On girlhood.So, it’s definitely been more than two weeks since my last newsletter - and before I go on today’s particularly sappy spiel about girlhood - I felt, at the very least, I owed you all a recognition of my absence. Needless to say, I have little intention of letting us go this long without talking again and, as always, I hope you enjoy. To set scene, I have to do a quick walk down memory lane. At thirteen, I started putting editorial clippings and beloved photos of friends and family on my bedroom wall. This was around the same time a family friend introduced me to John Hughes movies and the performance of “coming of age” that would henceforth function as a playbook until I was about sixteen. Fast-forward to present day (a random weekend in July spent like most others between one thing or another amongst female friends) and I was once again presented with what I can now recognise as “girlhood lore”. Conceived as a column for AnOther Magazine, Claire Marie Healy’s ‘Girlhood Studies’ really captures the production of femininity I was itching for when I was young and now see as part and parcel to growing up. Across a few different mediums, Healy reflects on the relationship between how girlhood is depicted vs. what it actually feels like - from Kirsten Dunst to queen Chloë Sevigny, the innocence of white socks to the transformative powers of kohl liner. Like my most awkward childhood phases, I think I came across this amazing series (which is serendipitously being turned into a book that I will most definitely be buying) at entirely the right time. Somewhere between an accidental all-girls trip and never-ending nights spent sharing our lives over dinner and drinks, I cosied into the idea of a summer with the girls and it instantly took me back to my girlhood. Of afternoons spent trailing behind my mom and aunties in shopping centres that felt too large for my little legs or sleepovers consumed with perfecting homemade choreography to Beyoncé’s ‘Diva’ and ‘Best of Both Worlds’ by Hannah Montana. There’ll always be something about being around the right women that will make me feel like I’m coming into myself over and over.
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