Why Do We Brand the Summer?

We like to imagine that it’s possible for life to be one eternal summer and that we have uniquely failed to achieve that for ourselves.

But the thing about the seasons is that they are cyclical, and the ‘new you’ this January will be the same ‘new you’ of next January, and of every January until you die. You’ll drift from Creme Egg spring to Red Stripe summer and Pumpkin Spice autumn and right back to the fugue state you started in, dizzy from all the brandy butter, nursing a hango

It feels like we’re in a moment of repudiating the modernist impulse that says we’re happily abandoning the present as we rocket into the future. I think the whole return of retro design—the artisanal movement, and the coveting of everything handmade—is evidence of this. It’s as if we’re struggling to create a new notion of time,