Not all about the new season. Building a life beyond the trending

This coming Monday, aside from the weekly ‘new slate’, opportunity for reinvention window, also carries in her little bag of tricks a goodbye letter to the month of August, and with her, her steward, the Winter season. A goodbye to slow dark evenings, excuses to snuggle by the fire and our excuse to turn inward for a few months each year. I’m sure the commentary around this has already started to seep into your feeds. The ethereal glow of your stockinged legs hasn’t yet been revealed to the world and the ‘ping’ of springtime event invitations are already landing in your inbox. Spring mood boards begin to hit the Explore Page, resources upon resources on how to effortlessly transition to the new season. New colours to drench. New titles to strive for because Chic is dead and butter yellow text overlays are deemed as passé. The trouble starts when this all stops being information and begins truly impacting what we surround ourselves with and impacts the life that we are building and the elements with which we surround ourselves. Our design, our creativity, our taste.

What makes this difficult is that this movement from season to season, trend to trend, is what makes us feel alive. We feel like we’re moving forward when time after time we can deconstruct the changes that occurred from a hypothetical point in time till now. It’s what makes the school term so attractive in hindsight - semesters broken down into projects, subjects, achievements. You tick things off and move on - and it feels good!

It’s clean and ordered.

And then you move into adulthood and you lose some of that. No structure. No awards. The approvals water down to your watch getting strangely excited for you that you made it out for a walk. A funny dopamine hit whenever you happen to reinvent yourself with a new aesthetic, new goal, new version. The hobbies stack up like dirty socks.

We all have this pressure to keep reiterating. To be constantly chasing progress, even when we would much rather be sitting down with an understated routine. Yet here we are, seeking a constant barrage of updates for water-cooler small talk to win the fake race that is both the office commentary and social media - the new 10k you’re running, the event you went to on the weekend, the football finals you drove 3 hours to attend, the sourdough recipe you wrestled with for hours; when in all of this you would much rather be re-reading your saucy novel for the 3rd time and snacking on the half-eaten Caramello that the mini dropped off the side of the couch and forgot about during yesterday’s bath battle. It all feels very reasonable, but are we just experts at now justifying choices that we’re no longer sure we even want to make? Because sorry, but I actually do still love a butter yellow accent in both a room and an outfit choice.

We don’t have to be silent yes people. Following every trend and the chaos, cost and noise that comes with it. Without bringing fight face to our socials and trolling every account that is talking Spring updates, we can work to developing an ease with the things already in our realm. For me it revolves around reiterating on designs that already work. Not reinventing the wheel with every ring design that comes from the workbench or jumping onto every trend. Which is soooooo hard! Because have you seen the internet? There is so much pretty and shiny to distract, so many marketing plays, so much noise that you can question everything that you’ve ever produced. So many cheeky ideas ready to tempt you off the path, throwing sensibility out and making you fairly rusty at using your own brand voice.

And so we try to dial back. To look at the basics again. What we reach for time after time. The elements of a design that made us stop in the first instance. For my latest signet this is where we went with it, borrowing design elements that had worked for previous pieces and making a stand-alone piece. Lucille is our most popular design to date - an ornate signet face inspired by cottage core vibes that were such a comfortable space for me at the time the business was idealized. I had recently had my second baby and winter arrived, with it all the inspiration of ornate picture frames, candelabras, romance novels and oil paintings. Long Sunday afternoons of snuggles with a newborn, pots of tea and woollen socks is what this design makes me think of.

This past winter, I developed a new jewellery drop called the Varsity Club which was all about the markers of a life well lived - adding some pieces with some more weight to them like the Game Ring. This more tangible heft provided the push to re-design the original Lucille into something we can carry into 2027 and beyond. Instead of focusing on the noise around us in this current moment, it has been a reminder to start with the very basics. The items already in your cupboard would be a good start. Reworking outfits to suit the weather not the taste of the month. Reading the books already in our library. Checking out old magazines to look for more timeless inspiration. Finding jewellery, makeup or homewares that you can fit with the world you have already built. The time will pass. The eyes will divert and conversations will carry on regardless of whether you have something new and exciting to add or not.

So don’t be afraid to make the noise. To linger when a trend has passed. To lay claim to a colour, a style or a hobby when no-one else is fixated on the details. These are all of the elements that make you YOU. A human being. With tastes. And opinions. Here’s to the basics of what you love muting the siren call of the many trends coming in hot as Spring makes her dainty entrance. Good luck in the noise girls. Ash x