Indulging Your Inner Self

By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS

When someone once accused U.S. actress Vanessa Hudgens of overindulging in luxury products and seemingly endless spa days, her response was short and to the point:

“You have to love yourself before you can love anyone else,” she said. “I am just engaging in a little self-love.”

And while most of us cannot afford weekly spending sprees along Rodeo Drive or daily treks to the sanitorium, we could all certainly do with a little more self-indulgence. After months of depravations and lockdowns, zoom meetings and Uber Eats meals, who doesn’t deserve a little extra regaling?

So here are a few ways to pamper, coddle and indulge yourself in true Vanessa Hudgens style.

Indulge Your Inner Bling Craving

Nothing sells designer goods like celebrity endorsements.

And the bigger the celebrity, the bigger the promotion.

With that concept in mind, Berger, the high-end jewelry and watch boutique in Mexico City’s tony Colonia Polanco, upped the ante during its fifth annual, by-invitation-only Berger Private Experience preview and sale of luxury watches, which was held from Thursday, Oct. 14, through Saturday, Oct. 16.

The 100-year-old, family-run Berger business invited Mexican heartthrob and star of the Netflix series “Luis Miguel” Diego Boneta to be its ambassador for the event. (Needless to say, the presence of Boneta, who also appeared in “Rock of Ages” with Tom Cruise, drew in throngs of fans and admirers, especially among the under-20 set, who tagged along with the parents to the event in order to get a glimpse of their tv infatuation.)

But while Boneta may have been the main attraction, the real stars of the Berger Private Experience were the beautifully crafted Swiss watches, which were showcased on both floors of the boutique.

Among the participating watchmakers were Lange & Söhne, Alchemist, Arnold & Son, Baume & Mercier, Bovet, Buben & Zörweg, Bvlgari, Chopard, Cvstos, David Candaux, De Bethune, Faber-Castell, Franck Muller, Girard-Perregaux, Greubel Forsey, H. Moser & Cie., Hublot, IWC Schaffhausen, Jacob & Co, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Kross Studio, Le Rhöne, Leroy, Laurent Ferrier, Louis Moinet, Manufacture Royale, MB&F, Montblanc, Montegrappa, Panerai, Perrelet, Piaget, Purnell, Reservoir, Roger Dubuis, Speake-Marin, S.T. Dupont, T.U.S., Trilobe, Vacheron Constanin, Visconti and Zenith.

Berger also offered guests the opportunity to trade in their current watches for new ones through a special discount program called Watch Upgrade.

Indulge Your Inner Spirit

Sometimes you all need to unwind and find yourself is a little inner peace and meditation.

And that is exactly what Mexico City’s brand new Vidya Center for Mind, Body and Spirit offers.

A peaceful oasis of calm and retrospection, Vidya, conveniently located on the sixth floor of an unassuming building at Londres 25, is a multifunctional space that offers yoga classes, self-massage seminars and lectures on indigenous pre-Hispanic herbal medicine, all geared to comprehensive personal growth, developing the spiritual and human connection.

Vidya also provides workshops, therapies, masterclasses and exhibitions to help people find their inner balance by awakening their innate passions by reconnecting with the environment.

The inclusive Vidya installations include meditation and yoga lounges, cabins for personal therapies, an outdoor terrace, a business center and a cafeteria with a healthy menu of natural foods.

Indulge Your Inner Child

Miniso — the Japanese-inspired variety store with seemingly endless aisles of super-soft, super-cute, super-huggable, gotta-have plushies and innovative gadgets that you never knew you needed until you discovered them there — has just launched a brand new indulge-yourself campaign in Mexico called Mi Happy Place (a little bit of pocho there, or Spanglish, depending on which side of the border you come from).

The idea is that the brand’s more than 160 stores nationwide offer a venue for personal escape and blissful self-toadying, which is a pretty valid argument given that you can usually find at Miniso a plethora of creative home goods, toys, makeup, personal hygiene items and clever little gizmos to make you smile, all at affordable prices.

To promote the new campaign, the company has also launched an adorable mini Toy Story-like video ad (set to distinctly Disney-style music) starring a porcelain ballerina doll and Miniso’s signature loveable penguin, along with a cuddlesome pig and an array of other plush characters.

This extraordinary video was the creative genius of an all-Mexican team of animators, mixing live action with animation. It was filmed in Mexico City at the Miniso Madero offices and took more than three months to complete.

The music was composed by the Colombian duo Michaela Duarte and Jairo Duarte-López.

The 90-second ad is so adorable it will send you running to the nearest Miniso to get a whopping helping of irresistible schmaltz and cuteness, no matter what your age.