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    Cosy: The British Art of Comfort
    Cosy: The British Art of Comfort
    Cosy: The British Art of Comfort
    Ebook162 pages1 hour

    Cosy: The British Art of Comfort

    By Laura Weir

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    The Danes have hygge. The Swedes have lagom. Now, Laura Weir, a beloved lifestyle journalist and editor-in-chief of London Evening Standard’s weekly ES magazine, introduces American readers to the Brits’ best-kept secret—coziness—an indulgent, luxurious, yet unfussy way of creating comfort and joy.

    Cosy is “the slacker’s guide to staying at home, an antidote to peak frazzle.” With trademark Anglo cheekiness, Laura Weir perfectly captures the British essence of cosy. She celebrates socks, warms to the joys of toasty open fires, and extols the virtues of a quiet walk, ultimately enticing us all to create the British magic of cosy in our everyday lives.

    With more than 140 whimsical illustrations and interviews with British lifestyle experts, including Melissa Hemsley, Sophie Dahl, and Dolly Alderton, Cosy is a perfect reminder to slow down, have a cuppa, and settle in when life pushes you into overdrive.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateNov 5, 2019
    ISBN9780062948175
    Author

    Laura Weir

    Credited by the New York Times as a "Londoner to know," Laura Weir is the editor-in-chief of London Evening Standard’s weekly, ES magazine. She also writes a weekly column for the newspaper, her topics include London life, raising a young child, and never wanting to miss out on anything that life has to offer. She has written for a huge range of national and international titles, and formerly held senior roles at British Vogue and The Times. Laura is on the British Fashion Council’s Press Committee and is the co-founder of wearemoody.com, an online platform dedicated to women’s mental health and wellbeing. She lives in London.

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    Reviews for Cosy

    3/5

    25 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A cosy [sic] little book of all things comforting - British style. This is not to be confused with hygge, which is Danish style, and way too concerned with interior decorating. I like Weir's definition of cosy - how you live when nobody is looking. A celebration of grilled cheese, warm jumpers, hot tea, a crackling fire, and a fabulous little read like this to curl up with before winter disappears.
    • 5/5
      Made me miss the quirky cozy you can only get in the UK!! The purpose of this book was to showcase what Brits find cozy and I think this book nailed it. I lived in the UK with my English husband for several years and the cozy traditions listed in this book made me miss those rainy, chilly, days in England cuddling up by the fire in our big cozy sweaters and warm socks with a cuppa after just enjoying a hot Sunday roast dinner!
    • 5/5
      This is basically me in book form! I loved this book because it put to words my love of cosiness and the impact it has on my life. Fantastic to read on a cold wet day!

    Book preview

    Cosy - Laura Weir

    Dedication

    This book is dedicated to my mum,

    my best friend and a hug of a woman.

    Contents

    Cover

    Title Page

    Dedication

    A Note on Cosiness

    Introduction

    Tea

    Cosy Clothing

    The Seasons

    Cosy Crafting

    Cosy Feasts

    Home and Hearth

    Cosy and Kind

    Cosy Self-Care

    A Cosy State of Mind

    Cosy Outdoors

    Cosy Stays

    Cosy Films

    Cosy Reads

    Christmas

    A Final Note

    References

    Acknowledgments

    About the Author

    Copyright

    About the Publisher

    A Note on Cosiness

    By Dolly Alderton, writer and journalist

    Cosiness was something I always slightly feared. Cosiness would mean not being out—and Out was where, I had been led to believe, life happens. Being out was glamorous, sexy, full of experiences and people. It was rock ’n’ roll. It was where you were supposed to be if you wanted to make the most out of your ‘one wild and precious life,’ in the words of Mary Oliver. As I’ve grown up, I’ve come to realise that so many experiences, lessons and moments of life-changing joy, love and happiness happen in a home. Cosiness, for me, is Radio 4, slow-cooking, every Sunday supplement, long breakfasts, long movies, long phone calls, big jumpers, tangled limbs in a bed or sofa. I enjoy those things even more now that I know indulging them doesn’t mean I’m missing out on the big party of life happening somewhere outside and that life can be just as wild and precious in the quiet as it is in the noise.

    Introduction

    I can remember the precise moment that I first identified a cosy feeling. It was the unusually cold winter of 1990 and I’d been sledging with my dad in Greenwich Park, in South East London. We came home, wet, frozen and rosy-cheeked, and sat in front of our log fire with a bowl of Heinz tomato soup, dipping (slightly stale) brown bread that had been coated with margarine into its smooth, scarlet loveliness. The soup was steaming, the fire was crackling and I was slowly thawing. That was cosy. And the soup wasn’t the only important ingredient—I was with my parents, and that reassuring comfort of being with people you love is key. There was also the log fire, of course; it’s an alchemic thing—we all know a storage heater just doesn’t kick out the same cosy vibe as crackling logs, despite them being petrol-station-bought, rather than forest-felled. I had been out in the wind and snow and had retreated to warm up. That’s cosy too.

    Years later, and I feel like retreating again. But this time it’s not from something as natural and as fleeting as the weather. I work in newspapers and live in London. In my daily life, I am surrounded by noise and opinion, and over the past few years I have found myself seeking comfort from politically dark winters and the relentlessly bleak news cycle. My instinct has evolved and become an undeniable urge to hide away and find solitude. Rather than swipe and scroll my way through life, I want to feel protected and nurtured. I don’t just want to drink a warm cup of tea, I want my emotional state to mirror that of a cuppa too—warm, predictable, reassuring.

    Perhaps I’m just getting old, but I want to swap toxic politics and the anxieties induced by social media for reliability and kindness. I want to feel more cosy.

    So this is a hug of a book, conceived to share a few tools to soften the edges of life. It is a paean to retreating; a manual, a text that gives us all permission to seek solace and comfort in harsh times. Being cosy is the antidote to what sometimes feels like a brittle, cold world. It is a theme and a way of life that is universal, and one that people are seeking out more than ever (the hashtag #cosy has 4.4 million results on Instagram, while #cozy has 7.3 million).

    The phenomenon of hygge and its concept of homeliness and tucking ourselves in has already piqued our interest, and although it promotes a beautiful cultural lifestyle, there is a certain elitism attached to it now it’s been hijacked by hipsters and interior design magazines. The British anthropologist Richard Jenkins has described hygge as normative to the point of being close to coercive, and the aggressive way it has been marketed has diluted the pleasantness, and its true meaning.

    Whereas cosy . . . Well, cosy is the thing you do when no one is watching. It’s not an image or a way of life, it’s knitted into the fabric of our wonderful, diverse, eclectic, eccentric British society, through basic, quotidian pleasures such as tea and socks and fires. Cosy is your interpretation of what cosy is. Your version will be different from mine, but one thing is for sure: fairy lights don’t have to be involved unless you want them to be. In the British Isles, being cold gives us permission to be lazy, and there is nothing better than that. Stopping still and cosying up has become the greatest luxury of our time.

    Tea

    Would you like an adventure now, or should we have our tea first?

    Alice in Wonderland

    Life-affirming and soul-warming, a cup of tea solves everything. Your wife has left you? Have a nice cup of tea. The boiler’s broken? Put the kettle on. Trump has declared war? Mine’s an Earl Grey. Drinking tea is a ritual

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