The average house price in London has fallen year-on-year for the first time in nearly a decade, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed.
From February 2017 to February 2018, the average price of a residential property in the capital dropped by 1.0% - equivalent to around £5,000.
However, the London property price situation is a little more complicated when analysed borough by borough, The Guardian reports.
Tower Hamlets (which includes trendy neighbourhoods like Hackney Wick and Bethnal Green) saw the biggest year-on-year fall: a hefty 7.9%.
Hammersmith and Fulham (-5%) and the City of London (-4.4%) also saw significant slips, but outer London boroughs Redbridge (+8.9%), Havering (+4.2%), Bexley (+4.1%) and Bromley (+3.8%) all posted notable increases.
Overall, according to the ONS report, the average house price in the UK has risen 4.4% year-on-year. The areas that experienced the highest price hikes from 2017-18 are the West Midlands (7.3%), East Midlands (6.3%), Scotland (6.2%), South-west (4.9%), North-west (4.8%) and Wales (4.8%).
Despite the London price drop, the average house price in the capital - an eye-watering £472,000 - remains more than double the national average of £225,000.
Commenting on the latest UK property price stats, Thomas White of leading economists PwC said: "Regionally, the picture remains mixed, with London diverging from the rest of the country. Compared to this point last year, prices in London have decreased by 1%, the first time a year-on-year decline in average London prices has occurred since September 2009.
"We broadly expect current market conditions to continue, projecting UK wide house price inflation to be around 4% in 2018.”
Get ready to hit the brakes, stargazers. Mars-ruled, action-oriented Aries had its time in the sun, but as of today we're officially in down-to-earth, sensual Taurus season. The sign of the Bull might sound rough and tough, but the Taurean Bull is a lover, not a fighter. In fact, when we imagine people born under Taurus, the only bull that comes to mind is Ferdinand — gentle, big-hearted, and reliable.
But, that is not to say that all Tauruses are the same in likes, dislikes, and quirks. Some might be more in tune with their ruling element, earth, which would make them more cautious and rule-abiding, while others might be more influenced by their ruling planet, Venus, and those are the Tauruses who love rom-coms and pricey bath bombs.
Whatever sort of Taurean energy you might channel, this is your time to shine, dear Bull. Read on to learn more about each personality type within your sign.
Slow and steady wins the race, right, Taurus? Unlike fellow earth sign Capricorn, who's far more occupied with the end result of their hard work, you're much happier punching your card and making gains in your career gradually. You firmly believe that no task is too small to do well. And you probably have a specific workflow you like to stick to — come to think of it, you probably live by a well-honed routine in and out of the office. The worker bee type of Taurus finds comfort in the familiar and expected. It's only in these conditions that you feel most yourself and, in turn, most inclined to succeed.
The Hopeless Romantic
The Taurean definition of love is driven by a deep belief in commitment, comfort, and a willingness to be a little over the top, even after years of being together. On one hand, that means you're a sucker for poetry and hand-holding, and you probably dream of sharing a home with your partner. On the other hand, the premium you place on loyalty may prompt you to get possessive if your partner doesn't spend all their time with you. Luckily, your sensible ruling element, earth, keeps you from getting too carried away in any sort of fairytale fantasy: Even the mushiest Bull understands that real life doesn't always warrant elaborate, heart-wrenchingly romantic demonstrations. Besides, your partner offering you a glass of wine at the end of the day can be just as hot.
The Leisurer
Your ruling element and ruling planet make you drawn to the finer things in life. To put it another way, you might splurge from time to time. This doesn't mean you're an impulse shopper, Taurus — more accurately, you make careful, calculated purchases that you know will pay off, like a luxurious bedspread or a fine bottle of whiskey. In your mind, your preference to spend time in your home (as opposed to abroad or in other people's homes) all but justifies furnishing your living space with finery. Comfort and beauty are inextricably linked to this leisurely type of Bull, and you aren't ashamed to call your latest shiny buys "investments." Knowing your eye for quality, they very well may last a long time.
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You swore you'd only stay for a couple but ended up in the McDonald's queue at 3am, praying Uber wasn't on surge. The morning after a big night out is always the worst: your head hurts, your mouth is as dry as the bottom of a budgie's cage, and your dignity's as long gone as the £50 you blew on house white and tequila shots. There's only one thing for it: comfort TV in bed.
When you're (ahem) a little bit hungover, you don't want complicated costume dramas or nuanced Netflix docs. You want comedies and reality shows that are easy to digest and deliver every time. With this in mind, here are 10 failsafe options guaranteed to improve your mood as your body gradually rids itself of last night's sins*.
*Alcohol... all the alcohol.
Absolutely Fabulous
Jennifer Saunders' sitcom is perfect hangover viewing because it's consistently funny and comfortingly familiar. You don't have to be an Ab Fab stan to appreciate jokes stemming from Edina and Patsy's total abdication of responsibility, daughter Saffy's understandable exasperation or the glamorous absurdity of the fashion world. Plus, there's something reassuring in the knowledge that however hammered you got last night, you won't have drunk as much as Edi and Patsy.
This reboot of a semi-forgotten noughties makeover show has been 2018's breakout Netflix hit. Yes, it's about a gaggle of gay guys giving a succession of (mostly) straight blokes a glow-up, but it's also about emotional growth. The best episodes show men who are really stuck in a rut confronting their insecurities and embracing their best authentic selves. If you drank gin last night, Queer Eye will make you cry. If you drank something other than gin, Queer Eye will probably make you cry, too.
Though Channel 4 has now shown more than 70 episodes, First Dates is still satisfying viewing. That's partly because the First Dates restaurant (and more recently, hotel) is probably the only place where people still have a proper, no-googling-first blind date. But it's also because it's completely lovely watching those first sparks of romantic attraction. Maybe you didn't get lucky last night, but hopefully someone on First Dates will. (And yes, it's totally acceptable to fancy Fred, the maître d’.)
Created, written by and starring the brilliant Michaela Coel, Chewing Gum is one of our generation's freshest sitcoms. Coel plays 24-year-old Tracey Gordon, a Beyoncé-obsessed London shop assistant who's sexually repressed and desperate to become more worldly. Coel's scripts explore issues of race, class and gender politics without skimping on hilarious one-liners or sublime moments of slapstick. If you want to ease your hangover guilt by watching something substantial but also very entertaining, Chewing Gum is ideal.
Basically X Factor for drag queens, this is currently the best reality show around. RuPaul's Drag Race is fabulous because it challenges traditional notions of masculinity and femininity, never loses its sense of humour, and features relatable contestants who've often overcome major obstacles. Oh, and if you forgot to take off last night's face, seeing the queens create their intricate and outrageous beauty looks will definitely make you reach for the makeup remover.
This long-running reality show has endured because its premise is simple but brilliant: a couple is given enough money to pay for their wedding, but only if the groom arranges every detail without input from the bride. It's sometimes very funny, sometimes surprisingly touching, and always comforting when you have dry mouth and a thumping headache. Because however messy your life seems today, at least you don't have a wedding to attend – or, heaven forbid, plan.
A sitcom about a fictional town-planning department might sound dull af, but it's actually an addictive delight. Playing super enthusiastic bureaucrat Leslie Knope, Amy Poehler leads a terrific ensemble cast that includes Aubrey Plaza, Aziz Ansari, the scene-stealing Retta and a pre-Hollywood Chris Pratt. Parks and Rec is the rare show that manages to be sweet and well-meaning throughout without dropping its joke count. When you're hungover, it's almost like a hug and a giggle with a lovely old friend.
There have now been 41 series (!) of Come Dine with Me, but the format's still holding up. Cooking inspo and snooping around people's houses is part of the fun, but it's the judging that makes this show. Somehow, there's always one contestant who vastly overestimates their culinary prowess, and another whose scores in the cab home are rather harsher than anyone anticipated. And when an overcomplicated main course turns into a total disaster, you'll feel even smugger as you enjoy your simple, hangover-blitzing tea and toast.
At the end of March, the first seven series of Great British Bake Off – ie. every BBC episode – were added to Netflix. Having it on demand is a lifesaver after a big night out thanks to the firm-but-fair, grandmotherly presence of Mary Berry. In real life, she'd probably raise an eyebrow, then fix you a Berocca anyway. Factor in some endearingly rubbish puns from Mel and Sue and it's a winner any time you wake up feeling like a sunken Victoria sponge.
Do millennials know any TV show better than Friends? This ingrained familiarity makes it a go-to show when you're hungover: you probably know where to find your favourite episodes, but if you cba searching, the first one you find will be just as funny. Just try not to get into an argument with your flatmate about which of the six is the best character. Because, well, it's obviously Rachel.
Shh — hear that? It's the sound of a quiet week. After much upheaval and excitement, the heavens slow down long enough for us to catch our collective breath. The tougher aspects from Mars, Saturn and Pluto start to ease up and Mercury is finally speaking in a language that most of us can comprehend. On 22nd April, Pluto joins Saturn and turns retrograde until 30th September, giving us an opportunity to examine how we use power to either destroy or transform. Retrogrades are just review periods, so Pluto will be bringing back stories from late December 2017 and January 2018 to ask if you can wield your power with more efficiency this time around. And here's the thing: You can do it better, because now you have the wisdom of experience on your side to help.
Venus leaves the hedonistic comfort of Taurus for chatty and curious Gemini on 24th April and will stay there until 19th May. This transit will feel like a much-needed breath of fresh air after living under relatively airless skies since the middle of February, when Venus was in Aquarius. As an element, air helps to transmit ideas. It adds levity and a dash of detachment so that we may exchange information without feeling bound to one point of view or another. Let Venus in Gemini break up some of the heat and heaviness that you’ve been living under. She'll invite you to be playful, curious and even a bit mischievous as you go about your life. Smile! Laugh! Socialise! Tell a few quick-witted, bawdy jokes to lift the energy around you. Let the air of lightheartedness carry your spirits once again. You deserve it. We all deserve it.
Taurus April 20 to May 20
Ah, finally a quiet enough week for you to get your senses under control, Taurus. It felt like the sky was falling last week, but this week is a lot quieter. Pluto, the planet of power and the unconscious, joins Saturn in reviewing your worldview and philosophies. I know it seems excessive to have so much attention being paid to what your beliefs are, but trust me, Taurus, once Uranus enters your sign in May you’ll understand why. In any event, don’t panic.
You're the hedonist of the Zodiac, the one who teaches the rest of us how to indulge in our senses, so here's your chance to do what you know and delight in your pleasure and what feels good. Doing so will give you a better understanding of yourself. Venus will move into Gemini on the 24th, where she becomes a chatty, curious gal who wants to talk to you about your values. Luckily, Venus won't just ask the questions — she'll help you find more clarity about what you believe in, too. Here's her secret: If it sounds like fun and delights your senses, give it a try. Venus will be spending time in your house of self-worth and money, so it's all about what feels good. Just be mindful and keep a budget so you can enjoy the rest of your season in style. Have fun exploring, Taurus!
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Gemini May 21 to June 20
Let the good times roll, Gemini! It’s not quite your season yet, but Venus, the planet of love, money and beauty, is in your sign until 19th May, so you get to love up on yourself something fierce. Allow Venus to remind you that you are indeed the sparkly, curious, flirtatious and (at times) controversial mischief-maker that people adore. After the heaviness of the last few weeks, now's a good time to attract new friends and potential partners in crime to your table.
When Venus spends time in your house of self, it urges you to learn how to love and respect yourself first. Take care of and nurture your body first. Beautify yourself and feel good about who you are. However, while you’re working on your shine, be certain to maintain ample quiet time and rest up before your birthday season commences. Consider it time to reflect as the sun lingers behind the scenes in your house of the unconscious, going over the highlight reel of the last year. Soon you'll be asked to look forward and backward: Meditate on what you’ve accomplished so far, then ask yourself what you’d like to do next.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Cancer June 21 to July 22
Your relationship lessons are going to be around for a while, Cancer. Take time to consider how you can be an authority within them and how they could change for the better. In other words, let go of the idea that this will be a quick fix. That said, Venus will give you a chance to nourish your heart and suggest you be of service to others. Imagine for a second if Ebenezer Scrooge had volunteered at a soup kitchen or donated funds to a school in need, what possibilities could have existed for him. Maybe he would’ve realised that there’s no such thing as being rejected and that love comes in many forms.
Now, I’m not saying that volunteering automatically makes people decent human beings, but the act of caring for the disadvantaged can connect us to a love that transcends our own lives and that’s what you need to indulge in, Crab. Find a way to tap into the love that threads through all things, whether through acts of service, meditation, art, music or prayer. In doing so, you’ll refill your compassion capacity enough to do more heavy lifting with your intimate partners and, in turn, be reminded that they’re doing the work right beside you.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Leo July 23 to August 22
One way to escape the funk of the last few weeks, Leo, is to get by with a little help from your friends. Come 24th April, Venus is taking her focus away from your career and reputation, and turning toward your friendships and the organisations that you love. Who you choose to hang out with can give you helpful hints about what you truly believe in, since your friends tend to share the core life principles that you do.
So do some research, go out after work, and engage in both thoughtful and frivolous conversation with those around you. See what lights you up — and what makes you want to burn the world down. If you find yourself feeling bored and uninspired, then perhaps that’s a sign to find new people and wishes to invest in. You’re here to radiate warmth, Leo, so find others who help you to do just that. Think less about who looks good (or who makes you look good) and more about who stokes your curiosity and love for life. The long-term goal is to have a life philosophy so solid that you can do just about anything with it, so go out there and find some co-conspirators who'll motivate you to greatness.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Virgo August 23 to September 22
You have so much work to do, Virgo, but you’re going to have fun while you do it. After the spectacular that was #Beychella, there's no denying how good it looks when you pour your heart into your craft and then broadcast into the world. It’s absolutely no accident that Queen B happens to be a Virgo, so, yes, the bar is high for you and the rest of your signmates, but you are fully capable of meeting it. You might not be in the business of dancing and singing for two hours straight, but you do know attention to detail and refinement. Allow Saturn and Pluto retrograde in your house of creativity to help you one-up yourself.
Push a little harder. See how far you can go when you push beyond your own fears. Consider this period of time a working stage rehearsal and dress the part, as Venus will be up high in your chart for all to see. Make beauty and grace part of your selling point — dazzle and flirt with us, show off your talents as you work out the bugs. It'll make your final set that much better.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Libra September 23 to October 22
Remember when we said that love awaits you, Libra? Well, it does, but you may have to chase it down while Venus runs wild in your house of travel and expansion. Venus in this house loves the wider world, people from foreign lands, and opportunities to learn new things — she wants to expand her mind and her horizons. Back in the day, that meant having to book a plane ticket or sign up for combing through the stacks at your local university, but now that could simply mean watching a few episodes of a David Attenborough doc or googling your favourite obscure topic.
After all the pushing and pulling you’ve been doing in your partnerships, Venus wants you to see how people around the world show love, connect with each other, and even resolve conflict. Sometimes we find wisdom when we allow ourselves to look at the world from another perspective. If you’re invited to attend lectures, cultural events, or a dinner at that new Ethiopian spot, say yes. You just might find the answers (or at least a few clues) that will eventually lead you to heal and experience love in a new way.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Scorpio October 23 to November 21
Psst, want to know a secret, Scorpio? People actually like you a lot. Why? It's mainly because you seem to know what people need and want before they even know themselves. That kind of laser beam perception and intuition is your superpower. The trouble arises when you use it to manipulate people, getting them perpetually hooked on your presence and subtly puppeteering them into giving you what you want. That’s supervillain-esque behaviour — and a major no-no, Scorp.
This week, allow Venus to teach you the art of being genuinely intimate with the people you meet. Let them open up to you on their own terms. All you have to do is hold space, be honest and guide them gently. That's how you get close to another human being, minus the villainy. Remember that this is all practice for you as Saturn and Pluto rehash the ways that you can both teach and communicate with authority. If people want to treat you to lunch or fund your next venture, that’s a completely different story. Just make sure they’re doing it of their own volition and not because you Jedi-mind-tricked them into doing so.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Sagittarius November 22 to December 21
You’re looking good out there, Sag! Even though you may feel like you don’t have your life together just yet, don't stress — it’s the intention and the effort that counts. Pluto has joined Saturn in his retrograde status to help you review where your self-worth and diligence can be improved. If you keep showing up every day despite constant setbacks and disappointments, know that the tides will eventually turn in your favour, so try to learn from the tutoring for now.
That said, you look good when you work hard and your eau de responsabilité is wafting in the air, catching the attention of quite a few people, ooh la la! Venus is checking you out from where it resides in your house of partnership, so don’t be surprised if a few people ask you out for some one-on-one time. Please say yes — you need to be reminded of how awesome you are. It’s not about arriving at the destination of “my life is all sorted out and perfect,” it's about enjoying the journey and laughing along the way. Besides, the people want to hear about your many misadventures in adulting. You've got a story worthy of the bestseller list, Sag.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Capricorn December 22 to January 19
The energy is quiet enough for you to take a breather, Capricorn. Try going back to basics: Find the joy and the playfulness in your daily routine to help relieve some of the pressure you’ve been under lately. The sun in Taurus will be shining its light in your house of creativity and romance, calling on you to twirl under the cherry blossoms (literally and figuratively). The prime of spring is a wonderful time to fall in love with yourself — or maybe someone else, if you’re feeling brave.
Venus will ask you to fall in love with self-care and your home life this week. Freshen up your fitness routine: Add more dance freestyles in your bedroom each morning and finally say yes to that hip-hop class your gym rat friend has been begging you to try. The point is to take care of yourself not from a place of duty and obligation (which tends to be your modus operandi), but from a place of joy and pleasure. It feels good to return to a clean home, a cooked meal, and sweet hugs and kisses at the end of the day. Play harder, Capricorn, it’s good for your health.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Aquarius January 20 to February 18
This week should feel a lot better, Aquarius, enough to maybe go outside to enjoy the flowers and chirping birds. But know that there’s no pressure to venture out of the house just yet. If bunny slippers and sun streaming through your window is all that you can take, that’s fine, too. However, you’re starting to get a creative pinging in your soul thanks to Venus entering into your house of creativity, children, and romance. It's time to fall back in love with the projects and ideas that have been collecting dust on your mental shelves.
If you’re still feeling a little low, I highly recommend spending time with kiddos. They’re the best creators around and will happily show you how to tap back into your happiness and creative spirit. With Saturn and Pluto reviewing your unconscious fears, maintaining a sense of joy is important, Water Bearer. Know that you aren’t being punished — you’re actually being relieved of your burdens and all the thoughts that weigh on you. But in order to be free of them, you have to look at them for what they are: False Evidence Appearing Real (F.E.A.R.). It's a slog, I know, so turn up the music, bust out the watercolours, and marathon a few dozen episodes of Steven Universe (it’s medicine, I swear). You’re going to make it, just keep believing.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Pisces February 19 to March 20
Let’s do some deep nurturing work, Pisces. You seem cranky after all the fuss of the last few weeks. Like Dorothy says, there’s no place like home and that’s precisely where Venus is sending you as she visits your house of home and roots this week. If spending time at home makes you feel anxious and unsettled, it's because you’re an energy sponge, little Fish. When your environment is a mess, you’re a mess right along with it, unless your energetic shields are on super high.
So instead of walking around feeling spaced out and fragile, take some time to take care of your home and, by extension, you: Grocery shop (or order in if you’re feeling extra tired). Clean the tub so you can spend time in water (your favourite conduit for great ideas and inspiration). Fluff your pillows and spray them with lavender before lighting tealight candles and incense. For goodness' sake, put your phone on silent and just relax so you can create the good vibes that you’ve been desperately craving. Remember, equilibrium is never going to come from outside of you. Even when the world is going crazy around you, you can go home and restore your soul.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
Aries March 21 to April 19
You get to take a mental holiday while Venus is visiting your house of short travel and communications. It’s been a trying few weeks, so keep your interactions super light and playful. Plan a few day trips to places that strike your fancy. Dust off your Kindle and finally finish Game of Thrones, which you had to abandon when the mega bosses in your life came knocking. Make time to hang out with your siblings or the close friends you’ve known since your school days. It'll feel so freeing just to catch up, get them up to speed with all your adventures in boss-hood, and laugh at how insane your life has been of late.
You're in a cool-off period where you simply get to enjoy whatever makes your mind feel like it's being gently stretched. If you’re looking for a more rigorous use of Venus in this house, sign up for a local class that adds to your skill set. I hear Mandarin is an excellent language to learn in today’s world, Ram.
Illustrated by Abbie Winters.
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Transport for London (TfL) has come under fire this weekend after an offensive, body-shaming message was posted on one of its service information boards.
The handwritten message, which appeared as the 'quote of the day' on the board at Blackhorse Road Underground Station in northeast London, read: "During this heatwave, please dress for the body you have... not the body you want!"
A photo of the message was shared on Twitter yesterday by Michael Hawkes, a London-based food and travel blogger.
TfL has since apologised to Hawkes directly, tweeting at him: "Sorry that this was put up at Blackhorse Road. We've flagged it up to the station who've now removed the message. Thanks for letting us know about this."
As Londoners and anyone who uses the Tube regularly will know, many stations on the network use their service information boards to post humorous, lighthearted and inspiring quotes. In the wake of the March 2017 Westminster terrorist attack, stations including Tower Hill, Oval and Tooting Bec sought to unify commuters by posting rousing messages of defiance.
North Greenwich Underground Station, where concert-goers alight for the O2, is known for posting witty messages referencing the song lyrics of the artist performing that evening. This Celine Dion-themed post from last July is especially creative.
But this weekend's poorly judged "quote" at Blackhorse Road isn't the first time in recent memory that a TfL noticeboard message has been off the mark. In February, on the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to vote, Colliers Wood station in southwest London displayed an embarrassing sexist (non) joke.
These slip-ups suggest that every "thought of the day" post should at least be double-checked before being shared with the public. A witty underground station message can put a smile on a grumpy commuter's face, but an offensive one can really put a dampener on someone's day.
“Thank you Coachella for allowing me to be the first Black woman to headline. Ain’t that ‘bout a bitch?” Beyoncé told the crowd at the end of her instantly iconic set during the first weekend of Coachella in April 2018. Bey’s boundary-breaking, record-making, internet-shattering performance, and her callout at the end, drew attention to a larger problem. It’s 2018, and she was not only the first Black woman headliner but just the third woman to headline the festival since it started in 1999. That’s where we’re at with gender representation at the highest-grossing music festival in the world. You know, the one that dominates your Instagram timeline for two weekends every April, making you (and millions of other people) regret your life choices if you don’t make your way to Indio, CA.
Festivals are a lucrative game. In 2017, Coachella made $114 million in profit for parent company Goldenvoice and AEG — growing sevenfold since 2007 when it expanded to two weekends. One of the company’s other festivals, Desert Trip, holds the record of most profitable festival in history, raking in $160 million in 2016. They have expanded their portfolio of festivals since the launch of Coachella and now also present Stagecoach, Firefly, FYF, Hangout Music Festival, Splash House, Tyler the Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival, Panorama, and Arroyo Seco Weekend. Lollapalooza’s parent company C3 have found the festival to be lucrative enough that they expanded it into Brazil, Paris, Berlin, Chile, and Argentina as well as presenting Austin City Limits, In Bloom, Voodoo Music + Arts, and more. Bonnaroo’s parent company, Superfly, are also behind Outside Lands and are launching a new festival called Grandoozy this fall in Denver, CO, after an inaugural go at launching Lost Lake in Phoenix, AZ, last year. And those are just the biggest firms who make the most money in the music festival game, all of which charge attendees hundreds of dollars (or thousands if you go for the VIP and experience upgrades) for a ticket.
We all agreed that if we're looking at multiple artists for the same slot, all other things being equal, we're going to go with a woman, a minority, or an artist who is unexpected.
What we can learn from Beyoncé’s Coachella set (which follows Lady Gaga's 2017 performance, and Björk’s double headlining sets in 2002 and 2007) is that there is an appetite for woman (and diverse) performers at festivals. The lineups, which were originally centred on predominantly male rock acts, have evolved to suit the desires of an audience who prefer to see pop and hip-hop acts. But their lineups don’t reflect it. Lollapalooza has Camila Cabello, the woman who broke a billion streams on Spotify and was one of the few women to dominate pop radio airplay in 2017, on the fifth line of their list of performers and has zero female headliners this year. Neither does Bonnaroo. Neither does Sasquatch. Neither does Firefly. Neither does Boston Calling. Neither does Hangout. Neither does Ultra. Neither does Stagecoach. Neither does In Bloom. Neither does BottleRock. Neither does Warped Tour. And so on, and so on...
Festivals want the freedom to book lineups for their specific audiences without restrictive regulations. Musicians don’t want to be booked to meet a quota — no one wants to be on the stage just because they’re female. But when the statistics show us that bookings up and down the lineup at festivals are so lopsided in favour of men, it is clear the founders and bookers have to take a look at what that is — and take action to fix it. Whether that means giving women a bigger role in decision-making when it comes to booking festivals, asking booking agents to consider representation in their negotiations (and fight harder for their female clients), or checking their implicit bias.
Or, as Fortress Festival founder Alec Jhangiani says: “If you do have a very lopsided lineup, which many variables can affect, I think it does show some sort of bias if that is what keeps coming out year after year after year.”
With Beyoncé serving as the sole woman headliner among the biggest music festivals in 2018, a trio of smaller, but influential, festivals are making more headway when it comes to featuring female acts. And that makes sense, given that 51% of the festival-going audience are female.
Janet Jackson will headline FYF Fest.Photo: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images.
FYF Fest in Los Angeles (July 21 and 22) will carry on under the auspices of a woman booker, Jenn Yacoubian, this season after founder Sean Carlson was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women in November (Carlson denies some of the allegations and admits to others, calling his behaviour "inexcusable"). Goldenvoice has worked in partnership with FYF since 2014, and after cutting ties with Carlson before the accusations became public, bought out Carlson’s stake in the festival in February. Now that FYF is fully under their control, with Carlson out of the picture, they’ve made a strong statement by announcing a female booker along with dual woman headliners (Florence + the Machine and Janet Jackson) and a lineup that is close to 50% women and mixed-gender groups, with a nearly even split between the two and one gender-nonconforming act, Lawrence Rothman.
Should a festival caught up in a #MeToo scandal look to rehab its image? That wasn’t the plan for FYF, and Yacoubian says the heavy female tally on the lineup doesn’t signal a rebranding or change. “Having a large female representation on the bill is unquestionably important to us, but was not the mission in our bookings,” Yacoubian tells Refinery29. “We wanted to put forward the best lineup possible this year, and we truly believe we accomplished that with two incredibly strong and iconic female headliners and a multitude of other wonderful artists.” Yacoubian promises “we’ll always be inclusive,” but prefers to stay away from a “rigid formula.”
Coming off of a festival season where women were so overshadowed by men, another festival felt it was imperative to incorporate inclusivity into their bookings. Ramtin Nikzad and Jhangiani, founders of Fortress Festival in Fort Worth, TX (April 28 and 29), made diversifying their lineup a priority and ended up with a bill that is close to 50% female and mixed-gender groups. “There was a conversation we had early on in the booking process where we all agreed that if we're looking at multiple artists for the same slot, all other things being equal, we're going to go with a woman, a minority, or an artist who is unexpected and not already widely included in all the festival lineups,” Jhangiani tells Refinery29.
While Fortress Festival’s overall numbers are good for gender parity, the bulk of non-male acts on their lineup are further down the bill. “We looked at three female headliners during the booking process, too,” Nikzad explains, citing logistics as the reason they ultimately ended up with two male headliners this year. “It’s just not as clean-cut of a process to determine your breakdown from the beginning.” Jhangiani adds that the order of the lineup is “oftentimes, if not almost always, dictated by the artist’s booking agency, especially when you're booking several offers from the same agency.” Booking agents are dictating quite a lot of the “who goes above whom” conversations and have as big a role to play in making the lineup as diverse as the festival-going audiences. Part of their negotiations on behalf of artists includes where their name goes on the poster announcing a festival’s lineup. It begs the question, is St. Vincent or Camila Cabello’s booking agent pushing for her as hard as they’re pushing for the men they represent?
L.A. Pride (June 9 and 10) is a festival with a strong female presence also featuring two women as headliners. In addition, their headliners, Tove Lo and Kehlani, consider themselves bisexual, putting a spotlight on an underrepresented area of the LGBTQ+ community. While sexuality wasn’t a litmus test for the bookings, it was an excellent bonus for their brand. L.A. Pride President Chris Classen acknowledged that Pride events have long been associated with a white male version of LGBTQ+, and that their goal is to reflect the diversity in the real world and in the LGBTQ+ community.
Camila Cabello will play Lollapalooza 2018.Photo: Kevin Mazur/Wire Image.
“When it came down to choosing our talent, we wanted to make sure first and foremost that it was reflective of the community,” L.A. Pride marketing lead Shayne Thomas tells Refinery29. “Once we started digging, it became clear that there was a beautiful story unfolding based on the sheer number of women that we booked into our big top spots who represent various aspects of the LGBTQ spectrum as well as different diversity groups that are reflective of our community and Los Angeles.” And, Thomas continues, the Pride audience has no problem embracing strong women; they love their divas.
L.A. Pride’s full lineup hasn’t been announced, but Classen and the festival programming lead, Gregory Alexander, also revealed that they have embraced and planned to shine a light on trans performers this year as well.
Like FYF, the people behind Fortress and L.A. Pride want to book the best festival that people in the area will buy tickets to attend. Everyone Refinery29 spoke to rejected the notion that having woman headliners or a 50% female lineup might dissuade ticket buyers, or that audiences connect better with male performers. At the same time, none of them supported the idea of a mandatory gender parity rule like that recently established by several festivals in Europe. Reaching gender parity at festivals is an idea that, in theory, everyone is on board with. Coachella drastically increased its acts up and down the bill with women in 2018, after years of being dinged in the media over the issue. At the very least, festivals are moving in the right direction by upping the number of women playing, unlike the music industry itself, where in 2017 women saw a sharp drop in their representation in popular music, songwriting, and production — when the numbers were already staggeringly imbalanced.
Festivals are moving in the right direction, thanks to pressure exerted by their audiences and the media. But they will face an uphill climb to gender parity if the larger music industry doesn’t continue to create careers for more women in music who can headline a festival — and what most women want is to see themselves reflected on the stage and in the lineup. Specifically, in the largest, marquee-billing font atop the lineup poster. But Coachella can’t book what doesn’t exist, no matter how many women they might nurture on the lower tiers of their lineup.
I don't really date. It's not by choice, or anything, it just so happens that most of the guys I click with usually just want to Netflix and chill — or just chill. And we all know what that means. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised when my cute Tinder match invited me out on a real date: an afternoon at the museum.
As soon as I got his text, I racked my brain — and wardrobe — for the perfect outfit. Meaning, I sent no fewer than six dress or top-and-jean combos to my group chat until I got approval across the board. With my outfit locked in I moved onto my makeup. I like looking like myself for my first few dates with a new guy... just a little better. You're not about to accuse me of catfishing.
In that vein, I figured it'd be the perfect time to try Becca's newest Shimmering Skin Perfecter Highlighter since the Chocolate Geode shade is a rich bronze, rather than gold. (For the record, gold is also a beautiful option, but can be tricky to wear without the help of a professional makeup artist.) This bronze is novice-friendly: It didn't require a lot of blending and didn't look ashy — it just blended right in. Chocolate Geode is powder, but melted into my skin and hugged my cheekbones, giving them great definition (especially because I had contoured, too). What's more, it doesn't have much fallout, even when I applied it with a fan brush.
Teamed with the brand's Chocolate Geode Glow Gloss, I felt like a goddess. I didn't put on too much highlight for the museum — two swipes was more than enough shimmer for daytime. But when we go out at night, I'll most definitely be layering it on liberally. How do I seem so sure, you ask? We already have another date planned. So was it a lucky charm or a confidence booster? Who's to say, but this will be a date day — and night — mainstay from here on in.
Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed Highlighter in Chocolate Geode, £32, available at Space NK
The cast of Stranger Things begins filming its third season on Monday and we’re a bit taken aback by what could be a whole new look for Eleven. On Millie Bobby Brown’s Instagram page, the actress posted a selfie alongside Stranger Things producer Shawn Levy sporting a cute bob. “And so it begins,” she wrote, hashtagging Stranger Things3.
While we’re not certain if this IG picture is showing off Eleven’s new look or was just a quick snap taken during a table read, we do know the kids of Stranger Things are headed to high school, which means their hair and clothes are getting another ‘80s revamp.
According to Vanity Fair, a whole year has passed since we last saw the monster hovering over Hawkins High in season 2. Eleven made her big reveal at the school dance, which means she’s officially out of seclusion. Does that mean Eleven is joining Mike, Will, Lucas, Dustin, and Max in high school in season 3? Maybe. If she does, she’ll have to fit in with the crowd, so that leaves her with basically two options: ‘80s preppy or ‘80s goth. She would get to keep her slicked-back hair look if she opts for the latter, but that school dance finale suggests she may be headed to Molly Ringwald territory instead.
Season 3 will also find new faces in the mix, including actors Cary Elwes ( The Princess Bride, SAW), Jake Busey ( The Predator, Ray Donovan), and Maya Hawke — daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. Variety reports that we’re also going to see more of internet favorite Priah Ferguson, who plays Erica Sinclair, Lucas’s sister.
Stranger Things season 3 is expected to be released either at the end of 2018 or early 2019.
I think I learned more about Lykke Li's life from one mention in Rolling Stone's profile of Harry Styles last year than I have ever known about her, outside of what she records for her albums. She is a hardcore Artist with a capital A. And it would be irrelevant that she's partnered with super producer Jeff Bhasker (Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, Drake, Jay Z, Kanye West, seriously the list goes on, and we could do this all day) or that they have a baby together, except that he produced one of the two new songs she dropped this week. If you think he took her in a more commercial direction, reader, then I suggest you go listen to the track (he did not; it would be impossible to push Li down any path she doesn't intent to tread). If anything, it sounds seamlessly like Li's work. And that is why I recommend "deep end" to you this week. On it she collaborates with Rostam (late of Vampire Weekend), and it is one of the few times in her catalog when I've heard the influence of someone outside of herself seep in. I feel Rostam in the vocal phrasings on the chorus particularly, the electronic drum line that rides near the top of the track, and in the keyboard bit that travels up the scale to punctuate the chorus. The rest is pure Li. Knowing both of their work, it's jarring to feel the fingerprints of another on a track by an artist who I've always regarded as being a loner. I like it, though. They're a good match.
Priscilla Renea "Gentle Hands/Heavenly"
Hey, who is your favourite Black female country artist? If you're having a hard time coming up with one because country music has generally been unwelcoming to minorities, and exceptionally so to Black people (and Black women moreso than anyone), well take a listen to Renea. Country music is already infusing a lot of the elements of hip-hop (don't get me started on hick hop) that Renea plays with, they're just doing it more ham-fistedly. In Renea's track, I hear a reverence for the blues (that stop down on each brush of the guitar where the player taps the body of the instrument with their knuckles is one of the elements I'm talking about here) that makes up both the rhythmic basis of hip-hop beats and is related to the style of instrumentation in folk that is the reason we have country and western style guitar. In short, she's more legit than half the stuff on country radio right now.
Kelsey Lu "Shades of Blue"
I like morose music. I like the Cure, I like Death Cab, I like Fiona Apple, I like things chock full of emotion that make me want to cry because they're cathartic. That's where I'm at with Kelsey Lu, whose music makes me want to sway around, a glass of wine in hand, with mascara-kissed tears rolling down my face. Look out for my Instagram live video later.
Becky G & Natti Natasha "Sin Pijama"
Becky G has been on the cusp of happening for what feels like decades now. But it also felt like whoever was working with her was trying to stuff a size 9 foot into a size 6 shoe. The elements of pop stardom have all been there with her all along, but trying to water her down and take everything interesting out of her has not worked. With the remarkable rise of Latin music, it feels like Becky G can finally have her day. And it looks like the masses agree: This video went to No. 1 on YouTube's trending chart (besting Ariana Grande's hotly anticipated new single) the day it was released.
After my first job at MTV working as a music programmer, I can't stop trying to matchmake people with music they might like. So, I wrote a book calledRecord Collecting for Girlsand started interviewing musicians. The Music Concierge is a column where I share music I'm listening to that you might enjoy, with a little context. Follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or leave me a comment below and tell me what you're listening to this week.
Over the years, the perennially popular Bali has become a little too popular, with parts of the Indonesian island definitely cowering under the weight of mass tourism. Although no secret, there's one spot that's far more laid-back than its nearby coastal neighbours, Seminyak and Kuta.
Once just a tiny village overlooking the Indian Ocean, Canggu has emerged as the hippest destination in Bali. Wind inwards and you're surrounded by lush rice fields; gravitate outwards and you'll hit stretches of sandy beaches. Pulling in everyone from surfers and health-conscious vegans to backpackers trailing around Indonesia and expats working remotely at one of its slick co-working spaces, Canggu has everything: you can take a meditation course, learn to surf, splurge on a colourful kaftan at one of the industrial-style boutiques or simply hang out by the pool at your oh-so-affordable homestay.
Be warned though, it won't stay like this. While it's hip and trendy now, there's building work on every block as Indonesians and expats alike cash in on Canggu's surging popularity.
How to get there
You can fly to Bali from UK cities such as London, Manchester and Aberdeen, with a quick stopover in the likes of Singapore and Dubai. Once landed, grab a taxi from Denpasar to Canggu. Depending on traffic, the journey should take around 45 minutes.
Photo: Andrew TB Tan/Getty Images.
What to do
Hit the waves
Boasting a dramatic coastline, Canggu is a picture-postcard spot for some serious relaxation. However, with its world-class waves, why not join surfers from around the world at Echo Beach and Batu-Bolong? If you've never surfed, you can join one of the throng of companies showing novices how to mount a surfboard, and catch and ride a wave. Many companies will pick you up from your hotel and drop you off at a surf school. Some of the most popular include Surf's Up Schoo l and Up 2 U.
Perfect your downward dog
A spiritual haven, enlightenment seekers have been descending on Bali for decades. Canggu also attracts yogis, with many staying in retreats or simply visiting studios to practise their warrior pose. Offering five classes a day, including hatha yoga and fire hatha, The Practice is one of the latest yoga centres to open its doors in Canggu. It also runs workshops focused on confidence-building and meditation, as well as life and business coaching sessions.
Photo via @thepracticebaliyoga.
Where to stay
Como Uma Canggu
Fresh from opening in February, Como Uma has quickly emerged as one of Canggu's hippest places to stay. It's not surprising. With ocean views and a cool beach club, plus enough swinging chairs and stylish loungers to fill up your Instagram, the group's latest outpost (it already has two hotels in Ubud) is the perfect place to crash if you're willing to throw a few bucks at your accommodation.
The Slow
Think of The Slow as a tropical version of the Ace Hotel chain. There's a rotating monthly exhibition next to the lobby, a store selling premium labels, and a restaurant with a popular brunch menu. The design-led bedrooms have a minimalist concrete vibe but plenty of greenery, giving a nod to the tropical surroundings. Book a ground floor room to bag your very own private pool.
Kubudiuma Villas
If you're craving a bit more R&R and wish to sleep away from the busy thoroughfares – but still be walking distance from the beach – head out west and opt for Kubudiuma Villas. Surrounded by palms, the dreamy wooden bungalows feature four-poster beds and outdoor bathrooms (perfect for star-gazing while taking an alfresco shower). Plus there's a pool to dip in when the Balinese heat becomes too much. For those with tight purse strings, it's incredibly good value for money.
Where to eat
Crate Cafe
An industrial-style café overlooking a lush rice field, Crate Cafe on Jalan Batu Bolong is one of the hippest places to hang out in Canggu. Attracting the coolest locals, expats and remote workers, Crate Cafe is notable for its nutritional yet delicious dishes, such as huge super bowls packed with tofu, spinach and quinoa, and popular smoothie bowls brimming with fruit like acai, frozen banana and dragonfruit with a sprinkle of chia seeds. It closes early though (5pm).
Betelnut Cafe
Head up the wooden stairs and pray there's space to squeeze you in at this perpetually packed neighbourhood hangout. Betelnut Cafe can probably claim to have one of the best menus in town – there's traditional Balinese food such as bowls of gado gado (piles of veg like spinach and beansprouts topped with an egg and served with peanut sauce), while Mexican lovers can dig into everything from nachos to tacos stuffed with tofu and sour cream. It's all pretty healthy and tasty – standard for Canggu.
Beachgarden – In The Raw
Another restaurant that caters to those who prefer courgetti to a big bowl of pasta, vegan-friendly Beachgarden – In The Raw serves up super healthy and delicious food that still manages to tantalise your tastebuds. Think buttermilk pancakes covered in coconut palm syrup or raw pad Thai. The drinks menu is just as impressive: many styles of tea from Taiwan to West Java, and a wide range of fresh pressed juices to keep you quenched.
Photo via @betelnutcafe.
Where to drink
Old Man's
Old-time favourite Old Man 's is a surfing hub located at Batu Bolong. Its sprawling beer garden with strings of fairy lights and DJs playing the beats until 1am keeps the joint packed pretty much every day of the week. Alternatively, head there earlier and grab a cocktail or sink an Indonesian Bintang beer while you watch the sun go down.
The Lawn
The Lawn is currently one of Canggu's coolest places to hang out. Splash all your rupiahs on a bed for a day-long chillout, otherwise just rock up at the tables or lie horizontal on its 500-square-metre lawn while taking pics of the beach-front infinity pool. Order a mojito as the sun sets or do as many of the expats do and spend the day there between surfing sessions. Be warned though, it's the kind of place where you'll find yourself dancing to '90s R&B grooves at 11pm.
Sand Bar
When everything closes in Canggu, the party heads to Sand Bar. Located mere metres away from Old Man's and The Lawn, Sand Bar is little more than a thatched-roof shack on the beach with beanbags strewn in front of it. But you won't be sitting down for long; it's all about grooving barefoot on the cool sand, alongside hundreds of fellow travellers and locals.
Photo via @thelawncanggu.
Where to shop
Canggu Bazaar
Located on Pantai Batu Bolong, every Sunday Canggu Bazaar throws open its invisible doors and invites shoppers to browse its stalls, which are stocked with everything from dip-dye dresses and sunglasses to handmade bracelets.
Haze & Glory
An industrial-style airy space with lead pipe shelves, Haze & Glory is worth popping into on your way to the beach. Its flagship store offers vintage-inspired clothing alongside handcrafted jewellery.
Wanderlust
When in Bali, why not upgrade your swimwear? Boutique Wanderlust has stacks of hangers filled with simple yet beautiful swimsuits and bikinis in bold colours.
Where to get pampered
Spring Spa
Everything about Spring Spa screams style. The white minimalist lounge is home to a health bar serving up fresh juices and teas, while the courtyard features a landscaped garden and a long freshwater pond. Its treatment menu is equally impressive, with everything from pedis to manis to lengthy pampering sessions, such as a hair rescue package involving hair wash, hydration mask and a hot stone massage, on offer. Perfect if you want to spruce up your tresses after a day at the beach.
Goldust
Step into Goldust and for a moment you'll forget you're there for the R&R and be swayed by its boutique stocked with pretty beach kaftans, resort wear, woven bags and jewellery that you'll want to squeeze into your suitcase. Upstairs lies the popular spa, which attracts the masses with its manicures that include coconut oil treatments, eyebrow tints, and massages. The real winner is its signature 24k gold facial, which leaves skin radiant. It's garnered a loyal following, especially among those who can't resist a selfie of their face covered in gold.
Photo via @spring_spa.
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Around 200,000 children in England live with alcohol-dependent parents, and over the past year there has been a 30% increase in calls to the NSPCC's helpline about the welfare of a child due to their parent's alcohol problem. On Monday 23rd April 2018, the government announced £6m of funding for children with alcoholic parents, which will allow them fast access to mental health services and other support.
I have been living with addiction for the past decade. Not my own; my mother's. And as it turns out, my (now ex-) boyfriend’s brother’s, my friend's, an ex-colleague’s, another friend's boss... the list goes on. Addiction is so ubiquitous (according to the NHS, there are an estimated two million sufferers in the UK) that it’s always nearby. But it’s also one of society’s least accepted and least appealing mental health and medical issues of recent times. The discourse around addiction is very focused on the addict: their pain, their grief, and the heroism of their recovery. This is very important, and it's crucial for there to be an open and frank conversation by addicts, for addicts, to inspire others to feel like they're not alone, and into recovery. However, for the friends and families of addicts, the pain and stigma of addiction can be just as life-changing – yet it is seldom discussed in public.
This is the story of living with an addiction that’s not mine.
Booze was a mainstay of my privileged liberal upbringing. It was used for celebrations, after stressful days at work and for everything in between. For me, that was normal and, as a teenager, pretty cool when my parents would supply me and my mates with gin and tonics and a place to drink them. When I was 19, following her separation from my father, my beautiful, talented and popular mother decided to spend some time alone in France. I went to visit her a month or so after she had arrived and, walking into her house, I was struck by how scrappy everything looked. This was the woman who had always taken so much pride in the home that a gruelling but successful career had afforded her. Papers were strewn across the table, dirty laundry on the floor, gone-off milk in the fridge.
The first evening, we went out for dinner, and over plates of spaghetti and glasses of red wine – much nicer than the crap I had spent my first year of university drinking – she told me about her childhood and estrangement from her family in her 20s; about the time my father had accidentally stubbed out a cigarette on a woman’s shoulder pads (it was the '70s), setting fire to them on a dance floor; about the challenge of being a more-than-full-time working mum; about how time had just disappeared...
I’m sure there is a time in everyone’s life when something shifts and they begin to see their parents differently. Not as the loving guides of authority who tell them not to do stuff, but as actual human beings who’ve had break-ups, failures and wild nights out, too. That night I realised I was sitting opposite another person – not just my mum but an adult, in all her fallible glory.
The bike hadn’t swerved out and crashed into her, she had been drink-driving; the cat hadn’t knocked over a table, she’d fallen into it. My mum was an alcoholic.
The next morning, waking with a fuzzy head, she offered me a gin and tonic. It was 10am. Of course I didn’t want one; why did she? Did she not think it was weird? But we were on holiday, it was nice not to have to stick to a schedule and if I didn’t want one, I should stop harassing her about why she needed one, because she just did, okay? This battle raged on throughout my visit, as she insisted on mad drinks at mad times.
Back in London, the weeks that followed were flooded with reframed memories: the bike hadn’t swerved out and crashed into her, she had been drink-driving; my sister hadn’t stolen the case of wine from the larder, Mum had drunk it; the cat hadn’t knocked over a table, she’d fallen into it. My mum was an alcoholic.
Things spiralled for her very quickly after that trip. She lost her driving licence, then a high-profile job; most of her friends and family deserted her, in all her unreliable, inconvenient horror. She still had a house but the only real thing in her life was alcohol. She was my mother, though, and I tried everything: being nice, being angry, being encouraging and supportive, just being there. Once, in my naivety, I poured away and denied her all alcohol for a weekend, watched her withdraw, held her hand as her body went into toxic shock and then spent a fortnight by her bedside in intensive care. In trying to cure her, I had nearly killed her.
During those years, my own life unravelled alongside hers as, in my desperate attempts to fix her, everything else stopped mattering. Every decision I made was compulsively balanced on her alcoholic whims, which became more self-destructive and dangerous as time went on.
There was a constant life-or-death situation playing out in my head, replacing my reality. As she lost herself to the incessant need to drink, my being was solely intent on keeping her together. I felt like I couldn’t live my life while hers was falling apart. I almost lost my job after walking out of an important meeting, convinced she had fallen over and cracked her head open; burst into tears at a friend’s wedding reception because I couldn’t get the thought of her having choked on her own vomit out of my head; collapsed in Palermo from a panic attack induced by the thought of her falling asleep with a cigarette in her mouth. These were all legitimate fears, because they had all happened to her at one time or another. For a while, my fix was to call her phone 24 times a day, her answerphone message inexplicably reassuring me.
I’ve lost count of how many rock bottoms we hit and how many times I resolved to walk away.
For anyone living with someone else’s addiction, one of the hardest parts is how unrelentingly cyclical the illness is. Instead of getting easier with each round, practice and knowledge makes it harder – or at least it did for me. It pushed me closer and closer to the edge, although with every cycle I survived, the precipice seemed to move further away. I’ve lost count of how many rock bottoms we hit and how many times I resolved to walk away, like everyone else. So malicious and insidious is the force of addiction that just as she flirted with the idea of rehab, it would grab her by the shoulder and fling her back to the bottle; then, at the moment I found the courage to think that I could walk away and leave her, my mother would spring back from the darkness with maternal platitudes and generosity, as though nothing had ever happened. The demon of alcoholism had wiped all memory from her brain.
Addiction is a solitary experience; as the addict isolates with inexpressible shame, so do those around them. How could I ever tell anyone with any dignity that my mum lived in squalor, that alcohol had made her incontinent to the extent that she was literally living in her own shit, or that bar alcohol, all she consumed was eggs, organic full-fat milk and wine gums? Shame was one part of a fragmented identity that I had developed; sadness, bereavement, guilt and anger were some of the others. The anxiety of her addiction was so omnipotent that I could not define myself in any other way than as the daughter of an alcoholic. This internal identity crisis came into other people’s consciousness as well, as friends would ask "How’s your mum?" instead of "How’s work?", "How’s life?", "How are you?" I’ve learnt that it is common for those close to an addict to shift their identity away from anything distinctive about themselves towards an articulation of their addict’s latest impulses, relapses, and respites. Addiction doesn’t just swallow the user, it engulfs everything and everyone around them, too.
Eventually I came to recognise that I was suffering from my own illness that manifested itself through desperate attempts to try and save my mum from something that is stronger than everything. As her daughter, the inability to help or soothe in any way created a feeling of extreme rejection. Beholden to alcohol – the sole purpose, pain and pleasure of her life – my addict didn’t need anything from me. I spent most of my 20s taking it very personally. Why won’t she listen to me? Why won’t she stop drinking for me? Why can’t she see what this is doing to me? Those questions swirled round and round in my head for years. Just as her addiction was cyclical, perennial, so were my own debilitating thoughts.
In some support groups, they talk about the friends and families needing to find their recovery. Why the fuck did I need to spend time recovering from something that I didn’t actively participate in? The resentment became overpowering. Why should I spend my time, risk my relationship, my friendships, my career and my happiness, trying to fight this addiction?
I reached an impasse when I was hospitalised for stress in September 2015. My body had finally said 'no more'; my mind only followed a few months later. The week after I was discharged, my mum was sectioned for the fourth or fifth time, which allowed me a taste of respite. Having fallen back off the wagon the same evening she was sent home, in mid-December, she spent that Christmas on a bender, evidenced by the 40 bottles of wine and champagne (it was Christmas, after all) that the police found alongside her, lying unconscious with a head injury. Leaving her in the care of the GP, the mental health workers and a housekeeper my godmother had found, I went cold turkey.
Part of me expected that giving up my addict would make her give up her addiction; most of me knew that it wouldn’t.
It is said that an addict lives with their addiction for the rest of their life, and that’s the same for those around them. My first year away from my addict has been a traumatic emotional experience: I had reached rock bottom and had to grapple my way out of the darkness. But I have found a huge reserve of strength, lightness and understanding. The last year has been very testing, but I’ve survived.
Part of me expected that giving up my addict would make her give up her addiction; most of me knew that it wouldn’t. A year later, she is still drinking, still living in squalor, still not there. Despite the situation being materially worse, I can think about it with distance and love, and sadness – different from the destructive sadness of before.
I am so grateful to my mum. When I was a child, she was superwoman, and it is to her that I owe all my strengths, confidence and fearlessness of failing. I know I’m fortunate to have had a rich childhood, clean of addiction; many children of addicts cannot say the same. The sadness is sharpened by this colossal loss. I dream of the day that my mum finds a life without alcohol, that my ex’s brother kicks the crystal meth, that my friend can meet a man without fearing the active return of his sex addiction. But that’s up to them. For now, recovery from their addiction begins and ends with me.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, Action on Addiction offers information and support.
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"Once I fix my sleep schedule, start eating healthy, get physically fit, beat depression, stop procrastinating, learn how to do taxes, get mentally strong enough to make phone calls…then it’s over for you bitches."
Sound familiar? It’s a meme that’s been knocking around in various different forms since December. It’s also probably your inner monologue for oh, about 90% of your waking life. Alternative versions include "once I... 'stop being antisocial', 'start taking care of my skin', 'become financially stable', 'drink water'" T he list goes on. The meme is funny (read: sad and relatable) because we think we’re incomplete. We live our lives thinking that one day, we’re going to get-or-buy-or-achieve this one little thing that will fix it all and transform us, chrysalis-like, into our final, perfect form.
I’m going to have to stop you right there. Because the truth is (and you know this, you do) that there is absolutely not one thing, no "magic key", no fix-all solution that will make you into a perfect person. No amount of morning yoga sessions, no number of wines not drunk, no quantity of healthy food eaten that will remodel you, overnight, into a you without worries. In fact, trying to find that magic key is just going to make you unhappier than ever.
A few years ago, I had a thing about losing weight. It was pre-body positivity and I thought it was going to be the thing that would take me from poor and misguided millennial to… I don’t know what, something really good though. And so I did it. I went to the gym, I stopped eating 17 sandwiches a week (big mistake; huge), and I lost a stone. I got happy from all the endorphins, a few people noticed and said nice things and then…nothing. Life went on exactly as it always had done. There was no fanfare as I stepped on the scales, no balloons dropping from the ceiling, no cheering crowds appearing to carry me off to my mansion in the Cotswolds where my stunning life partner and Labrador puppy awaited my arrival at my new and perfect life. It was kind of a letdown.
In films, the happy ending is always theend. We leave our heroine just as they get their lover or job (usually lover) to live out their happily ever after. My movie (and god what a thrilling cinematic experience it would have been) would have ended in the gym changing rooms as the scales finally displayed my goal weight. And that would have been the end of that. But where’s the movie about what happens afterwards? It doesn’t exist because, like real life, it would have been a letdown.
Flick back, if you will, through the annals of your mind and join me in referring to the last four minutes of oft-overlooked early noughties flick Not Another Teen Movie. After running to catch his high school love at the airport, Chris Evans with Freddie-Prinze-Jr. hair (really) delivers an honest monologue about the potential problems the couple will face once university starts. "Chances are, one night I’m going to get wrecked and have unprotected sex with some girl in my dorm. You’ll find her thong and call me a slut. I’ll call you a cocktease and we’ll break up. So when you think about it, what’s the point?" Condescending and sexist language aside, it was probably the one real conversation about "happily ever afters" we ever got growing up.
Thinking you need to find something to 'fix' yourself is only going to make you sadder because it implies that you’re not whole already.
In more recent times, the wellness industry has thrived (and when I say thrived, I mean THRIVED) on this mentality. Now you can spend money to get that thing which is going to fix your life (hello, £5 turmeric lattes). Influencers exist as real-life examples of the life you could have if you just fixed your diet, got to sleep on time, kept your mental health stable. If you could just… If you could only... If you could finally...do this one tiny thing.
But just because the playing fields have changed, and just because Chris Evans no longer has sideburns like Charlie-from-Busted’s eyebrows, doesn’t mean the sentiment about happily ever after is any truer. In fact it’s more of a lie than ever.
There is no magic wellness cure for how you’re feeling. If scientists had found the antidote for anxiety and depression deep in the Amazonian jungle and made a moisturiser out of it, you would have heard about it. And it wouldn’t have been from Phoebe-The-Wellness-Guru’s Instagram.
In fact, thinking you need to find something to "fix" yourself is only going to make you sadder because it implies that you’re not whole already. Every wellness cure you spend money on which doesn’t work will make you feel like a failure. Why did the moisturiser work for Phoebe? you'll think. Well, it didn’t. Trust me. Phoebe, despite her west London home and inexhaustible wardrobe of effing kaftans, is miserable. Because she’s still trying to find the thing she needs to fix HER. And it doesn’t exist.
Actually, I lie. It does exist. It’s called being kind to yourself. It’s taking a look at yourself and realising that, right now, you’re a pretty excellent person. It’s realising that aiming for that "one day" when your life will be perfect is futile. You will never not have problems. You will never not have reasons to be sad. Embrace it. Take tangible steps to fix what you can (meds or therapy for mental health issues are kind of a great idea) and as for the rest, accept that it’s part of who you are. Sure, in several years you might look back and think, Wow, I was a bit of a mess then, but then again, you might not. You’ll probably have fixed some problems; others will have gone away on their own. Some may still be lingering, but if you’ve lived this long with them, do they really need dealing with when so much good has happened while they've been around?
Drop this idea that Perfect You exists. Leave them to their mansion and their Labrador, and go back to living your haphazard but real and beautiful life. Otherwise you’ll wake up one day and realise that you missed it all, wishing for a better future.
And stop spending money on turmeric lattes. They taste rubbish and anyone who says different is lying out of their arse.
"Don't let Zara and Uniqlo educate you on the price of a garment because that's not fashion. That's McDonald's.”
With this one pithy comment, Virgil Abloh – the brains behind one of the most lauded street style brands, Off-White – inadvertently touches on an issue that haunts every panel discussion and every magazine article about fast fashion and price points: Are ethically produced clothes a privilege for the wealthy? Should people with limited disposable income really be expected to pay more for clothes just to avoid buying cheap stuff that’s bad for the planet? And after all of these questions, are we left with one unavoidable one: Is fast fashion a class issue?
Abloh’s analogy to the food industry has another layer of relevance, too. Comparisons are constantly drawn between fashion and food in terms of ethics, sustainability and production practices. But there is also a common, resounding air of snobbery and elitism. Buying ethically sourced coffee beans and getting your food delivered in a neat little box from Abel & Cole is great, sure. But if a struggling mother of four had to choose between that and buying the same things for a third of the price at Lidl, could you judge her for opting for the latter?
That, too, is a question that’s easy to ask and much harder to answer. To avoid oversimplifying the argument, we need to remember that fast fashion isn’t all bad, just as sustainable fashion isn’t all good. It’s not always the case that buying better means spending more, as Professor Dilys Williams, Head of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion, UAL points out. “We have to be careful of buying into the rhetoric which reinforces the fact that 'sustainable fashion' is expensive”, she says.
Price points aside, there’s an element of sustainable fashion that reeks of liberal worthiness. Yes, every little counts but boasting about how all your clothes are made from 100% organic cotton by single mums in western Africa while looking down your nose at people who shop in Primark isn’t really going to save the planet, is it.
But our clothes, and where we buy them, have always been a class issue. They’re a symbol of wealth and status. And increasingly, they’re mixed up with ideology. Boasting about your cheap fast fashion haul says, 'I have priorities other than spending more on investment, consciously crafted pieces'. Ethically produced clothes scream, 'I’m proudly principled, and I want people to know it'.
Hypotheses aside, though, the statistics that illustrate how we consume clothes now are really rather grim. They don’t point to a nation of empowered shoppers; quite the opposite. According to a survey by M&S and Oxfam, there are 3.6 billion clothes left unworn in the nation's wardrobes – that’s an average of 57 items per person – with an average of 16 items worn only once, and 11 still with the tags on. And one in 20 people has over 50 items in their wardrobe with the tags still on.
“This is not proof of a democratised fashion industry – this is evidence that fashion is now regarded as disposable – as a cheap commodity not worthy of our love or care,” says Dilys. And this is just how the people selling us clothes want it. “As humans, we are stimulated by novelty and curiosity but an overstimulation, running on adrenalin, is not healthy. We are undervaluing fashion.”
Historically, people could buy only the fashion they could afford. Textiles were expensive and there were no cheap shortcuts enabled by inexpensive foreign labour and low manufacturing costs. “It was really in the post-war era that we started to see certain types of fashion being engaged with at all levels of society,” explains fashion historian, Amber Butchart. “ So in this society we also have things like the boutique revolution. And we have retail methods that are seen as a lot more democratic in many ways. So there are a number of factors that mean throughout the 20th century it becomes a system that’s only available to the very wealthy.”
Just as the post-war era saw a boom in food manufacturing, so faster production methods suddenly meant clothes could be made quicker and were more accessible to the masses. Now, over 50 years later, we have the internet: the design process of fashion is faster than ever, thanks to the way we share information. It’s made it easy for the high street to copy clothes from both the catwalk and independent designers, and given us an all-access pass to the lives of people we admire and celebrate. A century ago, you couldn’t afford to wear the same clothes as the wealthy, successful people you ogled in newspapers or from the other side of the road. Now, thousands of companies around the world are making millions from allowing us to buy into anyone’s lifestyle at a fraction of the cost.
Some high street brands cater for the ethically minded consumer with the odd sustainable collection here and recycling drive there (although the jury’s still out on whether they’re well-timed marketing ploys or genuine attempts to right the fashion industry's wrongs). Others have made it their bread and butter.
Nobody’s Child, the Fast-Fashion-Brand-That’s-Not-As-Bad-As-The-Other-Fast-Fashion-Brands, is sold in Topshop and ASOS and targets the mindful consumer with more affordable clothes and on-point messaging. But they’re not big on the word 'sustainability'. “I think the word that I prefer to use is that we have a 'conscience'” says their brand director, Becky Leeson. She’s firm on this point and pragmatic in her outlook on the possibilities of creating a fully sustainable business that also supplies the latest trends when the customer wants them.
Right now, Nobody’s Child can deliver fast fashion with a conscience because they own factories in the UK, Europe and Asia and their knitting plant, dye house, print facility and distribution centre are all based in the UK, too. That won't be the case for much longer. “As we grow we are not going to be able to make all of our own clothes,” admits Becky. “We are going to need to go out to other suppliers. That’s why I want to make sure that as we grow we’re still able to give the right amount of choice.”
The very nature of fast fashion means that cutting out waste, paying your workers enough money and making sure you’re not destroying the planet is close to impossible. It’s a business model built on speed, not on ethical practices. But if fast fashion can’t be good, then it begs the question: Do we need it at all? Is it the responsibility of companies to make clothes in the right way, or is it our responsibility to buy less?
“It’s not a bargain if you don’t wear it and it ends up in your wardrobe with the tags still on,” says Dilys. “Fast fashion reflects society’s insatiable appetite for cheap goods – we are told over and over again that we are one shop away from fulfilment. Good fashion design is about being relevant to the time and place of where you are in that moment – it should be a balance between personal expression and honouring the people, skills, time and natural elements involved in the process.”
Good fashion design and good choices seem to be the answer to fashion’s woes. But while we wait for the two to align – for corporations to be more responsible and for us to stop feeding our innate desire to have shiny new things – it seems we have to answer one more question. Are new clothes a right, or a privilege? One of my friends (university-educated, politically and culturally liberal) only ever shops in H&M. Her reasoning: I deserve to look good. But do we? Is access to new clothes a human right? Or has advertising and the media just made us think this way?
“Caring is not based on your income status, it matters to us all”, concludes Dilys. And as long as we believe that our wardrobes – and ourselves – are not good enough as we are, we will see new clothes as a right, not a privilege. And that isn’t a class issue, it’s a human one.
You may remember Lisa Bonet as the free-spirited Denise Huxtable from '80s sitcom The Cosby Show. Much like her onscreen persona, Bonet was admired for her rebellious, elusive approach to celebrity. As one of the most popular young actresses of the '90s, her bohemian aesthetic became a defining look of the decade.
After her character graduated from the Cosby cast, Bonet starred in the spin-off series, A Different World. The popular American sitcom focused on the ups and downs of Denise's college life – watch a few episodes for a peek into early '90s campus dressing. A few months into filming, Bonet eloped with musician Lenny Kravitz, and gave birth to their daughter Zoë the following year. Zoë has since grown into a modern fashion muse, incorporating elements of her mother's eclectic style into her own.
Bonet’s style continues to inspire fashion trends today. The ultimate inspiration for festivalgoers, her aesthetic is an effortless mix of '70s flower child, '80s glam metal and '90s grunge. Bonet was rarely seen without hair accessories, from top hats to baseball caps, headbands and flower crowns. Her '90s wardrobe welcomed loose, flowing fabrics, maxi skirts, lace, tie-dye and floral prints. Bonet embraced the decade’s love of natural, no-makeup beauty and her long, waist-length locs are the hair goals of rebel women.
Ahead, we bring you some of Lisa’s best '90s ensembles. Click through for the perfect balance of eccentric and effortless.
Bonet works the top hat with shades look worn by Guns 'N' Roses bass guitarist, Slash.
Could they get any cooler? The multicoloured shirt dress, shades and waist-length locs is your festival look, sorted.
Bonet's post-baby glow is complemented by this scarlet, '70s-inspired empire-waist maxi dress.
Even when suited up, she looks effortlessly cool. Try pairing a structured waistcoat and trousers with a loose, flowing kimono.
Bless those who missed the black blazer memo for Naomi Campbell's 20th birthday.
White sleeveless A-line dress, black booties and a baseball cap. Bonet was a pro at balancing masculine and feminine elements in her looks.
So '90s. There are few sartorial pieces more classic than a white button-up. Try a linen blend shirt with a cutaway collar for a look that's more bohemian and less corporate.
We're not sure which is better, Lisa's silk onyx blouse or mini Zoë in a silver suit.
Note the cheongsam layered under a velvet kimono and maroon mid-calf cowboy boots.
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
Kate Middleton has had her third child, a boy, and the world's press has gone into meltdown. The baby boy was born at 11.01am this morning in the Lindo Wing at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, in central London, weighing 8lb 7oz, Kensington Palace announced on Twitter.
The as-yet-unnamed male child is the Queen's sixth great-grandchild and will be fifth in line to the throne. She is said to be "delighted" at the news, the Palace continued.
Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 1101hrs.
The baby weighs 8lbs 7oz.
The Duke of Cambridge was present for the birth.
Her Royal Highness and her child are both doing well.
The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Harry and members of both families have been informed and are delighted with the news.
While traditional media organisations might be taking an earnest approach in their coverage, focussing on Middleton and the child's good health (all of which is, of course, wonderful news), thankfully the good people of Twitter are providing some much-needed entertainment with their dry British humour. Because, ultimately, woman have babies every day, as Private Eye famously reminded us the first time around.
I like the #royalbaby and your baby and all babies! If anything, I want MORE COVERAGE. ‘Sharon from Ramsgate is 4cm dilated and weeping for drugs. So much for your birth plan, eh Sharon.’
In 1920, philanthropist and women’s rights activist Catherine Filene published the popular book Careers for Women, designed to be “a complete and authoritative guide to the one hundred and sixty occupations open for women.” Women, according to Filene’s book, could be opera singers, dog raisers, or bee keepers; they could be surgeons, or secretaries, or stage designers.
Women could become motion-picture directors, too. In her chapter in Careers for Women, Ida May Park, a director of 14 movies and writer of more than 50, described directing as an “open field” for “hardy and determined” women. Park believed that women were well-suited to directing because of the “superiority of their emotional and imaginative faculties,” and predicted that once the profession “emerged from its embryonic state,” women would “find no finer calling” than directing.
Women never stormed the profession of directing as Park had hoped. Nearly 100 years later, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism conducted a study that found that for every woman director hired between the years 2007 and 2017, 22 male directors were hired. And of the top 100 grossing films in 2017, only 8% were directed by women, and only 10% were written by women. These startling figures have come into sharp focus in recent months, as Hollywood reflects and reassembles following the Harvey Weinstein reckoning. From predatory producers to unconscious bias, what are the factors that prevent women from climbing the ranks in Hollywood — and how can they be eased towards gender parity?
But as Careers for Women demonstrates, the American movie industry hasn’t always skewed so heavily towards employing men. Another set of astonishing statistics tells a different story about Hollywood. Between 1912 and 1919, Universal Studios’ roster of 11 women directors made a total of 170 films — and Ida May Park was one of them.
These statistics originate from a younger, scrappier Hollywood, in which silent films were produced and disseminated rapidly. Back then, movies were not the multi-million dollar engines fueling an even more lucrative business. During the silent era, which spanned from 1912 to 1929, movies were creative enterprises churned out by over 100 L.A.-based studios at once.
“We get the term ‘shooting on the lot’ because these guys just took over empty lots to make their movies,” Cari Beauchamp, a film scholar and author of the book Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood, told Refinery29. “People just went in and did it. It would take five people to go on location, including the actors, to shoot the scenes, and be in theatres in a month. You’d make a movie in a week.”
In this lawless, rough-and-tumble Hollywood, women worked in all aspects of movie-making, including directing, screenwriting, film editing, costume design, producing, camera operating, stunts, and theatre owning. “One may not name a single vocation in either the artistic or business side of its progress in which women are not conspicuously engaged,” wrote Robert Grau in Motion Picture Supplement in 1915. Women and men worked alongside one another, forging a new industry in real time. “In such a relatively egalitarian atmosphere, women seemed destined to become equal partners with men,” wrote Lizzie Francke in the book Script Girls: Women Screenwriters in Hollywood.
Part of the reason women were so involved in the production side of films was because they were the studios’ coveted audience demographic. “Theater owners were trying to cater to women, particularly white, middle-class women,” Alicia Malone, a film journalist and author of Backwards in Heels, told Refinery29. “They thought it would attract a more elegant crowd. At the beginning of film, movies were very rowdy, a cheap night out. It was unruly.”
The first movie theatre opened in 1905 in Philadelphia and showed short silent films accompanied by a piano. Due to the minuscule admissions fee, these dark, unpleasant theatres attracted a clientele of poor, urban immigrants looking for an evening out. An editor from Moving Picture World at the time snidely remarked that “any person of refinement looked around to see if [he were] likely to be recognised by anyone before entering the doors.” Soon, the movie house landscape became more varied, with institutions catering to different niche audiences. Movie houses that charged higher admission and attracted a middle-class audience were called “theatres.” And these refined theatre-owners put ads and coupons in women’s magazines.
Since theatres were trying to cater to women – who, according to a 1927 statistic uncovered by Moving Picture World, comprised 83% of the moviegoing audience — it followed that women would be recruited to create content that appealed to the target demographic. Frances Marion, a screenwriter perhaps best known for her long working partnership with the silent era megastar Mary Pickford , explained that women could better “determine and understand women’s likes and dislikes, and thus be able to give them the kind of pictures they enjoy.”
That said, men still controlled most studios – with some exception. Pioneering director Alice Guy-Blache and her husband, also a director, founded the Solax Company, the largest pre-Hollywood film studio, in 1908. In 1917, Lois Weber became the first woman to own her own movie studio, Lois Weber Productions. But it would be men like the Irving Thalberg, who ran Universal Studios at 20, and Louis B. Mayer, the power broker whose predatory behavior is likened to Harvey Weinstein’s, whose careers would persist through the dramatic changes of the 1920s.
Part of what held women in Hollywood together in this burgeoning, male-dominated industry were the friendships and working partnerships they created with one another. “There were a variety of women who gravitated toward bringing in other women,” Carrie Beauchamp, a film scholar and author of Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood, told Refinery29. “These women were creating a path. No one had done any of this stuff before. Every day was a discovery.”
When tracking the careers of some of the most prolific and influential filmmakers of the era, the effects of the supportive network of friendships become tangible. In addition to running a studio, Lois Weber made a name for herself creating movies about social issues between 1914 and 1921. The most famous of which, Where Are My Children?, focused on abortion; another riveting movie called Shoes, now heralded as a feminist classic, looked at the devastating ramifications of poverty on a young woman’s life.
Weber, who had tremendous connections in Hollywood, looked out for other women with burgeoning careers in front of and behind the camera. “She’d hire women. I think it was a natural reaction to having so much to deal with in society,” said Malone.
So when a young woman named Marion Benson Owens came to Weber looking for work, Weber took her on as a screenwriter and mentee. First, though, Weber recommended Owens change her name to something more suitable for Hollywood – and so the budding screenwriter became Frances Marion. By the end of Marion’s career, as launched by Weber, she had written 325 films across all genres and was the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood.
Marion’s legacy is defined by her movies, and by the careers she helped along the way – just like Weber’s. Marion wrote her best movies for Mary Pickford, who happened to be the highest paid performer in Hollywood at the time, and the first performer to ever receive a million dollar contract, beating Charlie Chaplin to it by two years. After comedian Marie Dressler descended into poverty for some years, Marion helped her chart her way back into motion pictures. When her screenwriter friend Lorna Moon fell ill with tuberculosis, Marion used her clout to sell her script Dark Moon for $7,500, enough for Moon to enter a sanitorium for further treatment.
Pictured: A Francis Marion "Cat Party"Courtesy of Cari Beauchamp
Essentially, Marion was the locus of networking for women in film. Famously, Marion hosted Friday evening gatherings with Hollywood’s women power players, from actresses to directors to screenwriters. The women dressed down, exchanged notes on the business and their experiences, and formed long-lasting friendships. The press derided these gatherings as “cat parties,” but they were far more than simple gatherings: Without anyone watching, the women could be exceedingly honest with each other, and create an atmosphere of both solidarity and professional improvement.
“They were meeting with each other. Talking with each other. Taking care of each other, professionally and personally,” said Beauchamp. These women helped each other’s careers in every stage, from stuntwoman Helen Holmes hiring Helen Gibson to do the even scarier stunts, to Marion’s cohort of female talent.
Everything changed with the invention of the “talkie” — or movies with sound — in 1927. In a sentence, that’s when the movie business began to be taken more seriously as an engine for profit. Wall Street began to invest, and the many studios were consolidated into fewer, more powerful production hubs. Beauchamp says that in 1920, the L.A. directory listed 100 filmmaking companies; by 1933, there were seven. “By ‘33, moviemaking is a big business,” Beauchamp explained. “Salaries are higher. The guys wanted the jobs.”
With the consolidation of power into a few major, Wall Street-backed studios came the elimination of the egalitarian, creative flourishing of the silent era – thus compromising women’s once prominent position in the business. “The most important reason to understand why there was this incredible group of women working in the movies was because filmmaking wasn’t taken seriously as a business. That was key to it,” Beauchamp explained.
While women still remained the subject of the movies — after all, they remained a coveted audience through Hollywood’s Golden Age — they were no longer the directors. Between the years of 1912 and 1919, Universal Studios had a host of 11 women directors who worked for them consistently (including Lois Weber). Then, beginning from the mid-1920s stretching to 1982’s Fast Times in Ridgemont High, directed by Amy Heckerling, Universal did not hire another woman to direct films. Dorothy Arzner, who survived the great culling, was one of the few women who continued to find work as a director in the talkie era.
Essentially, working behind the camera was no longer seen as a viable option for women, and that message was passed down. When the book Careers For Women was re-published in 1933, the chapter on “motion picture director” had been quietly removed. Women who worked as actresses had a new set of dangers to reckon with: the predatory behaviour of extremely powerful male executives, who, under the restrictive contract system, had complete control over their careers (and to a large degree, their personal live s).
And so, we ended up at the current state of women in film, which is encapsulated by the disheartening statistics at the beginning of this article. Given the radically different nature of the film industry now, we’ll never return to the Manless Eden – but there are some notable women emerging from the pack of men. Even the past calendar year held some landmark moments for women in film. With her debut Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig stole our hearts (and got an Oscar nomination); Patti Jenkins led a movement with Wonder Woman. With A Wrinkle in Time, Ava Duvernay became the first woman of colour to direct a movie with a budget exceeding $100 million; Rachel Morrison became the first woman cinematographer to be nominated for an Oscar, thanks to Mudbound.
Networks of women – just like the ones established during Frances Marion’s cat parties – are crucial for establishing parity in the film industry, and launching careers like Morrison’s, Gerwig’s, Duvernay’s, and Jenkins’. As a 2015 study from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film demonstrated, when women are directors or producers, they’re s ignificantly more likely to bring other women aboard in behind-the-camera positions. Beauchamp cites Film Fatales, a nonprofit organisation founded by Leah Meyerhoff in 2013, as a prime example of women in film coalescing to form crucial support networks. Every first Monday of the month, members of Film Fatales — each of whom has directed at least one feature film – gather at the home of a host for a dinner party, and a discussion around a predetermined, craft-related topic, like communicating effectively with cinematographers or raising funds.
“It’s a very simple, but very workable, organisational model,” Beauchamp said. “That’s how change is going to happen. Slowly but surely. The day-in, day-out connections and hiring.”
During the silent era, women in Hollywood had Marion and her parties, and a robust network of highly successful women willing to bolster other women’s burgeoning careers. Those networks are being formed again — and Film Fatales is just one organisation helping to do so. Notably, today’s networking groups are far more inclusive than the silent era’s. Though the level of gender parity achieved in that era was astonishing, the accomplishments were largely limited to white women.
Beauchamp sees the solidarity of the silent era’s women reflected in movements like #MeToo and Time’s Up. “The rising up of the women with #MeToo and Time’s Up is another way of getting together and solving the problem. It’s not personal. It’s systemic. Sexism is systemic,” Beauchamp said. “[Women in Hollywood] knew that back then, and somehow, we managed to forget it. It’s certainly been brought home once again with Time’s Up and #MeToo.”
A few months ago, Sandra Bowes left her home of Maui to pursue her lifelong dream of being an actress in Hollywood. The catch: Sandra is 69 years old.
Sandra first caught the acting bug as a teenager, when she was asked to replace the lead (coincidentally, a young Glenn Close) in her high school play. After that, she continued to act into her early twenties, working in college and in community theatres. Eventually, however, life happened, and Sandra gave up her aspirations to start a family.
Now, all these years later, Sandra finally has the opportunity to tie up some loose ends. It’s hard to imagine what it would be like to pursue an acting career at this stage of life, but that’s exactly what Sandra is doing. So just how is Sandra settling in to the Hollywood life? Watch the above video to find out.
A Kid From Somewhere: Olivia Bee begins with Olivia Bee, 24, hugging a plastic-wrapped load of laundry, looking grateful. She's sitting in a dimly lit bedroom — a true-to-size New York City bedroom, not your traditional TV bedroom.
"My photography began as me just simply saying, 'This is what my world is,'" Bee says in a voiceover. That's also, essentially, what A Kid From Somewhere is doing. The short film is part of a series directed by Paul Johnston and Adam Beck and produced in collaboration with The Creator Class, a creative community development program. It examines Bee's world from a perspective that is not her own — she is not handling the camera, for once.
"It's pretty awesome because it shows what actually goes on in the life of a creative person," Bee told Refinery29 over the phone from the airport, where she's waiting to board a flight to New York. In New York, she'll be shooting a project that she's not yet allowed to talk about.
"I feel like your life on Instagram can be so, 'Yes, Olivia Bee's always at stuff, exploring electromagnetic fields and feelings,'" Bee continued, "But also my life's all these other things. It's sad sometimes. It's also wonderful." Part of the documentary focuses on a project Bee did in honour of her late sister, who died before Bee was even born. A Kid From Somewhere follows Bee from prep — she awakes before dawn for most shoots — to filming, all the way to the darkroom, where she develops and almost "discovers" the photos. The film is a glimpse at Bee's process, which, because of her age, has been somewhat romanticised.
Bee is a photography prodigy. At age 14, Converse reached out to the then-amateur Bee and asked if she would be willing to photograph a project for the brand. By 2013, she was photographing for the French magazine Le Monde and the New York Times Magazine. Bee's photographs are muted and infused with youth — they're often awash in what's now known as millennial pink, although Bee's rise preceded the overwhelming ubiquity of the colour. People who get famous so rapidly are often regarded as outliers. Bee, because of her success, must have some sort of inexplicable magic, right? For the 24-year-old, though, it's not so simple. She herself is still unsure about her own artistry.
"[Making the documentary] gave me a lot of validation of my process. Just to have someone there who's like, 'Wow, that's cool' made me be like, 'Yeah, that is really cool,'" she told me.
Her process, as much as she can have one specific formula, is far from simple. "I shoot a lot of self portraits. And the self portraits have some kind of emotional arc behind them, and I try to make them about something that's happened in my life," she says. In A Kid From Somewhere, Bee shoots a self-portrait about her late sister. "I usually go to these remote places," she added, "from sunrise to sunset, and shoot 15 hour days of myself." From there, she develops the photos, often discovering details about the photos in the process.
"It was cool someone film that. It was validation [hearing] 'Yes, you're on the right path. You're doing what you're supposed to be doing,'" she explained. These days, her path is leading her to narrative film, a more robust medium. She loved Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird, she told me, and she's interested in telling more comprehensive stories with moving pictures.
In Bee's words: "I feel like photos aren't able to tell the stories that I want to tell all the time anymore. [Film is] a medium where you can touch people even more than pictures."
As for her age, Bee is wary of the obsession with it. People — myself included — like to hear from the youth, she says, because we have the sense that young people have a better idea of what the future will be like. "Everyone wants to know how the world is changing, and I feel like young people offer a perspective on what the future's gonna be like and how the world is changing," she said. That said, "I think our culture fetishises youth a lot, and I feel like it's actually quite damaging to people who are in their quote unquote youth, and people who aren't," she continued.
And, at that, Bee's plane started boarding, ready to whisk her off to a new, top-secret project.
A Kid From Somewhere premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival's Next Wave program in February. The series also includes episodes about and the music producer LA Timpa. Watch A Kid From Somewhere: Olivia Bee, below.
Following the controversy earlier this year surrounding the pay disparity on Netflix's The Crown,Matt Smith told The Hollywood Reporter that he was "pleased" the issue was resolved.
"Claire is one of my best friends, and I believe that we should be paid equally and fairly and there should be equality for all," he said. He added that "going forward" the industry should "bear in mind that we need to strive to make this better and a more even playing field for everyone involved."
In March, series producers Andy Harries and Suzanne Mackie told Variety that Claire Foy, who played Queen Elizabeth on the first two seasons of The Crown, did not make as much as Smith, who played Prince Philip, for their work on the show. (Going forward, Olivia Coleman and Tobias Menzies will take over the roles.) The gap between the two actors was particularly egregious considering Foy played the Queen of England. Smith, meanwhile, played a grouchy prince.
After the news broke, fans of the show drafted a petition for Smith to donate a portion of his salary to Time's Up. Shortly after, Mackie and Harries, who'd started the media storm in the first place by confessing to Variety,made a public apology to Foy and Smith for the ensuing controversy. In their apology, they pointed out that neither Foy nor Smith were aware of the other's salary during negotiation, and therefore couldn't have argued for pay parity.
"As the producers of The Crown, we at Left Bank Pictures are responsible for budgets and salaries; theactors are not aware of who gets what and cannot be held personally responsible for the pay of their colleagues," Left Bank Pictures, the production company behind the show, said in a statement.
In the original Variety interview, Mackie made the bold claim that, "Going forward, no one gets paid more than the Queen." Speaking to THR, Smith said he was "pleased that [the issue] was resolved and they made amends for it," although it is not yet clear what that means. Foy, for her part, has seemed baffled that she's at all surrounded by controversy.
"I’m surprised because I’m at the centre of it, and anything that I’m at the centre of like that is very very odd, and feels very very out of ordinary," she told Entertainment Weekly.
The moment I decided to freeze my eggs is probably not unique. I bolted out of bed — one I hadn’t shared with anyone in over a year — and had a realisation: I’m 38! One’s age probably shouldn’t come as a surprise (if there’s anything you can depend on, it’s that birthdays come once a year), but there it was.
Suddenly, this thing that had always been at best a shruggy question — maybe I’ll have kids someday? — was an anxiety-churning alarm bell: Why had I waited so long? Maybe it was too late! What had I done?!? I wasn’t sure that I wanted to have a baby, but I definitely wasn’t sure that I didn’t, and now, here I was, 38.
With the requisite beating-up-of-myself out of the way (note to self and women everywhere: Let’s do less of this), I decided to call a fertility clinic the next day. Unlike most items on my to-do list, I crossed this one off fast because I had the luxury of means — and what a luxury it was: In the US, freezing your eggs generally costs upward of $10,000 (£7,000), plus $500 (£350) to $1,000 (£700) a year for storage. Even if you can swing that, the variables to consider before taking the plunge can be overwhelming.
So in the interest of helping others make a more informed decision, here’s what my experience taught me about the physical, financial and emotional aspects of egg-freezing. I’m not a doctor or “expert” so I can only speak from my experience, but hopefully these tips can help you ask your doctor or therapist (or whoever) the questions you didn’t know you’d have.
You will — and should — feel empowered.
The process of oocyte cryopreservation (aka egg-freezing) is a quick but tedious one that involves visiting the clinic for a blood test and vaginal ultrasound approximately every other day for two weeks. You will do this without the aid of coffee (caffeine is permitted only in small amounts) and alcohol (permitted not at all). This sounded unequivocally horrible — those who choose to interact with an uncaffeinated me do so at their own peril — but it actually felt fantastic.
As a single, relatively successful almost-40-something with an active social life and packed calendar, my entire life was built around me doing me. And me suddenly doing someone else — a maybe baby — and sacrificing for that someone felt fantastic. I’m not an animal person, but I think it’s the same sort of impulse that makes friends with pets not hate those pets when they have to take them out for a walk at 11pm in the rain. It can feel good to take care of other beings, no matter the cost.
Every morning that I woke up tired and dragged myself down the street, every party that I went to and sipped seltzer instead of sauv, every time I laid out my kit — alcohol pads, gauze, vials and pre-filled syringes of drugs with names like Gonal-F, Menopur, and Repronex — and plunged a needle into my belly, I felt powerful. I had made a decision, and a monumental one. I made a point to acknowledge (to myself if no one else) that I was a badass B for doing something so remarkable, and I believed it.
But you will probably also feel lonely.
The first order of business after signing up to freeze your eggs is attending a session where you learn information that’s both practical (how to inject yourself) and informative (no sex for two weeks after retrieval, which was much less traumatising to me than finding out I couldn’t drink coffee or wine). In a room filled with other women who were also alone — minus one who‘d brought her mum (I was immediately sorry I hadn’t brought mine) — I felt the camaraderie of a group taking control of their respective lives. Of course, that’s the only time we gathered as a group.
Starting the process together was a red herring: We were singular by definition, off on our own divergent paths with different daily drug intakes and wildly varying chances of conception. I felt like a number, because I was one (85,446 if we’re being specific). And as inspiring as every walk to the doctor’s office was, I couldn’t help but feel the void of a shadow person I had always imagined would be by my side if I ever endeavoured to do something like this. People who decide to be single parents and want to are amazingly strong; I never imagined myself as one of them. And yet, there I was, having invasive ultrasounds by myself, in my apartment shooting myself full of hormones, alone.
As a longtime viewer of the docuseries Intervention, I’d heard addicts wax poetic about the draw of the needle, not just the drugs; now I understand it: There really is something magnetic about that sort of ritual. Of course, there’s something intrinsically solitary about it, too (and it's worth mentioning here that unless it's insulin, hormones, or anything else your doctor prescribes, it’s probably a bad idea). And let’s not forget that what you’re shooting into yourself are loads and loads of hormones, so you’ll be moody and emotional to boot. Lean into it. Let yourself be sad and emo and overwhelmed.
You are your own best advocate.
The fact that you’re endeavouring to do something so momentous, and the fact that you’re spending an inordinate amount of money to do it, should mean that the doctor you’ve chosen is monitoring your progress, eagle-eyed, and communicating with you constantly. Ideally, they will answer questions you don’t even realise you have. In reality, though, your doctor will likely also have other patients — gobs of them — and what they should do may not be what they do do.
The fertility doctor I chose came highly recommended from my gynaecologist, who I trust implicitly. And yet, here’s something that happened to me: After my first intake appointment, but before I started treatments, a nurse called to tell me exactly which drugs and how many of them to order. This was all guesswork. There is no way to know whether you will need more or less of a particular drug over the course of treatment until you start. That’s what all the constant monitoring is for.
During a routine visit, I told a nurse that I thought I was running short on meds. “The doctor will flag it if there’s a problem,” she told me. Only, he didn’t. When I got my usual call that afternoon telling me which drugs to inject over the next couple of days, I realised I didn’t have enough. A combination of rage and anxiety overtook me — missing an injection could set the whole process off course — and I called the office screaming about responsibility and liability and recklessness, and how unkind (I think I used the word “criminal”) it was to be so careless. I spent the entire next day in a manic swirl, calling pharmacies across the country to secure the drugs that I needed. You can’t just walk into Rite Aid for this sort of thing, and you need the cash up front. (Out of pocket, the drugs I needed that day cost more than $1,000 (£700).)
So here is my advice: Be a pest. Do not apologise for it. Do not worry about bugging the doctors and nurses. This is major, and you deserve major attention. Get comfortable with that, and take advantage of it. If you can’t advocate for yourself, bring someone along who will. Sometimes, we lose our ability to really hear things in a doctor’s office, so if you need to, designate someone to play the heavy.
In my day-to-day life, I’m not shy about standing up for myself — block the subway doors or lean on the pole, and watch out — but in a medical office, I was overwhelmed and confused, and when the nurse (sort of) assured me I’d be fine, I took her at her word. If only I’d had a friend with me to say, “Maybe you should ask the doctor right now whether she’s got enough drugs instead of waiting for him to call her, how about that?” Whatever it is you need to do, do it. This is your body, your money, your future. So take agency — and take care of yourself.
After all the hard work and financial burden, you may still be disappointed.
Knowing this wouldn’t have stopped me from freezing my eggs — and if it’s something you’re committed to doing, it shouldn’t stop you, either — but I do wish someone had told me: Freezing your eggs does not mean you get a kid. Before I went through fertility treatments, I assumed that the exorbitant price tag and toll on my body were price enough to pay, and that a baby was the rightful reward that I may or may not want to someday claim.
But the thing nobody — possibly not even your doctor — tells you is that everybody’s chances are different. The more eggs a doctor can retrieve, the greater the chance of conception (and the older you get, the fewer eggs you have). I ended up with five viable eggs. When I asked the doctor at our follow-up visit (only the second time I’d ever seen him; he wasn’t even there for my retrieval) what that meant for my chances, he was hesitant to quantify it, but I pressed: I had about a 30% chance of conceiving with these eggs, he said. Then he advocated for a second round of fertility treatments. I declined. (He morphed into a used-car salesman for me in that moment, and I told him so. It was pointless, but it made me feel better.)
If you’re committed to having a child and need fertility treatments to do it, you should be prepared to go through the process more than once. And make sure to ask questions — tons of them — as you go. Ask your doctor questions you think are silly. Ask questions you think you know the answer to. Ask the questions you’re not asking that you should be. And if you go through the process once and don’t get the result that you want, ask yourself what you want to do — what you’re prepared to do — and go for it.
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