The Polyester Guide to Surviving the Heatwave
Photos: Maisie Cousins
Gals, there’s no other way to say this: it’s been HOT! London has become a cosmic slow cooker of scorching air and burning pavements, held in by tower block offices full of blazing windows and rivers of car pollution, and we have had enough! It feels like that scene in SUNSHINE when the spaceship gets too close to the sun and the inhabitants burn up from the deadly rays. Our big beautiful Victorian brickwork was made to keep heat in, not to optimise air flow or cool down its inhabitants, so we’ve had to find our own ways of keeping fresh in the concrete jungle.
We met up with the gorgeous photographer, fine artist, and friend of Polyester Maisie Cousins on a sunny day last month to take these gorgeous pictures, and even with the amount of hard work we put in, we managed to power through the high temperatures without melting into a puddle of summer sweat. Our studios don’t have the luxury of air conditioning, just thick walls and giant windows, doors wide open trying to tempt in a non-existent breeze, but you know what? We had a blast with Maisie and were inspired to write this guide about how to not just survive this heatwave, but how to have a fabulous time whilst doing so. Strap in.
Pour Yourself a Nice Big Cold Drink
Doesn’t matter what. Get a giant glass, fill it with ice and then add the beverage of your choice. Some of us prefer an aperol spritz, the very taste of mediterranean holidays and easy breezy sunshine, some choose ouzo, the greek spirit of Mykonos (and The Odyssey), and others just a big cold lemonade. Make an afternoon of it. Set up a bar with fancy glasses for your friends. Go wild, get a cocktail trolley, a pineapple shaped ice bucket, a pack of paper umbrellas. Keep that fridge stocked, bagged ice, ice cube trays constantly refilled, stack those wine bottles on their sides, play tetris with the tinnies. Get that hydration high score baby, you deserve it.
Eat Ice Cream Every Day
Go to the supermarket and grab a selection from the freezers to share with your mates. Try every lolly on offer at the ice cream van, with hundreds and thousands, with flakes, with marshmallows, with chocolate chips, with anything they offer to chuck on it. Get tubs of carte d’or and make your own elaborate dessert sundaes at home, madagascan vanilla with chocolate sauce, wafers, meringue, cream, all of it. Swim in vats of Ben & Jerrys. Heaven might be at the end of a Rocky Road, but I bet it's full of Phish Food and Cookie Dough.
Make Plans!
If you are having a gorgeous time, you might forget just how hot you are. When you are alone, all you can think about is the sweat on your back, but when you and your mates are all together, gossip can be a great distraction. Plus, you can do some great things together, like hopping on a train (usually air conditioned) to go find a beach or a lake or another body of water you can submerge yourselves in. Find a hidden nude beach where you can fully strip off. Let that cold water embrace every inch of you.
Alternatively, do you know where there's always great air conditioning? The cinema. It’s dark, it's cool, movement is minimal, and you can get a bucket of fizzy drink and ice that lasts hours.
Pub gardens as the sun sets are a shout, another great resource for ice cubes and cooling beverages. Plus, you know, support the nightlife industry, dancefloors still matter in a heatwave.
Find Some Kind of Fan
Go in the dressing up box and dig out that obnoxious clacky fan you bought for far too much money at the last Pride you went to, the one that says BITCH PLEASE on it, or WITCH PLEASE if you got one of the unofficial Wicked merch ones in the last two years.
Go through your parents house looking for fans bought from holiday tat shops in Europe, polyester lace with a bull-fighting scene on it, or a crude painting of a Florentine vista.
Look online again for big electronic fans, they had gone out of stock last time you checked, but maybe the new shipment has arrived. At Polyester studios, we nicked one that was being thrown away and have given it a new lease of life - honestly it’s the only thing keeping us going.
Wear Less Clothes
See just how skimpy a top you can get away with at the office. I’m not talking about just undoing an extra button, or getting a professional sleeveless blouse, I mean go the whole hog. Clubwear in the office. Short skirts, no tights. We all heard those rumours at school that if it reached a certain temperature then uniform protocols would be abandoned, the same should be true in the workplace. We all wore gorgeous light sun dresses and sandals during this shoot, the sort that twirl beautifully when you spin, and it honestly brought a lot more good will and whimsy to what would have been an oppressively hot day.
If it’s so hot outside that the plastic flowers outside restaurant pop-ups start melting, I should be able to sit at a desk in a bikini and a beach coverup. With an ice cream. And my own fan. And an aperol spritz. Actually, just let me go home, it's too hot.
