Curated Lives

 The perfect earthenware mug, a hand soap bottle with nice font. Five minutes mindfulness on the garden bench in the morning (selfie optional). From bespoke WhatsApp groups and table settings, Spotify playlists to desk, drawer and fridge organising systems, we are no longer just living our lives but constantly "curating" them too.

Still Life, Fruit
William Duffield (1816-1863)
Photo Credit: Victoria Art Gallery. [CC BY-NC-ND]

Before my birthday at the weekend I curated a six-hour playlist that reflected not only my life so far but how I wanted the arc of my party to play out. I dotted tables with sweetpeas in a collection of brown beer bottles curated from the recycling with that very purpose in mind.

In the downstairs loo, more curation in the shape of a tomato leaf-scented candle...

Self-indulgent or just making things nice? Showing off or hosting? Doing it for social media or because the wider world feels chaotic and here is a small way to restore order? Or fiddling while Rome burns? A combination of them all probably, summed up in this ubiquitous buzzword du moment.

Once you notice it, "curation" is everywhere. When multiple piercings became fashionable, stylists began referring to "curated ears". The online marketplace Etsy talks about its vendors "hand-curating" their wares... I have lost track of the number of curated wine lists I have perused recently; what they all have in common is that the bottles on them have pretty labels...

Mere mortals used to get on with their quietly unphotogenic lives but the visual currency of the digital age now pressures everybody to become an armchair aesthete. . 

Elaborate dinner party tablescapes; wicker-basketed "fridgescapes" (yes,really) so your salad drawer looks like a Daylesford display; the art of the "sinkscape"...

I start my day in a kitchen whose walls were copied - sorry, curated from a posh hotel, then follow up with a daily coffee "ritual" that involves a lovely chunky mug curated from Keswick Oxfam with a spoonful of tastefully packaged Mother Made mushroom powder. I eat breakfast off a plate from a glass-fronted kitchen cabinet through which you can see how well curated my crockery is. The pantry cupboard is all glass jars and tubs rather than cereal boxes and multi-packs. I know it's affected but it just feels nice...

My and my children's clothes are curated in the way Marie Kondo suggests; rolled not folded in the drawers, so that you can see what's in there. My emails are curated into folders, I curate my calendar to make sure I have enough evenings at home to feel relaxed and not broke, but when I do go go out, it is inevitably to restaurants that offer a curation of small plates. My husband has just curated the garden after a scrappy-lawned fallow period...

(Harriet Walker, The Times, 2025)

What's going on here? An earthenware mug and a soap bottle with a nice font? Mindfulness? Selfie? Table settings and fridge organising systems? You say "we are no longer just living our lives". Really? 

A six hour playlist that reflected your life so far and how you wanted the arc of your party to play out? Was 'Obsessed' or 'Always on My Mind' on the list? Did anyone come to the party and how were the candles on your cake displayed? Where was the cake from? Was the icing on it in a neutral colour or was it matching the sweetpeas? And what font was on the beer bottles? Arial or Bazooka?

And what's this reference to Nero and du moment?

And the wine lists? Can you tell me where I can find them so that I can wallow in the pleasure rush  that would come from reading the pretty labels? And the pressures on everybody to become an armchair aesthete are indeed huge, unrelenting and ever present. You are so right about the tablescapes, the fridgescapes, the sinkscape and I almost forgot the salad drawer. Not really sure about the tastefully packaged Mother Made mushroom powder. I'm quite partial to a full English breakfast - you know - bacon, eggs, sausages, proper mushrooms, beans and black pudding. You should try it - it's fully curated but no fonts just flavour. Regards to your husband. The garden must look magnificent.