A talent to annoy
Goodbye 2017, and take your unicorns with you
NEW YORK — You know all those things you wish would disappear but won’t? Us too.
Highlights of the things we’re over in 2017:
Unicorn everything
Please, rainbowy unicorns, stop throwing up and pooping all over everything. The whole unicorn thing built in 2016 with special pink- adorned toast and other disturbingly pastel- coloured foodstuff. The beauty industry piled on with hair dyes, nail polish, lipsticks, makeup brushes and all things glittery, holographic and sparkly that looked so darn “magical” on Instagram.
Starbucks was distinctly NOT kidding with its Unicorn Frappuccino back in April. It “magically” started as a purple drink with swirls of blue and a first taste that is sweet and fruity, according to the company. One quick stir changed it to pink, tangy and tart. Vanilla whipped cream was involved, topped with a sprinkle of pink and blue powders.
Katy Perry and Kylie Jenner went unicorn with cotton candy hair, along with others, but we need a truce now, dear unicorns.
Cold shoulder attire
Who decided these tops and dresses were “seductive” and when? They’ve been building since at least 2013 and are all over runways and stores as an option to, what, cleavage?
We have cold- shoulder sweaters, button- down blouses, wispy little dresses, maxis to the floor and even bomber jackets and hoodies. Feedback from detractors — who don’t include Donna Karan and The Real Housewives of Orange County — have this to say: “They look lame,” “They are so unattractive” and, a personal favourite, “If I’m spending money on a sweater, the shoulders should come with it.”
A kissing, go- away cousin would be the bell and ruffled sleeve from below the elbow to the wrist, because who really needs to wear that? That’s not another question because those people are unicorns.
Millennials. Just millennials
We get that assigning common traits to an entire generation involves a dose of trickery. But we also get that millennials are a bubble. Now get over it. Message for some: Go get your own jobs. Pay for your own apartments. Look up from your phones occasionally. You gotta earn some stuff, like respect and raises.
Further, and this one isn’t your fault, Millennial Pink needs to go. Why it was assigned to you has to do with a growing acceptance of gender fluidity, so score! But the colour has had its best day.
And what is the colour? Scribes have decided it’s a range from blushy beige to a dull peach- salmon.
According to the editors over at The Strategist blog, the colour was so named “for its capacity to define a generation with its perfect balance of serious and frivolous.”
Spiralizing through life
We’re going to leave kale alone — at least for now — to keep peace at the office. We’ll be gunning for you next year, kale, if you’re still all high and mighty.
For now, we’re going to focus on zoodles and anything else spiralized. If you want to eat pasta, eat pasta. If you want to eat zucchini, eat zucchini. Does it really make you happy to turn perfectly good zucchini into pasta- like strands? If so, rethink yourself. Veggies, good. Making them into something else? That’s just work and includes cuke noodles, too. Leave the cucumbers to be great next to the zucchinis.
Do we need another kitchen gadget taking up counter space? Spiralizers took America by storm in 2014. Can we get over it and back to our roots as natural- born choppers?
Bare cakes
You either say it out loud or you’re thinking it: The frosting is the best part.
Make it more nutritionally sound if you must but don’t make it disappear along the sides.
This goes in particular for wedding cakes.
Subjecting a hall of your closest family and friends to this, well, sugar travesty, leaves a bad taste in the mouth, even with cutesy cake toppers and sugary flowers plopped onto the crumby bits.
Brides and grooms have been craving naked cakes at least since 2014 and bakeries were happy to respond, leaving buttercream or fruit preserves between layers, explaining they wanted the cake itself to shine.
Cake, you’ve had your moment. Now get under there and re- learn your place.