As it approaches the end of the year, ways to improve and generally optimise your life start to percolate in the mind. One of my new year’s resolutions, along with going to pilates every day and quitting vaping, is to not go on my phone the minute I open my eyes. Although I am relatively at peace with flooding my brain with memes and celeb gossip at 6am, sometimes it all gets a bit much. This morning, a prime example, when I opened Instagram to a picture of Paul Mescal, dressed in the shudder-inducing uniform of every east London softboi ever.
While the classic jeans and jumper combination may sound inoffensive and perhaps would not have the same effect on someone with more pressing issues in life than avoiding eye contact with ex-Hinge flames while getting a flat white, the look felt a little too close to home, leaving me triggered.
Much has been made of Paul Mescal’s understated wardrobe (how can we forget Connell’s chain or all those running shorts), but the latest look from the Hamnet star had me rejoicing at Timothee Chalamet’s visually-arresting all-orange press circuit looks, which I’m yet to see parading around every independent coffee shop in a three-mile radius. Hitting the big screen on 9 January, Hamnet is set to reignite our global Paul Mescal obsession, so call it exposure therapy, call it the return of the lowkey A-lister, but it’s time to get re-acquainted with the softboi wardrobe.