We all know that fashion works in cycles and that if you wait long enough, something which was decried as “over” a few years ago will come back around. The latest Lazarus in this series is, apparently, the blog. If you were thinking we’d seen the back of badly spelled WordPress diatribes, or six-page meditations on childhood followed by a recipe for garlic bread, you’d be wrong. We are, it seems, on the brink of a blogging resurgence, all spruced up in a sexy new format: the newsletter.
This week Dua Lipa launched Service95, a free, weekly arts and newsletter available in 12 languages and promising readers everything from “little-known hotspots to up-and-coming artists and travel tips” , as well as “powerful articles from the world’s most compelling voices” , “savvy social commentary” , and “laugh-out-loud feature-writing” .
It celebrates some relatively obvious, swanky London restaurants (Gymkhana and Rovi) as well as the lesser known Western’s Laundry which is just off the not at all glamorous Holloway Road. It includes an explainer on Amapiano (a new subgenre of house music from South Africa) a feature about Hong-Kong’s all female roller derby team, something about a Parisian homeware store and a feature on writer and disability advocate Sinead Burke.
The people behind the newsletter (including Vogue’s Ellie Pithers and New York Times writer Brennan Carley) have certainly grasped what made all lifestyle blogs great. A feeling that you’re discovering things you’d never be cool enough to find on your own, and the kind of recommendation you can pass on to a friend you want to impress while acting like you discovered it yourself. It’s all the joys of the mid 00’s blogosphere, tempered with an inclusive 2022 twist. If they can sustain this – and that was always the risk with blogging – Lipa might really be on to something.
And she’s not the only celebrity trying to turn her name into a global media brand. It’s been rumoured that The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, is poised bring back her own lifestyle blog. The Tig, as it was called, was deleted around the time Markle became engaged to Prince Harry, presumably because there are complicated rules about recommending the best serum for dry skin when you’re also a member of the British Royal family.
