A new year with CC
As we move into 2026, the usual ‘the new year, new me’ mantra accompanies every scroll. While I find it hard to believe in miraculous overnight transformations, I can’t help but feel the new year’s scaries getting to me. The pressure to be more ambitious, more disciplined, more driven; all the which particularly heightened in moments of big transition (enter my looming graduation!) While perfection is not something that is directly preached, it certainly seems like sometimes it is an implicit requirement, in a world that feels governed by a redundant and perhaps pointless competitiveness. From here, my mission to normalise and praise imperfection, living this year in a way that praises the miracles of everyday life rather than constantly striving for what is unattainable.
The fashion world began the year with the passing of Valentino Garavani – following Giorgio Armani last year, he was the last designer of the old generation to pass away, the final emperor of style, as they call them. His motto was: “I love beauty, it’s not my fault”. Valentino’s beauty wasn’t unattainable, it was found in simple designs that gave women a renewed sense of confidence; it was imbued in the way he used colour to showcase strength, his shades of vehement red becoming an emblem of fierce womanhood.
Perhaps, in these moments of extreme chaos and violence, this is what we really need: beauty. Not the kind that revolves around surface level aesthetics or the vain romanticisation of appearance but rather a true and selfless beauty, naturally emanating from what we deem most precious. In this moment, we are reminded to grasp the splendour of the small things and big things alike, and live in a way that takes on life day by day, exalting the beauty that is in front of us.
In a world that has become imbued with a deeply rooted sense of falsehood, we inevitably crave authenticity. And what is more authentic than the way a person, a landscape, a painting, a dress makes us feel? What is more human than one’s natural reaction to beauty?
Concrete Catwalk, in its own realm of the bubble, is all about that. As we get ready for another year of showcasing St Andrews’ most fashionable, our eye falls again on how students creatively interpret what beauty means to them. At the forefront of our writer’s mission is documenting how style choices reflect our day-to-day life, how they renew our sense of confidence, how they mould and are moulded by what surrounds us. This means a constant search for beauty, which belongs to the figure of the designer and the writer alike.
This is what I hope to bring with me in 2026 and what I hope to achieve with the amazing Concrete Catwalk team as we look towards next endeavours.