Moodboard: This Month The Mood Is Withholding

By Susan Zelouf November 13 2026

“In November, why not subvert Coco Chanel’s dictum to remove an accessory before leaving the house; instead, pocket it; no one but you will know it’s there. There is power in mystery,” says Susan Zelouf …

I took a whirlwind shopping trip to Amsterdam with a woman I considered a friend yet knew little about to discover heretofore unknown parts of … myself! Like how good do I look in a €4,900 Dior AW26 heather grey jacket trimmed with black lace, now that, post-years of diet and exercise, I’m apparently a Dior fit model size FR36, with a surprisingly small ribcage? But, more importantly, how long until I source it via second-hand designer resale? Although our taste in clothes, bags, shoes and booze (as well as our disposable incomes) couldn’t be more diametric, there are parallels: both of us are Beauty Keepers. She, like myself, has always gravitated towards the smartest man in any room, marrying him. Over flutes of champagne proffered by a gloved Dior client advisor (I quaff hers), we swap curated secrets, from navigating marriages through dangerous waters (hic sunt dracones) to choosing paint colours and engaging reliable tradesmen, from detailing what gives us most pleasure to confessing what causes us most pain. During the quiet flight home, I considered our deepening girlfriendship, weighing its pleasures against the perils of divulging too much, when giving ourselves away, both person-to-person and online, in our creative, business and personal lives, can be at once dangerous, thrilling and disempowering. Did I say too much? What should we withhold to hold our own?

In a world in which AI’s mission is to learn how to do everything better than magnifica humanitas by stealing process and end result, is it a fool’s errand to consider how we might protect ourselves against losing what makes us human, ceding work and lives to amoral algorithms without conscience? Consider mastery. According to AI (ha!), mastery is “an endless journey of deep practice, self-awareness and effortless execution rather than a final fixed destination.” Note to self: research whether or not one has to quote what AI spews, considering its indeterminate authorship. Maybe we should’ve just said no to the gateway drug of posting pictures of our meals on Facebook when, between 2010 and 2012, food porn was a thing, leading to unboxing shopping hauls and Instagram White Lotus-worthy hols.

A Tuscan ex who cultivates olives and grapes, producing olio afrodisiaco and honest table wine, wonders why I post pictures of myself in cute outfits for all to see, rather than keeping myself to myself. His wisdom, like the ripening of figs (taking time and straw), is beginning to bear fruit. What we share online is out there forever, forever gone; whoever or whatever happens upon it feels entitled to it. Mastery costs the maker; stealing it robs us all. The New York Times fashion critic Vanessa Friedman noted the numbing effect of nakedness in Haider Ackermann’s SS27 collection for Tom Ford this way: “It’s actually the promise of skin, and not the skin itself, that’s really exciting.” In November, why not subvert Coco Chanel’s dictum to remove an accessory before leaving the house; instead, pocket it; no one but you will know it’s there. There is power in mystery.