To Change Or Not To Change? A Letter From Our Editor | Harper’s Bazaar Arabia January 2023

Bazaar Arabia’s Editor in Chief Olivia Phillips ​shares the key to a happy, guilt-free 2023

I’ve got a horrible habit of making the same resolutions every single new year, which is why I’m deliberately avoiding looking back at the Editor’s letter I wrote last January – mostly because I worry that it started in exactly the same way as this one. Jaunty but apologetic.

I’m not really sure who I’m apologising to, mind you. Maybe my mother? Regardless, it leads me neatly to a brand-new resolution. 2023 might not be the year I finally get it together (whatever that even means), but it’s definitely the year I stop feeling so guilty about it. If 2022 saw the erstwhile people-pleasers among us collectively enter our villain era, quiet quit, engage goblin mode… or whatever else TikTok told us was the fast-track to self-actualisation, then perhaps 2023 will see an anarchic marriage of all three. A new kind of chaos theory. I’m not not into it.

Alas, it’s a terrible time for me to embrace this, I won’t lie. Because as much as my personal narrative is the guilt-ridden trope of ‘brand new year, same old me’, and as much as 2022 saw me never actually getting round to hiring a PT, or making my own hummus, or learning to calm down – I’ve already started 2023 on an entirely different note. Inadvertently, sure. But evolution has happened nonetheless – and frankly, I’ve only just realised it. Well… it actually had to be pointed out. That’s the thing with change. When it’s gradual, it’s often only those around you who notice it.

So as it turns out, perhaps I can enter the new year with slightly less guilt than usual. Because in moving house twice (twice!) last year, in gaining new family and new responsibility, and in watching a lot of The Home Edit on Netflix, I have accidentally selfactualised. Not completely, of course. That’s for next year. But I do now own many, many stackable clear plastic boxes and say the words ‘bougainvillea’ and ‘charcuterie board’ a lot. That’s got to count for something – right?

From Olivia’s Desk…

Our heroine duo cover stars, Syrian refugee sisters Sara and Yusra Mardini, have their incredible tale immortalised on Netflix in The Swimmers – read our inspiring interview with them, here.

Editor’s Picks

Photography: Jonathan Segade. Styling: Anna Castan
Editor In Chief: Olivia Phillips. Art Director: Oscar Yáñez. Senior Producer: Steff
Hawker. Hair: Eduardo Bravo. Make-up: Alisonn Fetouaki. Photographer’s Assistant:
Daniel Caparros.

From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s January 2022 issue.