. I did. You don’t have to.

Slow down. She’s not asking nicely, but she’s asking because she loves you.

- Amy 🤍

I’m cracking open my bathroom for you and sharing the products I reach for, which ones turn into empties and the ones I repurchase over and over and over again.

The one thing that’s earned its spot for SIX YEARS straight:

NYX lip liner in “Los Angeles.” I have used this daily!! Nights out, on my runs and everything in between it’s my go-to lip combo. When people ask me the lip combo it’s this liner plus a pinky gloss over top.

Buy 6 and get free shipping lol

What else do I keep going back to? That’s the first thing waiting for you on the other side of this wall - all 14 other products, every shade and why i keeping going back to them - the full face from start to finish.

Come get HYPER FIXATED WITH ME BELOW XOXO AMY

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If you read Friday, you know why. A girl named Susie cleaned my torn-up knees in the back of a coffee shop, told me to breathe, and asked if she could give me a hug. I was undone by all things kind and by a stranger. The way a person and city holds you when you are not expecting it and the way real hospitality is just someone deciding you are worth the trouble.

So when this crossed my feed a few months back by my friend Brittney, Director of Operations of the legendary Expendio de Maíz, I knew I had to bring it to you. And timely because this special day happens in THREE DAYS !!!

On AUGUST 26, kitchens all over the world are doing a beautiful thing together.

A global day of hospitality. It started right here in Mexico City, an initiative of MASALA Y MAIZ, and it has bloomed into a map that runs from Brazil to Nigeria to Turkey to a plethora of restaurants across the US.

103 restaurants, in 57 cities and 13 countries to be exact !!!!

Here is how it works.

For one day only, you walk in, you eat, and you pay what you are able to pay. Not what the menu says (or that too if it serves you well). What you can. That can range from a full price and a generous tip to something in between. All ranges are welcome.

It is the table making room for everyone.

I think about how many times this city has fed my soul and spirit when I did not have the words to ask for it. Susie and her little bar of soap. The taquero who knows my order. The stranger who steadies you before you even know you are falling. This IMO is all of that, turned into a plan.

A whole day built on the simple idea that everyone eats.

So here is where to go.

HERE IN MEXICO

Ciudad de México

Pólvora

DIGNO Cocina Honesta

Bennu

Aro

Agrotaberna Monstruo de Agua

Ahumalia

Almanegra

Axolotita Agrofonda

Baldío

Bao Bao

Café de Nadie

Ciclo Mexicano

Expendio de Maíz

Loup Bar

Malix

Mamma Ricotta

Masala y Maíz

Mignon Pâtisserie

Mita

Outline

Panadería Cinco y Dos

Restaurante Mux

Rudo

Savvia

Via Sol

Elsewhere in México

Sobremesa Desayunador & Aperitivos

Terral Agrobar

Tina Café

Umani Fermentos

Restaurante Ke-Quén

Sotobosque

Makai Cocina Marina

Dolia Cocina

Chau! Resto

Barrio Maíz

Ramiro Cocina

EVERYWHERE ELSE

The best part is that it’s WORLDWIDE!!!! If you are reading this from somewhere else, or you want to send it to someone who is, the day is GLOBAL.

BRAZIL

São Paulo: MIDI Forneria e Enoteca

COLOMBIA

Bogotá: Chichería Demente, Tacaloa

Medellín: Bocabajo

CUBA

Havana: Grados

FRANCE

Paris: El Mictlán París

INDIA

Bengaluru: Mai Mai, East Asian Restaurant

Kolkata: To Die For

Mumbai: Americano

ITALY

Turin: Alma Latina

NIGERIA

Lagos: El Padrino

PORTUGAL

Porto: A la Mexa

PERU

Lima: Piedra

SPAIN

Barcelona: Casa Dulce Panadería Mexicana

TURKEY

Antalya: The Rabbit Hole at Olympos Mountain Lodge

Istanbul: Foxy Nişantaşı, Todos Los Días

Kaş: Capra Çukurbağ

UNITED STATES

California: Baroo (Los Angeles), Bombera, Sfizio, Tacos Oscar, Understory (Oakland), Meza California (Sacramento), Merkado, Pasta Supply Co., Reem’s California (San Francisco), Acopio Alta Cocina Mexicana (San Jose), Valley Swim Club (Sonoma), Jack’s Pizza (Torrance), Quererte (Visalia)

Washington DC: Albi, Oyster Oyster

Florida: LB Eatery & Wine (Pembroke Pines), 22 Moons Tea Room (Valrico)

Georgia: Vinny’s Mutual Aid Bakery (Atlanta), Kamayan (Doraville)

Louisiana: Ayu Bakehouse, CASIMIRO (New Orleans)

Maryland: Mera Kitchen Collective (Baltimore)

Massachusetts: Comfort Kitchen (Boston)

Minnesota: Indígena by Owamni (Minneapolis)

Missouri: Up Late (St. Louis)

New York: HAGS, Kabawa, Tokyo Record Bar, Fan-Fan Doughnuts, Little Egg, Ursula, Vato, Hellbender

North Carolina: Dulce Dreams Cafe, El Veneno (Charlotte)

Oregon: Party Bar (Eugene)

Pennsylvania: Post Haste (Philadelphia)

Tennessee: Maíz de la Vida (Nashville)

Texas: Comadre Panadería, Lenoir, L’Oca d’Oro, Nixta Taqueria (Austin), Helados La Azteca (College Station / Temple / Waco), Preemo’s Bakeshop (Houston)

If you go, go gently, talk to the staff and be patient. Order the thing you have been curious about. Pay what you honestly can, and if that number is a big one, round it up so someone else can round theirs down.

That is the abrazo, turned into a meal.

See you at the table.

HYPER FIXATED AS ALWAYS ~ Amy 🤍

The right one is from Tuesday. The left one is from Wednesday. Less than 24 hours between them, which is a thing I still can’t quite make sense of.

Tuesday I did my usual. Pilates,

then my 5km, tights and a jacket on thankfully. And somewhere in there I caught my foot on a little rivet in the sidewalk and went down.

The right knee took it. Swollen, sore in that deep internal way, a mark on the outside but no as bad as its been before. I sat there for a second and did the thing I always do. This could have been worse I thought because it has been. I counted my blessings, I was on a sidewalk and not the street, nothing felt broken, just my ego a bit, texted Kona and made my way to finish the run I started and headed home.

I’m not new to falling on a run in this city, it happens, it shakes you up and then you get up. I took it as a sign and a blessing to relax on my run and I kept going. I didn’t even cry. I was almost proud of that.

The universe was not finished with me.

Wednesday I woke up early published my Substack, went to my workout, a newer class at Commando that I’ve been wanting to try (10/10) -

went for another 5km post class as per the usual guidelines set out by me.

And I went FLYING. BODY SLAMMED onto the Amsterdam circuit, hard enough that a couple of runners stopped and offered to help me up, hard enough I that my thumb nail is now somewhere in the streets, hard enough that my Apple Watch set off that SOS emergency alarm.

Not a stumble this time, a full launch. Both hands scraped raw, my ego down the drain, and the left knee so much worse than Tuesday’s right. My tights ripped open. I sat there holding it all in, telling myself don’t cry don’t cry, thinking how. How does this happen twice in less than 24 hours.

I started walking home bleeding, washing the blood off with my water bottle which also launched into the streets like that was going to fix anything. Just feeling like I had the entirety of Mexico City now in my body.

And then I did the thing you do when you’re trying to make yourself feel something again. No, not tequila. I went to a coffee shop to buy a coffee to go and carry it home. A little treat myself dot com moment if you will. A little something to take the edge off.

I paid, and a girl who works there looked at me. Her name is Susie. She’s studying to be a nurse. She said she wanted to help me, and she brought me into the tiny one-person bathroom and told me to sit, and told me to breathe. All in Spanish. And I understood her completely, and something about that undid me, because I felt so SEEN by a complete stranger.

She warned me before the soap would sting. She cleaned my knees and my hands so gently, gentler than I would have been with myself tbh. I kept asking her name a few times (because the first few it didn’t register, nothing did), I kept saying gracias, gracias, because I could not hold the fact that a total stranger was tending to me like this, asking me to breathe and relax. I remember thinking, lock this in. Lock her name into your heart forever. How am I this lucky. How did I stumble into a place where someone showed such deep empathy.

And when she finished, she asked if she could give me an abrazo.

That’s when I lost it. Completely. Conflicted in my whole body and grateful in the same breath, both at once, no idea what to do with either.

Then she asked if I wanted a chocolate. And my almost-42-year-old self melted right into a child. She told me to sit, and to relax, and to enjoy my coffee before I went anywhere. So I did for once instead of rushing home. I asked for the wifi and stayed for an hour and she would as an empath would time to time come by and check in on me, ask me to put pressure on my left knee, switch out the bloody napkin for a new one. A real life caregiver angel, maybe 19 years old at most. Susie.

I text my family chat and my mom FaceTimed me immediately and I cried again, like her kid. That’s when it hit me that I hadn’t cried since May. Since my mom went into the hospital. Months it had been. It felt amazing, cathartic and healing and in the same weep so deeply strange to be doing it in public with no sunglasses on to hide behind and for once I didn’t give a fuck.

Here’s the universe‘s part knocking on my front door or knocking me down, however we want to read it.

There’s a lunar eclipse upcoming / here, the last Pisces one of a 2 year cycle, and everything I’ve read about it says the same thing to a chart like mine.

The Pisces in me is being asked to quit performing the fine. To actually feel the thing instead of narrating around it. And the Aries in me, the one who gets up fast and keeps running, she just needs to choose herself for once. To let herself be held instead of being the one who’s okay.

See what lesson the eclipse is asking you to see behind your own shadow.

Two falls in a day is not just ghetto its a sign and I get it. I’m slow enough to hear it now I guess, and hindsight is always 20/20.

Even typing this brings tears to my eyes. Me, the one who always has it together. And here I am feeling all of it, deep, right at the surface.

So wherever and whenever this finds you, be kind and gentle with yourself. Lean into the people who check in, who tend to you, who ask. Let them. I’m learning to.

Because people have been asking if I’m okay. Yesterday I said yes. Today I said no.

HYPER FIXATED AS ALWAYS - a little softer today Amy

Iddi’s is tried, tested, true. I have gotten my BIRTHDAY CAKE from here, the double chocolate, and I will keep going back over and over and over again.

The woman behind it is chef Michelle Catarata. “Iddi” is her family nickname, and the whole place is basically a love letter to her grandmother Lola Luz back in the Philippines. 18 years in fine dining and then she built a neighbourhood bakery - GOD BLESS UUUU!! Homemade, nostalgic, the kind of desserts that taste like someone actually thought about you. Real ingredients and 10/10 flavours.

Order the DOUBLE CHOCOLATE CAKE to take to a party or the personal pan cakes for those nights in. Thank me later.

To mention Iddi’s without mentioning GALEA is blasphemy imo so I’m going to share before the paywall of it all. GALEA is Iddi’s sister restaurant and one of my favourite Italian spots in the city. Always consistent, never a miss, which can happen overtime in a city full of tourists, but not here. A nice glass of wine and a good pasta, or a cocktail and snack - this is the spot for either of your fixations. And locals, families, friends and couples gathered over food and laughs.

(both linked HERE and HERE so you can find them yourself.)

Now over to the spots me and my friends go to.

No aesthetic grid, no overly hyped up IG, no signs of closing down (because they’ve been around the block for yearsssss). The spots where the tourists arent necessarily hitting so if thats your vibe when visiting a new city - below are my 5 with the Google Maps included.

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The shuffle this week ? Def not my usual. Not the same one that come through on rotation.

BOOM by Major Lazer and BOOM - instantly I was transported back to Toronto Summer of 2015.

We all have those songs that TRANSPORT YOU BACK TO SOMEWHERE IN TIME. You know the ones.

The ex., a wedding you ugly-cried at and that one summer.

The songs your parents would play on repeat that somehow became yours. Whats that one for you ?

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The good old days don’t knock you on the head and tell you that they and thats something thats been on my mind lately.

I’ve been in my feels about it. Sad and happy all in the same mix is a weird ass cocktail. It’s shown up in different ways throughout my day.

The good old days via memes.

Some of you have never taken THE foot photo. All the girls, all the heels pointed into the middle, shot on somebody’s Canon digital camera with the flash blowing it all out. millennial to the core and it shows. Wouldn’t trade it.

Some of you have never worn the millennial transition outfit; the blazer, the pencil skirt, the little tank underneath - the fit that took you desk to happy hour to the club with no stop at home. Those days were the good old days but in that moment it was just a Thursday night out in the city.

The good old days via “on this day.” Our phones do it on purpose, I’m sure of it.

It goes here’s REMEMBER WHEN like it’s nothing, and I cave every time. Show in all photos - absolutely, I want to see it to get back into my feels. Then send them to the people in the image , 4 texts later we’re right back inside that weekend, inside jokes and all.

The one where my friend declared it a nut-free weekend and cleansed the entire cottage, warned the extended family, because one of the four of us had a severe allergy… and then?? that one never showed. Never said why either. lol. So on the day we were leaving, out on the dock, the three of us made up a song about it.

who got the peanut butter, who got the jam

It has paid zero rent in my head for sixteen years and shows no sign of moving out either. THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

THE GOOD OLD DAYS through the albums.

The real physical ones, the plastic sleeves that pull apart with that distinct sound. I got into them and it was a different kind of quiet. Because those are from the before’s. Before the sickness.

Before the health stuff entered the chat.

Back when everyone in the frame was still at the table, mid-laugh, not knowing that they were in the good old days either.

Not documenting the good old days, we were just having a toonie Tuesday, cutting that DQ ice cream cake in regular after school clothes and photographing it.

We def didn’t clock it. I don’t think you do, until you’re years later sitting here like tweety birds grandma saying back in my day and reminiscing.

Lately I've been trying - keyword TRYING - to live in all three tenses at once. It's a lot but this reminder keeps me present and in my gratitude.

The past and future never shut tf up if I’m being honest and the now barely makes a sound - which is exactly how it keeps slipping by.

One way I’ve tried this in the present tense is on my runs here in Mexico City. I keep the tourist eyes on - still with those rose coloured glasses. 10/10 recommend wherever this letter lands you recondition the way you see, the way you ca stop and smell the roses.

I’m sighting the sees once again, I stop for the photos like I just got off the plane, like I haven’t run this exact block a hundred times before. Stopping to see what pastries the coffee shop I pass but never go into actually has.

And I’m trying not letting the everyday-ness of my own life slip past me.

Because tbh maybe that’s the closest thing there is to a trick. Being a gamer in your life’s own game.

BOOM comes on and I’m at the question again.

Is today’s photo the one that someone pulls out in twenty years?????

Everyone still here, still laughing, none of us knowing yet??????

I don’t have the answer yet, but I think I’d rather act like it’s yes.

Nobody told us last time, so please consider this from me, out on a run, with friends, on a walk, seeing family for the umpteenth time, tourist eyes on, telling you that these really are THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

HYPER FIXATED AS ALWAYS - AMY

last time i did this, i kinda did it wrong. i wrote a whole essay about dressing like an unsupervised child (see video below for said outfit), and i showed you the sweat jorts that were living in my head and body rent free. and by the time i shared they became unavailable in many sizes, my bad. So i vowed to never do that to you going forward.

i’m showing you what i added to cart THIS week IRL, before its on my doorsteps (fingers crossed Tuesday) - so you can too have my favs of the week. no leaving you behind because we dont do that to friends.

both are in my ShopMy right HERE if you want to get them before we get into the styling of it all.

now - how i’ll wear them

CAMO SHORTS

same way i’ve told you in the past to treat animal print, once it’s a neutral to you, it goes with everything, i promise.

on their own, camo shorts can be perceived as suburban dad energy. baggy, shapeless (especially when you’re working on your glute gains - insert me), a little like you borrowed them from brother, humans, boyfriend and dad, WHICH I ADORE, dont get me wrong.

SO HOW DO WE STYLE STYLE THEM?

you add a crop tee, racerback, knit, the total opposite, something super extra, fur perhalps, or a heel, or a jersey or a cowboy boot, or intentional accessories - and just like that you’re not the person mowing the lawn, you’re embodying that carrie bradshaw IDGAF energy.

here’s the ‘how I’ll wear them’ rotation

1: an oversized white tee - i love this 3 pack i got from margiela, a slick back, a sneaker - i’m going for my yellow puma speedcat. sunglasses as always, and a red little LV pochette. that’s it. errands, but mindful.

2: same shorts, one change. a kitten strappy heel, or my chloé jellie mules. one shoe and the whole thing flips.

3: a classic black flip flop and a classic black tank, usual gold chain stack. clean, hot, nothing trying hard. and if you want the full flip flop rabbit hole - shop the drop HERE

4: my fav. remember i told you camo is a neutral so you can pair everything loud with it. an oversized jersey or knit. then you keep the shoe feminine to hold it all together - a jazz flat (so of the moment atm), or a sparkly flat. conservative up top, party on the foot.

5: a strappy colour mule, for me a cherry red one, with an opposite-colour top, a butter yellow or like bright purple. (this one’s coming the second the shorts actually arrive - i’ll show you.)

IMO it’s the range. Plain staples or clashing ones. Adding that little razzle dazzle a la shoes and accessories.

AS SEEN!!!

and let me be clear why I’m fixated on it again (first few times was in my teens and then in my 20’s baddie era ask Lindsay specifically).

it was all over copenhagen fashion week last week. every other street style photo (see above). green tee over a white button-up with a heel. red strappy heels, a red bag, camo. butter yellow against camo. tabis and thong heels and flip flops and mules on every other human.

camo is everywhere rn - so i’m telling you and my group chats neow. either purchased or go in to that suburban dad’s closet and borrow from the boys.

so you see that iconic David Beckham image at the top of this think piece? he was doing it all right - now we just copy paste but with accessories.

THE RED HALF-ZIP

the second purchase. the red half-zip sweater.

it comes in heather grey and black, and i went for the red. i opted for a pop of colour. three ways i’m wearing it.

with the camo jorts - and an oversized white button-up, undone, underneath it. the whole purchase worn together. the red mules.

to the gym - it’s a commute piece too.

clean, for brunch - oversized jeans, loafers, a little cocktail bag, rose-tinted glasses, hair slicked as above. fake a little sweater weather to cosplay cold season while residing in mexico city. i’m allowed lmao.

so that’s the cart.

camo shorts, a red half-zip, and a mini plan for both.

everything’s linked HERE so you can add to cart with me - this time you’re not finding out too late.

go. before it’s unavailable.

HYPER FIXATED AS ALWAYS - AMY

“lo mismo pero más barato” - the same thing, but cheaper.

i used to walk past Farmacias Similares the way you walk sceptically past a store that has a dancing mascot outside of it. politely. fake being on a call (airpods in) yktv. avoiding eye contact thinking - PICK POCKET ! SCAM !

i was dead wrong.

behind that cartoon moustache is a shelf of prescription-grade actives - the exact molecules a canadian and american derm makes you book an appointment, wait MONTHS for, and pay for the time and prescription - just sitting there. here, no appointment - the best part is when you know what you’re looking for - publications like mine that help - you just have to walk in with my cheat sheet. some incredible actives for the price of a coffee.

you know me, i love to be HYPER FIXATED ON THINGS. i obsess mostly because it’s the things i want that have lived in my group chats, so i dig, and today i’m converting every peso so you don’t have to. i have spent time over the last few months in two different pharmacy chains reading boxes, asking questions and testing testing testing so this can be the one screenshot you save forever.

what i found:

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i’ll tell you what NOT to buy, because i’m not here to cheerlead only. the pretty box that’s a trap? i name names - below, where the hyper fixated dive lives.

it’s two pharmacies - and they win at completely different things. what to buy at each is in the guide below. buy the wrong active at the wrong door and you pay up to 9x more for the identical molecule at the other !!!! no joke !!!! and like a good mexican style deal there’s 3x1 (three for the price of one) sales ALL THE TIME.

the talk is free HERE.

the research is the product BELOW. let’s get into it. 👇

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OKAYYYYY so this hit me on my run this weekend on reforma andddddd i couldn’t shake it:

!!!!!!!!

[the grief no one prepares you for is the new people]

!!!!!!!!

you get warned about the empty chair at Diwali, thanksgiving, Christmas that fucking first birthday, everyone’s birthday tbh. the voicemail you won’t delete - i can hear them clearly “Amy its dad (duhhhhhhhhh my guy i’d always think) call me back”, the way a stranger’s cologne can sucker punch you in the gut on the streets - DRAKKAR NOIR TO BE EXACT. you have the ability to brace for some of that.

BUT there are layers to the shit that comes after.

specifically i was thinking about the people who walk into your life once your person already gone and they just belong there. loved. permanent. woven all the way in to another chapter in your life. and he (my dad) will never once know their name.

there’s a whole plethora of my life he’ll never meet, the notion of this is a feeling I wasn’t prepared to even feel - the humans who magnetically stepped into my life since october 2022.

and you know how i am, i told you on friday, i’m a sponge.

A whole ass pisces. i soak up every human i get near, and usually (with discernment) i keep them, i carry them energetically.

so now i’m this sponge full of humans, experiences, crevices of the world he’ll never know the stories about. this feeling effects me deeply. recently my husband said your dad would have liked it here (mexico city) and i thought so too, i thought about the walks he would take, questions he would ask, the fruits he would get at the market, the comparisons he would have made, i romanticized it in my head like it was actually happening.

the humans who will now only ever meet him as a story i tell with my hands. and this funny thing i do with my feet unconsciously that replicates him.

it’s not the big days. not the empty chair, not the anniversary you saw coming.

that’s when these thoughts land for me mid-stride at the 7 km mark looking at the blessing i’m currently living in wishing he got to see it too.

one thing i’m certain of is that he’d have loved it here and the new humans i’ve collected along the way. all of them. that’s not a maybe - i know his taste in people. i inherited it.

for all the ones who feel this. ILU. I SEE YOU.

- Amy 🤍

**WHATS YOUR SIGN**

i’m intuitive. to a fault or a gift. depending how you’d like to see it. i feel the feelies energetically and i can read a person before they’ve finished their first sentence. so asking your sign isn’t me fishing for information, it’s me fishing for my personal confirmation. you tell me you’re a scorpio and something in me goes: yeah. i knew it.

SPONGE ENERGY

anyone else feel like a sponge ? its exhausting. it doesn’t stop at the people i know. strangers do it to me ALL THE TIME too - something about my face says STEP RIGHT UP AND DUMP RIGHT HERE. SMH.

it’s even more interesting now that i live in mexico city, because the stories come at me in a language and slang i’m still learning and it doesn’t matter even a little. a woman at the gym, the tía at the market - they’ll spill so much tea (chimse, chismosa, guspuss) and i’ll catch it. the words usually blur, i smile and nod as per the use but the FEELING comes through crystal clear. turns out sponge energy transcends language. of course it does. or maybe its a sort of comfortability - i cant pin point the why yet, but it happens ALL the time.

OCEAN ON FIRE

so who am i other than the gyal dem sugar?

pisces sun.

pisces moon.

aries rising.

aries venus.

pisces mercury.

aries jupiter.

a stellium, incase you’re wondering, is when three-plus planets pile into one sign. it's a lot of energy pointed at the same thing. so a stellium in both pisces and aries, is a very polite way of saying i am an ocean on fire.

equal parts cry baby equal parts IDGAF ass. i’ll single tear over a stranger on tiktok and then square up for you in the same breath. one part soft, weepy, feel-everything sea, one part that will ignite, spark and throw bows. now that i think about it, its why I energetically always feel like a hormonal teenager (sorry husband). which one you get depends on the planets that day - and, let’s be honest, where i am in my cycle lmao. the moon and my perimenopause hormones are running a joint op fr.

HOW I LOVE YOU and SEE YOU, BY SIGN

pisces - my fam. pisces to pisces we never have to say a word, just a look and we know. and a reminder in case you forgot: sharks are fish too. we can be a little goldfish one minute and a whole ass killer whale the next.

cancer - truly the hardest shell of anyone, hiding the softest inside of everyone. don’t let the crab fool you, it’s all heart under there.

scorpio - the strongest, most loyal of the water signs. hard shell, soft insides, and yes, a sting from up top - a scorpio will cut for you. i feel safe behind that armour.

taurus - earth and water make mud, and i mean that as the highest compliment. some of my favourite friendships are a taurus and me getting gloriously stuck in it together. mud is where things grow.

capricorn - the ones who ground me and drag the fish back to earth. hard workers who remind me that being horizontal all day isn’t a personality (unless you’re getting paid for it, lmao).

virgo - my literal opposite on the wheel, the head to my heart. a virgo wants to fix me; i want to feel my way through it. but the balance is the magic - they organize my chaos, i teach them the mess is allowed.

leo - a fun duo, us. loyal leos will always stand on the side of justice for their fish friends, and in return the fish remind the leo that it’s okay to soften. you don’t always have to be the brave one little leo.

sagittarius - fellow mutable, fellow jupiter kid. same wanderlust, same big-question brain, endless fun.

aries - dares the fish to fuck around and find out. (my rising is aries, so this one’s a little bit a call coming from inside the house.)

gemini - good, but scary together. when we’re on we are SO on; when we’re off we’re both too stubborn to fix it. but a gemini brings the joy and lightness a recluse pisces needs. worth the risk imo.

libra - a soft conflict-avoidant dream. we’ll talk art and music for hours and never once manage to pick a restaurant. all beauty and peace-keeping, which is lovely until it’s two people who feel everything and say nothing **crickets**.

aquarius - my neighbour on the zodiac wheel, all head to my all heart. an aquarius teaches the fish to actually build a plan, the fish teaches them it’s okay to feel the thing.

so. what’s your sign? go ahead, tell me how we fit together.

- Amy 🤍

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Watch on my IG linked above :) pls and leave a comment that you came from here so I can follow you back !!!

My 5

1 - the metal face gua sha

2 - the wooden body gua sha

3 - the red light panel

4 - the medicube pro

5 - the apple watch (yes, for tracking my morning meditations)

that’s the what of it all. below is the worth it or not things that i def regret. because owning a device and it actually earning its keep are two very different things, and i’ve got bangers AND wastemans. one shop-the-drop link for the whole edit is down there too, so you can grab exactly what you want and skip what you don’t.

let’s get into it

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then life happened and the check-in didn’t. until a reader named the Oracle turned up in my comments in July: “can you please post an update 🥹 I’m dying to know if this works.”

Oracle. this one’s for you. I finished the entire bottle and that alone is half the review.

Let’s be very clear, I've considered filler in the past (never gotten it) because filler migration still FREAKS ME TF OUT.

Which is why I was very intrigued to test this out to see if it worked. I loved it enough to use it every single morning til the last drop. Empties are always a reminder of the ones I’ll keep adding to the rotation.

THE TINGLE IS REAL

first thing you notice: a tiny tingle. not a sting, not the like the gylcolic acid burn we’ve all felt. A little prickle that tells you the anhydrous oil has landed and something is happening. it’s silky, dense, more oil than serum, and a couple of drops covers the entire face.

WHERE IT EARNED ITS SPOT

here’s my ritual that made it stick:

AM skincare, right after my workout, the last step before makeup.

sweat off, face clean, water-based stuff down first, then I’d tap the Volufiline over everything - not just the five audit zones that i initially wanted to target, the whole face.

sixty seconds to settle and it became the grippiest, glowiest little base.

real talk, topical volume is not a needle and it never will be.

what a daily oil like this actually gives you is quality: bounce, glow, a plumped-looking canvas. I’m coming at you live from the age of 41.5 years old - so this is what it looks like on me and I love this safer and much less stressful option :)

what it will not do is erase a deep hollow overnight the way a syringe does. if you go in expecting cheek filler in a dropper, you’ll be disappointed. go in expecting a beautiful daily ritual that makes your skin have that bounce, and you’ll finish the bottle like I did.

THE VALUE

and the bottle is TINY and I realized a few drops is genuinely all you need. it lasted me months. for what it costs, that’s a rare thing in this category.

SO, IS IT A KEEPER?

for me? yes. I’m repurchasing.

SHOP THE FIXATION

The Hero: The Ordinary Volufiline 92% + Pal-Isoleucine 1% SHOP IT HERE AND ALL MY OTHER ORDINARY EMPTIES HERE

so tell me - team topical or team just-book-the-needle? and what’s the volume trouble spot you’re watching? confess below.

XO, AMY

Everyone assumes that when I run, I am listening to something about beauty, wellness, fashion or some serious bangers - I’ve got moody playlists for DAYYYYSSSSS.

Have you seen my IG stories and how I curate the music like I’m an entire DJ?

For those of you who solely know me from the Substack App, thank you for being here - quick shameless plug before I begin my confession get to know ME VISUALLY ON THAT OTHER APP!!

back to it, not a mindfulness podcast nor a fashion one in my downloads.

at km 5, what is in my ears is Danny Pellegrino himself on his show EVERYTHING ICONIC doing an entire one-man show about reality television, and I am laughing out loud - jajajaja’ing in the Mexico City streets, alone, on the pavement, tbh like a mad woman, grinning, agreeing.

Many times a whole ass raw dog, not even having watched the show because this man does a recap with something really special I can’t describe.

let me say it with my whole ass chest

hi. I’m Amy. I write about Chanel Métiers d’Art and archival Phoebe Philo and the quiet genius of a hand-rolled hem over at Hermès.

and I am OBSESSED with reality television.

SO WHAT’S IN THE ROTATION RIGHT NOW

THE VALLEY. the messy Vanderpump offspring. I am emotionally invested in people that I lived next to when we lived in LA. and can I say something.

I love Janet, and I have always loved Lala.

but the audience is weird about the moms. no one gave pregnant and postpartum Janet and Lala (on VPR) a pass, they swept it like it did not happen to them too, and on this show, especially Janet. I love that this season shows two mothers directly dealing with PP in realtime, but handing the postpartum pass to some and not others (the audience on socials I mean) and on the show - feels weird and unfair. Also love both Janet and Lala’s pods, while we’re here. Lala with her brother and mom and Janet with her husband and bff bring so much more context to who they are as real people irl.

SUMMER HOUSE. a late convert aka only this past season, and Bailey, this one’s on you. my friend has been trying to get me in for YEARS, and I finally caved this past season purely for the breadcrumbs of the Amanda / Wes / Ciara of it all. a little Scandoval at a smaller scale, and I felt I owed it to myself for understanding pop culture of the moment to watch.

WATCH WHAT HAPPENS LIVE. Andy Cohen - priest. the clubhouse - church. Also Available in podcast format which I do appreciate.

THE ULTIMATUM. watching strangers decide their entire lives in eight episodes. horrifying mess aka perfect.

LOCK UPP. Netflix India, and yes I went there, because the hyperfixation does not care about borders. new episodes on Saturdays - people I don’t know (actors, influencers etc) locked upp (someone tell me is the upp for utterpradesh?) and they are meant to reveal one of their biggest secrets.

THE HALL OF FAME

before all of this, there was the canon. the shows that built millennials because we were growing together in real time and they just happen to be FILMING theirs for us to see the parallels of our collective mess.

OG VANDERPUMP.

P.s. Stassi has a new show coming out on HULU called House of Stassi and will I be partaking ? Absolutely 100% yes. Katie Maloney our generation’s hero QUEEN is back more unapologetically than ever, Stassi our dark passenger activated once again but as a mom of 2 - can’t wait.

the whole voyeuristic buffet of reality tv gets me going. Mormon Wives, Ultimatum, Love Is Blind (every country duh), million dollar nannies, that one show about friends in Cayman Islands, Muslim matchmaker - i go deep.

THE PART I CAN’T EXPLAIN

here is the thing I keep circling back to on the run.

I write about a world polished to death. fashion is control. every fold intentional, every image curated within an inch of its life, and it is my actual job to admire the polish. The science and efficacy of beauty, skincare and wellness. The sticky bits of life too, because we go there here on hyper fixated.

then I go home and watch people fall apart and get back together on camera. minimal styling. no filter. just human beings being messy and petty and gloriously unguarded.

maybe that’s one sticky bit of me I’ve never publicly shared. I unwind with the unfiltered as escapism.

either way, the recaps go back in my ears tomorrow at km 5, and I regret nothing. not even today’s overshare.

so tell me, since I already went first:

what’s the thing you do in secret that doesn’t match your resume? confess. I showed you mine.

I grew up in that elite era of the Old Navy wall of flip flops - those days I owned them in every colour, that was pre running feet Amy - my runners know. A lost nail here, insane skin build up there, and the bumps on toes due to friction.

Recently, I have dialed down my running (still daily just less distance) and I’ve noticed that the toes are getting cuter. CUE summer and THE RISE OF THE FLIP FLOP AS FASHIONS UNDERSTATED, STATEMENT.

The flip flop went from the shoe mom reached for to chase you down to It shoe. The Row put out a pair for the price of rent. Somebody’s abuela’s (ba’s) chanclas (champals) walked so a $1000 leather thong could run.

Welcome to what I’m calling THE FLIP FLOP DROP: the same silhouette on your foot at ten dollars and at one thousand, and everything in between.

So I did what I do.

I HYPER FIXATED ON THE RANGE.

THE $29.99 HERO:

THE MID $335:

THE $2000 FLEX:

ALL THREE HERE FOR YOU!!

The full 150, scattered in range ~ cheapest to she cannot be serious lmao but we do it for the plot and for the save for laters, are below for paid hyper fixies. Let’s obsess together.

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Here’s my why aka my excuses tbfh: I had about 2 months where I let everything that wasn’t my mom’s health fall away. Every single wellness protocol minus the gym I dropped. Life does that sometimes.

I’m back and as promised, my thoughts. I’m noticing those baby hairs popping through choatically.

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TL;DR: 6 MONTHS ON 5%

• Did it work? Yes.

• The catch? It’s a COMMITMENT.

• The proof: baby hairs sprouting at my hairline like a full on CHIA PET.

• New to the protocol: a microneedling derma roller.

THE RESULT: A CHIA PET, AND I MEAN THAT LOVINGLY

I’ve got a whole colony of new baby hairs sprouting around everywhere.

IT’S A COMMITMENT

Honestly: minoxidil works but it’s a commitment.

I fell off for a couple of months, came back, and the baby hairs were still coming in, which was proof of the months before, I’m sure I’ll have some loss but at the same time, I gotta trust the process. TBH life will occasionally throw a wrench in shit, and that is not a reason to quit. Just come back to the process, especially this one because its a consistent commitment.

WHAT I ADDED SINCE DAY 60

The derma roller. Microneedling the roller on the scalp, affected areas / hairline creates punctures in the scalp that help the 5% actually get where it’s going and it also boosts blood flow, which is the whole vasodilator point. I already loved mine for my face, get a separate one for your scalp. Do not cross use and clean with alcohol after every use.

ONLY AT NIGHT

I moved my application to night now since the heat and sweating, working out etc. I put the 5% in about an hour before bed so it fully dries, then wear a headband over my hairline while I sleep. Tiny hack, big difference.

TWO PSAs

• 5% is great for women.

• If you have pets or around other peoples animals, be careful. Minoxidil is toxic to cats and dogs.

THE LONG GAME

The hardest part? Is the patience. Stop looking for the before-and-after because truly its quite slow - just create the ritual which will turn into a natural habit.

THE SHELF

Everything I actually use: the 5%, the derma roller, and other hair essentials lives in my Amazon HAIR ESSENTIALS shelf. Click that link :)

AYURVEDIC AUNTY

Topicals ofc are great but a reminder that hair obvs grows from the inside out. Black sesame is loaded with iron, calcium and good fats, the foundational stuff follicles are built from. This is an effective remedy from an Indian Aunty’s spice box thats been passed on from generations.

• Dry-roast 1 cup of black sesame seeds on low for about 5 minutes.

• Add them into a blender or grinder with 3 tbsp water and 2 tbsp maple syrup or honey.

• Blend into a thick paste, then store it in a glass jar in the fridge.

• Take one tablespoon a day.

Helps with hair health AND keeping the melanin in them !!

It’s one more small deposit into the same account.

Have you started? Thinking about it? Reply, comment, DM and for that person who asked me for an update - thank you for the reminder !!!!

xo HYPER FIXATED AS ALWAYS YOUR GIRL

AMY

My husband looked at me on Saturday and said, “you dress like an unsupervised child.”

I’m 41.

I BEEMED with excitement and said thank you — and I meant it.

I didn’t feel SHADE. I felt SEEN.

Honoured, even tbh. Somewhere in me that little girl heard that and lit up — because that little girl dressed exactly like this. Chaotic, non-sensical to the world, sensical af to me.

He’s said this before and truly expresses how much he actually does love my outfits and the way that I think and put them together. Thank you my love.

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Growing up, my brother, Neil, who I’ve talked about a lot here so let’s give him a name, and I had free rein. No rules about what went on our bodies — just permission to express. Share clothes, borrow from mom, dad, each other. Hand me downs from my cousin Seena. I’d take it all. Nobody told us to tone it down. We just got dressed like ourselves. Maybe by way of the fact that our parents had 100 other things on their plate, that this was something they gave us autonomy on.

My dad, though. My dad wanted us in a uniform LMAO - a product of uniform school in Dar-es-Salaam and London. He had his eye on a Catholic school across the street because he thought it would make life easier. Simpler. One less thing to negotiate every morning. He felt like it would give us Brown kids the same playing field as the other Italian kids in our neighbourhood.

Small problem: we’re Hindu. You had to be baptized to get in. JOKES ON YOU DAD, though he considered it and then decided it was too much work for both a Hindu and Catholic Sunday school along with soccer, dance and Kumon (iykyk).

I think about that a lot now. What my dad would’ve done just to make life simple. A uniform. A clean, matching, easy childhood. And I am so glad it didn’t take - thank God and the heavens above.

The mess (chaos) was the point. The mess (chaos) was me.

I had a thought recently. Getting dressed costs you something different at every stage of your life.

So I did the math (terribly bc WORST SUBJECT) but I did it anyway the way — and I leaned tomboy girlie hip hop pop. Baggy. Boyish. A little armour. Some jewels. Clear lip gloss. Easier to be the girl in the interesting outfit than the girl being gawked at.

Funny thing: in finance, of all places, I became known for my clothes.

That’s actually how this whole thing started. 2008. I began posting my outfits on Twitter — with my head cut out of every single photo bc I was scared of the spooky INTERNETS LMAO - looking back the cctv of it all - well thats for another dive. Back to sharing online - Just the fit. Just the feeling. !!!!!

(Eighteen years later we’re all googlable at some level. I made peace with the face.)

But the clothes were never really about the clothes.

I never settled down — not as a kid, not now.

Back when I was Amy Patel — my maiden name — Jeanne Beker interviewed me about my style.

HERE

We’d met at a Louis Vuitton lunch, in the finance days. I tried to describe my ethos to her.

Go pull up my Instagram from back then. Not much has changed in the ETHOS.

I can go from grandma to stripper in 1.2 :)

Clock this if you will.

For most of our lives we get dressed to be believed. To be taken seriously. To make it easier — for the room. For the children that grow into adults is for the version that thought growing up meant toning down.

I used to say I’m unzipping my bear suit. Why does your bear suit only get unzipped for the weekend and then zipped back up for Monday to Friday ? Who made these rules a universal standard ?

I dress to be free. Free of judgement. Free of opinions. Free. Just free.

Let’s be clear — refusing to settle down isn’t the childish thing. It’s the most grown-up thing I’ve ever done. It’s the little girl with free rein and the 41-year-old woman finally agreeing on something.

Nobody’s grounding me. Nobody ever really could.

This is what I do here: I fixate, I dig, I find the joy and hand it to you with a pretty little bow. If Wednesday’s starter pack was the how, this was the why.

Now tell me — what’s the unserious piece you refuse to grow out of? The thing your inner child would high-five you for still wearing. Leave it in the comments, let’s obsess together.

— Amy 🤍

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And if you’re new here or just missed it - this is Wednesdays !

I’m 41 LMAO

51,000 of you watched it - THANK YOU and if you haven’t click video below to give ya girl a view.

What made this look silly boots ? Let’s FIXATE together.

Dressing like an unsupervised child isn’t a look, it’s a BADGE OF HONOUR IMO. A little sparkle to breakfast, add more, clash the thing you’re not supposed to and embody whimsy forever. Gold stacked like a 5-year-old who found her mom’s jewellery box. No grown-ups here, nobody’s grounding you.

Here’s EXACTLY what I had on from H TO T:

— THE BANDEAU TOP: adidas — the sports bra’s braver cousin

— THE CARGO JORTS: half short, half trouser, fully feral

— THE JELLY MULES: Chloé. The unsupervised child’s formal footwear. Think those Barbie heels from the grocery store we all had.

— THE SUNNIES: Maison Margiela x Gentle Monster, no notes, just four stitches.

— THE ONE ADULT IN THE ROOM: a little black tweed Chanel belt ARM bag. The one where everyone was unimpressed with !!

Shop my exact look → HERE

Below the line? The FULL unsupervised starter pack — every building block, the whole feral wardrobe. You know this is what I do: I fixate, I dig, I find the gems. 🦋

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K’naan. Somali-born, Toronto-raised, like me. That summer it played on every TV on a loop, and I sang it in my bedroom with my whole chest.

I didn’t know it was written out of a childhood in Mogadishu. I didn’t know as a kid that “freedom,” for so many people, is something you grow old still waiting for.

I just knew that at the time it made the whole planet feel like one room.

For a few weeks, we did the thing we only do around a ball. My family chat lit up across England, Canada and the U.S., me down in Mexico City — four countries, one match clock. And the once-in-a-lifetime part: the Cup came home. Mexico. Canada. Two of the places that made me, hosting the same summer.

My favourite moment? Cabo Verde. July 3rd. The Blue Sharks — half a million people, a former Portuguese colony, at their first-ever World Cup — burying one in extra time so beautiful I was on my feet. They lost to Argentina, 3–2. Didn’t matter. You could feel a whole diaspora rise off the floor with them.

Maybe that’s why so many of us root for the colony over the colonizer — and can’t quite explain why. Why it’s Egypt over Argentina. Norway over England. And then, in the very same breath, England over Argentina. There’s no clean rulebook. It’s history and grudges and whoever your grandmother loved. We root with our whole tangled bloodline and call it a bracket.

And still — a ball does not pause a war. Things are still happening all over the world. A stadium does not repeal a border.

Both things. At once. The whole time.

—

And not everyone is free.

Not yet.

—

But here’s one thing that brought me back to baby me.

It was Lamine Yamal, eighteen years old, pulling his three-year-old brother Keyne onto the pitch. A baby, basically. All over my feed for weeks, losing his little mind in the stands, feeling every single second of it with his whole body.

Keyne may not know it yet. Not the borders, not the wars, not the price tag on the word freedom. He just knows the confetti, and his big brother, and that the whole world is — for one evening — is just one loud, happy room.

We all start there. Believing every word.

I still believe it. I just know now that faith and fact aren’t the same thing — and that the getting there was always going to take more than hope.

So wave your flag anyway.

And keep it up long enough for the Keynes to grow into a world that finally deserves the song.

— Amy 🤍