The year in stuff – from chicken wine to cucumbers and mini mullets

White ribbed sports socks Nothing captured the divide between millennials and gen Z better than whether your socks hit your calf. View image in fullscreen Hot rodent men Did we…

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Iris Apfel remembered by Duro Olowu

It’s impossible to imagine a person’s absence when it seems, like Iris Apfel, that they were always here. Iris was a woman who understood the transformative and inspiring power of…

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Meet the Party Jean – the answer to your New Year’s Eve prayers | Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion

There is a moment about halfway through Christmas dinner when the cracker hats have slipped askew, shoes been kicked off under the table and belts un-notched, that marks the official…

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Safe Botox isn’t only for Harley Street – it should be on the high street, too | Sali Hughes on beauty

Every couple of years, I’m invited on to some radio show on the implicit understanding that as a Guardian beauty columnist, I’ll sound suitably appalled and outraged by the latest opening of…

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How swamp, olive and brat came to rule 2024

As with many of this year’s big political predictions, the pollsters got it wrong. Pantone declared last December that “peach fuzz” – a honeyed-take on the previous Barbified year –…

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Panettone Bread Pudding

I’m somewhat of a grump about bread pudding. It’s not that I don’t like it, but to me, bread pudding is something you eat at home, like fruit salad. I…

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‘It’s shorthand for what we expect women to look like’: how ‘not-too-done’ hair took over screens in 2024

The 2024 Netflix series Nobody Wants This was widely adored for many reasons – not least the concept of the Hot Rabbi, the renaissance of its star, former The OC…

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Click, clic … boom! How secondhand clothes shopping turned very sour

Here is a real-life conversation on a secondhand shopping app: a buyer of two items asks if a seller could combine postage costs. The petulant seller refuses. After a grating…

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Trend watch: cosy loungewear

It’s officially the time of year to get cosy; think tactile fabrics that inspire a relaxed atmosphere. Forget itchy sequins and Christmas jumpers and pull on a look whose only…

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Unpeeled tomatoes and barn conversions: Nicky Haslam reveals what’s ‘common’ this year

What is “common” these days – and is it even OK to say it? Some might say it’s a controversial term, but for Nicky Haslam, the 85-year-old English designer, socialite…

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