1996 — we’re mad fer it!
The Beach, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Fight Club, Infinite Jest — 1996 was
a bumper year for pop-culture literature. Fast forward to 2022 and
it’s back once more, with two of the summer’s biggest reads based in
that year: Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow (Michael Joseph
£16.99, out June 9), in which a 40-year-old woman travels back to her
16th birthday party, and Elif Batuman’s surreal Either/Or (Jonathan
Cape £16.99, out Thursday), which follows Harvard student Selin as
she tries to get over her elusive crush, Ivan. “The year 1996 was so
special because everything was happening — Britpop, Trainspotting,
the Spice Girls, Euro 96,” says Mark Knox, co-host of the Brit Cult
podcast. “It was when we believed that anything was possible. What
a time to be alive!” Get us a time machine, a choker and a copy of
Mariah Carey’s Fantasy on CD single immediately.Everyone’s talking about ...
Jamie Linn Watson
“I think the concept of dating in itself is so cringe,” says the
comedian Jamie Linn Watson (Derry Girls’ Nicola Coughlan is
a big fan). Her videos — usually featuring her being a “morning
after” nightmare — are in the spirit of Phoebe Waller-Bridge
and tackle the tricky world of meeting people in your twenties.
“It comes with this constant pressure of ‘be chill, be chill — if
you’re not chill it’s embarrassing’,” Watson says. “So there’s this
consistent dichotomy of suppressing pretty normal crushes and
feelings and feigning effortless coolness in relationships, which
I think can be hilarious.” She says that the personas in the videos
(faux-naive, cool girls) are just heightened versions of herself
and admits that some of the set-ups are things that actually
happened: “Like offering a guy who is staying over a bunch of
different moisturiser options and making breakfast plans the
night before.” She bravely puts herself out there for the
(comedic) greater good. “We all have a freaky, cringey, no-chill
version of ourselves inside us, so why not make fun of it?” Why
not indeed. Check her out at @jamie.linn.watson on TikTok and
Instagram, plus she performs live every week in New York.What in heaven’s name
is beautyscaping?
You’ve heard of tablescaping and mantelscaping,
but are you au fait with the fine art of
beautyscaping? If not, we suggest you get up to
speed pronto because you are currently only
extracting a fraction of the value of your Buly hand
cream. Yes, beautifully packaged cult products are
breaking free from the bathroom cabinet and
becoming social media stars. Curate your Byredo
and Chanel bottles and pots on a tray, or arrange
them on a shelf, grouped with votive candles,
titchy plants and pieces of jewellery. Garner
enough likes and there’s always the hope of getting
your next Crème de la Mer moisturiser for free.From top The Spice Girls in 1996; and
Trainspotting’s Spud, Renton and Begbie
4 • The Sunday Times Style