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wrapping up the year
the second to last clipboard of the 2021!
Welcome to clipboard, a weekly newsletter about clothes, hospo and Tāmaki Makaurau, by Reilly Hodson. This week: how you can contribute to the last clipboard of the year, and Mitchell Tan on why you should get into fragrances.
get a mention in the year-end clipboard!
I am exhausted. What a year! Frankly, I’m stumbling towards my last day of work for the year, and I’m drained of ideas to write newsletters about. Because of that, after next week’s issue, I’m going to take an extended summer break from clipboard, before returning, rejuvenated, refreshed and full of takes sometime in January.
We can’t finish up the year without a good year-end list, though. I’ve always loved “best of the year” lists, and last year I kicked off clipboard’s best of the year: a crowdsourced list of the best things the clipboard community spent money on. I’m keen to make it a tradition, so this is a formal request for submissions, which of course I accept informally all year round.
It’s a simple question: what was the best thing you spent money on this year? I’m open to answers of all kinds, whether it’s new clothes, the first cocktail after lockdown (the negroni sbagliato at East Street Hall hit the spot for me), or a gift for a loved one. Send in your submissions by replying to this email, clicking here, or hitting me on Instagram. Links are appreciated, and you can go as long or as short as you want!
clips
This profile of Jeremy Strong, the actor behind Kendall Roy in my favourite show, Succession, broke my part of twitter this week, it’s a must read, even if the reaction to it was nuts.
Indigo and Provisions have a delightful orange (the fruit, not the colour) graphic tee from Checks Downtown that hasn’t had an official release yet. It's one of the best graphics I’ve seen in a while.
Ockhee isn’t just my favourite restaurant in the world, it’s also behind the best merch in the game, bar none. This tote has a lovely graphic, and it's not some boring AS Colour tote underneath - it has a fancy magnetic closure, and an interior pocket which is an excellent addition to any bag.
I would gladly accept any gift from the Good As Gold gift guide this year.
You can now officially buy the Inward Goods Cuban shirt, which to me, is the platonic ideal of a summer shirt cut. You can even get matching shorts in some of the fabrics.
I didn’t realise until we ate there on Friday night, but East Street Hall is officially a pizza joint now - RIP to the delicious falafel and pide of months past. They’re tasty, though, and still an excellent beverage selection.
Kowtow is doing buy one, get one half price on basics until midnight tonight!
The Spinoff ranked ice blocks, a great article to read out loud in a group setting and argue about!
take it or leave it: smell good, feel good
by Mitchell Tan, proprietor of Rubbish Bin
it's getting to the time of year where everybody starts making jokes about the prospect of receiving the dreaded LYNX Africa Kit for christmas, but it's good to get thinking about fragrances. turns out, colognes, eau de toilettes, perfumes, whatever you call it, is not only a great gift but it's also an essential part to stepping up your personal style. now i'm a massive fragrance noob, i don't know ANYTHING about the nitty-gritty, people study that kinda stuff for years before being able to eloquently verbalise the nuances of any given scent, but coming from the perspective of a fellow civillian, here are just some points that i like to consider.
first off, i think it's important to step away from gender-specific marketing. it's pretty obvious that Dior sells you Sauvage through a masculine guise and problematically endorsed by Johnny "possible woman abuser" Depp, as do countless other luxury brands. however, that greatly narrows the number of fragrances you can access. i'm not saying that, as a guy, you aren't allowed to wear a smoky, musky scent, and as a girl, you aren't allowed to wear a saccharin floral number, but having an open mind to wearing different things makes the whole fragrance journey more fun and personal. don't be afraid to wear scents that don't immediately line up with gender, and you'll find yourself much happier overall.
secondly, consider going to smaller companies. the big luxury brands, that you find in the horrific smelling beauty and makeup sections of your local farmers use fragrances as cheap money-making schemes, utilising their name just to peddle sub-par products to unsuspecting consumers. by shopping smaller, you undeniably feel a greater connection to the product and opens up more avenues to explore otherwise niche points.
thirdly, is a super important point. use UNSCENTED products in conjunction with your fragrances. buying a $400 bottle of le labo doesn't mean you can lather yourself with All Blacks Rexona and just ruin it. moisturisers, antiperspirants, etc. are easy to find in neutral or unscented varieties, giving your new perfumes more space to shine.
lastly, and arguably most importantly, go into some stores and talk to the salespeople. they know more than ya boy does, and low-key it's nice to turn your brain off sometimes and just let them chew ya ear off and eventually upsell you on some new product line. now that we're able to head into stores, don't pass up the opportunity. testing fragrances out, seeing how they react to your skin personally and develop over time is not something you'll get by browsing online.
my current lineup is solely all Aesop. although it is very expensive, they've lasted me ages and i have a spread for the seasons - rozu for warm, hwyl for cold, tacit for in between.
smelling good unequivocally makes you feel good. this is some great advice, but still your decision to
take it or leave it.
PS: a gender-neutral starter pack: