Find out what’s heating up (and cooling down) in our weekly barometer of trends from fashion to pop culture.
Your new pin-up? The dinner lady
Right now dinner ladies are serving up not only sponge pudding and custard but also the latest spring looks. From the catwalk to street style, the new inspiration is the canteen worker who dished out your school dinners circa 1981. Take Miu Miu’s floral apron or Marigolds reimagined with a haute couture twist — spotted at Givenchy’s autumn/winter show and the Vanity Fair Oscar party. While we’ve yet to see pinnies and rubber gloves trickle down to the high street, brands such as Damson Madder and Toast are borrowing from the aesthetic with bib-front dresses and ditsy florals. Canteen chic indeed.
Moonstruck!
Get ready for lift-off, because fashion and pop culture is going interstellar. Taking their cue from Matthieu Blazy’s planet-bestrewn Chanel debut, designers from Junya Watanabe to Gucci scattered their autumn/winter catwalks with the celestial shimmer of metallics and chainmail. There’s something in the atmosphere in Hollywood too, with Ryan Gosling’s film Project Hail Mary depicting a desperate space mission and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, streaming now on Paramount+, raising a new generation of Trekkies. Elsewhere Apple TV launches Star City, set at a Soviet cosmonaut training centre and starring Rhys Ifans, while in June Milly Alcock stars in Supergirl, charting the superhero’s journey across the galaxy to Earth.
Books are in on the cosmic trend as well, with two astronaut novels — Cecile Pin’s Celestial Lights and Eliana Ramage’s To the Moon and Back — recently published, and Charlotte Robinson’s one-way mission to Mars thriller, Mars One, touching down this month. In May, Sierra Branham’s Love Galaxy imagines an intergalactic dating show; Ada Hoffman’s interplanetary epic, Ignore All Previous Instructions, brings us space pirates; and Ann Leckie returns with her latest space opera, Radiant Star. Brush up by visiting the Science Museum’s new Space gallery or its trail of Star Trek objects to celebrate the show’s 60th anniversary. Resistance is futile.
Going up
- Red carpet thrillers
Missing the awards season? This murder mystery set at an Oscars afterparty ticks all the boxes - Ghost lashes
Mascara: out. Au naturel eyes: in. The grand high barely-there lasher is Hailey Bieber - Hips
We’ve had cutout cleavage, waist and stomach dresses. Now it’s the humble hip’s time in the sun - Delayed Insta reveals
Sharing your baby’s name publicly three months after they’re born is the new flex. Make ‘em wait!
Going down
- Not-a-human hunch
When you’re almost certain something is written by AI but can’t be sure - Till terror
A salad and soup cost how much? - Hairband headaches
Those zigzag hairbands were all over the Miu Miu catwalk. We still remember the discomfort from school days - Peak air fryer
Air-fried milk custard trending on TikTok. Step away
Easter panettone? Yes please!
Hold that chocolate egg — Easter 2026 is all about panettone’s springtime sibling, colomba di Pasqua cake, which is rooted in Italian history (one origin story traces it back to 6th-century Lombardy). Studded with candied orange peel and topped with a sugar-crystal almond crust, the colomba (“dove” in Italian) is a seasonal, slow-proved sourdough delicacy enriched with butter and eggs and baked in the shape of a dove to symbolise (here’s hoping) peace and rebirth for the year ahead.
And right now stylish gastronomes just can’t get enough of them. At the online foodie emporium Sous Chef, the Sicilian artisanal bakery Fiasconaro’s colomba (£51.50) — a limited-edition collab with Dolce & Gabbana — is “booming”. The must-buy at Lina Stores, the smart Italian deli-dining group with branches in London and Manchester, is made by BreraMilano (£30), a Milanese bakery founded in 1930.
Also? The gianduja-filled take baked by the Rimini-based social enterprise San Patriagno (£35) is even more indulgent, available via the chichi produce purveyor Farm Shop, while Waitrose’s hazelnut-frosted colomba (£13) is a pocket-friendly crowd-pleaser. We’ll be snaffling ours simply sliced as an after-dinner pud — or toasted and topped with blobs of pistachio spread and/or cream.
Everyone’s talking about… Jago Rackham
How does a man with no official culinary training become one of the coolest cooks in London — with a buzzed-about recipe book out this week? It’s maybe because Jago Rackham, 31, has tapped into something the food scene has been crying out for: messy, hearty grub that’s made for sharing. “The food I’m interested in making is the food of grandmothers, the food of the home and of necessity and making do, and that’s not what chefs cook,” he says of his insistence that he is very much a home cook and not a chef.
Originally from Devon, Rackham has amassed a cult following thanks to his newsletter Greed and Instagram page @ecstasy_cookbook, where his followers enjoy candlelit snapshots of his signature baroque spreads. So far this year Rackham has had a Sunday residency at Sessions Arts Club in Clerkenwell and created 18th-century-inspired “edible arrangements” for the launch of Serpentine Galleries’ annual publication, Serpentine Reader.
His first cookbook, To Entertain, is released on Thursday — dishes include “Chicken and rice for when you’re sick as a dog” and “Duck presented in a classical manner” — and aimed at those who wish to entertain, even with small spaces and on small budgets. “This is my attempt to make people spend more time together, especially over food,” he says. “I also think that people have a real yearning for eating together, but often feel shy about actually doing it. They see all these images of perfection [on social media] and wonder if they’re possible. My book essentially says do X, Y and Z, but also don’t worry!” And his top dinner party tip? “Don’t cook anything you’re not comfortable with.” Noted.
Spot the difference!
In the world of interiors, “spotlight” is considered something of a dirty word. Think ugly fittings, harsh, sterile light… you get the idea. But that was until now, because flush-mounted spotlights are rewriting the narrative, thanks in part to the new solid brass and starry Aster light (£169), part of Plank Hardware’s collection with Good Bones. And if the design doyenne Beata Heuman puts her name to something, you best believe it’s a goer. Four of her Crinkle Lights (£240 each), in colours including saffron, poppy and spearmint, placed in the corners will bring a room to life. For a more affordable but no less stylish choice, try Neutral’s Valentina Modern Flush Mount Ceiling Light Metal Glass Bedroom (£50). Talk about guiding lights.
One more thing…
The origins of Tudor’s Ranger watch date back to 1929 and its clear, open dial and readable face has all the hallmarks of a vintage “adventure” watch. Now a version in stainless steel has launched with a smaller 36mm case and beige dial — the perfect minimalist accessory to your summer wardrobe. Ranger 36mm, £2,980, tudorwatch.com
Additional words: Madeleine Feeney, Victoria Brzezinski and Hannah Connolly
