If the breathtaking, atmospheric trailer for One Breath is anything to go by, Anna Calvi‘s new album may just be even more spectacular than her debut release. Inspired by a battle with depression, the Mercury Prize nominee’s album has already received rave reviews from critics ahead of its release next week. We can’t wait.
One Breath is released on October 8th.
Just what IS it all about? Does a meaningful life lead to happiness? Or does being happy give our lives a sense of purpose - a meaning? It’s a question most of our ask ourselves throughout our lives. In a typically meaty and fascinating Aeon mag read, Roy F Baumeister investigates…
Parents often say: ‘I just want my children to be happy.’ It is unusual to hear: ‘I just want my children’s lives to be meaningful,’ yet that’s what most of us seem to want for ourselves. We fear meaninglessness. We fret about the ‘nihilism’ of this or that aspect of our culture. When we lose a sense of meaning, we get depressed. What is this thing we call meaning, and why might we need it so badly? Read more: Aeon magazine.
Maybe you’re not remotely interested in fashion. Perhaps you couldn’t give two hoots about fashion week. But Rick Owens’ show at Paris Fashion Week was truly, truly amazing. A seminal moment in fashion, history, culture and performance.
Using ‘normal’ models is not particularly new, but Owens’ choice of having stepping dance troupes of of all shapes, sizes and colours wear his collection for Spring/Summer 2014 was nothing short of inspired. Expect people to mention this show for years to come.
Women making up the majority of a government - something which you might see happening in a forward-thinking place like Iceland, or perhaps one of the Scandinavian countries. No - it’s happening in Rwanda. So how are women in politics spearheading change in Africa - and why aren’t we hearing more about it?
Rwanda’s parliament is now almost two-thirds female, while Malawi, Liberia and Senegal have women at the helm. Western feminists, take note. Read more: Comment Is Free.
Would you care to join me for a cocktail at The Ritz? And then how about if we head to The Ivy? Or we could try a tipple or two at Quo Vadis? And maybe a nightcap at Off Broadway… In what may just be the most sophisticated (not to mention easy to navigate) bar crawl ever, next week sees London’s best bars setting up shop for one night only at the first ever Cocktails in the City event.
On September 26th, a handpicked selection of the Big Smoke’s finest establishments will be shaking up some seriously chic sips at the soirée, with tutored tastings and demonstrations on offer from only the bestest mixologists; think Disco Drinks workshops, gin tastings and Mad Men-themed cocktails courses. And just in case you get peckish (yes, you really should line your stomach if you’re downing the strong stuff), there’s BBQ fare aplenty from Bodeans or Salvador & Amanda’s dependably moreish tapas. Not to mention musical magic from the Horse Meat Disco team.
It’s basically about six months worth of nights out, in one show-stopping event. We’ll see you there. Buy your ticket for Cocktails in the City online here.
You’re not a boxer or a schoolgirl, so skipping probably isn’t for you, right? But what if skipping was actually a fun, highly efficient workout?
Skipping is one of the cheapest, most effective, fat burning workouts you can do. And it’s fun too. What’s stopping you? Here are 12 reasons to do a skipping workout. Read more: Zest.
The weather seems to have taken a trans-seasonal turn in London. You know, that kind of temperature where it’s not quite chilly enough to start wearing a wool coat, and definitely the balmy weather that would justify a light jacket. And so before we begin the Great Quest to Find the Perfect Winter Coat, what the devil should we wear?
These fashion-forward leather jackets from Francis Leon are what! Combining super soft leather with high performance fabrics like sportsmesh, jersey and neonprene, expect sharp, slick cuts with an edge of masculine nonchalance. And they’re wear-everywhere pieces: thrown casually over a special party frock, adding a dressed-down vibe to an office ensemble or simply with your favourite pair of slouchy jeans and a sweatshirt. At this rate, we might actually skip trying to find that Perfect Winter Coat, and just visit the dry cleaners with last year’s outerwear…
For more information and to find stockists, see the Francis Leon website.
Yes, bed head hair can be sexy. But it can also look like you’ve been dragged through fields and hedges backwards - not a style you may want to consider wearing to work. Dry shampoo has long been one of our instant hair saviours, but how about if you could create a runway-worthy blow-dry in less time than it might take you to choose your shoes?
George Northwood of the Josh Wood Atelier is hairstylist to some of the world’s most stylish women, from Rosie Huntington-Whiteley to Alexa Chung. Here he shows us how to turn a seriously bad hair day (we’re talking frizz, flyaway everything going in different directions) into a really good one in a matter of minutes - no shampoo required. Read more: Get The Gloss.
Fashion Week. It can’t have escaped your notice that twice a year, certain people begin to punctuate their sentences with the words ‘fashion’ and ‘week’. But let’s look a little closer at what these events actually entail. If you’re NOT going to fashion week: endless collections of clothes which you can’t buy or wear now, at prices you possibly can’t afford ever. If you ARE going to fashion week: sore feet, everything running late and too much fizz/not quite enough food. All in all, fashion week is an event to be avoided. The best way to enjoy fashion week? How about with a special collection of cocktails celebrating four gifted, up-and-coming fashion designers? Much more fun!
The Fashion Season Cocktail Menu features four cocktails, each inspired by one of the designers shortlisted for the Dorchester Collection’s Fashion Prize. This year, the nominees include Emilia Wickstead, Barbara Casasola, Huishan Zhang and Fyodor Golan; a group of highly creative designers all destined for big things. Each designer worked with a mixologist at a different Dorchester Collection hotel to create their cocktail, including Le Meurice in Paris, Milan’s Hotel Principe di Savoia, and - of course - The Dorchester in London.
We’d definitely recommend slooooowly sipping the ‘Casasola Martini’ which features a strong-as-you-like mix of raspberry vodka, Chambord, raspberry purée along with a dash of pineapple juice and a final flourish of fashion’s favourite tipple - Champagne. Or there’s the ‘Berry Lace’ - a delicate yet modern take on the classic mojito, inspired by Huishan Zhang’s luxurious, elegant designs. How about ‘The Emilia’ which is laced with a heady mix of gin, passionfruit and ginger? Or Fyodor Golan’s glamorous and deliciously girly strawberry-peach Marilyn - topped up with Champers, of course? You may just have to try them all. If you ask us, this is the ONLY way to actually enjoy fashion week…
The Fashion Cocktails menu is available until October 2nd at The Dorchester (London), the Hotel Principe di Savoia, (Milan), Le Meurice (Paris), Le Richemond (Geneva) and The Beverly Hills Hotel (Los Angeles). For more information, see the Dorchester Collection website.
Love, heartbreak, sex, infidelity, pornography, friends, relationships, sisters, fathers, women in the workplace, body hang-ups, body big-ups: all the usual suspects when it comes to comical one-woman shows fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe. But Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, running until 22nd September at the Soho Theatre’s Upstairs studio space, is anything but a predictable elegy to a certain strain of feminism.
Written and performed by 28-year-old Waller-Bridge, Fleabag is a hilarious and brittly honest insight into what it is to be a young woman today - or moreover, what it is to be an attractive white, middle-class twenty-something female today. That in itself has a recumbent controversy to it; relative first world privilege never really made for knock-your-socks off comedy. Yet Waller-Bridge’s outstanding hour-long play and portrayal of her sole character, Fleabag (a self-flagellating nickname that’s never directly mentioned in the performance) conveys anything but the ‘poor little white girl’: just “some sort of a female living her sort of life”. In fact, it’s a stark confessional in how the trials of life, the frustrations and regular reasons to whinge are down to nothing but personal responsibility – or lack of therein.
Fleabag seems to represent the feminism she never quite committed to, or perhaps, never felt spirited enough to grasp in the first place. And that’s no criticism; it’s with bristling embarrassment, maybe even relief, that everyone in her audience can heartily relate to her unmentionable habits (masturbation, internet porn, desperate sexual encounters, casual inebriation, harshly judging strangers, to name a cleaner few) and thoroughly relate to her shortcomings (insecurity, indecision, questionable reliability, social awkwardness). With no bars held on life topics that the majority of us would rather not admit to knowing much about, ‘Fleabag is a seriously rude production – yes, expect to be shocked, as the reviews will all say.
The play’s first outing at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer won Waller-Bridge the Fringe First Award 2013 and The Stage Best Solo Performer 2013, and not without deserve. Waller-Bridge’s impeccable comic timing makes for an absorbing and cathartic experience, and her intimate portrayal of her character a brutally close and convincing performance. While relatively short in length, the play’s voraciously human theme and exploration into otherwise uncomfortable subject matter, coupled with the intimate nature of Soho Upstairs’s studio space, deigns its one hour length actually quite un-gratuitous; a careful detail that often eludes explicit performance. Plus, with the play’s 7pm start, you’re out just in time for dinner. Or a stiff drink, which might be more apposite in this instance. Five stars out of five.
Fleabag is showing until September 22nd. For more information and to book tickets, see the Soho Theatre’s website.
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