Oh My Mellow | No.19

Enjoy the last days of cosy gloaming before the clocks go forward next month with our February hotlist.

BOOK From Sleepwear to Sportswear: How Beach Pajamas Reshaped Women’s Fashion

Long-time patrons of Moon + Mellow will know how much we love styling nightwear as beachwear and this new book is giving us all the feels. Over 272 pages are beautiful archive photography and prints of voluminous pantaloons, kimonos, early swimwear and jumpsuits looking as ‘modern’ now as they did in the 1920s and 1930s. “I wear them to be comfortable, not sensational,” is a quote attributed to Marlene Dietrich in the 1930s, when women wearing trousers was still taboo. As well as exquisite visuals, this Bloomsbury book by fashion historian Hannah Schiff and vintage specialist Janine D’Agati contextualise these newly louche silhouettes with social history and the influence of Hollywood.

ALBUM Prelude to Ecstasy

The Last Dinner Party are the girl band you wish were around when you were teenagers. This could make us far too old to enjoy this London quintet who dress as though they’ve raided the costume department of a BBC period drama and run riot through a bordello, or a Sarah Waters novel. But, no – there’s nothing wrong with reimagining our youth while championing our Gen Z sisters whose influences surely include Florence and the Machine, Roxy Music, Abba, Wolf Alice and the brothers Grimm. TLDP’s debut album is just out, and whetting the appetite for their world tour which includes a date in Dublin in October, although Irish fans of Hozier may have already enjoyed the four-piece live, them having been his bombastic support act last year.

ART Yoko Akino

If you’re in the Sligo area and can bear to tear yourself away from your Moon + Mellows this weekend, check out An Irish Rhapsody, the solo show of Yoko Akino at the Hamilton Gallery and runs until March 23. Its opening coincided with St Brigid’s Day and you may also recognise her striking work from new postage stamp designs commissioned to pay tribute to Ireland’s first female patron saint and to mark the festival of Imbolc. Akino is a member of Graphic Studio Dublin and whose crepuscular works often include the moon, and starry skies, as motifs. Just dreamy.

STREAMING Feud: Capote vs the Swans

Fave PJs and flight mode on for this second season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud. First up was a glossy reimagining of the spat between Jessica Lang’s Joan Crawford and Susan Sarandon’s Bette Davis. Feud: Capote vs the Swans is a fictionalised peek at writer Truman “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” Capote’s co-dependent friendship with “the Swans”; the New York City socialites whose lives he catastrophically turned into art. Featuring an all-star cast – Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Chloë Sevigny, Molly Ringwald, Demi Moore and Calista Flockhart, opposite Tom Hollander’s Capote – it’s already available for US viewers on Hulu and FX, with Disney+ announcing a date for Ireland and the UK shortly.

DRESS CODE The Long Set – Petal

It’s February and we’re already seeing signs of spring – hyacinths have sprung and tiny cherry blossom buds are sprouting. Perfect timing then for our 100pc organic cotton voile petal print pyjamas whose long sleeves and legs will keep out any seasonal draughts, and whose cheery colour palette and shapes hint at more vibrant days to come.