Hi fashion lovers,

Yesterday, I went to my first fashion show.

And yes, I was very excited about it.

I’ve loved fashion for as long as I can remember. Clothes, photography, magazines, campaigns, the people behind it all - I’ve always been drawn to this world. So getting dressed yesterday knowing I was actually going to a show, rather than watching one through my phone, felt like a little moment for me.

Then I got there, took my seat, looked around and had this very simple thought: I want more of this.

I loved seeing the clothes in real life, because fashion is completely different when it is moving in front of you. You notice the fabrics, the way something falls, the styling and all the little details a photograph doesn’t necessarily capture. I loved looking around at what everyone else was wearing too, obviously. Half the fun of any fashion event is the people watching.

But what stayed with me afterwards wasn’t only the show. It was the fact that I had been invited in the first place.

I’m not a huge creator. I don’t have hundreds of thousands of followers, and I’m still very much building what I want to build. But I also don’t think numbers are the only indication that somebody has something worth paying attention to.

I know I have something to bring to fashion.

I know I have taste. I know I have ideas. I love taking pictures, I love putting clothes together and I love writing about this industry and the culture around it. Dressed & Thinking has made me even more certain of that. The more I create, the more I realise that this isn’t something I simply enjoy looking at from the outside. I want to contribute to it.

That doesn’t mean I always know exactly where I’m going. I don’t. I’m still building my portfolio, developing my writing, taking pictures, posting and working out what my place in fashion could look like. But I feel increasingly sure that I’m heading in the right direction.

Yesterday felt like a little confirmation of that.

There is something quite strange about putting your work online because you never really know who is seeing it. You post the photograph, write the piece, share the outfit and then carry on with your day. Most of the people who see it will never tell you they were there.

Then something happens because of it.

An invitation arrives. Someone reaches out. An opportunity comes from somewhere you weren’t expecting. And you realise that people have been paying attention.

I really like that.

I’ve been posting for years because I genuinely love doing it. I’ve always taken pictures. I’ve always cared about clothes. None of that began because somebody invited me somewhere, and none of it would stop if the invitations did.

But I’m also not going to pretend recognition doesn’t feel good.

Of course it does.

When you care about something and put a lot of yourself into it, it feels incredibly good when somebody within that world sees what you’re doing and wants you there. Not because you need their permission to continue, but because it gives you a little indication that what you’re creating is reaching the places you hoped it eventually might.

I think that’s the part of yesterday that made me happiest.

I wasn’t sitting at the show thinking, I can’t believe they let me in. I was sitting there thinking, Yes. I want to be in rooms like this.

I want to see more collections in person. I want to meet more people who are obsessed with fashion in the same way I am. I want to write more, photograph more, learn more and keep developing my own point of view. I want to build a career in a world I’ve loved for years.

And I genuinely think I can.

There is so much emphasis now on having everything figured out immediately. Your career, your niche, your personal brand, your five-year plan. I don’t have a perfectly mapped-out version of where all of this leads, and I’m actually becoming less worried about that.

I know what I love. I know what I’m good at. I know what I want more of.

Yesterday gave me more of it.

So yes, it was my first fashion show. In the grand scheme of a career, that is a very small thing.

To me, it didn’t feel small.

It felt like the beginning of something I’ve been working towards for quite a while.

And walking out yesterday, I felt more certain than ever:

I think I’m doing something right.

xx,
HM

I know I’m supposed to tell you I’d be happier without social media. Delete Instagram, stop scrolling TikTok, put the phone away and rediscover what it feels like to be bored. And yes, there are days when I probably should do all of the above.

But I’m not entirely sure I’d be happier without it.

We spend so much time talking about everything social media has taken from us that we rarely talk about what it has given us. The comparison, overconsumption, shrinking attention spans and hours mysteriously lost to scrolling are all very real. I’ve experienced all of them. I just don’t think they tell the whole story.

Because social media has made my life bigger.

I’ve met so many people through Instagram, TikTok and now Substack who I simply would never have crossed paths with otherwise. There is a girl in New York I know because of Instagram. Without it, our lives could have continued on opposite sides of the Atlantic without either of us ever knowing the other existed. Instead, somehow, we found each other.

I think that’s quite special.

For most of our lives, the people we meet are determined partly by geography and circumstance. We meet the people we go to school with, work with, live near or happen to know through somebody else. Social media completely disrupted that. Your people no longer have to live within a few kilometres of you.

And it isn’t only friendships. The internet has made my creative world infinitely bigger too. I can discover a tiny brand in another country, see what somebody is wearing in Copenhagen, find a writer whose work I love or fall down an archival-fashion rabbit hole at midnight. My taste has been influenced by people, places, photographs, designers and ideas I might never have encountered without the internet.

That access has also changed the way creative careers can begin.

Social media has become a kind of creative CV. Instagram, TikTok and Substack don’t just show what you have done; they can show how you think, what you notice, what you make and what your taste looks like. In creative industries especially, that can say far more about someone than a line on a traditional résumé ever could.

People get styling jobs because someone discovers the outfits they were already putting together. Photographers are found through photographs they posted for themselves. Writers get opportunities because the right person happens to read something they published online. Small creators end up working with brands they once admired from a distance.

I’ve experienced that side of it too. Dressed & Thinking started because I wanted somewhere to write about the things I was thinking about. Now, alongside social media, it has become a place where I can actually show what I can create. Something I write alone at my laptop can end up in front of someone I have never met, and that person could be in Norway, London, New York or practically anywhere else.

A traditional CV tells someone where you’ve worked. Your online presence can show them where you could go.

Of course, I don’t think we should all start treating our Instagram accounts like permanent job interviews. The idea that every hobby needs to become content and every person needs to become a “personal brand” is exhausting. Some things should exist simply because we enjoy them. But there is something incredibly exciting about living in a time when you can make something without waiting for permission and put it somewhere people can find it.

The same goes for connection in its smallest forms. Sending your friend a Reel. Replying to somebody’s story. Keeping up with a friend who moved away. Finding someone online who shares the incredibly niche thing you thought only you cared about. These interactions seem insignificant because they have become so normal, but they are still forms of connection.

None of this means I think social media is harmless. I’ve compared myself to strangers. I’ve wanted things purely because I saw them forty-seven times in one week. I’ve opened TikTok for five minutes and resurfaced an hour later with absolutely no idea what happened. And Instagram has, on occasion, convinced me that everybody in the world is simultaneously on holiday in Italy except me.

I know the downsides because I live with them too.

I just don’t want them to make us forget the other side.

The same internet that can make us feel inadequate can introduce us to someone who becomes a friend. The platform that makes us buy things we don’t need can introduce us to a designer whose work we genuinely love. An app we accuse of disconnecting us can connect two people who otherwise would never have known the other existed.

I don’t want to romanticise social media, but I don’t particularly want to demonise it either. I want my little corner of the internet to contain people who make me laugh, clothes that make me excited to get dressed, photographs that make me want to see the world, writers who make me think and people whose lives look completely different from mine.

And an occasional video of a dog doing something incredibly stupid. Obviously.

I sometimes think about how many people in my life I simply wouldn’t know without the internet. The girl in New York. People I’ve met through Instagram. People who read Dressed & Thinking. Creative connections that began with someone seeing something I made on a screen.

There is plenty about social media I could happily live without.

The people it has brought into my life aren’t one of them.

xx,
HM

After more questions about my apartment than I ever expected to receive, I finally took the time to sit down and write about it. The funny thing is, once I did, I had no idea where to begin. Explaining a home is much harder than explaining an outfit.

It also feels more personal. Our homes contain the things we choose when there is nobody else to dress for: the colours we want to wake up around, the objects we keep for sentimental reasons, the chair we refuse to get rid of and the photographs that would mean nothing to a stranger but everything to us.

So this isn’t going to be a shopping list of where everything is from. Some things I want to keep for myself, but I also find the story behind a home much more interesting than the links. I would rather tell you why things are here, where my taste comes from and how a collection of furniture, fabrics, art and slightly random objects became my home.

First things first: all credit goes to my mum. The queen she is.

I knew what I liked. I knew what I didn’t like. I knew I wanted colour, pattern, old things beside new things and a home that felt warm rather than overly designed. I had plenty of opinions; my mum had the ability to turn them into rooms. There is a considerable difference between knowing what you like and knowing how to make it all work together.

Take leopard. I knew there had to be leopard somewhere - no surprises there - but wanting leopard and knowing whichleopard, in what fabric and beside which colours are two very different things. My mum found patterns that gave me exactly what I wanted without allowing the apartment to become a leopard-print explosion. It still feels timeless enough that I can see myself living with it for years.

That balance runs through the entire apartment. There is a lot to look at: colour, pattern, photography, paintings, books, rugs, antiques and contemporary pieces. On paper, it probably sounds like too much. In the apartment, everything has been considered. I never wanted a home where everything looked as though it had been ordered on the same afternoon.

One of the nicest compliments I’ve received from people who have visited is that the apartment feels as though I’ve lived here for years and slowly collected everything. Considering I haven’t, I was very happy to hear it. Collected, not decorated is exactly how I wanted it to feel.

Some of my taste was formed long before I had an apartment of my own. I’ve always loved antique Persian carpets. They’re bold, colourful and patterned, and they’re probably not the first thing you associate with the restrained Scandinavian interiors we see so much of in Norway. But I’ve been surrounded by rugs like them for as long as I can remember.

That comes from my father’s side of the family. His father worked with carpets for years, so they were simply part of the homes I grew up around. To somebody else, a rug like that might be a statement piece. To me, it feels familiar.

We talk about taste as though we sit down one day and decide what ours is, but so much of it comes from what we’ve been surrounded by. Certain colours feel right because you’ve seen them your whole life. Certain objects remind you of people. You grow up, create a home of your own and suddenly realise how much you’ve brought with you.

My love of mixing old and new comes from my mum. She is brilliant at putting an antique beside something completely modern and making the combination look effortless. Several pieces in my apartment are inherited, including chairs and a sofa from her previous home. We gave them new fabrics and they became completely different pieces. You would never guess what they looked like before.

I love giving something old another life. It gives the apartment a history I couldn’t create by simply buying everything new.

Then there is the art. Confession: I’m actually not that interested in art. Surprise.

I am, however, obsessed with fashion, clothes, photography and imagery, so I wanted the walls to reflect that rather than filling them with art simply because I thought an apartment was supposed to have it. I have modern photography that feels young, cool and connected to the fashion world I love, but it sits alongside much more personal pieces.

My grandmother painted one of the paintings in my apartment, and I’ve loved it for as long as I can remember. My cousin took some of the photography, and I have a large Audrey Hepburn piece that I inherited from my mum. Those are the pieces I value most because they couldn’t simply be recreated in somebody else’s home. Nobody can order another version of my grandmother’s painting, and I love owning things that have a story attached to them.

I’m very family-oriented, and I think that shows throughout the apartment. There are pieces from different people and different parts of my life, and having those around me matters much more than whether everything technically belongs together. It makes the apartment feel personal rather than simply styled.

Some of my favourite parts of the apartment are also things I wasn’t convinced by at first. The wallpaper is the obvious example. We have it in both the hallway and my bedroom, and when my mum first showed it to me, my reaction was essentially, Hmm… are we sure?

She was. Thankfully.

Now it’s one of my favourite things in the apartment. In the bedroom, we took it even further and made curtains in the same fabric as the wallpaper, which could very easily have been too much but instead completely made the room. Together with the headboard, the bed curtains, the red and, naturally, more leopard, it became the bedroom of my dreams. I knew the feeling I wanted; my mum knew exactly how to bring it to life.

For all the attention we gave to how the apartment looks, it also had to work for the way I actually live. I love hosting. I love having friends and family over, setting the table, lighting far too many candles and watching an evening that was supposed to end at ten somehow continue for hours.

From the beginning, we thought about where people would sit, how the rooms would flow and how to keep everything open and inviting. I never wanted a home that was so precious nobody felt comfortable actually living in it. The sofa needs to be sat on, the table needs to survive dinner parties, and there needs to be space for an extra person when somebody inevitably brings someone along.

Some of my favourite moments in the apartment are actually when it looks the least perfect. There are glasses on the table, cushions have moved, somebody has taken over the music and the people I love are everywhere. A home should look better with people in it.

The smaller details matter just as much to me. I have photographs of family and friends throughout the apartment because they instantly make it feel warmer. I love candles and what they do to a room in the evening. I’m also obsessed with coffee-table books. My table is transparent, so the books underneath almost become part of its design. I can change the stacks, move things around and suddenly the table has a completely different personality.

And then there is scent. I firmly believe a home should have one.

For years, my family stayed at the same hotel whenever we went to London, before we eventually had an apartment there. Its scent became completely connected to those memories for me. I used it when I lived in London and brought it with me here too. The second I smell it, I think of my family, London and home. It makes me comfortable in a way that is difficult to explain.

Interior design is so focused on what we see, but some of the things that make a home memorable aren’t visual at all. It’s the smell when you walk through the door, the lighting in the evening, the music playing when people come over and how you feel when you finally sit down on the sofa.

Then there are the completely random finds. One of my favourites is an antique piece in the hallway that my mum found on Instagram. It’s unusual, a little unexpected and exactly the kind of thing I love. I’m always happy when somebody comes over, stops in front of something and asks, “Where did you find that?”

I don’t want everything in my apartment to be immediately recognisable. The internet has made it incredibly easy to recreate a beautiful room: save the reference, find the chair, buy the lamp, order the same books. You can create something objectively beautiful very quickly, but beauty and personality aren’t the same thing.

I want the old chair beside the modern piece. The bold rug. The strange Instagram find. My grandmother’s painting. Family photographs. Leopard next to something it probably shouldn’t work with but does. Those contradictions are what make the apartment mine.

My father has always said, “You can’t buy the feeling of a home.” I understand that much better now.

You can buy the most beautiful sofa, expensive lighting and incredible art, and still create a room that doesn’t feel like somewhere you want to stay. The feeling comes from the life inside it: memories, people, objects with history and the things you choose simply because you love them.

Creating this apartment has also made me realise how similar interiors and fashion really are. Both are about proportion, colour, texture, instinct and knowing when something unexpected makes everything else more interesting. Most importantly, both are personal.

My wardrobe shows you how I want to move through the world. My apartment shows you the world I want to come home to.

So I won’t give you a list of everything you need to recreate it. I don’t think you should recreate it. This is mine, and your home should look like you.

Thanks largely to my mum, mine really does.

And I freaking love it here.

Welcome in.

xx,

HM

Happy Monday. Let’s talk about money.

More specifically, the rather extraordinary amount of it that can now go into looking like you haven’t done very much at all.

The modern beauty ideal is an interesting one. We’re no longer necessarily aspiring to look heavily made-up or obviously transformed. We want beautiful skin, healthy hair, neat brows, long lashes, white teeth, toned bodies and natural nails. We want to look fresh, effortless and, ideally, as though we simply woke up like this.

Except, of course, we probably didn’t.

The “natural” woman might have a hair appointment, brow appointment, manicure, facial, Pilates membership and several steps of skincare quietly sitting behind that effortless appearance. We tint the things we used to colour in, lift the things we used to curl and treat the skin we used to cover with foundation.

Beauty hasn’t necessarily become more natural.

The effort has simply become less visible.

And invisible effort can be very expensive.

There was something refreshingly obvious about traditional glamour. You put on red lipstick and everyone knew you were wearing red lipstick. You curled your hair and it looked curled. The transformation was part of the fun.

Now, many beauty treatments are considered successful precisely when nobody can tell you’ve had them. Hair colour should look sun-kissed. Brows should appear naturally full. Skin should glow without foundation. Botox, if you choose to have it, should ideally result in “You look amazing” rather than “What did you have done?”

We’re spending more to make the spending disappear.

I should say: I love beauty. I love getting my hair done, and I fully understand the very specific happiness of leaving a nail appointment and looking at your hands approximately fourteen times on the way home.

This isn’t an argument against any of it.

What interests me is how quickly something extra can become maintenance.

Hair. Nails. Brows. Lashes. Skin. Teeth. Hair removal. Facials. Fitness. Injectables. None of these things are mandatory. Yet put enough optional things together and they begin to resemble a standard.

And unlike lipstick, maintenance doesn’t really end.

The nails grow out. The colour fades. The lashes fall. The skincare empties. The Pilates membership renews. Your roots return with absolutely no respect for your financial situation.

Beauty has slowly developed a subscription model.

The irony is that this is happening while looking “natural” has arguably never been more desirable. We talk about no-makeup makeup, good skin, healthy hair and effortlessness.

But effortless beauty hasn’t removed the effort.

It has relocated it.

Some of what once happened in front of a mirror now happens days or weeks earlier in salons, studios, clinics and bathrooms. The final result looks simpler while the infrastructure behind it becomes increasingly complicated.

Social media adds another layer. We don’t only see the finished face anymore; we see the maintenance behind it. Morning routines, evening routines, facials, supplements, lasers, hair appointments, brow treatments.

See something once and it feels optional.

See it every day and eventually it starts to feel normal.

And that, to me, is the more interesting conversation.

Not whether women should spend money on beauty. Beauty can be fun, creative, excessive and occasionally a completely unjustifiable use of money. I’m certainly not interested in taking that pleasure away.

The question is whether we still recognise the difference between I love doing this and I feel like I should be doing this.

Because there should be room to love beauty without treating ourselves like permanent renovation projects. To spend money on the things that genuinely make us happy and leave the rest completely untouched.

And, importantly, to do less without feeling as though we’ve “let ourselves go.”

The most expensive beauty standard we’ve created might not be looking glamorous at all.

It might be looking completely natural and making sure nobody sees the bill.

xx,

HM

Apparently, everything is chic now.

Repeating an outfit? Chic. Staying home on a Friday night? Chic. Reading a book instead of looking at your phone? Chic. Eating bread? Chic. Going to bed early? Chic. Wearing something you’ve owned for ten years? Very chic.

Or, more accurately, kinda chic.

If you’ve spent any time on Instagram lately, you’ve probably seen it. The phrase has taken over my feed, usually written across photographs of perfectly ordinary moments: kinda chic to... followed by something personal, wholesome, slightly unexpected or completely mundane.

And honestly, I understand why people like it. There’s something sweet about declaring ordinary things worthy of admiration. I like the idea that repeating an outfit can be celebrated rather than apologised for, or that staying home can be just as desirable as going out.

But after seeing chic applied to approximately everything a human being can possibly do, I started wondering whether the word means anything anymore.

Because if everything is chic, what actually is chic?

Fashion has always loved language. Elegant, timeless, effortless, cool, tasteful, classic. Chic has always belonged somewhere in that vocabulary, but the funny thing about chic is that it was never particularly easy to define.

You simply knew it when you saw it.

The woman wearing something incredibly simple who somehow looks more interesting than everyone else in the room. The old handbag that looks better slightly scratched. A white shirt worn in a way that makes you reconsider every white shirt in your own wardrobe. Someone who doesn’t appear to be asking whether you approve.

Chic was never necessarily about expensive clothes. In fact, some of the chicest people seem almost uninterested in proving that they’re chic at all.

Perhaps that’s precisely what makes them so.

Which is why our current obsession with declaring things chic is so interesting. The internet is extraordinarily good at noticing something slightly unusual and immediately turning it into something everyone can reproduce. Someone wears a cardigan in an interesting way and suddenly there are twelve videos explaining how to style it. Someone starts carrying an old-fashioned bag and suddenly it’s the bag. Someone says staying home is chic and suddenly staying home has an aesthetic.

Something can go from personal choice to cultural trend before we’ve even had time to decide whether we actually like it.

And surely part of having taste is doing things before somebody tells you they’re tasteful.

Wearing the strange shoe because you like it. Going back to the same restaurant because it’s your favourite. Carrying the bag everyone stopped talking about three years ago. Keeping the haircut that supposedly isn’t trending anymore.

Taste requires a certain amount of independence.

Of course, nobody develops taste in a vacuum. We’re influenced by films, books, magazines, designers, cities, friends, our mothers and strangers we pass on the street whose outfits we remember for the rest of the day. Being influenced is part of the pleasure of fashion.

But inspiration and instruction aren’t the same thing.

We now have immediate access to what everyone considers beautiful. The right hotel. The right restaurant. The right shoe. The right sunglasses. The right chair. The right holiday destination.

Even individuality seems to arrive with instructions.

And the irony is that so many trends now are supposedly about rejecting trends. Repeating clothes becomes a trend. Having hobbies becomes a trend. Reading becomes an aesthetic. Being offline becomes content. Doing ordinary things becomes something we need to announce as chic before we can appreciate them.

There is something wonderfully absurd about that.

Maybe an ordinary life doesn’t need rebranding.

Maybe you can read because you like reading. Wear the same coat for seven winters because it’s a very good coat. Stay home because you’re tired. Eat pasta because you wanted pasta.

None of these things need to become evidence of excellent taste.

They can simply be your life.

And perhaps that’s where my definition of chic has ended up. It isn’t a checklist of things you’re supposed to like, and it definitely isn’t something that becomes more convincing because somebody has written the word across an Instagram carousel.

If anything, chic seems to appear when somebody has stopped trying to prove it.

It’s knowing what you like without needing everyone else to agree. It’s wearing something because it feels like you rather than because you’ve just been informed that it’s back. It’s being influenced without becoming a copy.

And yes, sometimes that means participating in the trend. I’m certainly not above one. Fashion would be terribly boring without them. Trends make us experiment, rediscover forgotten pieces and sometimes introduce us to things we end up loving long after everyone else has moved on.

The problem isn’t liking what everyone else likes.

It’s never stopping to ask whether you actually do.

So perhaps not everything needs to be chic. Not everything needs to become an aesthetic, a mood board or a cultural explanation. Some things should remain wonderfully, meaninglessly personal.

The ugly shoe you adore. The old coat you refuse to replace. The restaurant nobody else understands your obsession with. The habit you had long before somebody on Instagram decided it was aspirational.

Maybe that’s taste.

Not knowing what’s chic.

Knowing what’s yours.

And if that isn’t chic?

Even better.

xx,

HM

There is a slightly confusing piece of career advice you hear throughout your twenties: everyone has to start somewhere.

I completely agree.

The only problem is that lately, I’m beginning to wonder where exactly somewhere is.

I’m currently at the beginning of building a career in the creative world, particularly within fashion, writing and marketing. I knew this stage of my life was coming, and I knew I wasn’t going to walk straight into my dream job. Careers take time. You start somewhere, learn, make mistakes, meet people, discover what you’re good at and slowly work your way towards the things you really want to do.

What I perhaps underestimated was how difficult the starting part can actually be.

I’m incredibly fortunate that I’m not starting from nothing. I currently work freelance, helping brands with marketing and, more specifically, Substack writing. I’m genuinely grateful to the people who have trusted me with their brands, their voices and their ideas. There’s something quite special about someone seeing potential in you and saying, essentially, I trust you to do this, especially when you’re still at the beginning of figuring out what your career might look like.

And if anything, that work has made me more certain about where I want to go.

I want to keep writing. I want to work within fashion. I want to develop my creative eye, understand brands more deeply and build a portfolio that increasingly reflects the kind of work I love doing. I’m not searching for something completely different. I’m searching for opportunities that allow me to keep developing what I already know I love.

Part of that, for me, is finding my first full-time creative role. I want to experience being part of a team, contribute to bigger projects and learn from people who know far more than I do. I want to see how an idea moves from a conversation around a table to something real. I want to write more, create more and understand the industry from the inside.

In other words, I want to learn.

Which is where things become slightly complicated.

You find a job advertisement and start reading. Junior creative. Editorial assistant. Marketing coordinator. Brand assistant. Something that sounds exciting and, importantly, like somewhere you could actually begin.

Relevant degree? Yes. Strong writing skills? Yes. Creative thinker? Hopefully. Understanding of culture, fashion, branding and social media? Absolutely.

Then you keep scrolling.

Two to three years of relevant professional experience required.

Ah.

And there it is.

Because experience has to begin somewhere. At some point, somebody has to be the first person who looks at what you could do rather than only what you’ve already done.

Of course, I understand why companies ask for experience. Someone who has already worked in a similar position feels like a safer choice. They know the systems, understand deadlines and have encountered problems before. Experience matters, and I would never argue otherwise.

But creative industries make this particularly interesting because so much of what makes someone creative is incredibly difficult to put into a bullet point on a CV.

How do you put instinct on a CV? How do you quantify curiosity? How do you prove that you have an eye for something before someone has given you the professional opportunity to use it?

A CV can tell you where someone has worked and what they studied. What it can’t necessarily tell you is what they notice. It doesn’t show you the magazines they’ve collected, the campaigns they still remember years later, the exhibitions they’ve visited, the photographs they’ve saved, the books they’ve read or the hundreds of tiny references sitting somewhere in their mind waiting to become an idea.

And in creative work, surely those things count for something too.

Someone can be an excellent writer before a famous publication prints their name. Someone can understand why a brand feels culturally relevant without having spent three years at an agency. Someone can have an incredible eye before they’ve been given a major project on which to prove it.

Potential is difficult to measure.

Perhaps that’s why experience becomes such a convenient measurement instead.

But there’s something slightly contradictory about an industry constantly searching for new ideas, new voices and new perspectives while sometimes making it remarkably difficult for new people to enter it.

Someone gave the brilliant editor her first byline. Someone let the stylist assist on her first shoot. Someone hired the creative director before they had ever directed anything.

Every impressive portfolio once had a first page.

And I think that’s what I keep coming back to. Your first full-time role isn’t supposed to be proof that you’ve already mastered your career. Surely it’s also one of the places where you’re supposed to develop it.

I don’t expect to walk into my first office knowing everything. Quite the opposite. I want to ask questions. I want someone to challenge an idea I thought was brilliant and make it better. I want to work with people who are better than me at things and understand how they think. There’s something exciting about knowing how much you still have left to learn.

And yet applying for jobs can sometimes make you feel as though you should already be the finished product.

Then, of course, there’s LinkedIn - a wonderfully useful platform that also has the remarkable ability to convince you that every person you’ve ever met has just started an exciting new job on exactly the same Tuesday.

I’m happy for you.

Genuinely.

I am also closing the app.

Because I think we mostly see other people’s announcements, not their searches. We see I’m thrilled to announce... We don’t see the applications nobody answered, the interviews that went nowhere, the job they desperately wanted and didn’t get, or the weeks spent wondering whether they were aiming too high or not high enough.

Maybe that’s why I wanted to write about this while I’m still in the middle of it.

I don’t have the shiny conclusion yet. I can’t tell you that every rejection happens for a reason or that I’ve figured out exactly where I’m going. I’m still freelancing, still writing, still building my portfolio, still applying and still learning.

And I’m incredibly grateful for that.

The work I’m already doing has made me more certain that fashion, writing and creative storytelling are where I want to keep growing. Finding a full-time role isn’t about leaving that behind. It’s about adding to it - learning more, creating more, meeting people who can teach me things I don’t know yet and developing the career I’ve already started building.

Being grateful for where you are doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to wonder where you’re going next.

Maybe that’s what the beginning of a career actually looks like. Not one perfect first job or a perfectly mapped-out plan, but doing as much as you can with the opportunities you have while remaining open to the next one.

Because nobody begins with the perfect portfolio.

Nobody begins knowing exactly what they’re doing.

At some point, somebody simply says yes.

And perhaps every career really does start somewhere.

I’m just excited to find out where mine goes next.

xx,

HM

At some point, getting dressed acquired a vocabulary.

You weren’t simply wearing a white shirt, gold hoops and slicked-back hair. You were clean girl. A fur coat and dark sunglasses? Mob wife. A pencil skirt and glasses became office siren. Linen, a market basket and anything involving a tomato somehow belonged to tomato girl summer. Then came quiet luxury, old money, coastal grandmother, balletcore, blokecore, cottagecore and enough other “cores” to make getting dressed sound less like opening your wardrobe and more like selecting a character.

I find all of this both incredibly entertaining and slightly exhausting.

Because sometimes, surely, you’re just wearing clothes.

Fashion has always loved categories. Punk, preppy, bohemian, minimalist, grunge - we’ve been using clothes to signal belonging long before TikTok gave us a name for every combination of loafers and socks. Subcultures have shaped fashion for decades, and some of the most important style movements were born precisely because people wanted to identify themselves through what they wore.

But something feels different now.

The speed, for one.

An aesthetic can appear, receive a name, acquire a shopping list, become unavoidable and feel outdated before the clothes you’ve ordered to participate have even arrived. Suddenly, an ordinary item you’ve owned for years is reintroduced to you as though you’ve never seen it before. A cardigan isn’t just a cardigan. A headband isn’t just a headband. Brown suede isn’t simply brown suede. Everything seems to belong to a larger aesthetic universe with its own references, restaurants, holiday destinations, beauty routine and, inevitably, Amazon storefront.

The strange part is that these labels can be genuinely useful. I understand why we love them. Give something a name and suddenly it’s searchable. You can type two words into Pinterest and find an entire world waiting for you. A vague feeling becomes a mood board. A mood board becomes inspiration. Inspiration becomes an outfit.

And fashion should be playful. Trying on a different version of yourself for an afternoon is part of the fun.

I don’t want to live in a world where we’re too sophisticated to enjoy a silly trend.

But I do wonder what happens when inspiration becomes instruction.

Because once an aesthetic has a name, it tends to acquire rules.

You need this shoe. That bag. This particular skirt length. Your hair should look like this. Your sunglasses should have that shape. Here are the five pieces you need to “get the look.” And before long, something that began as a way to inspire individuality starts producing thousands of people dressed remarkably similarly.

That’s where I begin to lose interest.

Personal style has always been slightly difficult to explain. That’s part of its charm. The woman wearing her father’s old shirt with a beautiful skirt, trainers she bought six years ago and earrings from her grandmother doesn’t necessarily fit neatly into an aesthetic. There might not be a Pinterest search term for her outfit. She may not even know exactly why those things work together.

She just knows they do.

And isn’t that far more interesting?

I think the best wardrobes contain things that technically shouldn’t belong together. A very serious coat next to a ridiculous dress. Vintage beside something bought last week. A designer handbag worn with a university sweatshirt. Jewellery inherited from someone who had completely different taste from you. A pair of shoes you bought because you loved them before anyone told you they were having a comeback.

Real personal style is messy like that.

It develops through years rather than refreshes. It absorbs the places you’ve lived, the people you’ve known, the mistakes you’ve made, the photographs you’ve saved, the things your mother gave you, the phases you went through and the pieces you inexplicably loved enough to keep.

It doesn’t always have a name.

And perhaps that’s increasingly rare.

Social media is extraordinarily good at giving us references. We have access to more fashion imagery than any generation before us. In the space of ten minutes, we can see a runway in Paris, street style in Copenhagen, a vintage campaign from 1997 and what a woman we’ve never met wore to buy coffee that morning.

That’s incredible.

But having endless access to other people’s taste isn’t quite the same thing as developing your own.

Sometimes taste needs a little silence.

You need to put the phone down, open your wardrobe and decide what you want to wear without first checking what kind of woman the internet has decided you should be this week.

Maybe it’s the dress with the loafers.

Maybe it’s the blazer everyone says is over.

Maybe it’s three completely different references that make absolutely no sense together until you put them on.

Maybe nobody has named it yet.

Even better.

Because I don’t think the problem is clean girl or mob wife or whatever aesthetic we’ll collectively become obsessed with next. I’ll probably save pictures from it too. Trends give fashion energy. They make us experiment, revisit forgotten pieces and occasionally convince us to wear something we never thought we’d like.

The problem begins when the label becomes more important than the person wearing the clothes.

You don’t need to dress like a character to have style. You don’t need your wardrobe to fit neatly onto one Pinterest board. You don’t need to choose between minimalist and maximalist, feminine and masculine, classic and trendy. You can wear a ballet flat on Monday and an enormous trainer on Tuesday without experiencing an identity crisis.

You are allowed to contradict yourself.

In fact, I think you should.

The most interesting style has always contained a little contradiction, because the most interesting people do too.

So by all means, enjoy the aesthetics. Save the mood boards. Try the trend. Borrow the references and wear the ridiculous thing simply because everyone is wearing it and you want to see what the fuss is about.

Just don’t forget to occasionally get dressed without giving it a name.

Sometimes a cardigan is just a cardigan.

And sometimes a really good outfit is simply a really good outfit.

xx,

HM

I love people with opinions. Not people who think they’re always right, turn every dinner conversation into a debate, or mistake being rude for being interesting. I mean people who know what they think. Ask them where they want to eat and they actually have an answer. They have a favourite film and can tell you why. They think one hotel is wildly overrated, adore a restaurant everyone else seems to hate, have strong feelings about a particular shade of blue, and will happily tell you that no, they did not enjoy the book everyone else is recommending.

There’s something incredibly refreshing about someone who doesn’t look around the room before deciding how they feel.

We live in a time where we’re constantly reminded that everything is subjective. Let people enjoy things. Wear whatever you want. Eat whatever you like. Listen to whatever makes you happy. And I agree with all of it. There should be room for different tastes, different lives, different opinions, and different ways of seeing the world. But somewhere in all that acceptance, I wonder if we’ve become slightly afraid of saying something very simple: I don’t like it.

Not because it’s objectively bad. Not because everyone else should dislike it too. Simply because you don’t.

And I think having taste requires that. You cannot really know what you love without occasionally discovering what you absolutely cannot stand. Taste isn’t built by approving of everything; it’s built through noticing, choosing, rejecting, changing your mind, and understanding what you naturally return to.

Maybe you hate minimalist interiors. Maybe you think the shoe of the summer is hideous. Maybe you don’t understand the obsession with a restaurant everyone spent three months trying to get a reservation at. Maybe the film that won every award bored you to death. Maybe everyone you know is suddenly drinking the same thing, going to the same place, wearing the same brand, and you simply don’t understand the appeal.

Wonderful.

At least you noticed.

Because an opinion means you’ve paid attention long enough to form one. And in a world where we’re exposed to thousands of other people’s preferences every day, I think deciding what you actually think has become surprisingly important.

And this goes far beyond taste.

I love when someone has thoughts about the world around them. When they’ve read something and questioned it, rather than immediately accepting it. When they disagree with me and can explain why. When they’re interested enough to ask another question. And perhaps most importantly, when they’re willing to change their mind because someone has shown them another way of looking at something. Having an opinion doesn’t mean holding onto it forever simply because it was yours first.

A good conversation shouldn’t always end with everyone agreeing. Some of the best conversations begin when someone says, Really? I completely disagree. Suddenly you want to know why. Someone brings up something you hadn’t considered, another person sees it completely differently, and an ordinary dinner conversation becomes the one you’re still thinking about on the way home.

There’s an important distinction, though. Having an opinion isn’t the same as believing your opinion is a fact. You can think a dress is ugly without declaring that the person wearing it has bad taste. You can dislike someone’s favourite book without deciding they’re wrong for loving it. You can disagree with someone’s point of view and still be genuinely curious about how they arrived there. In fact, I think the most interesting people are often the most curious about opinions different from their own. They don’t need agreement to feel secure in what they think.

Perhaps that’s what I find so attractive about people with strong taste too. They aren’t constantly checking whether everyone else approves first. They don’t need a trend report to tell them whether something is beautiful or a five-star review to decide whether they enjoyed dinner. They know what they like, they know what they don’t, and they’re perfectly comfortable with the possibility that you might feel completely differently.

The older I get, the less interested I am in having the “correct” favourite restaurant, book, designer, city, film, or opinion. I’d much rather have my own. And I’d much rather sit across from someone who disagrees with me completely but has something interesting to say than someone who agrees with everything because it’s easier.

Because good taste was never about liking the right things. Having a point of view isn’t about being right either.

It’s about knowing why you think what you think.

So please, have an opinion. Love the ugly shoe everyone else hates. Admit that the critically acclaimed film wasn’t for you. Order the thing nobody else wants. Say you disagree when you genuinely do. Listen when someone challenges you. Change your mind when they make a better argument.

You don’t have to like everything.

In fact, I hope you don’t.

Life would be terribly boring if we all did.

xx,

HM

Somewhere along the way, adulthood became strangely focused on productivity. We’re encouraged to optimise our mornings, build our careers, network, side hustle, and somehow become the best possible version of ourselves before breakfast. Every hobby seems to come with a question attached to it. Could you turn it into a business? Could you make money from it? Could you post it online?

We’ve become so used to measuring our time by what it produces that we’ve forgotten the quiet joy of doing something simply because we want to.

Lately, I’ve found myself completely fascinated by people with hobbies.

Not impressive hobbies.

Not profitable hobbies.

Just hobbies.

The woman who spends her evenings learning Italian. The man who’s been restoring an old chair for months. The friend who knows everything about the 1800s. The person who bakes bread every Sunday. Someone who collects postcards. Someone who does ballet as an adult, just for herself. Someone who shoots everything on film. Someone who disappears into a pottery studio after work every Thursday.

It almost doesn’t matter what the hobby is.

What matters is that they have one.

There’s something incredibly attractive about meeting someone who lights up when they talk about something that has nothing to do with their job. Someone who’s curious enough to keep learning, even when there’s no exam at the end. Someone who’s built a small corner of life that exists purely because it brings them joy.

It tells me they’re living for themselves.

In a world where we’re constantly influenced by what everyone else is doing, hobbies feel wonderfully independent. Nobody starts learning to identify birds because it’s trending. Nobody spends years perfecting sourdough because an algorithm told them to. Those interests are usually quieter than that. They’re personal. They grow slowly. They become part of who someone is.

I think that’s why people with hobbies often seem so comfortable in themselves. They’ve spent time getting to know what genuinely excites them.

Not what looks good.

Not what gets the most likes.

Not what other people expect them to enjoy.

What they enjoy.

Maybe that’s also why they often have such a strong sense of personal style. When you know yourself outside of work, outside of social media, and outside of other people’s opinions, that confidence has a way of showing up everywhere - including in the way you dress.

I’ve realised that some of the people I admire most all have this in common. They’re interested in something. Deeply interested. They have a reason to put their phone down for a few hours. A reason to lose track of time. A reason to spend an afternoon doing something that doesn’t need to be productive to be valuable.

There’s something incredibly reassuring about that.

It reminds me that a good life isn’t only built from promotions, milestones, or perfectly planned five-year goals. Sometimes it’s built from Tuesday evenings spent painting, Saturday mornings in the garden, language classes after work, or a bookshelf that’s slowly growing because you simply love to read.

Perhaps hobbies aren’t just hobbies. Perhaps they’re little reminders that our lives don’t have to be performed to be meaningful.

And maybe that’s why I’ll always admire people who have one, no matter how random it is. Because it tells me they’ve found something that’s entirely their own.

xx,

HM

It’s Copenhagen Fashion Week, which means my Instagram refresh button is currently working overtime.

One day, I’d absolutely love to experience it in person. (Consider this my very subtle application.)

Until then, I’m more than happy watching it from home, saving my favourite looks, following every show, and admiring the creativity that takes over one of my favourite cities for a week.

Because despite what social media sometimes makes it seem, Fashion Week has never really been about getting photographed.

At least, I hope it never becomes that.

For me, Fashion Week is a celebration of an industry built by people who genuinely care. Editors who have spent decades training their eye. Buyers who can predict what we’ll all be wearing six months from now. Stylists who tell stories without saying a single word. Designers who spend months, sometimes years, bringing a single collection to life.

That deserves admiration.

Fashion is so often dismissed as something superficial. As though getting dressed is simply throwing on whatever is trending that week. But anyone who truly loves fashion knows that’s never been the point.

Style is a skill.

Just like photography.

Architecture.

Writing.

Interior design.

You don’t wake up one morning and suddenly have great taste.

You build it.

You collect references. You make mistakes. You discover what works, what doesn’t, what feels authentic, and what only looked good because everyone else was wearing it. Over time, your wardrobe begins to look less like a collection of clothes and more like a reflection of who you are.

That’s why I always find myself drawn to the same people during Fashion Week.

Not necessarily the loudest.

Not the ones wearing the biggest hat or the brightest colour.

The ones who still look unmistakably like themselves.

You get the feeling they’d wear that oversized blazer to lunch in October. The same beautifully cut trousers on a random Wednesday. The same jewellery they’ve collected over years. Fashion Week simply gives them a reason to elevate what already exists.

A little more glamour.

A sharper silhouette.

A beautiful coat.

But never a completely different personality.

Then there are the looks that feel more like costumes than clothes.

The ones where you instinctively wonder whether the person wearing them would ever choose that outfit if there weren’t photographers waiting outside the venue.

Of course, fashion should always leave room for experimentation. Some of the industry’s greatest moments came from people brave enough to challenge the rules. Fashion should surprise us. It should provoke us. It should make us look twice.

But I don’t think it should erase the person underneath.

The people I admire most are the ones who use clothes to express themselves - not to disguise themselves.

And perhaps that’s why Copenhagen continues to fascinate the fashion world.

There’s an ease to Scandinavian style that can’t be manufactured. It’s polished without feeling precious. Practical without becoming boring. Personal without trying too hard. It reminds us that the goal was never to wear the most extraordinary outfit in the room.

The goal was to wear the outfit that could only belong to you.

Maybe that’s why the best street style photos aren’t memorable because of one dramatic piece.

They’re memorable because the person wearing them has a point of view.

You can’t buy that.

You can’t copy it overnight.

And you certainly can’t fake it for one week in August.

So while I’ll be watching from home this season, saving far too many looks and quietly hoping that one day I’ll experience Copenhagen Fashion Week in person, I’ll continue celebrating the people who make this industry what it is.

Because, in a world constantly asking us to become someone else, they remind us that the most stylish thing you can wear is still yourself.

xx,

HM

A woman walks past you wearing perfectly worn-in jeans, ballet flats, and a white linen shirt. There’s a bouquet of flowers tucked under one arm and an iced coffee in the other. She isn’t doing anything extraordinary - she’s simply walking down the street - but somehow you’ve already decided she has impeccable taste, a beautiful apartment, a fulfilling career, and probably spends her Sundays browsing little bookstores before meeting friends for lunch.

You know absolutely nothing about her.

And yet, within seconds, you’ve written an entire life for a complete stranger.

I think we all do this.

Perhaps it’s because we’re naturally curious, or perhaps it’s because we’ve become so accustomed to consuming tiny fragments of other people’s lives that our minds instinctively fill in the blanks. A photograph becomes a personality. An outfit becomes a lifestyle. A city becomes a dream.

Fashion has always been brilliant at this.

One image in a magazine can convince us that buying a camel coat might somehow lead us to a different version of ourselves. Not because we truly believe a coat can change our life, but because we’ve quietly attached an entire story to it. We don’t just see the coat - we see the woman wearing it. The café she’s sitting in. The books she reads. The conversations she has. The confidence with which she walks into a room.

The clothes are almost beside the point.

They’re simply the beginning of the fantasy.

Social media has only made this easier.

We’re no longer imagining the lives of women in glossy editorials. We’re imagining the lives of people who feel just close enough to be real. The girl making breakfast in Copenhagen. The couple spending a weekend in Lake Como. The creator whose morning routine somehow looks calm, productive, and aesthetically pleasing before it’s even eight o’clock.

We rarely stop to think about everything that exists outside the frame.

The delayed flights.

The untidy homes.

The difficult conversations.

The uncertainty.

The loneliness.

The ordinary Tuesday afternoons where nothing particularly photogenic happens.

Instead, we take one beautifully composed moment and let it represent an entire life.

I’ve realised I do this all the time.

I’ll see someone laughing with friends over dinner and imagine life is always that easy for them. I’ll pass someone at the airport and assume they’re living the exciting life I’ve always wanted. I’ll admire someone’s wardrobe and convince myself they’ve completely figured out who they are.

Maybe they have.

Maybe they haven’t.

The truth is, we never really know.

And then I think about my own life.

Maybe someone has seen photos from my time in London and imagined I was constantly exploring the city, dressing up, and living the life I’d always dreamed of. They didn’t see the homesickness, the loneliness, or the difficult things I was carrying in my private life.

The same thing happens now.

If you only know me through social media, you might think I’m always travelling, always dressed up, always out for dinner, or always surrounded by people. But that’s only a fraction of my life. What you don’t see are the evenings spent in sweatpants, the days when I don’t feel particularly inspired, the moments I question myself, or the quiet afternoons that look just like everyone else’s.

That’s the strange thing about social media. It isn’t fake, but it isn’t the whole story either. The photos are real. The smiles are real. The holidays, the outfits, the beautiful dinners - they all happened. They’re just carefully selected moments from a much bigger, much more ordinary life.

And I think that’s true for all of us.

I don’t think the answer is to stop admiring beautiful things.

In fact, I hope I never stop noticing the woman carrying flowers or saving photos of outfits I love or dreaming about cities I’ve never visited. Life would be much less interesting without inspiration.

But I do think there’s a difference between being inspired by someone and believing they’ve escaped the parts of life that make us human.

No outfit is that perfect.

No city is that magical.

No relationship is that effortless.

No life is as polished as it looks from the outside.

Perhaps that’s why the lives we envy often seem so beautiful.

We’re only seeing the chapters someone chose to leave open.

The rest of the story stays unread.

So the next time you pass someone carrying flowers, wearing the perfect outfit, looking like they’ve got it all figured out, admire them if you want. Let them inspire you.

Just remember that, somewhere beyond that beautiful moment, they’re probably living an ordinary Tuesday too.

xx,

HM

I’ve been seeing this trend everywhere lately, where people share the things they genuinely think are worth spending money on. Some answers are practical, others are completely random, and that’s exactly why I love it. What feels “worth it” says so much about a person.

Since I’m no longer on TikTok, I thought I’d bring the trend here instead.

Here’s my highly subjective list of the things I’ll happily spend money on.

1. Therapy.
Looking after your mind deserves just as much attention as looking after your body. I genuinely think we’d all benefit from having someone to talk to.

2. A massage.
The amount of stress my body lets go of afterwards is unbelievable.

3. Fresh flowers.
They instantly change the atmosphere of a home. Such a small thing, but it makes everyday life feel a little more beautiful.

4. Dinner with friends or family.
You’ll forget what you ordered, but you’ll remember the conversations and the people you shared the table with.

5. Travelling.
I’ve never regretted spending money on seeing a new place. Experiences have always stayed with me longer than things.

6. A Feel Good juice from Joe & The Juice.
Call it expensive juice if you want. I’ll happily keep ordering it.

7. Nobu’s Crispy Rice.
Completely unnecessary. Completely overpriced. Completely worth it.

8. Gifts for the people you love.
There aren’t many better feelings than seeing someone genuinely happy because of something you picked out just for them.

9. Studying abroad.
Without a doubt one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It teaches you so much about the world, but even more about yourself.

I’m sure this list will look different in five years, but these are the things I’d happily spend my money on today.

Now I’d love to know yours. What’s something you’ll happily pay for every single time?

xx,

HM

It’s my birthday!

I’m turning 23 today, and while I definitely don’t have life figured out, I thought I’d celebrate by sharing twenty-three things I’ve learned so far. Some are lessons, some are opinions, and some I’ll probably disagree with by next year.

1. Failure means you were brave enough to try.

2. Life is an experience, not a plan.

3. You’ll regret the things you didn’t do more than the things you did.

4. We should talk about therapy as naturally as we talk about going to the doctor.

5. Good taste isn’t something you can buy.

6. You don’t need a new outfit for every occasion.

7. The best pieces in your wardrobe are the ones you keep reaching for.

8. You can admire something without owning it.

9. Studying abroad teaches you as much about yourself as it does about the world.

10. Do what feels right, not what looks right.

11. It’s okay to outgrow people.

12. The right people make life feel lighter.

13. A few great friends are enough.

14. Getting younger siblings as an adult has been one of the greatest gifts of my life.

15. Family will become some of your best friends. Call them more often.

16. Feeling deeply and caring deeply is a beautiful gift. Never let the world convince you otherwise.

17. Never change who you are just to fit into someone else’s version of you.

18. Makeup is overrated.

19. Kindness is never wasted.

20. I love Instagram. It’s inspired me, connected me with incredible people, and opened doors I never expected.

21. Musicals are always worth the ticket.

22. Food is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Order dessert, share the pasta, and enjoy the meal.

23. At 23, I’m certain of one thing: I still have so much left to learn.

Happy birthday to me <3

xx,

HM

There’s something surprisingly memorable about walking out of a shop empty-handed.

Not because nothing caught your eye, but because something did.

You tried on the coat. You stood in front of the mirror a little longer than usual. You imagined where you’d wear it, who you’d be wearing it with, and for a brief moment, it almost became yours. Then you hung it back on the rail, thanked the salesperson, and walked out.

Years later, you can still picture it.

It’s funny how some of the clothes we never own stay with us longer than the ones hanging in our wardrobes.

For a long time, I believed personal style was built one purchase at a time. Every beautiful blazer, every perfectly cut pair of trousers, every handbag that felt like it might become part of your everyday life. I thought great wardrobes were simply the result of making enough good decisions.

Now I’m not so sure.

Because if I look back over the years, I don’t only remember the things I bought. I remember the things I almost bought. The pink cashmere knit that felt impossibly soft but didn’t quite belong in my wardrobe. The silk dress that looked beautiful in the fitting room but somehow stopped feeling like me the moment I imagined taking it home. The heals I admired every time I walked past the window but never found a real place for in my life.

Those pieces never became mine.

Yet somehow, I still remember them.

Maybe it’s because they never had the chance to become ordinary.

The clothes we buy eventually settle into our lives. They become part of rushed Monday mornings, holidays, coffee runs, rainy afternoons and dinners with friends. They pick up tiny signs of wear, collect memories, and quietly become familiar. Even our favourite purchases eventually lose the excitement they had on the day we carried them home.

The clothes we leave behind never have to go through that transformation.

They stay exactly as we imagined them.

Fashion has always been very good at celebrating the art of acquiring. New arrivals. Wish lists. Investment pieces. The next purchase that promises to complete the wardrobe we’ve been building for years. It’s easy to believe that style is simply a collection of enough beautiful things.

But I don’t think that’s what makes someone well dressed.

I think great style is just as much about editing as it is about collecting.

I’ve realised that I admire countless pieces that simply belong in someone else’s life. Dresses designed for glamorous evenings I rarely have. Tiny handbags that are beautiful to look at but would never survive a normal day. Colours I love on other people but somehow never recognise on myself. Appreciating something doesn’t always mean it belongs in your wardrobe.

In fact, knowing the difference might be one of the clearest signs that you’re beginning to understand your own style.

There’s a quiet confidence in leaving something behind - not because you can’t buy it, but because you know it isn’t quite you. In a world that constantly encourages us to add more, there’s something surprisingly luxurious about walking away feeling completely satisfied with what you already have.

I’ve started to think that’s how the best wardrobes are built.

Not through endless shopping trips or perfectly timed purchases, but through years of small decisions. Saying yes to the pieces that genuinely fit your life, and just as importantly, saying no to the ones that don’t. Every time you leave a beautiful piece on the hanger because it doesn’t feel honest, your wardrobe becomes a little more personal.

Not because it’s fuller.

Because it’s clearer.

The most stylish people don’t own every beautiful thing they come across.

They simply know which beautiful things belong to them.

And perhaps that’s the part of personal style we don’t talk about enough.

A great wardrobe isn’t only defined by what’s inside it.

It’s quietly shaped by everything you chose to leave behind.

xx,

HM

The first thing I notice about the women whose style I admire most is almost never what they’re wearing.

It’s what’s slightly undone.

A shirt that’s only half tucked in. Hair that’s been caught by the wind instead of perfectly styled. A leather handbag that’s softened after years of being carried everywhere. Ballet flats that have clearly walked more than one city. Nothing feels untouched, and that’s exactly what makes it all feel so beautiful.

It made me realise something.

The most stylish people always seem to leave something unfinished.

Fashion has always had a complicated relationship with perfection. We spend hours trying on different outfits, steaming shirts, changing shoes at the last minute and wondering whether one accessory is too much or not enough. Yet the women we save to our Pinterest boards rarely look as though they spent hours getting dressed. If anything, they look as though they barely thought about it at all.

Of course, that’s the greatest illusion fashion has ever sold us.

Nobody accidentally looks that good.

Effortlessness isn’t something you wake up with one morning. It’s something that is built over years of understanding what suits you, buying pieces you’ll wear again and again, and becoming comfortable enough to stop questioning every choice you make. Eventually, getting dressed becomes less about creating the perfect outfit and more about putting on clothes that already feel like an extension of yourself.

That’s when style becomes interesting.

I’ve realised that my favourite pieces have very little in common with the newest things in my wardrobe. They’re the ballet flats I’ve worn so often the leather has softened. The cashmere knit that somehow comes back out every autumn, no matter how many new jumpers I buy. The tailored trousers that fit exactly how I like them because they’ve already lived through countless coffees, meetings and long days that turned into even longer dinners.

They’ve become mine.

The same goes for the people whose style I admire. Their wardrobes never feel like they were bought in one afternoon. There are pieces collected over years, bags that have travelled, jewellery that’s been inherited, jackets that have been tailored more than once and coats that have seen more winters than trends.

Nothing feels temporary.

Perhaps that’s why I almost always prefer a worn leather bag to one that’s still in its dust bag. The creases tell a story. The softened corners remind you that beautiful things are meant to be used, not protected. The same goes for loafers that have moulded to someone’s feet or a favourite knit that’s become even softer after countless washes.

Luxury has never been about looking untouched.

If anything, the opposite is true.

The same idea exists far beyond fashion. The homes I love most are never the ones that look like furniture showrooms. There are books left open on the coffee table, flowers that aren’t arranged perfectly and chairs that have clearly been sat in. The best dinner parties aren’t remembered because every napkin matched. They’re remembered because nobody wanted to leave.

Character has always been more interesting than perfection.

And I think that’s what so many of us are actually searching for when we say someone has great style. We aren’t admiring the price of their clothes or whether every detail has been perfectly considered. We’re responding to something much harder to create.

A point of view.

The confidence to repeat an outfit because you genuinely love it. The handbag you’ve carried for years because it still makes sense in your wardrobe. The red ballet flats you always reach for because they’ve quietly become part of your signature. The leopard-print bag that somehow works because you’ve worn it often enough that it now simply feels like you.

Style begins to look effortless the moment you stop trying to impress people.

That’s why the most stylish people are rarely the ones chasing every new trend. They aren’t constantly reinventing themselves. They’re refining. Wearing. Repeating. Living in their clothes until those clothes become part of who they are.

I sometimes think we’re all trying to finish our wardrobes, as though one more handbag, one more blazer or one more pair of shoes will finally make everything feel complete.

The truth is, the best wardrobes are never finished.

They’re always evolving.

Just like the people wearing them.

And maybe that’s the secret.

The most stylish people always leave something unfinished because they understand that perfection has never been the goal.

Personality was.

xx,

HM

We’re back with a little Pop-Up, and it has been a while since we’ve had one of those. I actually came up with the idea for this piece while cycling earlier today. The sun was shining, people had spilled out onto every outdoor café, and I caught myself thinking about how lucky we’ve been with the Scandinavian summer this year.

Somewhere between the sunshine and the bike ride, another thought crossed my mind.

Some people don’t just enjoy summer.

They somehow feel like it.

Not because they’re wearing linen shirts or woven sandals, but because of the way they move through the world. They always suggest sitting outside, even if it’s only just warm enough. They’d rather cycle than take the bus, stop by the market because the strawberries look too good to walk past, and somehow always convince everyone to stay for one more coffee that inevitably turns into dinner.

They have a way of romanticising ordinary days.

Their hair is a little windswept, there’s usually a book tucked into their bag, and they never seem to be in a rush. Fresh flowers are almost always on the kitchen table, dinner rarely starts before the sun begins to set, and somehow they make an ordinary Tuesday feel like the middle of a holiday.

What I admire has very little to do with their wardrobe and everything to do with their pace.

Summer quietly reminds us how beautiful life can be when we slow down. Coffee lasts a little longer. We walk instead of rushing. We stay outside because nobody wants to be the first person to go home. One drink turns into hours of conversation, and suddenly the best part of the day is the one nobody planned.

None of those things belong exclusively to summer.

We could buy flowers on our way home in November. We could invite friends over simply because it’s Wednesday. We could cycle to dinner instead of driving, leave our phones in our bags for another hour, or decide that today is reason enough to sit outside with a coffee, even if it’s only for twenty minutes.

Summer simply reminds us to do it.

That’s why some people feel like summer all year round. They understand that a beautiful life isn’t built around extraordinary moments. It’s built around the ordinary ones we choose to pay attention to.

A bike ride with nowhere particular to be.

Fresh strawberries from the market.

The sound of people talking from neighbouring balconies.

A table that’s somehow too small because one more friend decided to join.

A coffee that accidentally became an entire afternoon.

Those moments rarely feel significant while they’re happening.

Yet somehow, they’re the ones we remember.

Maybe that’s the real magic of summer.

Not the season itself, but the way it reminds us how lovely ordinary life can be.

And honestly, I think that’s a feeling worth carrying with us long after summer comes to an end.

xx,

HM

One of the biggest misconceptions about great style is that it can be built in one shopping trip.

It can’t.

The wardrobes I find the most interesting have never looked like they were bought all at once. They don’t feel perfectly curated overnight, nor do they look like someone walked into a luxury department store one afternoon and decided to reinvent themselves. Instead, they feel lived in. Collected. Personal.

I actually think that is what makes them beautiful.

The older I get, the less interested I become in the idea of building the “perfect wardrobe” as quickly as possible. Somewhere along the way, I realised that getting dressed became far more enjoyable once my wardrobe started carrying memories instead of simply clothes.

Because every piece has the potential to become part of your story.

A coat you bought while wandering around Paris with your mum after stopping for coffee. A pair of shoes that remind you of the semester you spent studying in London. The cashmere knit you finally saved up for after wanting it for months. A vintage bag you found completely by accident on a Saturday afternoon. A striped shirt borrowed from your dad that somehow never made its way back into his wardrobe.

Those are the pieces that stay.

Not because they are necessarily the most expensive, but because they remind you of something.

I think that is why I find wardrobes built over time so much more interesting than wardrobes built overnight. When every piece has arrived for a reason, your wardrobe starts becoming a reflection of your life rather than simply your shopping habits.

That, to me, is what personal style really is.

I love the idea that one day I will be able to look at my wardrobe and remember different chapters of my life through the clothes hanging inside it. The coat from Paris. The pieces I bought while living in London. The jewellery I inherited. The handbag I carried almost every day through my twenties. The knit that travelled with me every winter. Suddenly, your wardrobe becomes more than somewhere you keep your clothes. It becomes a collection of memories.

And I honestly think that makes getting dressed so much more meaningful.

Fashion moves incredibly quickly. Every week there is a new trend, a new colour, a new “must-have” item that promises to transform your wardrobe. But the pieces people remember are rarely the ones everyone owned at the same time. They are the ones that somehow became yours.

The blazer that has softened with age.

The leather bag that looks even better after years of use.

The watch your grandmother wore before you.

The scarf you always pack first.

Those are the things that give a wardrobe character.

It also takes away so much of the pressure to have everything figured out immediately. We often feel like we should have discovered our personal style by a certain age, as if one shopping trip is all it takes to build a wardrobe. But I don’t think style works like that.

I think style grows alongside you.

It changes as you move cities, meet new people, travel, celebrate milestones, start new jobs, and slowly become more certain of who you are. Naturally, your wardrobe changes too.

Perhaps that is why the most stylish people never seem to be chasing more.

They are simply adding another chapter.

I also think there is something incredibly sustainable about that mindset, although not in the way people usually talk about sustainability. It is about choosing pieces you genuinely want to keep, repair, wear again, and maybe even pass on one day. It is about buying with intention instead of urgency, knowing that the best wardrobes are not built in a season, but over a lifetime.

When I think about the wardrobes I admire most, I don’t imagine hundreds of untouched shopping bags or shelves filled with clothes that still have tags attached.

I imagine wardrobes filled with stories.

Because years from now, I don’t think anyone will ask where you bought everything.

They will ask about the coat from Paris.

The jumper from London.

The ring that belonged to your grandmother.

And those, if you ask me, are always the best stories to tell.

xx,

HM

We’re back with another edition of The Norwegian Women Who Get It Right. One of my favourite things about writing this series is celebrating women who inspire in completely different ways. Some through fashion, others through creativity, leadership, or simply the way they approach what they do. Here are five more Norwegian women who I think are getting it right.

1. Marianne Theodorsen

Marianne is one of the few people who genuinely makes me want to be braver with fashion. The way she mixes colours, patterns, and textures somehow always works, and she makes getting dressed look fun rather than complicated. In my opinion, that’s exactly why she has become one of Norway’s biggest fashion profiles.

2. Vibeke Fængsrud

I genuinely don’t think I would have gotten through maths without Vibeke. She was part of almost my entire school journey, from beginning to end, and somehow made maths feel far less overwhelming. Building a career around making people feel more confident in a subject so many struggle with is something I have so much respect for.

3. Kine Hartz

Leading Costume in both Norway and Denmark is no small task, especially in a country where fashion is still a relatively small industry. I have so much admiration for the way Kine continues to evolve the magazine while championing Scandinavian fashion, creativity, and talent. She has helped give the industry a stronger voice.

4. Darja Barannik

Darja is such a great reminder that coming from a small country doesn’t mean thinking small. Watching her build an international career while staying true to her own aesthetic has been incredibly inspiring. She proves that Scandinavian style belongs on the global stage.

5. Emma Ellingsen

Emma’s modelling career is incredibly impressive, but what inspires me most is her openness. By sharing her journey so honestly, she has helped countless people feel seen, understood, and less alone. That kind of courage deserves just as much recognition as everything else she has achieved.

There are so many inspiring women in Norway doing incredible things, and I love having a space to celebrate them. If there's someone you think should be featured in the next edition, I'd love to hear your suggestions.

xx,

HM

There is something quite ironic about the fact that I am writing today’s piece about football.

If you had asked me two weeks ago who Norway were playing, when the next match kicked off, or even what stage of the World Cup we were in, I genuinely would not have known. Football has never really been my thing. I have always been much more interested in fashion weeks than football pitches.

Yet somehow, over the past two weeks, my TikTok algorithm has gone from handbags and Paris Fashion Week to tactical analyses, post-match interviews, and clips of Norway’s dressing-room celebrations. I know every player’s name, I have watched far too many interviews for someone who claimed she “wasn’t into football,” and I have somehow become the person asking, “What time is kick-off?” before making weekend plans.

I did not see that coming.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realised something.

I don’t actually think this is why people are watching anymore.

Because yes, Norway returning to the men’s World Cup after 28 years is historic. Beating Brazil to reach the quarter-finals for the first time in our history is something none of us will forget anytime soon.

But I honestly think something even bigger has happened over the past couple of weeks.

Norway has come together.

I cannot remember the last time I saw so many people wanting to experience the exact same moment together. Outdoor restaurants have suddenly become little stadiums. Tables are booked hours before kick-off. Families are gathering around the television. Friends who would normally be out for dinner are planning the evening around the match instead. Ullevaal Stadium has become a place for thousands of people to watch together, simply because some moments are too special to experience alone.

And then there were the celebrations.

Seeing crowds gather outside the Royal Palace. Watching the Crown Prince celebrate alongside the people. Cars driving through the streets with Norwegian flags waving from the windows. Complete strangers smiling at one another. Restaurants erupting every time Norway scored.

Even “RO!” has somehow become part of all our vocabularies.

Who would have thought?

The funniest part is that my own family could probably not be further from being football people.

Yet we have watched every single match.

Not because we suddenly understand every tactical decision or can explain every rule, but because it feels like we are witnessing one of those rare moments we will talk about for years. The kind of moment where everyone remembers where they were, who they watched it with, and how they felt when the final whistle blew.

I also don’t think people have only fallen in love with the football.

I think people have fallen in love with this team.

Every interview I have watched leaves me thinking the same thing: this genuinely looks like a group of people who love being around each other. There is something incredibly refreshing about watching a team where every celebration feels shared, every interview feels humble, and every player seems just as happy for someone else’s success as their own. They are obviously exceptional footballers, but what has stood out to me just as much is the friendship behind it all.

You simply cannot fake that.

Maybe that is why this World Cup has reached people like me.

Because we are not only watching football.

We are watching friendship.

We are watching belief.

We are watching what happens when a group of people trust one another completely.

And perhaps that is why an entire country has become so invested.

I have always thought Norwegians are quite reserved. We celebrate on the 17th of May, we clap politely, and then we quietly go back to our everyday lives. We are not necessarily known for being the loudest people in the room.

Yet the last two weeks have felt completely different.

We have celebrated with strangers.

We have hugged people we have never met.

We have filled outdoor restaurants, living rooms, stadiums, and city squares simply because we wanted to experience something together.

That is what I will remember.

Of course I will remember the goals, the celebrations, and the fact that Norway has made history.

But more than anything, I will remember how this team made an entire country feel connected.

And honestly, I think we all needed that a little more than we realised.

So congratulations to every single player, to the coaching staff, and to everyone who has been part of this incredible journey.

You have given Norway far more than a place in the quarter-finals.

And for a girl who, two weeks ago, couldn't have named half the team... I think that says everything.

xx,

HM

Image credits: All images belong to their respective owners. Used for editorial purposes.

For a group of people who are constantly surrounded by new collections, changing trends, and endless inspiration, fashion people have surprisingly repetitive wardrobes.

At first, that sounds contradictory. Surely the people who work in fashion would be the first to wear something different every single day. Surely they would constantly be reinventing themselves every season. Yet the more I pay attention to the people whose style I admire most, the more I notice the exact opposite.

They repeat themselves.

Not because they lack creativity, but because they have figured out what feels like them.

Think about some of fashion’s most memorable women. Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy rarely stepped outside her world of impeccable tailoring, clean silhouettes, cashmere, and understated luxury. Jane Birkin became synonymous with blue jeans, baskets, white shirts, and effortless layering. Phoebe Philo has spent decades proving that restraint can be just as powerful as extravagance. None of these women became style icons because they constantly reinvented themselves. They became style icons because they refined their style until it became unmistakably their own.

I think that is far more interesting than chasing every new trend.

One of the biggest misconceptions about fashion is that stylish people own the most clothes. In reality, I think they simply know themselves better. They know which silhouettes make them feel confident, which colours they naturally gravitate towards, and which pieces they will still reach for years from now. Instead of constantly replacing their wardrobe, they slowly refine it.

I have started noticing this in my own wardrobe too. Over the years, my style has become much simpler and much more consistent. It is built around timeless pieces that I know I will love for years rather than months. You will almost always find me in great tailoring, cashmere knitwear, beautifully cut trousers, or a skirt throughout the summer months. I rarely gravitate towards clothing that shows a lot of skin, and I have realised that I almost always finish an outfit with a great accessory.

If you know me, you know I practically live in ballet flats. I wear them almost every day, often even with socks, and as soon as summer arrives, I naturally swap them for a simple pair of sandals. Every now and then I introduce a touch of red or a hint of leopard print. Not because every outfit needs it, but because those details have quietly become part of my personal style. They are not the foundation of my wardrobe, but they are the little signatures that make an outfit feel like mine. And if there is one brand that continues to inspire the way I dress, it is The Row. Their philosophy of thoughtful, understated dressing has influenced my wardrobe far more than any passing trend ever has.

Could I dress completely differently tomorrow? Of course.

But the older I get, the less interested I am in dressing differently simply for the sake of it. I would much rather continue building a wardrobe that feels recognisable than one that changes every time a new trend appears.

Perhaps that is what a fashion uniform really is.

Not wearing the exact same outfit every day, but building a wardrobe around the things that consistently make you feel like yourself.

There is something incredibly confident about that. We often associate confidence with trying something new, but I think there is another kind of confidence that comes from knowing when you have already found what works. The most stylish people are not constantly asking, “What is everyone wearing this season?” They are asking, “Does this belong in my wardrobe?” Those are two very different questions.

That is also why I think fashion people often appear less trend-driven than we imagine. Of course they notice trends. They appreciate them. They experiment with them. But they filter them through their own perspective instead of allowing trends to define it. They borrow what works, leave what does not, and continue building on a wardrobe that already has a clear identity.

When I think about the people whose style I admire most, I can picture them instantly. Not because they always wore something new, but because they always looked like themselves. Their wardrobe had a rhythm. The same colours. The same silhouettes. The same feeling. You could recognise their style before you recognised the label on their clothes.

Maybe that is why fashion people love uniforms so much.

Not because they have run out of ideas.

But because they have finally figured out which ones are worth repeating.

xx,

HM