Moodboard: Crafting A Vibe for Summer ’25

If you are a pop music fan, the online discourse of the last month or so has been ‘who is coming to save the summer’. Last year with global megahits from Sabrina Carpenter and Charli XCX the summer felt in some way cohesive – 2024 was Brat Summer, with some Espresso shaken in; it was Eras Tour, with watching from the livestreams and tracking surprise songs, and Renaissance. It was a big cultural moment – people younger than me will remember it like I remember Glee covering Journey defining my youth (I didn’t even watch that show and it became a cultural touchstone). We still don’t know what 2025 will feel like, but the pop marketing teams and fashion influencers have begun to jostle to be the ubiquitous, the zeitgeist, the flavour of the month; paperbacks are getting printed for the plane rides; swimsuit lines are getting promoted. We’re trying.

When school lets out the kids need a hobby; when people take their two-week vacation to fly out to a beach they want to let loose. People become different people in the summer. June, then, is a crossroads, where we decide what we’ll embody in the next few months, as the heat loosens the morals and the change of routine allows us to wear different clothes, spend time differently to usual, as the lighter nights encourage people to stay out later we start metamorphosing into this year’s ‘summer self’.

For my own part, this is something I do every month. As a big fan of journalling, the ‘monthly spread’ has become a healthy and powerful part of my life, where I reflect on my achievements and things I want to do better, where I set myself targets and fun challenges without the need to show anybody. If other people are searching for themselves at this time of year, however, I am not above a bit of self-help advice… so here are some tips for a more in-depth, considered summer metamorphosis.

Music

The simplest way to create a vibe is to make a playlist. It’s easy to flick through other people’s and put songs that you gravitate to on your own, or pick a song from each of your favourite artists that you think reflects who you are right now. Even if they’re not cohesive it’s no problem – put everything that may work there, and if you come across a skip you either need to re-order or remove it. The core, though, is to go through things you don’t think will work, because suddenly you’ll find that the David Bowie x Queen Latifah song has the right nuance, or last year’s album track is hitting the right mood better than the new single is.

I’m aware I’m a playlist evangelist. I create playlists to solve all of my problems, to celebrate or commiserate with friends, to study and to share and to dance alone in my room, but the role music plays in creating moods is beyond overestimation. Nothing yearns like music, nothing balances nuance and fun and pain like music, nothing is as powerful at making you feel like you belong as putting your hand up or clapping at the exact right time, even if you’re alone in your room. Whilst I do have an entire summer 25 playlist, here are some highlights you might enjoy.

girl in red – Hemingway

A cross between Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department (song) and Kehlani’s Honey, this is a hymn to being messy and having high aims, which is perfect for the postgrads out here trying to articulate something that only makes sense in your head.

Marina – Princess of Power

Marina’s new album (also called Princess of Power) is being hailed by fans as a return to form and a great marriage of her early and more recent sounds. It may yet find itself as the sound of summer ’25 (especially in gay clubs), but this song in particular marries the ambition / ageing romantic / danceable but wordy that I think is going to be my own general vibe for 2025.

The Veronicas – Untouched

Every playlist needs a touch of sapphic, a touch of emo, a touch of nonsense pop, and this classic hits all of those marks. It’s in a lot of my playlists, including the pivotal ‘sad girls of mild hyperpop,’ which I consider my core vibe.

Caroline Polachek – Welcome To My Island

I have a perpetual need to scream the bridge of this song. It’s my song for all seasons, it’s in nearly all of my playlists.

Books

I think this year is going to be a year of pop academia for me. I’m developing a real collection of essays that are tangentially related to my study at best, but which toe the line between easy reading and making me think. There are too many interesting takes out there for me to keep my reading in two bubbles, academic and fun, and maybe this is the year I make a dent in my extensive non-fiction collection?

This month in particular I’ll be reading a long book. I love long books, I think they play a different role entirely to short books (which admittedly make up the main bulk of my reading). I went through my TBR and found a nice Dickens that I’ve only read extracts of to bash out – it used to be pop fiction, and it still can be if you choose.

Catherine M. Robb and Georgie Mills – Taylor Swift and Philosophy

Betsy Winakur Tontiplaphol and Anastasia Klimchynskaya – The Literary Taylor Swift

Elexus Jionde – Lexual does the 90s

Games

To avoid getting lost in open world games (as I have been) I have decided not to progress with any games and focus on decoration. I can still use games to chill out, but I’ll be using all the items I’ve been hoarding to create something beautiful rather than trying to do as much as I can in a short space of time. This kind of game is often just as competitive and compelling as the faster-paced ones that get more media coverage and I’ve been feeling small alongside people who spend hours daily on them, like we’re doing even remotely the same thing, and I want to feel good playing games again.

Films

Film doesn’t feature in my own vibe creation as much as I believe it does for other people, or even as much as I used to; my taste in film is pretty consistent, and I don’t have time to treat it as a hobby alongside the other things I do, so whilst there’s an extensive list of films and even cinemas I want to engage with, I stay in my ‘I know what I like’ lane – ie Anton Walbrook, Veronica Lake, Studio Ghibli.

Despite that, it’s Wong Kar Wei season at the Prince Charles, and I am sorely tempted, but I have so much writing for everything I do not believe this will be a summer of film for me.

Clothes

I don’t believe in the mindset of buying whole new wardrobes for holidays, or for any reason short of winning the lottery to be quite honest with you. Good clothes are expensive, and your own style should reflect a consistency that makes you stand out from the crowd. That doesn’t mean, however, that you shouldn’t ever buy anything that screams of the current fashion cycle – each season there will be aspects you gravitate towards, and some years will feel more ‘you’ than others (2024 I’m sorry but your sunglasses, pointy shoes, ugly bags did not do it for me. 2025, thank you for square necklines. 2009-2011 I miss your underwear as outerwear.) Pick and choose, buy 2-3 great pieces, and in 5 years your style will be both a signature and impeccable.

Building Your Future

This is where it really gets juicy. What are your long-term aims, and how can you break that into short-term goals? When you’re choosing who to be for fun, you want to incorporate the fundamentals that will build into the life you want to be living. We can’t all be swanning around on inherited money or passive income going to art galleries, you can’t spend every evening of your life at a concert or the theatre or at a trendy cocktail bar, but you can work out what your dream life would look like and how to incorporate aspects. Whether by going out less often but to nicer places or writing 1000 words every day to get you closer to the novel you want to sell, I personally believe in making sure you constantly grow a little, and slowly making yourself into the person you believe you hold inside of you.

On This Topic:

• Get inspiration for your own monthly review or wrap-up from other journallers.
• Where did I learn the Mikhail Baryshnikov quote I live by? Bad bildungsroman movie.
• I am not the only proponent of the art of the playlist.

To-Do:

• Build up LR queued posts after a month of working on other things
• Set up a new routine that suits my current state
• Talk to C!!!!!

Today’s Culture:

• My own new artist playlists are Finneas, Chloe Qisha, and The 1975 (I know Matty Healy is a dirtbag who lives for controversy but The 1975 sound like Charli XCX x Bruce Springsteen and goddamn I want that in my life). I’m also in the process of tidying my Taylor playlists, which is a mammoth undertaking.
• I recently bought 2 airpod cases to hang my headphones on the outside of my bags and it’s way better than putting them in my pocket or holding them in my hand when I need to talk to someone.
• I turned all my notifications off and life is sweet. Sorry I haven’t messaged you back, I legitimately didn’t know you wanted me.