The Capsule Summer Bucket List 🧺
Choose five to cross off before September.
Hello!
Happy weekend to us all 🫶
Here’s what’s on the menu for today:
Open Tabs: The Capsule Summer Bucket List 🧺
News: All the bits you may have missed from this week
Hot + Not: With musician Martin Luke Brown
Add to Queue: Great stuff to read, watch, and listen to this weekend
Have a great one!
Holly x
News: Capsule will be at SXSW London this year 💫
I am moderating a panel on Thursday what comes next after microtrends. More info here!
If you are at SXSW, or would like to come, or would like to come to a happy hour drinks, please reach out! You can reply to this email or DM me in Substack. I would love to see you.
We had a brief panic this week that May had gone extremely fast, meaning that summer too would come and go before we know it. The days are long, creeping up to summer solstice, and while we love this period, there’s always that underlying worry: how do we make the most of it? How do we make it last? There are a bunch of ways to try and slow down. But we thought it might be nice to choose some lovely things to prioritise this summer.
This is a long list, and we are not suggesting we scramble to do it all. Instead, choose 3-5 that resonate most, and see if you can find time to try them before September.
Fall asleep outside. Find a tree or a parasol, lay out a blanket, and relax with the freedom to fall asleep. Focus on letting the outdoor sounds wash over you.
Have an elevated picnic. This is a picnic with intention: plan ahead with your friends to each bring your favourite treats, like a fresh loaf from your favourite bakery, really good butter, and a bottle of wine chosen from a local bar.
Watch a movie outside. This could be a local open-air cinema pop-up, or hanging a white sheet in your yard and projecting a film yourself. Both are great!
Or take it up a notch, and go to an open-air theatre.
Mediocre crafting. Choose a craft you love but are not so talented at (like watercolour painting or clay modelling) and spend an afternoon just having a go at it. The goal is creativity and playfulness, not productivity or perfection.
Pastry tasting. Go to a couple of local bakeries, or choose your favourite one, and buy three baked goods. Take them to a local park and have a taste test, discussing what you like about each one. Bonus points if you accidentally find the best cinnamon bun.
Have a hotel day. Search for hotels in your city that offer day passes and spend the day there. If you’re struggling for a pass, just get a drink and read in the lobby.
Mini photography project. Buy a disposable camera, or a second-hand digital or film camera, and fill a roll of film with a specific focus. Maybe you’ll try to capture the people you see for a couple of weeks, or choose one colour to photograph. When you get them developed, you’ll have a mini photography project, and probably a few snaps you love enough to frame for your wall.
Spontaneous train ride. Get on a local or commuter train and ride for 45 mins to a small town or green space you’ve never visited before. Grab a coffee or some lunch when you arrive, walk around for a bit, then return home. The change of scenery is worth it!
Dawn or dusk dip. Head to a local lido, swimming pond, or other body of water in the early morning or early evening. You’ll avoid the midday crowds and have a more peaceful, cinematic experience.
Single-author reading list. Choose one writer and aim to read three pieces of their work, back to back. This can be full books or shorter pieces like essays, and grants you the chance to dive deeper into their headspace. Great examples are Joan Didion, Sheila Heti, James Baldwin, or Deborah Levy.
Intentional sunset. Find a high vantage point (a rooftop, a hill) and watch the sun go down from start to finish. Sit with your friends, don’t try to do anything else, and just enjoy chatting as you watch the sky change colours.
Jazz night. Once the sun has set and the temperature cools, have a cool shower and then get dressed up for a jazz night. Think: summer silks, jewellery, and freshly moisturised skin, all ready to go and listen to some great music in an indulgent setting.
Weekly gratitude ritual. Set a reminder every Friday evening to write down three things you’re grateful for. This is a lovely way to transition into weekend mode, and you may end up forming up a habit you keep for the rest of the year.
Visit a botanical garden. And make the effort to learn the names of a few plant species you like the look of!
Go to a theme park. One of the best ways to feel a bunch of childlike emotions in a day.
Museum lates. Skip the busy weekend crowds and head to a gallery or museum during their evening hours. It feels different after dark! Romantic and atmospheric.
Visit a sculpture park. Always worth the effort! And a great place to walk and talk with people you love.
Phone-free mornings. Spend a weekend morning completely phone-free, making coffee, chatting, reading, or planning your day with pen and paper before picking up your devices.
Get a pedicure with a friend. Ask for chairs next to each other and just chat.
Tackle a home project. Choose one small thing to fix, change, or decorate in your home and complete the task. This could be putting up some bookshelves or finding a solution for hallway mess and you’ll appreciate the effort!
Find a community garden. Find out if your city has a community garden and spend a day there with a friend or your partner.
Buy a summer perfume and wear it to help document your memories of the season. Not sure where to start? Check out Circe’s perfume guide :)
Visit a vineyard. This is the sort of thing you make time for on holiday but you can do it closer to home too, which automatically makes you feel like you have escaped.
Do something witchy for the solstice. Some relatively low-effort but fun ways to mark the longest day of the year: make flower crowns, spend time by a river or natural pond, host a bonfire, or light candles to burn pieces of paper inscribed with unwanted vibes. And if you have crystals, charge them in the solstice sun. For your calendars: Sunday 21st June!
We’d love to hear which ones appeal to you, and if you have more suggestions, please leave them in the comments <3
And do share this with friends you’d love to share these experiences with :)
Updates from the Capsule universe you may have missed this week:
The Pinterest Summer Trends report is here. You’ll notice that some feel familiar, but slightly evolved, meaning that the rapid trend cycle is slowing
This is clever and cool from Dua Lipa
Turns out the Phoebe Bridgers secret tour has been in the works for a while!
And meanwhile, here’s a first look at her in the new A24 movie
Courtside at the basketball this week: Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner doing shot chasers, and Maggie Rogers
There are some fun theories about the new Charli xcx album
Olivia Rodrigo addressed the weird reaction to her babydoll dress
Gracie Abrams has picked excellent support acts
Zendaya said she’s been dreaming about her wedding dress since she was a kid
And we’re talking about Susan Boyle again!
This week, Martin Luke Brown popped into Capsule to share what’s 🔥hot🔥 and what’s not 🙅♀️ …
Martin is a British singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist known for his soulful, emotive indie-pop sound and honest storytelling. In addition to his solo career and collaborations with artists like Lizzy McAlpine, he is a founding member of the indie supergroup FIZZ alongside dodie, Orla Gartland, and Greta Isaac. His new single ‘dream state’ is out today!
🔥🔥🔥Hot🔥🔥🔥
Shoehorns, aloe vera juice w the juicy bits in, calling everyone cherub, Love On The Spectrum, signing off on emails with ‘mwah’, 1/4 of watermelon, platonically kissing people on the shoulder (consensually of course), The Blindboy Podcast, cutting your own hair, not vaping, brown noise
Hot Not… 🙅♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️
Meta glasses… ew, asking ‘what do you do’, doomscrolling, coffee shops that ask you to tip (I’m not stingy I just really don’t want to copy America), goat’s cheese, AI / anyone addicted to ChatGPT, WhatsApp groups, microwaves (they’re starting to weird me out), the big light, talking over people… I’m bad at it and it’s not hot :(…listening to the full sentence is v hot though
📺 Watching: Rivals season 2 on streaming, Lena Dunham on Good Hang with Amy Poehler, Audrey Hobert covering her brother’s music for Like A Version, and this brilliant Muna x Rolling Stone interview.
📖 Reading: Kyle Chayka’s New Yorker column on the death of the “good” millennial lifestyle brand, and resurfacing Emma Garland’s great piece on Olivia Rodrigo’s babydoll dress.
🎧 Listening to: Florescence, the new Maisie Peters album, Down On Earth, the new Turnover album, and ‘Beg For Me’, the first of the Lily Allen remixes, featuring JADE. And a final treat: Dr Orna from Couples Therapy on Las Culturistas.