Ultimate Gift Guide for Picky Fashion Fans

Whether for your swampcore girlfriend or your sugarbaby bestie, here's a cheat sheet for what to put beneath the tree this Christmas.

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat… and once again, you’ve left all your shopping to the very last minute! We get it, though. Shopping can be arduous at the best of times, but when it’s for fabulous fashionistas as nitpicky as us (and no doubt you, too), it's another ballgame entirely. Choose the wrong gift and consider yourself cast out into the wilderness. Choose wisely, though, and you’ll be showered with thanks – and maybe even a glowing shoutout on their grid! High stakes indeed.

In nothing short of a Christmas miracle, we’ve come to the rescue by putting together the ultimate gift guide for every kind of fashion-forward clotheshorse you can think of. Yes, that’s all the hard work done for you – all you need to do is dust off the plastic, put your orders in, and let Santa come a-riding in his Net-A-Porter van. Whether for your fresh-out-of-fashion-school niece or your gorpcore boyfriend, your sugarbaby bestie or that girl you know who started a podcast, here’s our invaluable crib sheet for what to put beneath the tree this year.

Your bitchy sugarbaby bestie

Poor Svetlana. That’s not her real name of course, and she certainly doesn’t look poor. But no matter how sugar-coated her lifestyle is, there is nothing that little Sveti loves more than being showered with gifts. It’s her love language, after all. Contrary to popular belief, Sveti has the simplest taste – she only likes the best (or the most expensive), so naturally, she’s a hard person to shop for. Pricey natural fibres, cafeteria-style baked potatoes (with caviar, no less), self-care treatments (at the Cadogan Clinic), pink champagne and even pinker diamonds, dahling! Her appetite for life and luxury makes the Kardashians look like a sisterhood of nuns. Some ponder the source of all her luxurious accoutrements and lavish lifestyle, but no one can deny the charm of her suspiciously time-defying youthfulness and ambiguously continental accent. So, what do you get the habibi who has everything? Consider getting her a piece from the future-classic ‘Hacker Project’, AKA ‘Balencigucci’, because what would she love more than two luxury houses in one object? Or, leave that to her ‘patrons’ and opt for a more affordable memento from her spiritual homeland with a cap from the Harrods x Palace collab, or a gym bag from Frame’s capsule with Ritz Paris. She may be the last remaining person smoking actual cigarettes indoors, so a case of menthol Vogues would go down a treat, even better with an Hermès ashtray (bonus points for the ones with a leopard). Failing that, book her a session of therapy – though she insists retail therapy is the only kind she needs, there may be more than meets the eye for your favourite sugarbubba.

Your cheugy #girlboss cousin

This Christmas, spare a thought for your #girlboss cousin. It’s been a tough year for her – she’d spent the last six months climbing the Hay-designed ladder of ‘new media’, only to be accused of some very questionable comments in an anonymous company-wide DE&I survey. And though she’s merely a few years older than you, there couldn’t be more of a cultural gulf. Where to start? Young Kazza hasn’t swapped out her perfume since Le Labo’s Santal 33 was a bestseller, so you could always refresh her stock (she’s a creature of comfort, after all) or consider getting her a tab at her favourite millennial-pink restaurant, Sketch. Books are sorta her thing, and though she’s got a pile of unread titles from last summer’s proliferation of ‘anti-racist’ reading lists, all she really wants is the new Sally Rooney novel. Lockdown allowed her the space to experiment with natural wines – although she still has a soft spot for a La Gioiosa prosexy – so a tasting at Bright would blow her mind. Then, there’s her slightly demented obsession with the toxic scented candles she always has burning. Yes, she’s tried homeopathic versions, but Diptyque’s Baies never fails to warm her ice- cold soul. You also can’t go wrong with cheese plants, ‘Old Celine’, or saying it with flowers: a handful of ‘roses’ for her to use on her premium Hinge profile.

Your spoilt Hypebeast brother

So, compared to the others here, shopping for your hypebeast brother is both easy as mince pie and tough as an uncooked sprout. How so, you ask? Well, it hardly takes much brain power – just as with our graduate girlie, just hop over to Lyst, skim off the first ten things you see, and there’s his wishlist. Simple enough, right? Well, no, not unless you have Svetlana and her mysteriously sourced credit card to hand! While you’d love to be able to fulfil his every wish – from an Off-White x RIMOWA case to a first-edition Homer catalogue, a VanMoof bike to a KAWS NFT – if you’re here reading this, the likelihood is that your wallet won’t stretch quite that far. Don’t shop big, though – shop smart. Can’t get him a Dior x sacai Saddle Soft Bag? Well, hot-foot it to Browns East and beg the kind souls there for a box and carrier bag so he can at least take some duplicitous pics for his Reddit friends. Is a Balenciaga x Fortnite hoodie beyond your reach? Then open his eyes to the booming world of la mode la metaverse, and get him a gift voucher for the platform’s in-game store instead! Missed out on the Supreme x Tiffany & Co. flick-knife (for the best, perhaps)? Then at least get him a subscription to the Supercop Supreme Bot so he’ll never miss another drop again. If we’re talking about things the boy actually needs, though, then by God is a three-step-minimum skincare regime top of that list. While you’re unlikely to turn him onto SkinCeuticals or Biologique Recherche overnight, a friendly point of introduction would be Pharrell’s Humanrace. If seeing his (immaculate and ageless) face doesn’t win your brother over, then trust us – nothing will.

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