Behold, the three stages of watching HBO’s four-part miniseries Catherine the Great (the entire four-part series will air on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV on Thursday 3rd October) with a linear broadcast taking place from 9pm. During stage one, you’ll be flailing and thinking, “I am unmoored! Who is who!” In stage two, you’ll feel duped by recent pop culture: Have we really been caring about the English monarchy and its infinite King Henrys all this time when the Russians have been around?  

Stage three is obsession. You’ll want to know everything there is to know about Catherine the Great, Russia’s longest-ruling female monarch (played excellently by Helen Mirren).  

Catherine the Great focuses on the end of Catherine’s reign. Let’s go back to the start. Here’s how a small-town Prussian princess could become one of Russia’s most successful and memorable rulers. All it took was a coup to overthrow her husband — and years of preparation. 

Catherine the Great wasn’t Russian. 

And she didn’t start off great, either. Catherine was born Sophie von Anhalt-Zerbst in Stettin, Prussia in 1729 (now Szczecin in Poland). She was a Taurus, FYI. Her father was an impoverished prince. Her royal blood was her only currency. 

At 15, Sophie got her “big break” when Czarina Elizabeth invited her to Russia meet her nephew and heir to the throne, Grand Duke Peter, then 16. This was a match made in political convenience, not heaven. The teenagers did not get along. Still, Sophie decided to ingratiate herself with her new, powerful family by adopting their culture — and learning their language. Eventually, she became fluent in Russian. 

In 1745, she changed her name to Catherine, converted to Russian Orthodoxy, and married Peter. 

Catherine used her early years in court wisely. 

Peter and Catherine’s marriage was a disaster. They spent most of their time apart. According to Catherine, Peter was obsessed with three things: “his mistress, toy soldiers, and Prussia.” Some scholars believe it was unconsummated. 

Nine years after marrying, in 1754, Catherine gave birth to a boy and heir named Paul. Back then, the court gossiped about whether Paul was Peter’s child, or the child of Catherine’s lover, Sergius Saltykov. Now historians believe that Catherine cultivated those rumours to discredit Peter. 

Paul and Catherine went on to have an equally toxic relationship as that with her husband. Catherine’s other children were, indeed, fathered by men other than Peter (and do not appear in the show Catherine the Great).

While Peter was off with his hobbies, Catherine was working the imperial court. She used a deliberate strategy to win over enemies: Play nice. 

“I tried to be as charming as possible to everyone and studied every opportunity to win the affection of those whom I suspected of being in the slightest degree ill-disposed towards me; I never showed any preference to any side, never interfere in anything; always looked serene. It pleased me when I realised that I was daily winning the affection of the public,” Catherine said, according to Catherine the Great: Love, Sex and Power by Virginia Roundling. 

She networked with foreign ambassadors, built up a network of informants, and cultivated powerful friends who helped her when she overthrew Peter six months after he assumed the throne. 

Instead of getting a divorce, she launched a coup. 

When Czarina Elizabeth died in January 1792, Peter III became czar. He was immediately unpopular, mostly because of his obsession with Prussia. He called King Frederick of II Prussia “the king my master,” an objectively odd title to call another world leader. Peter III proposed that Prussia and Russia enter into an alliance and go to war against Austria together.

The alliance would be short-lived. Six months after he took the throne, Catherine orchestrated a coup. Aided by her lover, Grigory Orlov, a Russian lieutenant, Catherine stirred the pot of discontent among the military and powerful people for months. 

There was precedent for such sudden upheaval: The Russian palace had been rocked by a series of coups since Peter the Great’s death in 1725. Peter resigned from the throne. A few days later, he was killed accidentally, according to a letter sent to Catherine from Aleksey Orlov.  

Did she orchestrate his murder? Her serene smile never gave her involvement away. 

She ruled Russia from 1762 to her death in 1796.

Let’s pause here and give Catherine a round of applause. Girl got the throne. She would go on to become Russia’s longest-ruling female leader — and an incredible influential empress. 

Catherine has a reputation as being an “Enlightened” empress, modernizing and westernizing Russia. She reformed bureaucracy, changed laws, favored religious tolerance, and education for women. 

But her accomplishments were often eclipsed by more negative elements of her reign. According to Smithsonian Mag, she suppressed peasant rebellions, failed to end serfdom (Russia’s system of indentured servitude that existed until 1861), and annexed land through frequent wars. She also imprisoned and executed her nephew who had a right to the throne (as seen in Catherine the Great’s first episode). 

She oversaw the expansion of the Russian empire. 

Under Catherine’s rule, Russia’s borders stretched towards Poland in the west, the Black Sea in the south, and all the way to Alaska in the far east (Russia had a presence on the West Coast of North America for years). In 1783, after the Russo-Turkish War ended in a treaty, Catherine the Great annexed the Crimean Peninsula almost 250 years before current Russian president Vladimir Putin did the same. 

“Now, just imagine that the Crimea is yours…Believe me, you will acquire immortal fame such as no other sovereign of Russia ever had. This glory will open the way to still further and greater glory,” Grigory Potemkin, Catherine’s lover and second-in-command, wrote her in 1780. 

Over 200,000 square miles were added to Russia while she was empress. 

She was a medical pioneer. 

Smallpox killed 400,000 people a year and left others (like Peter III) deformed. In 1762, Catherine was inoculated against smallpox in front of the court to demonstrate the procedure was safe and could save lives. 

She was Queen of the Arts. 

Catherine wanted Russia to gain a sheen of prestige, and did so by amassing an incredible art collection. She founded the Hermitage in St. Petersburg (still a world-class museum). With its art and new neoclassical palaces, Russia became a place to see. 

She also championed women artists. Many women writers and poets flourished under her reign. 

She had high-profile pen pals…

Catherine was known to be a great writer. She exchanged letters with the French philosopher Voltaire and Denis Diderot. She wrote memoirs at a time when such introspection was uncommon among monarchs. The fairy tales she wrote for her grandchildren became the first children’s literature published in Russia. 

…and a lot of lovers.

Catherine had about eight significant affairs, most of them with younger men. Being Catherine’s “favourite” was a good gig. She was generous to her current and former lovers, giving them parting gifts (and making one, Stanislaw Poniatowski, a king of Poland). 

Catherine loved love. “The trouble is that my heart is loath to remain even one hour without love,” she wrote to military leader Grigory Potemkin (Jason Clarke in the show), her lover, intellectual equal, and second-in-command. 

Just don’t mention the horse. 

You’ve probably heard the rumour: A sex-crazed Catherine died while attempting to have sex with a horse. Of course such a renowned woman would be forever linked to a lewd story that her enemies spread after her death — classic. The same thing happened to Anne Boleyn.  
In actuality, Catherine died in bed from a stroke on November 6, 1796. She was 67 years old.

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A new documentary series from Amazon highlights the relationship between Ted Bundy and his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Kendall, according to a new press release. 

Titled Ted Bundy: Falling For A Killer, the docuseries will include interviews with Kendall (also known by the last name Kloepfer) and her daughter Molly as they discuss what made Bundy have such an intense pull over women, as well as the killer’s deep misogyny. 

In the 1970s, Bundy killed at least 36 women, though some estimate the number could be closer to 100. He was executed in 1989. Girlfriend Kendall, whom Bundy began dating in 1969 after they met in a Seattle bar, was unaware of her partner’s secret life.

“I handed Ted my life and said, ‘Here. Take care of me.’ He did in a lot of ways, but I became more and more dependent upon him. When I felt his love, I was on top of the world; when I felt nothing from Ted, I felt that I was nothing,” Kendall wrote in her 1981 memoir The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy. 

Kendall and Bundy maintained an on-and-off relationship for years, and she ultimately became one of the people who tipped off the police about her boyfriend’s crimes. An expanded edition of Kendall’s book will be available to coincide with the release of the new documentary series.

Kendall’s daughter Molly (whom Kendall calls Tina in her book; it’s unclear which is her legal name) met Bundy when she was a toddler. Molly’s biological father was reportedly a convicted felon whom Kendall divorced early into their marriage. For a short amount of time, Bundy was a father-like figure to the child. 

The documentary series will also feature conversations with other survivors of Bundy, many of whom are speaking out for the first time about his crimes against them. The purpose, per the press release, is to “change the Bundy narrative and provoke a discussion around gender politics that hauntingly resonates today.” 

Kendall’s time with Bundy was also explored in the film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil & Vile, which is based on The Phantom Prince and is told from Kendall’s point of view. In the film, rumors about Bundy (portrayed by Zac Efron) swell, and Kendall (Lily Collins) must decide whether to believe the man she thought loved her or the horrific allegations against him.

Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer launches on Amazon in 2020.

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When Zoey Deutch first appeared in the trailer for Zombieland: Double Tap, I was worried. Her character, a blonde ditz named Madison, seemed as much a relic from 2009 as her rainbow Louis Vuitton purse. With Valley Girl inflections and French-manicured talons, she initially appeared to exist only to satisfy Columbus’ (Jesse Eisenberg) sexual fantasies. I should have known better. Deutch is a scene-stealer, and this movie is no exception. She is the one must-see in a sequel that fails to really make a case for its existence. 

It’s been 10 years since the events in Zombieland, and Columbus, Wichita (Emma Stone), Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), and Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) are still fighting the undead together. Holed up in the White House, they’ve managed to put together a makeshift family life.

Still, things aren’t perfect. Little Rock, now grown up, craves the company of people her own age. Tallahassee, meanwhile, is starting to feel the call of the road, which he tries to justify with some far-fetched subplot about his Native American ancestry that the movie only kind of pulls off. As for Wichita and Columbus, they’ve hit a rut in their relationship, which he clumsily tries to fix by proposing to her with the Hope Diamond (one of many running gags about using random memorabilia from the White House in everyday life). Spooked, she and Little Rock take this as their cue to take off, leaving nothing but a poorly phrased note behind (notes are another explicable running gag). 

Outside though, things are changing. A new kind of zombie nicknamed the T-800 (an allusion to Terminator 2) has emerged, faster and much, much harder to kill. And when Little Rock leaves Wichita for a hitchhiking hippie boy from Berkeley (Avan Jogia), the gang gets back together to find her and bring her to safety, meeting a host of new characters along the way. 

One of them is Madison, whom Columbus and Tallahassee come across at a mall. She’s an immediate breath of fresh air in a stale concept, and not just because she’s been surviving by hiding in a Pinkberry freezer. With her pink Juicy Couture tracksuit, matching Ugg boots, and Von Dutch tank top, her sartorial choices are frozen circa The Simple Life. But despite the many, many jokes about her lack of brains, Deutch manages to make Madison feel like she’s the one in control. Take the way she takes charge when it comes to her sexual needs, telling Columbus that if he’s not going to satisfy her, she’ll find someone who will. 

One of the peculiar things about the Zombieland franchise is how devoid of sexual tension it is. Sure, there were jokes about Columbus’ virginity in the first one, but no one exudes even a hint of BDE — until now. This kind of equal opportunity horniness in the apocalypse is a refreshing twist in a franchise that initially operated around the male gaze. 

Unfortunately, that’s the closest Double Tap gets to woke. Stone and Breslin are wasted in this film, which gives them absolutely nothing to do other than pursue various men. Same goes for Rosario Dawson as Nevada, whom our friends come across on their way to Graceland, where they believe Little Rock to be headed. (Elvis is basically this movie’s Bill Murray.) She may be a strong, stubborn survivor, but the movie doesn’t have plans for her beyond a love interest for Tallahassee, simply because…he’s single? And that would be fine, where it not for the entirely regressive banter around her “driveway” between a newly smitten Tallahassee and Nevada’s former lover, Albuquerque (Luke Wilson), who, along with Thomas Middleditch’s Flagstaff, is only around long enough for a brief but amusing doppelgänger gag. 

That kind of sums up the entire film. Is it funny? Sometimes. Does it make sense? Kind of. Is it worth watching? Well, that depends. 

As far as fan service goes, Double Tap is a success. Director Ruben Fleischer clearly knows what the audience wants, and the film doesn’t pretend to be anything other than it is. It’s not necessary by any stretch of the imagination, but neither really, was the original. And yet, there’s something undeniably charming about this particular cast and the chemistry they share. Harrelson, in particular, is in it to win it (there’s a good rhyme for you, Tallahassee), and that goes a long way. But it’s Deutch I look forward to rewatching over and over for years to come when I inadvertently flip across this movie on whatever streaming service it ends up on. Cable, after all, is so 2009. 

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Look up any photo of Alison Mosshart and she’ll likely be kitted out in her failsafe uniform: a leather biker jacket, star-print silk shirt and black skinny jeans. “I’m wearing the same outfit over and over again,” she laughs, “but I actually lost that shirt from Equipment when I was on tour – I was devastated.” Lucky, then, that she’s been able to recreate her beloved piece as part of a new collaboration with ultra cool New York label R13. The collection – the musician’s first to come to fruition – is made up of all the rock ‘n’ roll signifiers you’d expect from a frontwoman known for prowling a stage with menacing rebellion. 

Lead vocalist of The Kills and The Dead Weather, Mosshart’s personal style garnered as much press as her snarling drawls and cutting lyrics back in indie rock’s ’00s heyday, so it’s slightly surprising that it’s taken her this long to dream up her perfect wardrobe. “It’s been a long-winded thing,” she tells me upstairs at Browns East in Shoreditch, where the collaborative collection is launching. “I remember I was on tour in 2007, I found the last pair of R13 jeans at Barneys and of course they were so great that I never took them off. Eventually I needed another pair, but I couldn’t find any, so I wrote to the founder, Chris [Leba], and that’s how our friendship began. They’ve been dressing me for the stage for so long, and he just asked me if I’d like to come up with my own stuff. The next week I was sketching ideas.”

Mosshart approached the process by thinking about what was missing from her own wardrobe and, after a trip to an Italian print house – “It was so inspiring, like going to an art gallery of fabrics” – she started playing with cuts and styles. A standout look from the collection is a psychedelic two-piece suit, which, she explains, started life in a totally different way. “The original print is so far removed from what you see now, the colours were different, the scale of the print was smaller; I changed it to look like oil in water. I loved the process because you can completely fuck with the original idea. It’s like playing a song over and over again – it grows with you. You get more ballsy every time you sing it, so it evolves.” 

The rest of the collection is just as electric: there’s leopard print suiting, a divine ice blue mohair knit, a hoodie with gothic transcription and a T-shirt reading “Fast Times” – an homage to her favourite film, Vanishing Point. “It’s two hours long but the only thing that happens in it is a car chase, I’m obsessed with it. It’s got the coolest car in the world, a white Dutch Challenger, the epitome of American muscle, and the best soundtrack.” Which song would soundtrack the R13 collaboration? “Probably ‘Roadrunner’ by The Modern Lovers, which we used in the campaign video.”  

The accompanying lookbook is equally rock ‘n’ roll, featuring a post-show dishevelled Mosshart lounging around an old, kitsch hotel. “I spend all my time in hotels, I’m always photographing them, and I wanted to shoot the collection in something that looked like the Chelsea Hotel, because we lived there for a really long time and we miss it every day,” she explains. “I asked them, but it’s very much under construction, so, I kid you not, I spent 26 hours on TripAdvisor trawling Manhattan hotels from a similar time period that hadn’t been done up.” What was she looking for exactly? “I hate what everyone’s doing to hotels, all that eco lighting and the hard edges. I don’t care if it smells of cigarettes, give it to me! I didn’t give up, and I found Hotel 31, where, like the Chelsea, there’s no arty creative vibe, it’s just brilliant: all mismatched furniture and bedspreads from back in the day.” 

How much has Mosshart’s style evolved since she started making music? Did the clothes get more flamboyant as the stages got bigger? It’s come full circle, it seems, as she says designers often try and sell her things she wore back in the early ’00s. “When I started out, I couldn’t afford to buy clothes, so I got everything at thrift stores, cut them up and sewed them back together. As the crowds got bigger, the outfits demanded more, though. You want to feel like a superhero, because you need that confidence.”

I wonder what she makes of the new breed of guitar-wielding bros who take casual to new heights on stage. “I don’t think anybody gets excited about seeing a band on stage dressed like they’re roadies, or like they could’ve driven the tour bus… I see it a lot and it’s very uninspiring to me,” she laughs. “I’m not saying you need to be Lady Gaga but like, caring? Caring is good! Did Nirvana change their outfits six times before going on stage? No, but they looked rad as fuck! They say if the band look cool, their music will probably be cool – it seems too simple to work, but it’s true. Look at Iggy Pop, he’s always dressed – or undressed – incredibly. Whether he wears silver trousers or just his underwear, you think, That’s the coolest!“

While we can’t see many other people pulling off the nothing-but-underwear look quite like Iggy, there’s a chance us civilians can get in on Mosshart’s give-a-fuck look with this new collection. Now, take us to our fans.

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Every generation has its unforgettable Hollywood pairing, whose chemistry, on and off-screen, make them a powerful Hollywood force: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers; Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton; Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro; Spike Lee and Denzel Washington; Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet; Ryan Murphy and Jessica Lange. Now, you can add Timothée Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan to the list. 

The former Lady Bird co-stars are on the cover of Entertainment Weekly’s Fall Movie issue to promote Little Women, and their (platonic and pure) love is an absolute delight to behold.  

Ronan plays Jo March in Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic, while Chalamet stars as Laurie, her neighbour, best friend, and would-be lover. Their heart-wrenching chemistry, so evident in the trailer for the highly-anticipated film (which also stars Emma Watson, Eliza Scanlen, Florence Pugh, Laura Dern and Meryl Streep) runs deep. But though the two actors aren’t romantically linked in real-life, they’re the first to admit they have a special connection. 

“It’s so rare with Saoirse — I’m so fucking grateful to get to work with her,” Chalamet says in the interview, or rather, the text wrapped around the absolutely stunning pictures. 

Chalamet’s affection for his recurring co-star — along with Lady Bird and Little Women, they’ll also be starring in Wes Anderson’s latest film, The French Dispatch — is so great, he joked he might even write about it in his memoirs, “when I’m older.”

Ronan, however, doesn’t let him off the hook that easily. “Will I have, like, a chapter?” 

“A chapter of Saoirse,” Chalamet confirms. 

That is but one example of the many treasures buried in this piece. Come for the pictures of Chalamet in a silky shirt with pearl buttons, stay for the part where they talk about breaking each other’s hearts — again.

“I love that in Lady Bird, you broke my heart,” Ronan says to Chalamet. “In Little Women, I got to break your heart.”

“Yes, that’s true,” he quips back. “Then I married your sister.”

We honestly don’t deserve them.

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Within our Black History Is Now series, Refinery29 is giving the floor to some of the most prominent black British men in the public eye. There’s a prevalent conversation about black women not feeling valued within our own community, as well as in wider society. So, we’ve asked men to step forward and tell us about the women they’re inspired by as part of our ongoing celebration of black British womanhood.

This time we hear from Karl “Konan” Wilson, better known as one half of the MOBO and BET Award-winning rap duo Krept and Konan. Ahead, he tells us about the face behind one of the biggest black music empires here in the UK and the lasting impact that the women in his own family have had on him. As told to Jazmin Kopotsha.

“Kanya King; she created the MOBOs and I feel that’s had a big impact on the UK scene. Like, there isn’t another award that showcases black music. I grew up watching it and seeing everyone from Jay Z to Destiny’s Child to So Solid. I remember two years before we won it I used to watch it at my friend’s house – Luke from Disciples – I used to go to his house and it was like a ritual for us. We’d sit there and watch the MOBOs and be like, Next year. We’re going to be there next year.  

She won an MBE also and for a black woman to do that… Obviously the industry’s male-dominated but to do that in the first place is huge. It’s massive. [She’s a] 100% shareholder – it’s crazy, man. She’s an inspiration for all the girls out there, she’s an inspiration for black people in general.

[When we first met her] it was a brief one, you know, because of all the chaos that’s going on backstage. I was like Yeah, nice to meet you, we were nominated Best Newcomer. She said Oh, good luck man, all the best if you win. She didn’t really give up hints on whether we won. It was just sick to be in the building to be fair.

There’s no one [else] really trying to put us on TV. The BRITs, I feel like they kind of just tolerate our scene. It’s like Yeah we’re going to tick off the box, we’re going to nominate one of them or two of them. They’re more focused on the Americans than our scene I’d say. Whereas the MOBOs champions all of us – from the underground up-and-comings to the more established artists in the same room. They’ve made it proper, something proper for us to have. The MOBOs is home, man.

There’s always going to be people saying negative stuff, but I just want people to realise the bigger picture and see what she’s created. From when we were kids ’til now, and it’s still going. We look forward to coming and even the artists that are coming up, they all want to win a MOBO. Everyone’s gonna have their opinions of who should have won and who shouldn’t have but at the end of the day, it’s a pinnacle in our career. To win one is like a bucket list. If you’re in the music game, or you’re doing UK music, black music and you ain’t won a MOBO, it’s a bit… Like, it’s a thing you need to do.

I feel like there should be a documentary on Kanya or something, just so people can be reminded. Because I feel like a lot of people are like Yeah, yeah. Kanya King. She does the MOBOs but no one really knows the depths of what it took to even start it and the hurdles and things that she had to go through. I don’t really know the back story and it was probably difficult to get to these stages. Even getting on TV in the first place, a black music awards, without there being trouble. You know the stigma is that there’s going to be trouble, it’s going to get locked off, they shouldn’t do it, extra police… She’s fought through all of that and kept it going how many years, you know what I mean? So I feel that we need to highlight that. Someone needs to show all the younger generations coming up what it took and who she is.

I’d want to know everything – the beginning until now. I like to see the hardships because everyone always sees the glamour and the awards show when it’s on TV but they don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes and I feel like when they see that, they appreciate it more. They respect it more.

My mum [is a massive inspiration for me too]. She is like my rock, man. I don’t know where I’d be without my mum. My dad died when I was five. I’ve only had my mum really. I have my brothers, but it was more my mum and I’ve got little sisters, too. When I was getting in trouble in school, she was the one coming and getting me out and defending me against the teachers, even when I’m in the wrong sometimes. We’ve been through a lot as a family. I’ve got my little sisters as well, I’m close to the women in my family. The best advice my mum’s given me is to be a leader, not a follower.”

Krept and Konan’s new album ‘Revenge Is Sweet’ is out 1st November

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“Access to the press, governmental bodies or educational institutions is variable, but everyone has access to their own bodies,” observes Dr Jonathan Michael Square, a writer and historian currently teaching at Harvard University. “Fashion is, thus, one of the most readily available political tools.” Fashion, believes Square, is never apolitical. As he tells Refinery29: “Even the decision not to care about fashion is a political statement.”

Fashion and politics have been bedfellows for as long as people have been getting dressed. As Square describes, the semiotic nature of the relationship means it’s impossible to separate the two. Perhaps one of the most explicit examples, on account of what the job entails and who it serves, is the sartorial examination of politicians: cast your eye over Jeremy Corbyn’s tracksuits, Theresa May’s leopard print kitten heels, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s white cape-blazer – and the headlines generated by each.

As a concept, the notion of politicised fashion is naturally very broad, so great is the spectrum of variables. Miranda Priestly’s famous “cerulean blue” monologue in The Devil Wears Prada unpacks just one layer of fashion’s universal impact. Beyond the trickle-down effect she notes, the wider cultural context – the who, why, where, when and how – of a garment is paramount in how our clothes (and by extension, we) are read by others. Moreover, fashion doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and with the advent of social media and call-out culture, the demand for accountability has only soared.

Co-opted by political movements, a number of brands are all too aware of the significance clothing carries. Just as in the 1980s, when the aesthetics of skinhead culture – Fred Perry polos and lace-up Dr. Martens – were adopted by the far right, contemporary groups have similarly courted this kind of brand ownership. Since its inception in 2016, the neo-fascist organisation Proud Boys has adopted Fred Perry’s black and yellow polo as a type of uniform. The brand’s CEO, John Flynn subsequently denounced the association, telling CBC Radio in 2017: “No, we don’t support the ideals or the group… It is counter to our beliefs and the people we work with.”

Elsewhere in the US, New Balance and Nike have both experienced damning attacks from either side of the political fence. In 2016, New Balance products were labelled the “official shoes of white people” by Andrew Anglin, publisher of neo-Nazi site, The Daily Stormer, after the brand’s VP of Public Affairs Matt LeBretton tweeted his support for Donald Trump’s stance on trade deals. In 2018, Nike worked with Colin Kaepernick, the American quarterback who initiated the ‘take a knee’ protest, on a ‘Just Do It’ campaign, upsetting right-wing consumers in the process. In both cases, the political association led to those with opposing values burning their wares.

In London, young fashion labels have often used the medium to highlight issues close to them – Brexit, for example, has been a ubiquitous presence for several seasons now – with varying instances of controversy. Most recently for Nigerian designer Mowalola Ogunlesi, what might have otherwise been a career-defining moment saw her pushed to defend her work. After Naomi Campbell wore a dress of her design – white leather with a red faux bullet wound – during London Fashion Week, the Fashion East-championed designer clarified the genesis of the dress, writing on Instagram: “I make clothes to challenge people’s minds. This gown is from my collection ‘Coming For Blood’ – a delving into the horrific feeling of falling in love. This dress is extremely emotional for me – it screams my lived experience as a black person. It shows no matter how well dressed you are or well behaved, we are time after time seen as a walking target. I’m in a privileged position to be able to speak on issues that others would be silenced on. Inequality is still rife and newspapers clawing at my work is testament to that.”

At his history-making Glastonbury performance in June, Stormzy employed a similar sentiment, drawing attention to gun crime and the vulnerability of black bodies by wearing a stab-proof vest bearing a black and white Union Jack. Later credited to Banksy, the vest was described at the time by Guardian journalist Jonathan Jones as “the banner of a divided and frightened nation”. Earlier this month the vest went on display in Croydon at a pop-up exhibition of Banksy’s work, alongside a note describing it as a “version of the ‘John Bull’ English gents waistcoat updated for modern times”.

Filtered down to the high street and translated to womenswear, the vest as a fashion item has been reproduced via the utility trend, a prominent element of modern streetwear. While in Britain it has its origins in the war effort of the 1940s, the current vogue for utility, visually at least, appears to speak more to a Kardashian-imposed aesthetic. Keenly observed by sites like Missguided and ASOS – where a search for the term ‘utility’ brings up 249 and 620 results respectively – the look is heavy in pockets, worked into camouflage trousers, beige waistcoats and body bags styled in front rather than across the torso. Less combat in its intention, and more invested in complementing the Fila Disruptor, the vibe, for the most part at least, is centred on style.

“Throughout history, dress has been a signal of power. It has been used to suggest authority, moral value, wealth and status,” Donna Loveday, co-curator of the Design Museum’s 2014 exhibition, Women Fashion Power tells me. “For centuries women emulated men’s wardrobes to dress for power,” she continues, illustrating how women have previously mirrored masculine style tropes to facilitate confidence, “from the battle dress of Joan of Arc to the extreme shoulder padding of the 1980s, through to the trouser suits that mimicked men’s suits to assert authority.”

Trend forecaster WGSN has identified a rise in politically motivated dressing – less cargo pants, more ethical expression – that echoes today’s heightened collective conscience. “The rise in politicised fashion is aligned with the rise in outward expressions of political opinion,” says Francesca Muston, WGSN Director of Fashion. “Social media has certainly facilitated this but it is undeniable that, across the world, people are more politically polarised, rallying around people who share their opinions and are more likely to share their views publicly.” Women in particular, she notes, are foremost adopters of this approach.

Like most cultural moments, this idea of rallying together has been played out in front of us by Hollywood, both on screen and by the performers whose own narratives share storylines with a wider section of society. Looking to the 2018 Golden Globes wardrobe blackout, in observance of #MeToo, Loveday addresses the power of appearance: “Women adopted the black dress as a means of proclaiming solidarity and conveying an important political message. At one of the most politically charged awards ceremonies in memory, clothes mattered more than ever. The action reminded people that fashion isn’t just glamour but can be about many things, including solidarity and protest. I think this idea has never been as important as it is now.”

Beyond big events and ceremonial moments, no item has served politics, performative or otherwise, better than the slogan top. From Katharine Hamnett meeting Margaret Thatcher in 1984 to the ‘Repeal’ shirt that highlighted last year’s Irish referendum on the 8^th Amendment, Don Cheadle supporting trans youth on SNL to Maria Grazia Chiuri’s feminist debut at Dior, wearing your affiliation on your chest has long been the most accessible way to vocalise your stance on big issues.

“On a functional level, T-shirts are the perfect canvas for the brave among us to signpost our thoughts, feelings or stance on any given topic or trend we feel strongly about,” says Michael Wilkin, Head of Marketing at Everpress, a “global marketplace for independent creativity”. As well as helping individuals get their designs on T-shirts – by offering the tools to sell, manufacture and distribute – the company recently put out its third 50/50 campaign, an initiative that teams up with creatives for a charity T-shirt series, this year to support Justice4Grenfell. “By putting on a T-shirt, you are making a deliberate choice to align yourself with something. I think people enjoy that curation, not just on an aesthetic level, but on an emotional level.” Alluding to 50/50, Wilkin continues: “Hopefully that tee starts a conversation somewhere, regardless of the buyer’s original intention.”

Whether we like it or not, the way we dress, the brands we choose to wear – indeed, the very existence of this choice – and the messages we champion on our chests all contribute to how we’re understood in the world. As a gesture of empowerment, a signal to the communities we feel a close bond with – or a warning to those we don’t – the use of fashion as a vehicle for political expression is nothing new, but in turbulent times, its immediacy can be potent.

Similarly, the opportunity it presents – to reclaim space and question narratives – can be particularly heightened for groups whose race, gender, sexuality or class might be othered in the mainstream, used as a way to articulate a point without taking direct action. As Square asks: “Is there any greater satisfaction than having your outer self match your political ideals?” Furthermore, through whose gaze these pronouncements are interpreted, and the subsequent policing (or not), only determines their validity.

“Fashion can maintain and deepen inequality, but it also has the potential to challenge structures of power,” suggests Square. “I’m a believer in the transformational power of fashion to change how we see ourselves and our place in the world — whether it addresses racial inequality, promotes body positivity, questions gender binaries, or calls for more sustainable industry standards.”

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In a world where reboots are all the rage, your favourite high school comedy is getting a very intense TV makeover. A new Clueless television series is in the works from CBS TV Studios, according to Deadline, but it may have more in common with mystery series Riverdale than it does Amy Heckerling’s 1995 film.

The new series, which is currently being shopped to networks, plucks Bel-Air princess Cher (played by Alicia Silverstone in the original film, and Rachel Blanchard in the spin off TV show) and Dionne (Stacey Dash) out of the ‘90s and places them into what Deadline describes as a “baby pink and bisexual blue-tinted, tiny sunglasses-wearing, oat milk latté and Adderall-fuelled” 2019. 

That’s not the only way Clueless will be different this time around. Instead of the show taking on Jane Austen’s Emma (a la the original film, in which Cher attempts to makeover Brittany Murphy’s Tai), it will be a mystery drama that kicks off with Cher’s disappearance. Dionne, Cher’s second-in-command, investigates her BFF’s whereabouts while also navigating life as the new queen bee. 

The internet isn’t thrilled with the reimagining, though it’s worth noting that the series hasn’t even been ordered to pilot yet. 

If Clueless is a near-perfect film, perhaps it should be left alone, some argue. Others aren’t thrilled with the word vomit of Instagram trends in the show’s description. 

i don’t know who in hollywood needs to hear this, but NOT EVERY SHOW ABOUT ~TEENS~ NEEDS TO BE RIVERDALE

(*especially* not clueless) https://t.co/BeIHiEIcQb pic.twitter.com/MxHbfqeU5W

— 🎃 U I N N (@QuinnKeaney) October 17, 2019

I like Riverdale, but Clueless isn’t the same. Riverdale is campily playing with archetypes. Clueless was playing with Jane Austen. https://t.co/EgiznxH956

— Mara “Get Rid of the Nazis” Wilson (@MaraWilson) October 17, 2019

I. really have no words for this description. why did they write it like that.

also Clueless was a retelling of Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ like you can just…write a new original teen comedy with this plot. or even an original sequel but this as a “reboot” feels weird af https://t.co/r8XiFC6mKm

— miss witch 🐝 ☾ ･ﾟ✧ (@ms_starling) October 17, 2019

They can reboot a lot of stuff but don’t you dare come for Clueless. https://t.co/UYLSo48Pw9

— Lindsay! (@lindsaytso) October 17, 2019

Maybe I should be cynical about this reimagining, but I can’t help feeling hyped for a world in which Dionne plays detective while sipping from a millennial pink Cha Cha Matcha cup. As a Los Angeles transplant, I’m constantly fascinated by the often surreal culture of the city. (I see Clueless’ oat milk and raise it a blue algae CBD bowl, a real thing sold at a real place around the corner from my apartment.) While social media has made many of these trends ubiquitous, a series that lovingly pokes fun at the city that is their launching pad sounds like my cup of Alfred’s Tea. 

It’s not like Clueless is pulling off an entirely new trick, either. Riverdale basically did the same thing for Archie Comics, and despite the fact that the show only makes sense 20% of the time, I’m still watching it, four seasons later. The CW’s latest, Nancy Drew, is already shaping up to be a super fun, Veronica Mars-esque mystery series, with characters that reflect a 2019 sensibility. 

Then there’s the fact that Dionne will be the star of this series, putting a young Black woman in the driver’s seat of a teen mystery series. That’s a rare thing, and it’s time that a teen show did as much. 

Most importantly: A new Clueless TV series won’t ruin the legacy of Heckerling’s very special film, because nothing can take away the film’s impact on popular culture. I’m ready to jump back into the sandbox with Cher and Dionne, no matter what size their sunnies this time around.

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Kanye West’s new album Jesus Is King is weeks late but we have the trailer for his upcoming IMAX movie, which features music from the forthcoming gospel-inspired work. 

West announced news of the IMAX movie back in September, with the new film supposedly complement the upcoming album. It features a behind-the-scenes look at West’s Sunday Services performance at the Roden Crater, a new installation by the artist James Turrell in Arizona’s Painted Desert. This Sunday Service follows similar performances West has done around the country: He famously put on his Sunday Service at Coachella, and recently performed in Detroit at a surprise show on September 27, the night album Jesus Is King was originally intended for release. 

We don’t know exactly what to expect from the IMAX movie, but a short teaser for it on West’s official website suggests it will be a religious experience. The minute-long video shows a long room with a hallway that leads out to a stairs, beyond which is an orb of light. A choir sings in the background. 

Eventually, the image gives way to a quote from the Bible: “In the words of Jesus Christ, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel.’” 

West has become more religious in recent months, and the Sunday Services are based in the Christian faith. However, in an interview for Elle, West’s wife Kim Kardashian said they are open to everyone.  

“Everyone that comes understands it’s just a really healing experience with an amazing choir, and amazing messages about love to start off your week,” she said.

The “Kanye West film” is directed by Nick Knight, who also directed the “Bound 2” video starring Kardashian. 

Jesus Is King hits IMAX theatres in the UK on October 25. You can get tickets here.

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In order to talk about 2019 Cat Marnell, one needs to understand the past iterations of Cat Marnell.

There’s 2012 Cat, who snorted bath salts to avoid writing a story for the now-defunct XoJane.com, where she was a popular and controversial beauty director. She was known for incorporating her party lifestyle (as documented in her Vice column “Amphetamine Logic“) into her health and beauty coverage. There’s 2013 Cat, who signed an impressive six-figure book deal to tell her one-of-a-kind story about being a blonde media darling with an out-of-control drug habit (her description). Before that, there was Cat the Intern at Nylon, Teen Vogue, and Glamour. By 2017, Cat Marnell had become a New York Times best-selling author. 

And then her life fell apart again.

Marnell embraces all these past versions of herself — each with her own demons — in her new Audible original, Self-Tanner for the Soul: How I Ran Away to Europe and Found My Inner Glow (When Life Got Dark), out now.

“I’m an idiot,” Marnell says almost immediately when I call her to talk about the audiobook — part travel diary, part self-help, and entirely her signature rambles. It’s an unexpected follow-up to her hilarious and intense memoir, which she refers to as “Murder” (the aforementioned NYT best-seller How to Murder Your Life). She goes between calling herself an “idiot” and “crazy,” frequently during our conversation, as if she’s trying to beat everyone else to the punch. At 37, Marnell has had years of practice being self-deprecating, but she also has some life lessons worth sharing. Some are simple (don’t bring a suitcase full of just wigs and shoes for a backpacking trip across Europe), while others are profound (“be a fountain, not a drain” of your own happiness).

Told over the course of five chapters, Marnell’s new project documents her summer in Europe following a complete and total mental breakdown after the release of Murder. She flooded, and totally ruined, her Chinatown apartment in an event she described as a “beauty Chernobyl.” Left with scars, burns, and practically no hair (Marnell never specifically describes what happened in that apartment, but still sticks to wigs), she escapes to Europe to solve her problems. And it kind of works. For over 100 days, Marnell travels solo from Croatia to Germany to England to Romania to Italy to Poland and beyond. She’s following her favourite artist Pete Doherty (she even once followed his path all the way to a fancy rehab facility in Thailand), and indulging in heavy pours of white wine while avoiding real life — a graffiti artist ex-boyfriend, her agent, sobriety, responsibility. The result is an immersive storytelling experience full of Adderall, loneliness, and something Marnell calls “wizard walks,” narrated by one of the most polarising and recognisable writers born of the Internet. 

But that was more than two years ago. 2019 Cat is good. She’s back in New York staying in an Airbnb (temporarily), and she says she’s weaned herself off Adderall. She says she’s not sober, but she’s trying to get shit done. She has bills to pay and stories to tell. 

Refinery29: Where are you right now?

Cat Marnell: “I am on a stoop on North 5th St. in Williamsburg, looking at a bulldozer.”

How long have you been back in New York?

“I’ve been back, on-and-off, all month. It is very annoying because it is Airbnb for me now, which is very hard to do in New York. Once you travel in Europe, you’re like, It’s no wonder that people don’t come here. When you’re overseas you find that people don’t come to New York. They all want to, but they can’t fucking afford it.”

Who approached whom for this collaboration?

“I met with Audible the spring after How To Murder Your Life came out. It was the one meeting I took as I was actually having a complete fucking mental breakdown and snapping. I showed up at the bar with a rainbow wig, and I met with this guy Ander from Audible — shout him out! Love him — and I found out that Audible, which I didn’t know that much about because I was writing my book and also in a drug haze, wanted original content from published authors. I thought it was pretty modern. What I originally thought of when my agent sent through that request, because I usually just say no to everything — how sad is that? — was Howard Stern working with satellite [radio]. I know it is completely different, but I really admire Howard Stern. I just liked the idea of doing something new. I just wanted to switch it up.

“One of the ideas that we settled on was ‘self-help.’ Like I said I was going through a bad time, and I just wanted to ditch New York. I bought The Andy Cohen Diaries on the way at the airport, [and] I read it on the plane over there and was enjoying it so much I was like, Okay I’m going to keep a diary and see if I can sell it. And then I did. I actually sold it to Audible while I was in Europe.”

I’m sure you had enough within just two weeks for them to publish.

“Oh yeah, I always do more than I have to. I’m an idiot. Like when my book was turned in, it was way longer than they wanted. I turned in, initially, 800 pages. They cut it down to 300. I basically wrote two books. I’m an idiot.”

Did this make you look at your voice in a different way? Have you listened to it?

“Because I’m so tired all the time, it was definitely a flattened version of me, but that’s fine…I felt like this kept it very real, because I was exhausted. Because I wrote it on the train [while traveling], it kept me going. I am someone who gets depressed and gets nostalgic. I was in bed my whole fucking 20s, you know what I mean? I would give myself 20 minutes of staring out the window [of a train], and then I would pull out the computer. That’s when I would write. I was always fucking exhausted when I was writing it, but it was real.”

How did you gather your source material? 

“I just love diaries. I just want to keep writing diaries. I’d rather read that than anything from other people right now. It’s just more real. Our guess our brains have changed, and we can’t read elevated stuff. Or maybe that’s just me. “

Do you consider yourself an influencer at all?

“I’m a bad influencer. I’m proud to say. Whether I’m sorting bath salts or escaping, whenever I hear the word influencer, I think ‘bad influencer,’ you know? I never worried about recommending PCP to anyone because I always knew they wouldn’t know where to find it! I only knew where to find it because I was a fucking scumbag. I do not have the hustle to [be an influencer]. That is the worst thing about my life. I look at them, and they get their hotel rooms [for free]. I always intend to do that, and do, like, an initial email. Even getting the free train ticket to EuroRail, I sent an initial email, and then I never followed up. It’s just not me! I always just pay for it. I would be in the worst place if it meant I didn’t have to talk to anyone.”

How would you describe your travel style?

“I guess, in a negative way, I am an ‘adult child.’ That is what responsible people would say about me. Other people would be like “Oh, she’s so free!” But I don’t need anything. Honestly, sometimes, if there was a safe place to sleep on the street, I would do it.”

What are “wizard walks?”

“First of all, I used to take a lot of speed. You don’t need that for a wizard walk, though. The whole ‘wizard’ thing is played out now, but think of a carnival, or a fairground. During the day, it looks like nothing. That is how I am during the day. That is how my brain is during the day. Right now, I look like shit. I’m wearing sweatpants and I look sad, just sprawled onto these steps. That is my brain during the day. 

“But the way carnival rides look lit up at night, my brain is the carnival. [It’s] so glowy and awesome at night. That is the wizard thing. I’ve always connected with cities at night, the glittering night lights. I look better at night, I feel better at night, and so I take these night walks.

“You can go to the best cities in Europe, and then everything at night is completely empty and it’s all lit and glowy and enchanting. Nothing is enchanting during the day — it’s just not. It’s sunny, and it’s pretty, but enchantment is only at night. Even a string of fucking Canal St. bulbs just strung up, or LED lights — that’s my speed. In Europe, everything is a fucking castle — well technically it’s a fortress, but in your American brain you’re like, That’s a castle!. It’s all glowing in the distance, and you put on electronic music and just wander over there. It’s awesome. I’m crazy, though, I’m crazy. You get the energy. It charges your brain for real. Night walks are my thing.”

Is How To Murder Your Life still being adapted into a TV series?

“It’s going to be a limited series with Sony TriStar. I can tell you that it will have the showrunner Esta Spalding, who is the showrunner for the Kristen Dunst God thing [On Becoming a God in Central Florida]. My co-writer is Jessica Caldwell, who has worked on Billions. I love them. I am very excited. I am involved, not because I want to make it accurate about me, but because I want to want it awesome. I want to elevate it. We are creating a fictional world, but I want to come at it from a place of humour and energy — some crackling different stuff. I’m not a big TV person. I don’t watch any TV. I don’t have the patience for it because I find it all to be quite hackneyed and cliché. The second something is played out I’m like, No, I can’t watch this. I have cities to walk around in!” 

A piece about your finances went viral earlier this year. Do you feel like you’re in a better place financially now?

“Not at all, actually. I backslid. I don’t have any money coming in anymore! Well, I do. But the TV show money is so far away. I need to sell a book. That’s what I am going to do. Next month. I’m going to fucking Europe again. It’s cheaper! All I do in New York is go to the fucking Buffalo Exchange to buy shit I don’t need.

“Tax extensions are due. I’m just piling up fines again. When you’ve been in tax debt hundreds of thousands of dollars, like I used to be, being in debt $20,000 doesn’t feel like anything. Try telling my mom that. Even my storage unit — I owe them like $800, and I can’t get in. I don’t have any of my dresses. I don’t have any of my shoes. I can’t get in. I am miserable.”

Are you still wearing wigs? 

“Of course, I have to. I can’t even get into that. I am trying to get some sort of wig sponsorship, but I’m not sure that is going to happen. I wear bad ones, too…I don’t know how to do anything. I can barely keep up with my email. I can’t hustle for anything. I wind up paying for everything. It’s annoying.”

A person who’s been in the news a lot recently has talked about how much she looks up to you… 

“Are you talking about Caroline Calloway? C.C.? Good for her, I hope she flourishes and thrives. I DM with her all the time, and I definitely feel protective of her, as someone who can understand what she is going through in a unique way. The advice I gave her was just to work out through all of this. I said, Caroline, work out. Even if it is just half an hour a day. It is going to keep this entire experience that much more clear for you. That exercise is going to affect the other 23-and-a-half hours in the day in a good way.

“I only have two pieces of advice for anyone, ever: travel and work-out. I really do think for her, you have got to snap out of it sometimes. But it’s intoxicating when it first happens. Hopefully, she seems to be monetising everything. It’s harder than you think to monetise.” 

People want to hear from you, and her, all the time. They also want to judge.

“Everyone hates Kim Kardashian — well, I guess they don’t anymore — but being polarising has made all these people’s careers. It’s annoying that Caroline will try to charge money for things, and people will attack her for that. I really don’t see how that is scamming. And also the vitriol. People are negatively obsessed with her. Howard Stern has the same thing where people are obsessed with hate-listening to him, and it’s almost like hate-fucking. Hopefully she can just make that into something, and I think she will. I like that she is just obsessively creative, because yeah, people are fucking disorganised. Disorganised creative people are a thing.”

After this experience, do you have any new cures for loneliness?

“Oh, God. Well, you know, I am off Adderall now. I’m not sober or anything…But on that trip, I took my supply and just took less and less and less and less, so I was down to crumbs by the end. I just didn’t want the book to be all about drugs. Getting off of that stuff has made me so much happier. I don’t know why I just bought up drugs…”

Because going off was your cure for loneliness?

“There’s no cure. I am actually lonely all the time, but I realise that is not going to change. It doesn’t matter if I become a quote-unquote famous person or anything. If anything, fame has made me more self-protective and weird and withdrawn. I am trying to meet up with people more. Like someone hit me up last time when I was in London, inviting me to dinner. Usually I don’t do that stuff, but it turned out being amazing. I made these new friends in London, and I feel like my whole life over there opened up. Now I can actually move there and know people.

“People need to be brave. Human connection does not come naturally to me. It has nothing to do with social media — this came before all that shit. It just doesn’t come naturally to me. I was always surrounded by people like my graffiti writing friends who protected me from the real world. When I was in Europe, I didn’t have anyone. You learn to stand on your own. But you have to make an effort. I sound like my dad. [Laughs]”

Check out this clip from Self-Tanner for the Soul, below.

Interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

If you are struggling with substance abuse, please visit FRANK or call 0300 123 6600 for friendly, confidential advice. Lines are open 24 hours a day.

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In honour of Chanel’s upcoming Mademoiselle Privé exhibition in Tokyo, Sofia Coppola has created a new short film that is the ultimate tribute to the French fashion house. Stitching together the brand’s most iconic moments, the Lost in Translation filmmaker chronicles Chanel’s lasting impact on the fashion industry using a combination of archival footage, modern campaigns and vintage imagery.

In Homage to Mademoiselle opens with a 1978 ad starring the original French ingenue Catherine Deneuve, then flashes through some of the label’s most recognisable moments. From black and white footage of Coco Chanel sewing her own designs to clips of the ever glamorous Jackie Kennedy wearing that pink suit, the film highlights Chanel’s undeniable influence throughout cultural history.

Coppola also showcases the brand’s modern muses, spotlighting Natalie Portman, Margot Robbie and Kristen Stewart, all of whom have fronted campaigns for the brand in recent years. Piecing together vintage advertisements and contemporary campaigns in a dreamy collage, the film celebrates the fashion house’s story from all angles, from the creation of the very first LBD to the enduring success of Chanel No.5 perfume.

Some of the brand’s most infamous shows also feature, with sequences centring on the extravagance of the annual catwalks at the Grand Palais in Paris. One particularly beautiful moment shows Chanel’s late creative director Karl Lagerfeld walking side by side with Lily-Rose Depp, who wears a ruffled pink tulle gown.

Set to the ethereal sounds of Grimes’ “Oblivion”, the film is a dreamlike amalgamation of haute couture and French glamour, marrying the famous faces of modern Chanel with its historical significance as a luxury fashion house. An exploration of the brand’s eternal power, In Homage to Mademoiselle is the ultimate Chanel highlights reel for any fashion obsessive.

Watch the film below.

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There’s only one Aisling Bea in Living With Yourself, but the Irish actress and comedian is charismatic enough to contend with two Paul Rudds. 

Living With Yourself, out on Netflix on 18th November, is like if Black Mirror had the intimateness of a three-person play. The twist? Paul Rudd plays two of the three main characters: Miles, a schlubby 30-something, and Miles’ clone. Kate (Aisling Bea), Miles’ wife, is dragged into the domestic mess when she suddenly has two husbands. 

While Paul Rudd squared is the draw of Living With Yourself, Bea is equally memorable. Here’s what else you’ll want to know about the actor and stand-up star.

She’s originally from Ireland.

Bea was born Aisling O’Sullivan in County Kildare, Ireland. She initially studied at Trinity College Dublin, and moved to London aged 21 to pursue acting. Though she’s since travelled across the Atlantic, Bea still excels in Kildare regional humour. Her stand-up is a tour through the Irish sensibility. 

Speaking of stand-up: She’s an award-winning stand-up comic.

Living With Yourself isn’t Bea’s first Netflix show either. You’ll recognise her from her 15-minute stand-up set that is also available to stream on Netflix and her appearances on Channel 4’s Comedy Gala and Live At The Apollo.

She is having a really big autumn. 

Not only is her new show on Netflix, but she’s also the creator and star of Channel 4’s brilliant comedy-drama This Way Up. The show starts with Bea’s character, Aine, leaving a mental health facility where she received treatment for a nervous breakdown. Now, she has to undergo the day-in, day-out of getting better – with more than a little help from her sister, played by Catastrophe’s Sharon Horgan. 

Bea has a personal connection to the show’s subject. In 2017, she wrote a personal essay for The Guardian about her father, who died by suicide when she was three. She was flooded with responses from readers. 

“There’s something about this show…I think a little bit of it slowly came about as a slight response to the people and stories that came in after I wrote that article about my dad,” she told The Irish Times. 

Living With Yourself is Bea’s big break. 

Bea has been a working actor for years, having secured parts in Holby City, The Fall and Lewis, but Living With Yourself is “next level.” She told the Irish Times it’s “the first time the magic thing happened. I just put myself on tape; they had a phone call with me, then flew me to New York for a chemistry test. That magic thing had never happened to me.”

Her sister is in show business, too.

Sinead O’Sullivan is a successful costume designer. Thank her for Emma Watson’s yellow gown in Beauty and the Beast. 

She’s a huge reality TV fan.

Bea was inspired by the Real Housewives and Love Island while writing the sisters’ relationship in This Way Up.  “I just realised what I loved watching was sometimes reality TV, with really deep relationships between women, like The Real Housewives and Love Island,” Bea told Vulture.  

Here’s where you can see her. 

While Living With Yourself and This Way Up are definitely her biggest roles, Bea is all over streaming networks. She flaunts a dramatic side in Hard Sun on Hulu and the serial killer drama The Fall on Netflix. 

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I’m so used to hearing Jenny Slate’s breathless voice in my favourite TV shows and movies that I accidentally scream “HI!” the moment we get on the phone to talk about her new stand-up special, Stage Fright. HI! Like I just ran into my friend at the supermarket. Jenny Slate doesn’t know me, but after watching her new stand-up special, Stage Fright, and reading her upcoming book of essays, Little Weirds, I feel like I know her. Like, really know her. 

In Stage Fright, Slate takes her unabashed, sometimes crude, late-show vulnerability to a more personal place, opening up about her loneliness and romantic pessimism following the 2016 US election. Both the special, out on Netflix on 22nd October, and book, on shelves on 4th November, document Slate’s return to her childhood home in the midst of this hopelessness. Stage Fright weaves Slate’s traditional stand-up with documentary footage of her family and home videos, and through this collage we learn about her parents, her grandparents, the ghosts that haunt her house, and what felt like her life coming to a total romantic and personal end. 

But the Jenny Slate on the phone with me isn’t lonely anymore. Fans of the comedian know a secret that the comedian writing Little Weirds in 2017 does not: She gets engaged to art curator Ben Shattuck in September 2019. He’s actually part of the book — not by name, but is the man mentioned in the story “In Norway.” They meet while on the trip documented in the piece, but don’t start dating until two years later. When it came to Stage Fright, this meant Slate originally only had material from a past version of herself, who is as much a ghost as the spirits haunting her childhood house. 

These projects, both hilarious and heartwarming, illustrate the evolution of Slate as she pulls herself up from her lowest point to achieve her happy ending. After being with her through this journey, it kind of feels like we’re all part of the celebration — which, as her now close personal friend, is the least I deserve. Ahead, we spoke to Slate about her past two years, her take on Saturday Night Live’s recent controversy, in which stand-up comedian Shane Gillis’s racist comments on his 2018 podcast were discovered, and what kind of ghost she hopes to return as when she dies. 

Refinery29: This is your first stand-up special ever. Why now? 

Jenny Slate: “I just haven’t been interested in doing a special before and I didn’t identify with the process that you had to go through in order to make a special, of perfecting the jokes and touring a lot. I thought that that’s what you had to do, but it really turned out that I could do it whatever way I wanted to. Netflix was really supportive. They did not try to change anything about how I did it. We had an all-female crew. It was just a very private experience and I hope that shows through.” 

Your book and your Netflix special seem like companion pieces. Was that on purpose?

“I got the book deal in 2017 and at that point I did not want to do a special at all. But as time went on and I started to write the book, I became aware that I communicate in a certain way and that I want to go as far with that as I can. I think it’s pretty wild that they’re both coming out at the same time. I didn’t intend for that to happen. I do think that they are siblings to each other. This special is more of the sibling that is popular and does sports, and the book is more the sibling that is dreamy and goes away for the summer to spend time with a very old aunt and likes to play the xylophone.”

Your name was brought up again in the recent controversy with Saturday Night Live. Many people pointed out that you were fired for saying “fuck” while Shane Gillis was hired despite ample evidence of him making racist comments and other problematic behaviour. SNL ultimately fired him after online backlash, but did you have any reaction to that considering your own history with the show?

“I don’t even know who’s on the show. The only thing that I care about in terms of SNL is Tim Robinson, who I never actually saw on SNL, but I just heard about him this year and I’m obsessed with his show [I Think You Should Leave on Netflix]. I mean, it’s like if you went out with like a weirdo for three months, like 12 years ago, and someone’s like, Did you hear what Trevor did in, like, another country? Do you have a comment about that? I really don’t. I’m not connected to that at all. Thank God I at least got to work there because I always did want to. I always wanted to be on the show. So if I hadn’t gotten there, I would still be trying to.”

There’s a line early in your book that reads, “This book is the act of pressing onward through an inner world that was dark and dismantled.” Do you feel that you pressed onward? 

“Yeah. But there’s also a line in the book that’s like, fall apart, take up the pieces, reassemble. This is my essential movement. So of course I pressed onwards. And there is, until I die — well, even after I die, I guess I’ll just press onward into decay and become something else again. Like man, my life looks completely different now than it did when I finished this book last October.”

For instance, you got engaged last month, so your fiancé is not mentioned in the book nor the special. 

“I don’t do a lot of the jokes from my special now because they are not true to who I am anymore. The stand up that I was working on for the special really started to feel like, Oh my God, I don’t want to say this anymore because it’s not how I feel. When I met Ben I was doing these sets, and I remember like on our third date, he came to see a show of mine in New York and I was like, Ah, this is the material I’ve been doing. It doesn’t, you know —I’m sorry or whatever. And he was like, You don’t have to apologise for your art.

“When we came back to the special, we had a dress rehearsal where I did all the old stuff and it was really one of the worst shows of my life. It was so bad and I cried my eyes out and I don’t usually have bad shows, but because I was trying to be so rigid about the material it just didn’t work. The next night when we did film the special that you see, I ended up doing a lot of new material. It’s mostly about ghosts and Judaism and we really took out a lot of the love stuff and a lot of the jokes that I had been doing about being brokenhearted.”

Speaking of ghosts, I’m curious: Did you ever actually see one in your childhood home?

“My sisters, my mother, and my father have all seen ghosts in the house and I haven’t. My experience is basically that I am a person reacting to the fact that everybody else has been freaked out. That framed fear and fright and surprise and also other dimensions and an overactive cosmos as part of my inevitable experience that things are not settled. 

“What I love about that is that it made me into a person who is gentle, who believes in spirits and also knows how the human spirit can be very, very easily affected. I also think if you do see a ghost, then you also have proof that everything is so much bigger than you allow yourself to believe on a daily basis. I think I would like to see a ghost [because] I do want proof of what I already believe, which is I’m definitely connected to everything and have so many more options than I allow myself to believe and it’s time for me to expand.” 

Have you ever had any kind of ghost experience? 

“Ben and I live in a very old house and it was made for his great grandmother as an old dance hall. A lot of people who sleep over, guests that we’ve had, say that they have wild dreams and hear things in the house. It makes sense to me that where I would finally land and have my life partnership is in a house for partying. I wouldn’t be upset if I saw one of those party ghosts and I wouldn’t be upset if I became one one day.”

Stage Fright is out on Netflix on 22nd October.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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We hear a lot about work/life balance but achieving it can feel tantalisingly out of reach, especially given the prohibitively high cost of renting in many major cities.

It’s also difficult to determine exactly what makes a good work/life balance. Going freelance or transitioning to flexible working can seem appealing, but they’re not necessarily healthy – or possible – for everyone.

If you sometimes worry that everyone else is better at cracking the work/life balance conundrum than you are, it could be reassuring to look at the results of a new study, which suggests we don’t have it too badly compared to other countries. According to Sleep Junkie’s Lifestyle Index , the UK comes 17th out of 141 countries for the best work-life balance in the world.

The Lifestyle Index was compiled using factors including the average number of working hours and annual leave in each country, the percentage of people getting a good night’s sleep, people’s happiness in each country, and their life expectancy. 

Luxembourg comes out on top, thanks partly to a system where employers tend to reward staff with more annual leave as they get older. Workers over the age of 55 there get an average 36 days of paid leave every year.

Austria and Denmark place second and third respectively. Both countries give workers a minimum of 25 paid leave days a year – five more than the UK. Check out the top 10 below.

The UK places 17th overall thanks to its reasonable average working hours – 36 a week – and relatively high life expectancy of 81.2 years. Though more than half of people in the UK said they get between seven and eight hours sleep a night, which is obviously good, the UK also scored poorly for sleep difficulty. This was calculated by analysing monthly search volumes for terms such as “I can’t sleep” and “how to sleep”. 

Check out the next 10 highest-scoring countries including the UK below.

The US appears further down the index at 87th, partly because it doesn’t guarantee workers any paid leave days at all, and partly because of its high sleep difficulty score.

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This week, astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir completed the first ever all-woman spacewalk, and it is looking like the future is indeed female. However, NASA isn’t stopping there. There now is a full speed ahead attempt to further uplift women astronauts. 

After the first all-woman spacewalk, NASA reported that while they’re focused on landing on the moon — and thus one woman will soon become the first woman to land on the moon —  the first person to land on Mars might also be a woman. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine revealed the possibility in a press conference for the all-woman spacewalk.

“We could very well see the first person on Mars be a woman. I think that could very well be a milestone,” said Bridenstine, via Space.com. 

At that same press conference, President Donald Trump praised the women for their efforts, NPR reports.

“What you do is incredible. It’s so — you’re very brave people. I don’t think I want to do it, I must tell you that. But you are amazing people.” said Trump. “This is truly historic.” 

Trump then went on to say that while the moon is the next target, it will function more as a pit stop than a final destination. A Mars landing is the final goal. 

“We’re stopping at the moon. The moon is actually a launching pad. That’s why we’re stopping at the moon. I said, ‘Hey, we’ve done the moon. That’s not so exciting.’ So we’ll be doing the moon. But we’ll really be doing Mars,” Trump elaborated.

Meanwhile, many other politicians noted the historic achievement on Twitter, including Sen. Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“For the first time in our nation’s history, an all-female crew walked in space today. It’s more than historic—it’s a reminder that for women, even the sky doesn’t have to be the limit,” wrote Harris.

For the first time in our nation’s history, an all-female crew walked in space today. It’s more than historic—it’s a reminder that for women, even the sky doesn’t have to be the limit. https://t.co/qmqypruQ7O

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 18, 2019

“@NASA has captured the imaginations of the world for generations. Congratulations to @Astro_Christina & @Astro_Jessica for leaving their mark on history with today’s #AllWomanSpacewalk. You are an inspiration to women & girls across America,” noted Pelosi.

.@NASA has captured the imaginations of the world for generations. Congratulations to @Astro_Christina & @Astro_Jessica for leaving their mark on history with today’s #AllWomanSpacewalk. You are an inspiration to women & girls across America. https://t.co/HQZIDUpBNZ

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) October 18, 2019

As for the astronauts themselves, Koch and Meir were all business, sharing their excitement on Instagram to get their job of battery repairs done efficiently.

View this post on Instagram

Gearing up for Friday’s spacewalk to help the ground teams repair one of the battery channels with @astro_christina.⁣ ⁣ . . . first spacesuit selfie, check!✔️⁣ ⁣ Photos will be much more spectacular once we pass through the hatch. Be sure to watch live: nasa.gov/live

A post shared by Jessica Meir (@astro_jessica) on Oct 16, 2019 at 2:23pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

‪All hands on deck! Suited up this week in preparation for 5 spacewalks in a row to upgrade the @iss solar array batteries. Work begins on Sunday! Watch the spacewalk live on @nasa TV.

A post shared by Christina Hammock Koch (@astro_christina) on Oct 4, 2019 at 1:51pm PDT

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