There was a big shake-up in Westeros on Tuesday when Deadline announced that HBO would not be going forward with its initial Game ofThrones prequel, Bloodmoon. While the prestige network would not confirm this to Refinery29, executives did announce later Tuesday evening a series order for House of the Dragon, a different GOT prequel based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood. Set 300 years before the events of GOT, the companion to Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire series tells the story of the Targaryen house. On the surface, HBO just swapped one prequel for another — and the network might say it was done for both creative and business reasons — but the reported loss of Bloodmoon is the loss of GOT’s first woman-directed, woman-led series. To complicate matters further, its replacement is comprised of the exact same ingredients, from its producers to a lack of source material, that led to GOT’s tarnished legacy.
When Game of Thrones premiered in 2011, showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss admittedly had so little experience that most of the pilot had to be redone. It remains the stuff of legend in the industry for its disastrous first attempt. At the Austin Film Festival last week, Twitter user @ForArya documented further comments Benioff and Weiss made about their inexperience, including, “Everything we could make a mistake in, we did.”
After the pilot was completely reworked, the series became a massive success — a global juggernaut with later season ratings we may never see again. Nevertheless, while Thrones’ success mounted, the writers exhausted Martin’s source material. The series culminated in a widely roasted final season. Bloodmoon seemed like the perfect chance for redemption. After all, showrunner Jane Goldman and pilot director S.J. Clarkson are not newbies to the industry, as evidenced by their extensive IMDb pages. Goldman wrote movies including the cult favourite Kick-Ass, and is the writer behind the upcoming Rebecca starring Armie Hammer and Lily James, and the live-action Little Mermaid starring Halle Bailey. Clarkson’s credits have quite the range: She’s directed episodes of Orange Is The New Black, Jessica Jones, and Succession (“Prague,” which many fans hail as the series’ best episode to date). She will also helm the upcoming unnamed Star Trek sequel.
The Bloodmoon cast was a murderer’s row of female talent. Naomi Watts was front and centre, with relatively new faces like Naomi Ackie (The End Of The F***ing World, Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker), Ivanno Jeremiah (Humans, Cold Feet), and Marquis Rodriguez (When They See Us, Iron Fist) providing a diverse supporting cast. Plot-wise, the series was said to focus on Watts’ character, who fans spotted wearing a shiny gold dress while filming in Ireland, as “a charismatic socialite hiding a dark secret.” The female storylines in Game of Thrones have always been the most powerful, and we were about to get a show that prioritises those voices. Until…
The series is co-created by @GRRMSpeaking and Ryan Condal. Miguel Sapochnik will partner with Condal as showrunner and will direct the pilot and additional episodes. Condal will be writing the series. pic.twitter.com/9ttMzElgXm
House of the Dragon has some eerie similarities to Game of Thrones’ seemingly ill-advised beginnings. It’s also based on source material that hasn’t been finished. While the first Fire & Blood volume was released in 2018, there’s reportedly a second in the works. And Condal, the series co-creator, has a resume that is far shorter and much less dynamic in comparison to Goldman and Clarkson’s. He created the USA series Colony and wrote the screenplay for Rampage, but no films or TV shows that can be considered major successes or that have attracted big names (aside from Dwayne Johnson). From the information we’ve been given, it’s glaringly apparent that chances are being given to a less-experienced man over two extremely experienced women — however HotD has brought Emmy-winning director and executive producer Miguel Sapochnik along from GoT, where he directed tentpole episodes like “Battle of the Bastards” and “The Long Night.”
We still know little about what Bloodmoon was supposed to be. Deadline cited “issues” during filming as a reason for its downfall, so any number of complications beyond gender could account for its demise (neither Goldman nor Clarkson returned Refinery29’s request for comment). This isn’t to point fingers, but instead to lament the loss of what sounded like an incredible new chapter in the GOT universe. And on the bright side, House of the Dragon as it is now is nothing but potential. When it comes to casting the characters and hiring the writers that could still make this series a progressive success, the throne is anyone’s for the taking.
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Call me boring, but I have only ever wanted to watch a movie or TV show at its normal speed. Apparently though, Netflix is testing out a new mobile feature that lets viewers watch content at 1.5 times the normal speed — which means you can pack an hour-long Stranger Thingsepisode into a tight 40 minutes.
This test gives viewers the option to slow down what they’re watching at 0.5 or 0.75 times the normal speed, as well as to speed it up by either 1.25 or 1.5 times (a feature that is already available on YouTube). Convenient, sure, if you’re interested in watching a scene you love in slo-mo or are in a hurry to watch an episode in a pinch. But also, definitely not ideal for retaining comedic timing (not to mention the fact that the audio will sound slightly weird when you change the speed in either direction). At this stage, the Netflix test has been rolled out on Android devices only, but it has already ignited the ire of many directors and actors who feel it compromises the integrity of their art.
No @Netflix no. Don’t make me have to call every director and show creator on Earth to fight you on this. Save me the time. I will win but it will take a ton of time. Don’t fuck with our timing. We give you nice things. Leave them as they were intended to be seen. https://t.co/xkprLM44oC
Whelp— another spectacularly bad idea, and another cut to the already bleeding-out cinema experience. Why support & finance filmmakers visions on one hand and then work to destroy the presentation of those films on the other??? https://t.co/T7QdYAQGHU
In response, Netflix has published a blog post explaining the reasoning behind the test while acknowledging the heavy backlash it has received from those most affected by it.
“We’ve been sensitive to creator concerns and haven’t included bigger screens, in particular TVs, in this test. We’ve also automatically corrected the pitch in the audio at faster and slower speeds,” wrote Vice President Keela Robison. “In addition, members must choose to vary the speed each time they watch something new — versus Netflix maintaining their settings based on their last choice.”
The blog post says that Netflix has no plans to implement this test further, and based on the feedback, it’s hard to believe it would ever get the green light.
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The nominations are in: 2,500 key members of the fashion industry have spoken and drawn up a shortlist of the brands and individuals worthy of celebration at 2019’s Fashion Awards, and this year’s ceremony is set to be as glittering as ever.
The annual awards, which act as a fundraiser for the British Fashion Council’s talent initiatives, seek to “recognise creativity and innovation in fashion, celebrating exceptional individuals whose imagination and creativity has broken new ground in fashion globally over the past 12 months, as well as brands and businesses that have transformed the possibilities of fashion today.”
Today, the BFC announced its host: the inimitable Tracee Ellis Ross. So far this year the Golden-Globe winning actress Ross has launched her own hair care brand, co-created a Black-ish prequel and starred in a blockbuster alongside Dakota Johnson, but, despite her busy schedule, the triple threat is now headed to London to host the 2019 awards. Known for her incredible Met Gala looks, daring cover shoots and internet-breaking red carpet outfits, the 47 year old actress is well and truly versed in the world of high fashion, making her an obvious choice for this year’s awards. Jack Whitehall hosted the ceremony last year.
As for the nominees, it comes as no surprise that industry wunderkind, Daniel Lee, who took the helm at influencer and editor favourite Bottega Veneta in 2018, is up for Accessories Designer of the Year: his naked sandals and pouch bag have dominated our Instagram feeds all season. Others nominated for the award include Gucci’s Alessandro Michele, Loewe’s Jonathan Anderson, Dior Men’s Kim Jones, and Jacquemus’ Simon Porte Jacquemus.
Lee’s transformation of the Italian house (some have hailed it the new Céline post-Phoebe Philo) has also earned him a nod for Brand of the Year, Designer of the Year Womenswear (won last year by Givenchy’s Clare Waight Keller, designer of Meghan Markle’s wedding dress), and the prestigious Designer of the Year. Jones, Michele and Anderson also feature again among the nominees for Designer of the Year, joined by Miuccia Prada.
Nominees in the Urban Luxe category – won last year by Virgil Abloh with his label Off-White – include Alyx, Fenty by Rihanna, Marine Serre (whose moon print hosiery you’ll have spotted all over the streets of fashion month), Martine Rose and Moncler Genius. British Emerging Talent nominees for womenswear include London Fashion Week highlights Kiko Kostadinov, Matty Bovan, Phoebe English, Rejina Pyo and jewellery designer Alighieri.
Model of the Year 2018 was won by Kaia Gerber, who is nominated once again alongside Adesuwa Aighewi, Adwoa Aboah (who took the crown in 2017), Adut Akech and Winnie Harlow. Earlier this year, it was announced that Giorgio Armani would be receiving the Outstanding Achievement Award – Prada won last year – while Naomi Campbell would be the recipient of the Fashion Icon Award.
One of the most thrilling features of The Fashion Awards is the NEW WAVE: Creatives list, which recognises 100 of the industry’s movers and shakers, from hairstylists and makeup artists to set designers, creative directors and digital influencers. Trailblazers include photographer Campbell Addy, commentator Diet Prada, and filmmaker Fenn O’Meally.
Ahead of the ceremony, which takes place on 2nd December at the Royal Albert Hall, BFC Chair Stephanie Phair said in a statement: “I would like to congratulate all the nominees of The Fashion Awards 2019. Each and every one of them is being recognised for their creative excellence and innovation. I look forward to celebrating them alongside the rest of the industry from across the globe.”
See the full list of nominees below.
Accessories Designer of the Year
Alessandro Michele for Gucci Daniel Lee for Bottega Veneta Jonathan Anderson for Loewe Kim Jones for Dior Men Simon Porte Jacquemus for Jacquemus
Brand of the Year
Bottega Veneta Gucci Jacquemus Loewe Prada
British Designer of the Year Menswear
Craig Green for Craig Green Grace Wales Bonner for Wales Bonner Kim Jones for Dior Men Martine Rose for Martine Rose Riccardo Tisci for Burberry
British Designer of the Year Womenswear
Daniel Lee for Bottega Veneta John Galliano for Maison Margiela Jonathan Anderson for JW Anderson & Loewe Richard Quinn for Richard Quinn Simone Rocha for Simone Rocha
British Emerging Talent Menswear
Ben Cottrell and Matthew Dainty for Cottweiler Bethany Williams for Bethany Williams Kiko Kostadinov for Kiko Kostadinov Phoebe English for Phoebe English Sofia Prantera for Aries
British Emerging Talent Womenswear
Laura and Deanna Fanning for Kiko Kostadinov Matty Bovan for Matty Bovan Phoebe English for Phoebe English Rejina Pyo for Rejina Pyo Rosh Mahtani for Alighieri
Business Leader
Alexandre Arnault for Rimowa José Neves for Farfetch Marco Bizzarri for Gucci Marco Gobbetti for Burberry Remo Ruffini for Moncler
Designer of the Year
Alessandro Michele for Gucci Daniel Lee for Bottega Veneta Jonathan Anderson for JW Anderson & Loewe Kim Jones for Dior Men Miuccia Prada for Prada
Last year, the jelly manicure went viral. Blame the ’90s nostalgia factor — the translucent, candy-coated finish is like the nail-art equivalent of Jolly Ranchers or Juicy Tubes — or the subsequent blowup after over 4 million people double-tapped Kylie Jenner’s Instagram of her pink see-through acrylics. Whatever the spark, jelly fingernails were everywhere in the summer of 2018.
After fulfilling the typical life expectancy of a Instagram trend, the jelly buzz faded. But now, jellies are back again, and this time they’re getting a fresh autumn twist with a matte finish and a new name: seaglass nails.
The new trend comes to us courtesy of nail pro Jessica Washick, who tells us that the look was, in fact, fully inspired by last year’s jelly nails. “I was reminiscing about how fun the jelly-nail craze was,” Washick says. “I wondered how that aesthetic could translate into the colder months, and the vision of opaque seaglass came to mind.”
The basics of seaglass nails are essentially the same as the jelly manicure, except finished off with a matte top coat. “To get the clear opacity in your base, you’ll combine your coloured nail polish with a clear top coat to give it a more viscous finish,” Washick explains. “You’ll paint that polish mixture onto your nails and let it dry — that’s your jelly manicure base — then you apply the clear top coat on its own, followed by a matte top coat. The two top coats layered over the jelly base diffuses the colour, picks up the white undertones, and makes the finish extra frosty.”
For Washick’s transitional turquoise seaglass manicure, she used three polishes: She Drives Me Crazy by Deborah Lippmann, combined with Nails Inc clear top coat and finished with OPI’s matte topper. She tells us that we’ll probably see the look pick up in many different colour-ways, too. “I love this look in a fun lime green or a deep royal blue,” Washick says. “I think it’s a fresh take on matte nails that might spark a trend for autumn and winter.” After seeing how jelly nails took off last year, we’re ready to bet on it.
Refinery29’s selection is purely editorial and independently chosen – we only feature items we love! As part of our business model we do work with affiliates; if you directly purchase something from a link on this article, we may earn a small amount of commission. Transparency is important to us at Refinery29, if you have any questions please reach out to us.
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Sally Rooney’s sensational second novel Normal People was a runaway hit across the world. Naturally, when news of a big TV adaptation dropped, excitement reached fever pitch and we speculated endlessly about what the award-winning book of a generation would look like on screen. Would Connell look like our own personal Connells? Would Marianne hold the same presence that radiated from the pages of Rooney’s book? Would the bittersweet chemistry between them be just as magical beyond our imaginations and fully realised on telly?
There was pressure, anticipation and desperation to find out and now, months later, we have finally been put out of our misery. The BBC has given us a few gorgeous (seriously gorgeous) images from the upcoming series and oh, our hearts weren’t ready.
Over 12 30-minute episodes, we’ll re-experience the complicated relationship between Marianne and Connell, who went to school in a small town in west Ireland before following each other down an even rockier road at university in Dublin. The actors bringing our two protagonists to life are Daisy Edgar-Jones (War of the Worlds, Cold Feet) and newcomer Paul Mescal. Initial responses at Refinery29 HQ are various iterations of: “Delight!”, “Quite spot on for me” and “PERFECTION”.
If you’re familiar with the narrative, you’ll remember that their love story takes us across Ireland and over to Italy, and the TV adaptation, which was co-written by Rooney, will follow suit. Directors Lenny Abrahamson (Room, The Little Stranger) and Hettie MacDonald are behind the camera and after premiering on BBC Three, the show will head over to BBC One and Hulu for audiences in America, too.
“I couldn’t be happier with the cast and team we’ve put together, and I’m very excited to watch them bringing new life to the story on screen,” said Rooney when filming of her bestselling novel was announced over summer. Though readers’ excitement has been satisfied for a little while with these images from the show, impatience for the televised release of one of the most popular modern love stories will probably be hitting its peak right about…now.
Sally Rooney’s ‘Normal People’ will be on the BBC in early 2020
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Let's face it, at this time of year getting dressed pretty much consists of throwing on a woolly jumper,chunky boots and thick tights every day. On the rare occasion that we stray from our toasty autumnal favourites, we've got our eye on a few daring pieces that will inject some life into our wardrobe in the midst of uninspiring, dreary weather.
In the R29 office we're spying tons of funky knitwear, quirky accessories and loads of vintage goodies. While #hotgirlsummer may be over, #hotgirlautumn is next on the agenda. For those of us lucky enough to be hotfooting it out of the country for more tropical climes, trusty sandals and bold swimwear is a must and during peak sale season, it'd be rude not to indulge a little, no?
Scroll through to see the pieces we're pining after to shake up our November wardrobe...Georgia Murray, Junior Fashion EditorI’m hooked on Beyond Retro’s Reworked section, where they refresh old fabric and create new pieces from recycled vintage. This rollneck knit will see me through the season, paired with high-waisted denim and chunky-soled boots.
BEYOND RETRO LABEL High Neck Lettuce Edge Ribbed Knit, $, available at Beyond RetroI’m going to Mexico for 10 days at the end of the month (sorry!) and have my eye on Solid & Striped’s stellar swimwear, which has just gone in the sale at Matches Fashion. Bring on the tequila sodas and fish tacos...
Solid & Striped The Jamie High-Rise Bikini Briefs, $, available at Matches Fashion
Solid & Striped The Rachel Striped Bikini Top, $, available at Matches FashionGood News is my favourite sneaker brand for many reasons, the first being their sustainability credentials. Every pair is made of biodegradable uppers, recycled rubber soles and organic cotton fabric. Plus, they have the retro aesthetic I look for in every pair of kicks. Will they get dirty in autumn? Maybe, but I never liked a squeaky clean trainer anyway...
Good News Organic Cotton Canvas High Top Sneakers, $, available at Net-A-PorterAnna Jay, Art DirectorI’m eyeing up this boxy basket bag from YGN Collective, a mother-daughter duo working to support women in Myanmar with constant income. Everything from this store gives back to valuable causes so it’s a win-win.
YGN Collective Handmade Woven Basket, $, available at FranklyEnter my autumn hero of a jumper. Cute flame graphics and a nice wide sleeve, I’ll be teaming this with jeans and boots all season long.
& Other Stories Flame Colour Block Sweater, $, available at & Other StoriesI’ve dithered over many pairs of hiking style boots over the last few months. Thanks to Arket I might finally bite the bullet with these bad boys.
Arket Leather Hiking Boots, $, available at ArketEni Subair, Editorial AssistantEvery winter my friends rave about how useful Uniqlo's thermal vests are so as someone who perpetually feels the cold, I’ll be popping one on under all my jumpers.
Uniqlo Heattech Jersey Crew Neck Thermal Top, $, available at UniqloI’m a sucker for any sort of Matrix-style sweeping coat and this ASOS marketplace reworked beauty is my latest obsession. From the hourglass fit to the faded orange detailing, it’s certainly a sight to see. Topped off with killer platform boots, it'll make up my AW uniform.
Vintage Reworked Vintage Faded Long Faux Leather Coat, $, available at asos marketplaceThere's never an occasion when I won't opt to wear Western boots if I can swing it. These Mango bad boys are a visual delight and quite frankly, I'm ready to indulge. I can already predict my family totally mocking me for my foray into the Wild West, but they're pretty used to my quirky footwear choices by now.
Mango Cowboy Leather Boots, $, available at MangoJazmin Kopotsha, Entertainment Editor
I bloody love a hat. I know a lot of cool people who wear hats on the regular and I would like to be one of them, please. This black fedora is a classic that, in theory, I could (and would) wear with absolutely everything.
& Other Stories Braided Felt Fedora Hat, $, available at & Other StoriesNinety percent of my wardrobe is black, grey, dark grey or navy blue. Some call it depressing, I call it consistent. That said, I’m slowly coming around to a fun injection of colour and I adore the grandad vibe that’s emerged recently. This bobbled gem fits both briefs.
Warehouse Bobble Stitch Jumper, $, available at WarehouseThere have been too many occasions when I’ve asked someone where they bought their beautiful, easy-breezy yet smart casual dress from and the answer has been Whistles. Though I tend to shy away from floral dresses – especially in the winter – I’ve checked to make sure this one is in stock in my size about four times a day for a week now. I think it’s a sign that it should be mine.
Whistles Floral Ruffle Silk Mix Dress, $, available at WhistlesAlicia Lansom, Editorial Intern
Last year I really wanted a pair of red faux snakeskin trousers, but I chickened out and never bought any. These burgundy faux crocodile ones feel like a toned down version that I would actually get wear out of, and can be worn on both a night out or with a cosy knit. Sorted.
Topshop Faux Leather Crocodile Straight Leg Trousers, $, available at TopshopI’ve had my eye on this coat for weeks but I wasn’t sure I could justify buying a trench when the weather is about to change. However, now that it has been added to the Uniqlo mid-season sale, I may actually end up adding it to my basket come payday.
Uniqlo Blocktech Checked Coat, $, available at UniqloAs a short person, I want a pair of boots to give me height, but I always find heels a pain in the arse to wear. Chunky platforms solve that problem, which is why I have had my eye on the Jadon Dr. Martens forever. Fingers crossed they get reduced sometime soon.
Dr. Martens Jadon Platform Boots, $, available at DR MARTENSTilly Thorns, Activation Manager
I haven’t owned a pair of winter gloves since I was a toddler and they were attached to a string in my coat, so I think it’s about time I invested in some. I’m currently on a pile buying frenzy so these will be a chic addition to my collection.
Arket Pile Mittens, $, available at ArketHaving packed all my summer shoes away for the year, it’s become quite clear I’m not equipped for winter. Thankfully Everlane is on hand to give me some good quality rain boots.
Everlane The Rain Boot, $, available at EverlaneA total mood.
Aries Unbalanced T, $, available at Aries AriseSadhbh O’Sullivan, Health and Living Writer
The perfect winter dress: winter florals, corduroy, long and roomy enough for all the big meals. Plus, it goes great with a white rollneck and black boots.
Vintage Vintage 90s Maroon Paisley Floral Corduroy Dress, $, available at asos marketplaceSpeaking of rollnecks, this merino wool turtleneck is ethically made and exactly the kind of yellow I want to make a staple during the dark, wintry months.
Komodo Keaton Merino Wool Jumper, $, available at KomodoI don’t need another coat but if I were to add another to my closet, it would be this. I watched Almost Famous for the first time a couple of weeks ago (so sue me) and I finally understand the lust for coats like these.
House Of Sunny Chocolate Penny Vegan Fur And Leather Coat, $, available at House of SunnyLaurene Mpia, Associate Production Manager
Winter advice: always have a great array of socks on tap. I usually wear dark colours with minimal detailing but I'm rebelling this season.
Falke Set Of Cotton-Blend Socks, $, available at Net-A-PorterThese clogs are my dream AW shoes! They are perfect for winter with socks (hehe) or in summer with a long midi dress. But we’re not there yet so let’s stick to the strong sock game.
Birkenstock Boston Suede Leather, $, available at BirkenstockThis is an investment that needs to happen. It's subtle, looks like the ideal texture and the price tag ensures I'll be keeping it for a very long time. Acne Studios sure knows how to deliver winter goods, which is a godsend in this freezing weather!
Acne Studios Oversized Fringed Scarf Dark Wine, $, available at Acne Studios
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Model Adwoa Aboah‘s fresh complexion is often the envy of people everywhere but behind the scenes she often talks about her struggle with skin concerns, such as acne.
For high profile shoots (and the odd Instagram selfie) however, her friend and makeup artist Celia Burton is always on hand to ensure she feels comfortable in her skin, but her go-to makeup routine isn’t as high maintenance as you might think. Here are the complexion products and clever tricks Celia swears by for achieving Adwoa’s signature fresh skin look.
Be selective with foundation
Adwoa is diligent about her skincare routine, prescribed by a facialist, according to Celia, and so always moisturises prior to sitting in the makeup chair. For that reason, Celia just goes straight for foundation, but there’s a knack to application.
“Adwoa is really freckly, so a heavy foundation applied all over just looks weird on her,” said Celia, who opts for an oil-free base, like Revlon’s Colorstay Foundation, £12.99. “We use a ‘dot to dot’ method and cover up any redness only. If we’re looking to hide just one red blemish, then I’ll use concealer, but if the skin is a little more hormonal and patchy, a foundation is best and it should always be slightly sheer.”
For seamless blending, Celia prefers a Beautyblender, £17, over brushes or using her fingers. “Beautyblenders lighten the load of the foundation and give skin a realistic texture,” she said. It also pays to apply foundation in natural light, “especially on darker skin,” said Celia.
Colour correct – but only lightly
“I use something a little bit pink-toned under Adwoa’s eyes and blur it out with the Beautyblender, but it’s usually not a really heavy colour corrector,” said Celia. “I like Becca’s Backlight Targeted Colour Corrector, £24, and use this as an eye brightener. It’s my go-to. If you wanted to, you could simply use a pink highlighter under the eye, but make it a cream.”
Always set your base with powder
“To set whatever makeup I’ve put on the skin, I always use a little bit of translucent powder,” said Celia. “Because Adwoa doesn’t wear that much makeup apart from a cream base, I have to set it. Otherwise, you could end up looking really shiny. It’s about taking away the areas you don’t want to reflect much light, such as the nose and forehead. I’d advise leaving the rest of your face totally free from powder because it’s so lovely to see that glow along the top of the cheekbones.”
Depending on whether Adwoa wants a warmer look, Celia sometimes adds a veil of bronzer. “Unlike foundation, bronzer is the only thing I put all over her face,” she told R29. “It just brightens her skin. I tend to focus more on the high points of the face,” such as the cheekbones and around the forehead.
Another of Adwoa’s favourite looks is a bold lip and a naked eye, but only occasionally, such as at red carpet events or launch parties. “The great thing about Adwoa is that she isn’t scared of colour at all and she always sends me references,” said Celia. “We like a lot of red lipstick and use a cotton bud to blur the edges, otherwise it looks too grown-up. A beige-nude or a Lauryn Hill-inspired ’90s brown shade is always a look on her, too. Revlon’s Kiss Cloud Blotted Lip Colour in Chocolate Souffle, £7.99, would look great, as it’s slightly powdery and soft. It’s all about non-committal makeup that you can just sheer out and whack on.”
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Our instant access to must-see shows and movies makes it all too easy to lose a weekend to binge marathons. From gripping crime thrillers like BBC Two's Giri/Haji to harrowing documentaries like Channel 4's For Sama, audiences have been well and truly spoilt for choice over the last few months.
But the screen isn't the only place where narratives come alive. This autumn the literary world has already provided us with a huge number of hotly anticipated page-turners, such as Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale sequel, The Testaments. Other captivating reads include Zadie Smith’s debut short story collection, Grand Union, and New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor'sShe Said, the tell-all book about the Harvey Weinstein exposé.
If you've already ploughed your way through these titles, you’ll be pleased to hear that we've got a ton of new ones for you this November, too. Whether you're searching for a gripping Nordic noir or a gut-wrenching romance, our list of winter reads will keep you busy throughout hibernation season. So grab a blanket, hot chocolate at the ready, and take a peek at what R29 staff are reading this month. Sadhbh O’Sullivan, Health and Living Writer
Why is it your November read? This had been on my To Read list for a while but obviously got bumped up by Evaristo's historic Booker Prize win – Girl, Woman, Other is the first title by a black woman to (co-)win the award. I found the other winner, Margaret Atwood’s follow-up to The Handmaid’s Tale, disappointing so I’m excited to be wowed by this novel, which follows the lives and struggles of 12 very different characters. The blurb says: "Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years." Sorted. Katy Harrington,Managing Editor
Why is it your November read? In TV programmes, movies, art, music or people, the one thing I always look for is honesty; sadly you don’t get it as often as you’d hope. I think that’s why this book smacked me around the head, spiked me through the heart and churned my guts so much. I don’t think I've ever encountered the depth of honesty that Samadder (who I fell in love with when I started reading his extraordinarily funny kitchen gadget reviews in The Guardian) is able to achieve while looking back at the stuff we usually like to bury: childhood trauma, serious and destructive growing pains, awkward college years, self-sabotage, fucked up family stuff, depression and doomed relationships. He eviscerates himself in order to try and understand the hows and whys of his life – dug up, uncovered and laid bare for all to see. And somehow it’s piss-yourself-laughing in places, too. I don’t know how he did it. Eni Subair, Editorial Assistant
Why is it your November read? I stumbled across Oyinkan’s debut in a local Waterstones, it called out to me and within a week I had finished reading it. The novel centres around sisters Ayoola and Korede. The story starts with Ayoola frantically calling her older sister and revealing she’s killed yet another one of her boyfriends. What a way to begin, eh? Based in Nigeria (my motherland, so another incentive for me to read it), we see Ayoola’s dark past unfold pretty quickly as she sets her sights on a new love interest – who also happens to be Korede’s longtime crush. Talk about family drama! I was beside myself when I finished it and the ending doesn’t lead you down the path you expect. Trust me, it’s a juicy one.Jess Commons, Lifestyle Director
Why is it your November read? I use BorrowBox, which is an app that lets you download audio and ebooks for free (FREE!) from your local library. I’m not always able to read exactly what I would ordinarily go for, due to books being out on loan or BorrowBox not having new releases immediately available (don’t get me wrong, it’s got a healthy selection and did I mention it’s FREE). Because of this, though, it's led me to a lot of great finds that aren’t my usual taste and China Rich Girlfriend, the sequel to Crazy Rich Asians, is one of them. It’s pure, easy-to-read escapism or, to use the delicious term coined by The New York Times, 'wealth porn'. Katy Thompsett, Sub Editor
Why is it your November read? It’s been two years since #MeToo exploded, prompting a radical shift in how we talk about power and entitlement, sex and consent, relationships both personal and professional. At the same time, it exposed the limits of online activism – social media, as we know, is rarely a space for nuanced discussion. Perhaps this is where fiction can step in. This Is Pleasure introduces us to Quin, a middle-aged man whose life begins to unravel when he is accused of inappropriate behaviour by several young women. The 84-page novella, which flits between Quin’s perspective and that of his friend Margot as she struggles to account for his actions, is described as an "unflinching look at our present moment that rejects moral certainties to show us there are many sides to every story." A tale for our time, if ever there was one.Alicia Lansom, Editorial Intern
Why is it your November read? It’s fair to say that Call Me By Your Name completely broke me (I still can’t listen to the soundtrack without weeping). So when André Aciman announced he was writing a sequel to Elio and Oliver’s love affair, I was fully ready and willing to get my heart stomped on all over again. The new novel takes place years after the pair’s life-changing summer in Italy and according to the description, stands to show us that "true love never dies". Here’s hoping I can keep my snot crying to a minimum. Jessica Morgan, Staff Writer
Why is it your November read? I spend a lot of time on Netflix and one of the shows I watched recently was Quicksand, a six-part series based on the book by Swedish author Malin Persson Giolito. The show was addictive and the book is even better. Each page is compelling and brutally haunting, following a normal 18-year-old, Maja, who finds herself spiralling into tragedy – I couldn’t put it down. I am obsessed with Scandi fiction and I must say, this one is definitely in my top three to read. Jazmin Kopotsha, Entertainment Editor
Why is it your November read? It’s been a long time since I’ve read a short story collection and as excited as I am to work my way through Zadie Smith’s new release, Grand Union, I thought I’d challenge myself to check out a writer I’m unfamiliar with. Recommended by Booker Prize co-winner Bernardine Evaristo, and Ordinary People author Diana Evans, I’m pretty confident I’ll enjoy it. The collection is described as holding "offbeat characters [who] are caught up in extraordinary situations that test the boundaries of reality" and, boy, am I hungry for some surreal escapism right now.
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Say hello to Emily Dickinson, who is here to party like it’s the mid-1800s. At least that’s the vibe the new Apple TV+ series, Dickinson, is going for because they’re giving us an untold story about Emily’s early years in life. Like, how she frequently rebelled, had a secret girlfriend, fought the patriarchy, and went on carriage ride-dates with Death himself.
The series, which stars Hailee Steinfeld as the titular Dickinson, is certainly based on fact, but a whole lot of fiction has come into play, too. For one, much of Dickinson’s life was filled with more death and tragedy that it was Lizzo and Billie Eilish songs. But looking back at the timeline of her life, things are a bit spotty. Dickinson only achieved fame after her death, when over a thousand of her poems finally saw the light of day. Considering that she wasn’t a figure of note during her lifetime — and the fact that she removed herself from society for the later half of her life — there’s not a ton of concrete evidence to go off of when it comes to what she was like and how she lived, but there letters. Loads and loads of letters.
While Dickinson solely focuses on Emily’s time as a young woman, the full timeline of her life from birth to death means the series could run for seasons and seasons — it just might have to take a much darker turn. Here it is, the life and (somewhat dark) times of one Emily Dickinson:
December 10, 1830: Emily Dickinson Is Born
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson is born in Amherst, Massachusetts to Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson (yes, she and her mother have the same name). Emily already has an older brother, Austin, who is already a year old.
Three years later, on February 28, 1833, Emily’s younger sister, Lavinia, is born.
Fall 1840: Emily Dickinson Starts School
Emily and Lavinia both enrol in Amherst Academy together, which had recently been converted from an all-boys school. Around this same time, Emily’s family move to a brand new house on North Pleasant Street and it just so happened to overlook a nearby cemetery. This would become important later, so let’s put a pin in that.
April 1844: Emily Dickinson’s Cousin Dies
One of Emily’s cousins, Sophia Holland, dies from typhus. Emily — who is 13 at the time — is deeply shaken by her death. She begins writing about death and is so distraught over it that her family sends her away to Boston to live for a time being while she recovers.
1845-1846: Emily Dickinson Gets Sick
Emily’s childhood was dotted with illnesses which meant that she was frequently absent. The longest one of these stretches lasted for several terms between the years 1845 and 1946 when, in total, she only attended school for 11 weeks.
August 10, 1847: Emily Dickinson Goes To “College”
Emily graduates from Amherst Academy (though it wasn’t necessarily called “graduation” at the time). Before this, she becomes friendly with the school’s new principal, Leonard Humphrey, who is only a few years older than she is. Emily later enrols at the nearby all-girls Mary Lyon’s Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (which is now Mount Holyoke College). Emily only stayed at the Seminary for 10 months, and on March 25, 1848 her older brother Austin arrived to bring her home.
Fall 1849: Emily Dickinson Gets A Dog, Carlo
Mr. Dickinson gifts Emily a dog, which was supposedly a Newfoundland. Emily names the dog “Carlo” after the dog in Jane Eyre. Carlo quickly becomes a staple in Emily’s life, and also her poetry as he’s referenced often. He also becomes one of her few long-standing companions during her walks around town.
1850: Emily Dickinson Becomes Depressed
Her friend, and former principal, Humphrey dies suddenly at the age of 25. After struggling with the death of her cousin earlier in life, this blow sends Emily into a deep depression.
February 20, 1852: Emily Dickinson’s First Poem Is Published
Emily’s first piece of poetry is published in The Springfield Daily Republican, “Sic transit gloria mundi,” which translates to “Thus passes the glory of the world” in Latin. The poem, which serves as a parody of Emily’s education, is quite long, but here’s a taste:
“Mortality is fatal— Gentility is fine, Rascality, heroic, Insolvency, sublime“
1855: Emily Dickinson’s Mother Gets Sick
For the first time in her life, at age 35, Emily travels outside of Massachusetts with her mother and sister to visit her father in Washington D.C. (where he’s serving as a congressman), and later stop in Philadelphia to visit family. Upon returning home, her mother falls ill and is bedridden on and off and Emily is left to care for her.
July 1, 1856: Emily Dickinson’s Brother Marries Her… “Friend”
Austin marries one of Emily’s friends, Sue Gilbert, whom Dickinson and some scholars argue was Emily’s secret lover. Though Austin and Sue contemplate moving out west to be closer to some of Sue’s family, they instead stay in Amherst because Mr. Dickinson makes Austin a partner at his law firm. He also builds a house for the new couple right next to the Dickinson home.
Sue is also one of Emily’s closest confidants, and over the course of her life, she’ll send her over 300 letters. Though it’s never been confirmed, lots of evidence points to Emily and Sue possibly having a romantic relationship.
Summer of 1858: Emily Dickinson Publishes More Poems
Emily starts making actual copies of her poetry and writing. Looking back at all the things she’s written, whether to herself or others, she begins to actually collect them into books, in total somewhere over 800 poems. But, they won’t be discovered until after her death.
Throughout 1858 and beyond, her poetry begins to appear in The Springfield Republican, but they her verses were published anonymously and were heavily edited.
April 1862: Emily Dickinson Writes To Thomas Wentworth Higginson
It’s around this time that Emily is introduced to the writings of Thomas Wentworth Higginson; she writes to him asking for criticism on her own poems. The two strike up a formal correspondence and Emily later tells him that he “saved her life” after they started writing. Later, in 1870, after years of corresponding, Emily and Higginson finally meet. He later explains that “Without touching her, she drew from me. I am glad not to live near her”
January 1866: Emily Dickinson’s Dog Dies
After 16 years of companionship, Carlo the dog dies. Emily never gets another dog.
This is also about the time that Emily stops leaving the house more and more, instead choosing to remain inside and establishing her historial reputation as a recluse. In the late 1860s, Emily travels to Boston a few times for an eye condition, which is now thought to be iritis. These trips are her last ones outside of Amherst.
1867: Emily Dickinson Becomes A “Recluse”
Though she always tended to keep to herself, Emily really begins to withdraw from society at this time choosing to remain inside, behind closed doors — literally. When others would come to visit with her, it was said that she would communicate with them from the backside of her door, refusing to speak face-to-face. If she did go out around town she would dress all in white, and became known as the “Woman in White.”
June 16, 1874: Emily Dickinson’s Father Dies
While traveling in Boston for business, Mr. Dickinson has a stroke and dies. The funeral is later held at the Dickinson house, but Emily doesn’t attend. Instead, she stays upstairs in her room and listens to it from afar.
June 15, 1875: Emily Dickinson’s Mother Nearly Dies
Mrs. Dickinson suffers a stroke and lives. However, she is left partly paralysed and her memory is impaired. A few year later, on November 14, 1882, Mrs. Dickinson dies.
1882: Emily Dickinson’s Brother Distances Himself From The Family
1882: Austin falls in love with a woman from Amherst College, Mabel Loomis Todd, and started a pretty obvious affair with her and later distanced himself from the Dickinson family.
1883: Emily Dickinson’s Nephew Dies
1883: Austin and Sue’s son, Gilbert, dies of typhoid fever. This affects Emily greatly as it’s known that he was always her favorite nephew.
March 1884: Emily Dickinson’s Friend Dies
A little backstory on this one: around 1872, the Dickinson family befriends a judge, Otis Phillips Lord, and he and Emily become friends. In 1877, Judge Lord’s wife dies, and it’s believed that he and Emily began a romantic relationship. Many believe their correspondence to be destroyed so there’s not a lot of proof to back that claim up, but the story stuck. And when Judge Otis dies in 1884, Emily is once again distraught over the death of a close friend.
May 15, 1886: Emily Dickinson Dies
After previously being confined to her bed, Emily dies in 1886. At the time, her doctor cites her cause of death as Bright’s disease — a kidney disease, which plagued her for the last years of her life.
At her funeral, one of her poems is read: “Morns like these, we parted; Noons like these, she rose; Fluttering first, then firmer, To her fair repose.” Higginson attended her funeral and read a poem by Emily Brontë, “No Coward Soul Is Mine.”
1890: Emily Dickinson’s Sister Publishes Her Poems
Lavinia discovers Emily’s poetry books in her room and has them published. Emily had actually mentioned these books before her passing and asked that they all be destroyed after her death. Clearly, to the delight of English professors everywhere, Lavinia had other plans.
In November 1890, the first collection of Emily’s poetry, titled Poems, is published. The collection is heavily edited, mostly to fall in line with punctuation and capitalisation style at the time, and it becomes the poetry we know and love today.
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Growing up a child of immigrants in Middle America, I didn’t think I’d ever be a fashion writer. Yes, it was a dream of mine, but it felt far from attainable. No one looked like me, in magazines or on TV. For years — in fact, well into early adulthood — I just assumed my dreams were meant for someone else. Then social media came along and changed everything. Suddenly I was able to connect with people who had similar upbringings and cultural experiences. I began to follow people in the fashion industry and network, which opened doors to opportunities I had previously deemed out of my reach. Now that I’m in a position to do so, I want to be that representation for other immigrants and children of immigrants, a reminder that we exist and we are worthy of the same visibility and access afforded to others.
October is Filipino American History Month, and to pay tribute to the diaspora, we’ll be wrapping up the month with a series of profiles on Filipinas in fashion. These women aren’t just a part of the industry — they’re actively working to make it a more inclusive and progressive space.
One such pioneer is Maria Febre, the director for global equality and belonging at Gap Inc., who’s responsible for advancing the brand’s diversity and inclusion efforts. That position comes with some major responsibilities like leading the in-house design and global deployment of unconscious bias training for all Gap Inc. employees, as well as serving on the company’s Diversity and Inclusion Council. Born in Davao City, Philippines, Febre immigrated to the United States when she was one year old. Ahead, she tells Refinery29 how her Filipina heritage shaped her career path and sparked her passion for helping others.
How did your culture influence your professional journey?
I was raised by traditional Filipino parents trying to assimilate themselves and their children to Western culture without losing our heritage in the process. Filipinos are known for their hospitality and willingness to help others. In the Philippines, my father always shared how welcoming everyone was and that they loved camaraderie. For example, going to other people’s homes without advanced notice was embraced with warmth and excitement. Drop-ins like this allowed for people to take a break, catch up with friends, and — of course — enjoy a meal, which is another big part of the Filipino lifestyle. When I think about my culture, it has been ingrained with how I have always operated in the workplace. It was always about helping others.
When did you know you wanted to pursue a career in retail? What have been some of the most valuable lessons you’ve learned so far?
To be honest, I didn’t pursue a career in retail initially. But once I got to Gap Inc., I was hooked. I’ve been here for 20 years. This is where I grew up and learned so much about retail and myself. I started as an administrative assistant and could have done that job my whole life. Again, it was primarily focused on helping others, so this made sense. One day, the leader I was supporting for just four months encouraged me to apply for a project manager position. This was a pretty big leap. But he shared how he was willing to lose me as his admin so I could contribute to the business in a bigger way.
This was a pivotal time in my career. It was the beginning of my leadership journey. This moment taught me: 1) Sometimes, others see things in you that you may not see in yourself; 2) In your career, you need to take risks; and 3) As I started on my own path as a leader, it was now my duty to pay it forward to others.
What does a day in the life of a diversity officer look like?
Given today’s political, social, and business climate, now more than ever people want to be heard, seen, and provided an opportunity to succeed as the most authentic version of themselves. Every day is different, whether it’s creating moments to have tough conversations, infusing this work in our business processes, trainings, and policies, or bringing our heritage months to life to educate others. This role touches everything. I like to say I wear my cape each day to push this work forward. As a Filipina raised by parents that preferred not to stand out, this role has taught me to use my voice and platform in an authentic way to drive change for others.
Have you worked with many other Filipinas in your career?
I’ve been privileged to meet many inspiring Filipinas throughout my career. There’s often an immediate connection because of the culture we share. As a Filipina leader, it’s important for me to be a role model for our young Filipinas — to show them anything is possible. Our identity is our strength. It shapes our unique perspective, so they need to leverage it.
At Gap Inc., many Filipinas and other Asian women participate in our Asian network group, ASIA (Asians Supporting Inclusion and Awareness), which focuses on building community, raising cultural awareness, and influencing the business through diversity. It’s a great resource for all employees to learn about Asian heritage. This year, for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I had the great honour and pleasure to interview Geena Rocero, a Filipina transgender supermodel.
What’s the significance of your Filipina heritage? How do you stay connected to the culture and motherland?
When I think of my Filipina heritage, I think of my mom — a woman who followed her husband’s lead, moving her family away from friends, family, and their community for a better life for her children. She put her children first above all. She worked hard for her career in banking and was always a great role model of strength. I am a strong Filipina because of her. My mom is also one of the ways I stay connected to the community. She shares all the latest news happening in the Philippines. On occasion, I watch The Filipino Channel with her. Although I can understand Tagalog, sadly I cannot speak it fluently. This was attributed to assimilation. My parents insisted we respond in English in the household. Maybe taking Tagalog classes is my next educational path.
I prefer the term work-life integration. My work and life are connected and intertwined with how I go about my day. I am grateful Gap Inc. offers a culture that supports that. This shows up in multiple ways in my life — from taking conference calls while I drive my daughter to soccer practice, to coming in later on drop-off days and firing up my laptop in the evening, to working remote so I can pick up kids in between meetings. At the end of the day, it’s about delivering great work while being a great mom. [My job] gives me the autonomy to do both.
What advice do you have for Filipinas looking to break into the upper echelon of leadership, whether in fashion, retail, or elsewhere?
Stay grounded. Be true to yourself. Your individuality is your greatest strength. When you can stay as close to who you are and not anyone else, you will show up at your best, whether you are a contributor or a leader. Stand proud of your culture. It’s so easy to lose this through assimilation and trying to fit in with a group, team, or organisation. You are you because of your background, upbringing, and culture. Use your voice to fight against bias. Influence change that creates opportunity for other Filipinas and for all people.
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Aimee Song, an influencer since before there were influencers, is enjoying a rare pleasure: She’s in her own home. “I feel most comfortable when I’m here,” she says from the Los Angeles house she shares with her two maltipoos, Charcoal and Malti. She’s taking a respite from the 300 or so days a year she spends traveling, usually as somebody else’s guest. Only eleven hours ago, Song was in California wine country, wrapping up a four-day trip influencer retreat hosted by e-commerce company Revolve (price of entry: two #revolvearoundtheworld posts per day). In only a few days, she will be posting from Paris.
At 32, Song has been firmly living on the internet for over a decade, which makes her something of a Meryl Streep-level legend among the hordes of Insta-genues. It’s not just the number of years she’s committed to serving as living inspiration for her now millions of fans. There is a particular straightforwardness to her content, which flies in the face of the prevailing trend of staged “authenticity.” Song isn’t out to prove how normal she is, or how tortured she is. She isn’t staging dramas with a recurring cast of complicated characters like some member of the Kardashian fold. What Song does is roam the world in consistently captivating style (you’ll find gowns from Dior and Valentino, as well as tons of cowboy boots and cut-out dresses), with the occasional caption about hanging out with her sister or going to therapy, and that is enough. No arch-nemeses, no shocking confessions, no antics at the after-party (she doesn’t drink alcohol). Her 5.4 million fans tune in for her traveling pants… and crop tops and biker jackets and belted trenches.
And now those fans can dress up exactly like Song. Her sensibility, a mix of polished and daring (she is all for a bare midriff), is the basis of her new clothing line, which launched on Revolve this May. The new designs that are introduced to the 30-plus piece capsule collection every month typically sell out within hours. “Depending on what time zone people live in, they can get upset if they wake up and they didn’t even have a chance,” Song says. The two-tone “Weila” fruit print shirt was the quickest to vanish — gone in five minutes. Other items, including an array of chunky sweaters and animal print statement tops, span the corporate-to club-friendly spectrum.
Song works with a team of designers, and the most popular looks on her own feed have a way of appearing — in affordable form (most items are under $250) — in her collection. “I love blazers and denim and sweaters,” she says. “I like to look put together. Even if I only have five minutes, I don’t want to look like it took five minutes.” Song’s tip for looking like you invested at least ten minutes in front of the mirror? “Throw on jewellery,” she says. “People underestimate the strength of jewellery. Even a pair of gold hoop earrings will elevate a look.”
Growing up in Los Angeles, Song split her time between her parents’ homes. “I loved fashion in a way I don’t think most people understand,” she says. Her mother subscribed to glossy magazines but neither of her parents had cable, so she’d go to friends’ houses after school or babysit for plugged-in families where she could sit on the couch watching MTV and FashionTV and stoke her fantasies. “I remember seeing Pat McGrath applying make-up and watching models walk down the runway in crazy hats and I was like, ‘This is art,’” she recalls.
Song went to college in San Francisco and studied interior architecture. It was as an undergraduate that she began a design blog called Song of Style. At first she focused on interiors, though the purview quickly expanded to other things that Song loves, like lifestyle, travel, and, above all, fashion. Song still maintains the website but the real action is on her personal Instagram account (the “media impact value” of her most recent New York and Paris Fashion Week posts alone were reported to be $1.9 million), as well as her other Instagram account, @songofstyle, devoted to her new fashion venture.
“I post in real time for the most part,” she says. “I’m bad at planning my posts. I used to edit my photos—I used to be a VSCO girl, editing colors – and then I stopped. I got tired of it.” Her disaffection with extensive window-dressing coincided with a personal breakthrough. Two years ago, during Paris couture week, shuffling from one front row seat to the next in designer dresses, she collapsed on the inside. Living out her teenage fantasies, surrounded by celebrities and A-listers, Song was feeling too terrible to ignore. “I was thinking: why am I so unhappy? I’m taking these photos and posting #aboutlastnight or something vain just to showcase that my life is perfect and people are commenting #goals when in fact, I’m so depressed.”
That week, Song sat on the floor of her room at the Hotel Plaza Athenee and got real with her followers about the imperfect truth behind her seemingly perfect public image. “I actually fake it a lot of the time,” she confessed through tears in a video she posted on her Youtube channel. “People ask me how I stay so confident. I don’t feel confident and I don’t feel happy at all. Sometimes I feel so sad and broken inside.” Song started seeing a therapist, and she continues to take a break from her cheerful posts now and then with a caption reflecting on her need for solitude. She says she’s been learning a lot from therapy and listening to Oprah’s podcast. “It’s important that people don’t just think that I’m always so happy. Nobody’s always happy. Happiness is an emotion that comes and goes.”
Song was initially resistant to seeking therapy, a reluctance she attributes to growing up in a Korean-American family where emotional wellness was not a favourite topic of conversation. “I thought depression only affected people with serious mental health issues. I didn’t realise what I had was depression, since I was functioning.” In therapy, she learned about a depression spectrum, that her ability to bathe and get out of bed did not disqualify her from suffering. “It was important to share what was going on and get rid of the stigma,” she says. “Nobody talks about the fact they do therapy. My only regret is that I didn’t start it sooner.” In addition to talk therapy, Song finds curating her Instagram feed to be a highly helpful emotional tool. She only follows a select number of accounts, mostly friends. She also recommends the consistently cheering @tanksgoodnews account, which is dedicated to heartwarming stories about local heroes and acts of kindness.
She has been working on finding her own joy. Running a business is one source of satisfaction. So is reading; while she wouldn’t call herself a bookworm, she gets excited talking about her latest fiction finds. “I finished [Sally Rooney’s] Normal People in one sitting, I loved that book,” she says. Now she’s reading another novel, the sorrowful saga Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. “It seems dark,” she says. “But I’m going to stick with it.”
And then there is her beloved boyfriend Jacopo Moschin, a Milan-born photographer whom she met five years ago while on a sponsored trip for influencers in Morocco. He lives in New York, and travels as much as Song, so they tend to meet up in foreign settings where one of them is working. The couple has gone no longer than three and a half weeks without seeing each other. Song has also met most of her close friends, including cult hair stylist Jen Aitken and stylist Shiona Turini, on the influencer circuit. “Shiona and I went on a personal trip to Bermuda with Solange and my sister Dani [@songdani, 748K followers]. Shiona is from Bermuda and she got the tourism board to fly us up…so I guess technically that is an influencer trip,” she says.
Song’s days at home are less than restful. Exercise first thing in the morning is a must, since she’s often too jetlagged to work out when she’s traveling. She’ll jog around the neighbourhood or go to a hot Pilates class. “There’s a new fitness studio called Bunda that’s butt-focused. It’s like Barry’s Bootcamp except there’s Stairmasters instead of treadmills. I like doing that.” By 9 a.m. she’s in her West Hollywood office, catching up with her staff (two full time, one part time). Then meetings with her agent and manager, perhaps followed by meetings with the Revolve buyers or the Song of Style team. “The design meetings can be six hours,” she shares. She also makes time to connect with internet legends she’s met on the scene, like Eva Chen, director of fashion partnerships at Instagram. “She literally just texted this morning, asking what jeans my boyfriend wears because her husband has skinny legs too.” (They’re from Acne.) And, packing for the next trip is never an easy undertaking.
Despite some ambivalence about social media’s power to stoke emotions — good and bad — Song still embraces her platform and her place in the public eye. “I love creating. Whether it’s a cool makeup look or a photo shoot, I’ve always loved creating and sharing ever since I was little,” says Song. “When I was a kid, I was the person who would share news, like a trend forecaster. I would post about whatever I was obsessed with on Myspace,” she recalls with a laugh. “Hopefully I’ll keep having more things to share.”
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The Morning Show was always supposed to star Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, in their first on-screen reunion since they played sisters on Friends, but it wasn’t always supposed to be about #MeToo. The series, which was announced in late 2018, is based on the book Top of the Morning, by journalist Brian Selter, which documents the behind-the-scenes lives of morning show hosts. The Today Show took in nearly $500 million in 2011, when it featured co-hosts Matt Lauer and Ann Curry, according to a write-up in the New York Times about the book. And though I haven’t yet read the book, many reviews refer to cluttered information about the private lives of broadcast anchors across different networks, as they struggle to achieve the enviable status of the most-watched morning show in America. Stelter’s biggest scoop exposed the offscreen tension between Curry and Lauer — the dynamic the first iteration of Apple+’s The Morning Show was supposed to mimic.
That idea is supported in a recent interview with the show’s screenwriter Kerry Ehrin, who was brought on to rewrite the script, and incorporate a #MeToo plot line around a Lauer-esque character. It’s because of Hollywood’s reckoning that The Morning Show went from workplace drama to Time’s Up tale. In this iteration, the show and its A-list cast (Witherspoon, Aniston, Steve Carrel, Billy Crudup, and Mark Duplass), are tasked with creating a story that combines a lot of (and at times too many) buzzy topics. There’s women fighting for their survival in the shallow world of television as they start to age, a man defending his right to sleep with interns and PAs because he can, combined with the non-stop hilarity of a workplace that runs on little sleep. As entertaining that sounds, it’s a lot to undertake. Still the show’s premiere, “In the Dark Night of the Soul It’s Always 3:30 in the Morning” manages to wrangle it all together and package it as a #MeToo story that will have you both laughing and squirming.
Right away, viewers dive into the dark (literally, since this entire episode takes place either before 9 a.m., or after 9 p.m.) and restless world of broadcast journalism when the New York Times drops a damning exposé on Mitch Kessler (Carell), one half of The Morning Show’s duo. The ensuing game of phone tag, kicked off by a wrinkled and stressed Colin ‘Chip’ Black (Mark Duplass), ends with an in-person delivery of the shocking news. “Who died?” Alex Levy (Aniston) demands when Chip greets her outside the entrance to UBA’s corporate office. That’s a sentiment shared throughout the premiere episode, as Mitch’s reputation and relationships have indeed been killed off due to the multiple accusations of sexual misconduct at the workplace. As my mom always said when I begged to break curfew, “Nothing good happens after midnight.”
The allegations against Mitch are met around the office with sighs, not gasps. In fact, Chip knew about them. (How much did he know? Hard to tell, but he had been working with HR, and he was the only one awake when the phone rang, as if…waiting for it go off.) There’s been a whisper network about Mitch for years, and the staff of TMS seem more agitated by the disturbance than comforted by the news that he’s off the air and out of their office.
Ironically, one of the last people in the inner-circle to hear about Mitch is Alex. The two are the yin to each other’s yang, up there every day at the crack of dawn. After hearing the allegations, she demands she be the one to tell their loyal viewers the news, in a move eerily similar to the one made by Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, ushering in Lauer’s own public downfall. Alex offers a calculated, and, according to her team, overly compassionate statement regarding Mitch being #MeTooed. Her strengths as a news anchor (determined, resilient), are at odds with her inner-conflict. Mitch was her friend, her companion, and a part of her hard-earned success as a morning show news anchor. His downfall might also mean herso, and she doesn’t know what the fuck to do about it.
Carell doesn’t play Mitch as a villain; rather, he plays him for laughs. He’s proud of his workplace trysts, and barely shrugs when his wife announces she’s divorcing him in the wake of the accusations. The script and Carell’s ability to make this predator more likeable than The Office’s Michael Scott is something that will evolve as the season goes on, according to a recent Paleyfest panel, where Ehrin spoke about writing his character. Executive producers Aniston and Witherspoon have said the show was reworked and repositioned in response to the #MeToo movement, but we don’t see or hear from a victim once in the entire episode. Ehrin says there are later episodes and dialogues giving voice to the women who come forward, but for now, we get Mitch slamming a fireplace poker at his TV.
So far, the villain of this show appears to be Crudup’s Cory Ellison, a network executive who wants to replace Alex, and sees this scandal as the ideal way to kill two birds with one stone. Unfortunately for her, the potential second villain is Chip, the same man Alex tasks with saving her job. Little does she know that he has been working behind-the-scenes to find her replacement alongside Cory. He’s playing both sides of the team, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s changing his tune to keep Alex around because of some history between the two?
The last major player of the show is Bradley Jackson (Witherspoon), who goes viral after she publicly and epically drags an uninformed male protester at a coal mine. The video of her outburst garners more than one million views, and she is asked to come be filler on the Mitch-less morning show as the network attempts to highlight women’s voices. On air, she becomes Alex’s punching bag as the two exchange thinly-veiled insults about each other’s style of journalism and reporting. Bradley works for a conservative broadcast channel, but says she only wants to tell human stories. The two spar so subtly that only the producers on the set notice that they’re getting a rise out of each other, before they both manage to shut it down. Alex brushes off Bradley, showing her iciness, but the two clearly make an impression on each other. I wonder if they will ever meet again?! (Ha.)
Their quarrel inspires Cory to call on Bradley in the final scene of the premiere to talk to her about… a role at the company? The possibility of being Alex’s co-host despite a lack of experience (she’s an investigative journalist out of West Virginia who’s been fired for saying “fuck” on air, twice)? His interest in sleeping with her? When the episode ends it’s unclear what his intentions are, both in the short and long term. He’s from the entertainment division of the network, and it’s obvious no one in the news department takes him seriously, so he’s itching to make a statement.
So far, I love Witherspoon embracing her unfiltered Southern roots, Aniston finally leaning into being a know-it-all who loves an icy glass of Grey Goose, and Duplass channeling a male Liz Lemon. I am excited to see the show take on some higher stakes, though. I want to know more about Alex’s plan to keep her seat at the Morning Show table, and how the network will create a safer workplace for women, which is ultimately what Mitch’s firing is about, despite Alex making it all about herself and her tantrums. She says as much when she sneaks over to Mitch’s house in the pouring rain. She doesn’t care that he fucked other women — she cares that he fucked her over.
Water Cooler Gossip:
-There’s nothing I enjoy more than seeing how a successful woman gets *it* done. Alex’s “get ready” segment was one of my favourite parts of the premiere. It showed the reality of her daily routine: Wake up 3 a.m., make a bleary-eyed espresso, half-assedly work out, slap on under eye masks, read her daily scripts, etc.
-It’s interesting to see the same scene told from such different perspectives. When Bradley and Alex spar, we see the conversation from America’s eyes, as it would have aired on the network, through Chip’s eyes, as he freaks out over Alex’s insults, and then from each of the women’s point-of-view, as the size each other up and realise they’re two sides of the same coin. I look forward to director Mimi Leder’s varied perspective in these deeply layered scenes.
-Can more people yell at Mitch? I know we need systematic change on this show, and in real life, but I quite enjoy watching Carell be screamed at for being a creep.
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Halloween might be over, but that doesn't mean that we're done playing dress-up — not even close. For the style-obsessed, every day is like Halloween in the sense that outfits are meticulously planned. Think of us like Cher (a.k.a. the Clueless character everyone dressed up as last night), but without the computerised closet to do the work for us.
With the weather cooling down and the amount of clothing we have to layer on going up, the outfit process can get tricky — even for us. How can we make our blanket scarves look intentional instead of utilitarian? How can we keep wearing our favourite summer dresses without, you know, freezing?
To counteract any what to wear in the fall-induced fatigue, we're letting you in on a little secret: the answer is all over Instagram. Think of the app as the portable version of Cher's closet, but with 10x the amount of outfits to choose from. To make the selection process a little bit easier, we went ahead and rounded up an outfit for everyone — and every day of the month — in the 30 slides ahead. Fact: the only thing better than plaid is mismatched plaid. We're officially naming today Bring Your Blanket To Work Day.Bermuda shorts are fall-appropriate as long as they're leather and paired with knee-high boots. Grandpa called, he wants his sweater back. A layer game we can get behind.An easy but a goodie.Now this, my friends, is how you master monochrome. Double the collars, double the fun. What'd we say about loafers and socks? A lesson on layering by Fanny Ekstrand. Scarecrow grandma, but make it fashion. The skirt that made pleats cool again.If you ask us, it's never too early for a holiday sequin moment.From the cowboy hat to the hiking boots, this outfit is everything we've been looking for since the first day of fall.BRB gotta go buy a gold satin jacket. Wild on the bottom, business on the top.Who else is green with envy over this sheer KkCo look?Is anyone else suddenly craving a McFlurry?When your work self and your weekend self finally meet. It's the wild, wild West out there, folks.A teddy moment. The sweater scarf strikes again.Who wants to go halfsies on a Burberry mini?Sports bra layering is a thing now, didn't you know?When in doubt, throw a leather jacket over it.Give me (faux) leather pants or give me death.Three words: Sweater Shoulder Pads.This outfit is so worth the chilly toes. We're all for head-to-toe zebra.The only boots we'll be lugging around this autumn.
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Travel agent to the rich and famous sounds like a nice job, doesn’t it? I mean who doesn’t love to travel and the opportunity to stay in the world’s top hotels, try out the five-star food on offer and experience once-in-a-lifetime excursions so you can recommend them to your filthy rich clients?
Yet the glamour and adventure come with immense pressure. And the industry has taken a very big hit in the past two decades. Thanks to the internet, cheap flights and hotel booking sites, job security is continually under threat and travel agents are often left scrambling to right impossible wrongs – not just collapsed travel companies (most recently Thomas Cook) but also extreme weather conditions and terrorist threats. Add in unsociable hours and difficult clients, and it’s no wonder that more than half of new recruits quit within the first six months.
What happens when the job is complicated even further by big budget clients and their big budget demands? We met a luxury travel agent to find out what exactly goes into booking holidays for the 1%, the most ridiculous requests she’s heard and her wildest on-the-job tales…
How long have you worked as a travel agent and why did you join the industry?
I started working in the travel industry in 2011. I left school with no clue what I wanted to do or what I wanted to be so applied to one of the big travel companies, simply thinking it would be a fun summer job. I ended up loving it and eight or so years later I’m still in the industry, now working for an independent bespoke travel agency.
We’re dealing with clients who have very particular tastes and large budgets. It’s very different from life on the high street, selling package deals to Malaga.
What does a bespoke travel agency do?
Basically, we specialise in luxury travel, so the special once-in-a-lifetime holidays like honeymoons, cruises, skiing and big, extravagant family holidays. We’re dealing with clients who have very particular tastes and large budgets. It’s very different from life on the high street, selling package deals to Malaga!
What do you love most about your job?
The variety, the challenges and, of course, being able to travel as a job. Mostly though it’s the people you meet – clients of course, but colleagues too can absolutely make your day. For example, when Thomas Cook went bust the messages of support from competitors and the motivation to recruit their redundant staff were really inspiring to see. I’m not sure many other industries would act the same way.
What do you think about the stereotype that travel agents are – how can I put this – rowdy?
Being rowdy is a huge part of the job – after all, to be a good travel agent you have to be confident and sociable. We’re talking to people all day and have to be able to really understand what people want, so that ‘rowdiness’ is important. Though it does mean that when we get together, it can get lively!
Tell me about the travel perks…
They are amazing! We get offered what are called ‘educationals’ or ‘fams’ – it’s where a tour operator will invite you on a trip to experience hotels and destinations, usually when you have sold well for them. It means that we can sell these holidays with confidence and insider knowledge.
How do these ‘fams’ work?
Usually it’ll be a small group of about eight to 10 travel agents from different companies and agencies. You meet for the first time at the airport and by the time you’ve got home, you’re the best of friends.
Have you ever heard of any holiday romances on these ‘fams’?
Definitely! Of course, ‘fams’ are supposed to be professional, working trips, but travel agents are still human and when the complimentary sangria is flowing… What happens on holiday, stays on holiday.
How much do you get paid and do you get commission?
Many people think that because I’m selling incredibly expensive holidays, I’m earning a similar amount but it’s not true. Currently my salary is £22k per year plus commission. When I was at a high street company it was minimum wage plus tiny bonuses when we made sales – £1 per £1,000 sold and then £3 per £1,000 if we hit our monthly targets. The irony is, in the travel industry, most agents are on minimum or low salaries but dealing with excessive luxury every day. There’s no way I could afford one of the holidays I’m selling right now.
Do you think that travel agents should be paid more?
Yes! It’s a hard job despite the perks and there are some huge responsibilities – we are expected to know every destination inside out, magically guess people’s budgets, read people’s expectations perfectly and be on the end of the phone 24 hours a day to assist with admin or talk to when things go wrong.
I’ve stayed in a royal palace in India, trekked the foothills of the Himalayas, been on a safari, learned how to sail around the Greek Islands, stayed on a luxury canal trip in France… That last one featured a lot of free champagne and a hot tub.
Where is the best place that you’ve travelled to?
Too many to mention them all! Because I work for an independent ‘upmarket’ agency, I’ve got to experience holidays only the very rich can afford. I’ve stayed in a royal palace in India, trekked the foothills of the Himalayas, been on a safari, learned how to sail around the Greek Islands, stayed on a luxury canal trip in France… That last one featured a lot of free champagne and a hot tub. I have been extremely lucky.
And the worst?
I can’t think of anywhere I would never go again, I’m up for any kind of travel. But I do now have such high standards for my own holidays. I look at hotels constantly so have a really good idea of what I would hate or know when hotels are scrimping.
What’s the worst part of the job?
Working long and unsociable hours – we often have to stay late or work weekends to be available when clients are free. Also, misquotes from suppliers – they never honour them, but we’re the ones that are left to deal with very angry clients and scrambling to find an alternative.
What sort of complaints do you often deal with?
Ha, if I had £1 for every time a client complained about external issues that we have no control over… I’ve had complaints about everything from Brexit to the weather, recessions and even foreign government policy! “I can’t help that it rained on your holiday, unfortunately you won’t receive the cost of your holiday back in full as I can’t control the weather,” is something that I have had to say on more than one occasion.
What is the craziest request you have ever had from a customer?
Every time I’ve had a crazy request, I think it can’t be topped, but it always is. I’ve been asked if a transatlantic cruise can stop off at the Titanic sinking area so a passenger can ‘pay their respects’, have been asked on a press trip to ‘lend’ my passport to a journalist who had forgotten theirs, and even had to track down a pair of ‘precious’ designer knickers that a client left in her hotel room.
Some have been completely ridiculous, such as the time I had to book a couple on different flights from different airports because one was a regular client and the other was a new girlfriend. He said he didn’t know whether she would ‘last’ and didn’t want to spend too much money on her, so – without her knowing – booked her on an economy flight while he flew business class.
Others are downright stressful. A year or two ago, I booked a married couple a holiday in Jamaica. The husband came in just before they were due to fly to tell us that his wife had died, however the day after the flight, the same wife came in looking very much alive and asking us to book her another flight to join her husband. Thinking it was strange – but also being the new girl and presuming I must have misheard the husband – I did as she said. I found out later that the husband had actually booked a flight for his mistress and the wife had turned up while they were having dinner. It’s safe to say that they were divorced soon after, but then I had the husband storm into the office trying to blame us for the mix-up and claiming a refund for ‘ruining his marriage’. The irony!
Have you ever had to deal with a particularly difficult customer?
Yes, I was once working a late shift when I had a call from a client. He wanted to book a very expensive cruise for himself and eight friends. A week later I got a very heated call from him claiming that he was drunk when he called and that I was stupid for following it through. He even demanded the CEO’s phone number to ask for his full holiday cost back.
Recently, with Thomas Cook going bust, there’s been a lot in the press about the worst possible holiday scenarios. Have you ever had to get your clients out of a really bad situation?
Yes, in 2017 I had clients caught up in the terrorist attack in Barcelona. Luckily, they weren’t badly hurt, and I’ve been given good crisis training – that includes calling the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to find out passengers’ situations, liaising with family members at home, sometimes flying them out or arranging emergency travel back to the UK.
It must be stressful organising something so important for people…
Yes, I think I felt that stress more when I worked for a high street company.
Why do you say that?
Because it almost felt like what I was doing was more important – people would save up all year, or even longer, for that one holiday, so they’re putting a lot of trust in us. Often it would be their only time off work, their only quality time with their family, or the first time someone had gone abroad. I definitely found it easier getting excited about their holidays than I do sometimes with my wealthy clients now.
So booking luxury holidays for wealthy clients is a different type of stress?
Yes, most clients know that when something goes wrong it isn’t your fault, but because a lot of the clients I deal with have so much money and spend a lot with us, there is an unspoken feeling that they are able to get away with things ‘normal’ people couldn’t. They seem to think that just because they are shelling out, we’re only working for them. I have one client who can get quite nasty – I had to return from my own holiday once because he wasn’t happy with his own trip and wouldn’t speak to anyone else in the office.
Do you think being a luxury travel agent demands more personally?
Yes, another client has my mobile number because he is a regular and spends a lot with us. He called me on Boxing Day because he didn’t like his hotel room, and even though he knew that I was out of the office at my mother-in-law’s funeral, called me at the wake to discuss his upcoming holiday. In those situations, I know that I should be able to say no, but because of the money issue, I don’t feel I can.
Is it frustrating being expected to plan everything for customers, like restaurants, activities, car rental?
Sometimes yes, even though it’s a big part of the job. Some clients really take it for granted. I once had a client who would travel every Christmas holiday. No matter where in the world she was or what the climate was, I had to make sure she had a fully decorated Christmas tree in her hotel waiting for her, which can be quite hard in a country that doesn’t celebrate it.
How much do your customers tend to spend?
An average of about £4,000 per person, per holiday.
Have you ever sold a really expensive holiday? What was it like?
My most expensive holiday was for one person and the total was £114,000 for an around-the-world cruise in a top suite. It can be fun having the freedom to book anything – especially for clients who are up for anything – but at the same time it can be hard to manage their expectations.
How do online holiday services like booking.com and Airbnb affect the industry and your job?
On one hand they’re actually brilliant. For high street travel agents, it means that there is less of what the industry calls ‘bucket and spade’ – spending days searching for cheap package holidays. It has meant that the travel industry has had to up its game and sometimes that competition can be a good thing. Of course, there are always horror stories, like people booking a hotel that doesn’t exist or the Thomas Cook fiasco.
Do you think Thomas Cook’s collapse will change how people approach holiday booking?
Yes, I think that so many people have had their fingers burned and it’s gone full circle – people are returning to booking with a travel agent because they are realising that when they book online it’s all in their own hands and they need the trust and security they get from an agent. I would be lying if I said it doesn’t give travel agents a little bit of satisfaction when we get to tell someone we can’t help them if they booked their own flights, hotels and transfers themselves on three different websites. I don’t think we will ever not be needed, but it’s nice knowing that we are in demand at the moment.
What is it like being a female travel agent? Have you ever had to deal with unsavoury comments from clients or sexism within the travel industry?
The travel industry is largely female dominated so within the industry itself I’ve never been made to feel uncomfortable, but when I worked on the high street I had to wear a uniform, much like the one air hostesses wear. I was often catcalled on the bus and it got so bad that I ended up changing at work.
Any insider holiday booking tips you can share?
There are a few simple things, like booking on a Tuesday or Wednesday can be cheaper and buy travel insurance when booking the holiday to save on cost.
I may be biased, but I also think booking with an independent travel agent or specialist operator – someone who is ABTA or AITO certified – is important, especially if you’re booking an important trip. We’re specialists so you’re only ever going to benefit from our knowledge and experience, plus if anything goes wrong, we can look after you.
If you must book online, book as a package deal. You may save money by booking it separately but especially since Thomas Cook has gone bust, it’s been highlighted that if you book flights alone or hotel alone, they aren’t always protected, and you might not get your money back.
Any holiday destination that you would recommend or have on your own bucket list?
Having just done an amazing itinerary for some clients who are travelling to Japan, no expense spared – for £50,000 – it’s now at the top of my bucket list.
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BEVERLY HILLS, CA – FEBRUARY 22: Recording artist Solange Knowles and director Alan Ferguson attend the 2015 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 22, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic)
“I find it necessary to protect the sacredness of my personal truth and to live in it fully just as I have before and will continue to do. it is unfair to not have power of your own story as you shape and mould and rewrite it yourself,” Solange noted in the caption, possibly referring to speculation of the end of her relationship before it was officially announced. “I’m leaning into the fear of the unknown and all the glory and power i know exist within god and the universes grace. may all of your transitions no matter how big or small, be kind to you and filled with incredible love and light!”
A post shared by @ saintrecords on Nov 1, 2019 at 12:18pm PDT
Ferguson is a music video director who previously helmed Solange’s “Don’t Touch My Hair” and “Cranes in the Sky” videos from her third studio album, A Seat At The Table. Last year, Solange celebrated 10 years of being with Ferguson and noted on Twitter that Janelle Monae and Pete Wentz were the celebrity friends who set them up. Ferguson has directed multiple music videos for both artists.
“Certainly, in the beginning, I was the one who approached him, so I have always sort of historically been one of those girls that goes after something that I’m into,” she said. “I’m not very old school and like, I’m gonna wait on you, wait for you to approach me type of situation. I have a lot of guy-like quintessential relationship qualities that I have had to work on.”
It was Solange’s second marriage. She shares her son Daniel with ex-husband Daniel Smith; the two were married from 2004 to 2007.
Refinery29 has reached out to Solange for comment.
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After two seasons, Claire Foy’s reign on The Crown has come to an end. Following a time jump, Olivia Colman will take over the leading role of Queen Elizabeth II. Though many fans were overjoyed by this news, one writer was not a fan of the casting decision — because of Colman’s “left-wing” face. Now, Colman is responding to the feedback, calling the writer’s criticism “absurd.”
In an August op-ed for The Daily Telegraph, columnist Charles Moore wrote that Colman has “a distinctly left-wing face…hard to describe but easy to recognise.” He went on to write that the real Queen Elizabeth “has no such face,” and thus, the role was miscast.
Colman told The Sunday Times that she first heard of Moore’s comment when friends started texting her jokes about her “left-wing face,” and she found the criticism as ridiculous as the rest of us did. “What’s the point of putting on an accent or dyeing your hair or playing anybody if you have to be identical in the first place and have the same feelings?” she said.
Furthermore, Colman disagreed with Moore’s thoughts on the Queen’s political leanings. “I think she’s a leftie, but I think what’s extraordinary and wonderful about her, she can be everything to anybody,” she said. She cited Elizabeth’s positive relationship with Prime Minister Harold Wilson, a member of the Labour party. However, no one really knows where Elizabeth’s politics lie — the royal family has famously kept that under wraps.
The third season of The Crown will pick up in 1964 and cover Elizabeth’s partnership with Wilson (Jason Watkins). Other topics we might see onscreen could be the decolonisation of Africa and the Apollo 11 moon landing.
The series will return to Netflix on November 17.
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There are a million reasons why entertaining at home shouldn't have become as popular as it has, and tiny flats and huge expense on the host's part are just two of them. And yet, for some reason, it is far more fashionable these days to say "Oh please, come round for dinner," rather than "Let's meet in a mutually convenient eatery where someone else will handle literally every stressful part of the evening from preparing the food to the washing up afterwards."
If hosting a dinner party is the sort of thing that brings you out in a cold sweat then you're not alone. In fact, you're actually in very good company; Alison Roman, she of Bon Appétit and New York Times column fame, also hates hosting dinner parties. "I have always been allergic to the word 'entertaining'," she says. But having people over with food? "Well, that's just making dinner but, you know, with more people."
Her new recipe book Nothing Fancy is an ode to this mindset. It's full of simple (but very fancy-looking) recipes, from sides to small plates to mains to desserts, which are perfect to serve when there just happen to be a few hungry people over at your flat.
Click through to find three simple dishes with not very many ingredients that even you can rustle up.Garlicky Broccoli and Kale with Hazelnut and Coriander
If you haven’t had grilled broccoli, dare I say 'You haven’t lived'? The stalk, which is painfully underused, is so insanely good when charred over actual flames that you may never eat it any other way (unless you're blanching it. What can I say? Either light it on fire or dunk it in boiling water, I live in a world of extremes.) This is probably one of the best vegetable dishes to eat at room temperature, so if you’re stressed about getting everything ready at the same time, make this dish and feel relaxed knowing it will only get better as it sits.
Serves 4–6
Ingredients
2 garlic cloves, finely grated 65g hazelnuts, toasted and finely chopped 1 tbsp coriander seeds, finely chopped 60ml olive oil, plus an extra 3 tbsp Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 2–3 large heads of broccoli, quartered lengthways 1 large or 2 small bunches curly or Tuscan kale 1 lemon, halved crossways Flaky sea salt
Instructions
1. Combine the garlic, hazelnuts, coriander seeds and the extra 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper and set aside. 2. Heat a barbecue grill to high; alternatively, preheat the oven to 230°C. 3. Toss the broccoli and kale on a baking tray with the remaining 60ml olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill, turning or tossing occasionally, until the stalks, florets and leaves are lightly charred, anywhere from 2–8 minutes on the grill. (Alternatively, roast on a baking tray until lightly charred and crisped, 15–20 minutes.) 4. Whether you’re grilling or roasting, once the broccoli and greens are charred and tender (the leaves and stalks will cook at different rates, so keep an eye on them), add them to the bowl with the garlic and hazelnuts, tossing to coat. 5. Once all the goods are in there, transfer the ingredients to a large serving plate, platter or bowl. Top with a good squeeze of lemon, a sprinkle of flaky salt, and a drizzle of olive oil.
DO AHEAD: Broccoli and kale can be cooked and dressed a few hours ahead, then kept loosely covered at room temperature. One-Pot Chicken with Dates and Caramelised Lemon
It’s sweet and tangy and a little spicy, and just downright special. It’s got the kind of bold flavours you wouldn’t expect from such few ingredients, which I guess is part of what makes it remarkable. But it’s also a rather flexible dish, able to be made with a whole chicken or chicken parts (bone-in, skin-on thighs, if you please) for a more weeknight-friendly vibe. But what makes it really special is how it’s cooked: first seared, breast side up, letting the legs and thighs brown and render, then lemon slices and shallots are fried in that fat, then water is added to provide adequate sauciness, cooking the chicken quickly yet gently. The lid is then removed so the top can finish browning. And then there you have, all at once, a chicken that is both nearly fall-apart tender and deeply golden brown on all sides. A chicken revelation!
Serves 4–6
Ingredients
1.8kg chicken, or 1.25kg bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs or legs Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 4 tbsp olive oil 1 lemon, cut into thick slices crossways, seeds removed 2 shallots, halved lengthways 4–6 medjool dates, pitted 4 thyme or oregano sprigs, plus extra for serving 2 tsp ground urfa chilli, or 1 tsp chilli flakes Flaky sea salt
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 215°C (425°F). 2. Season the chicken all over with salt and pepper. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large flameproof casserole dish over medium–high heat. Place the chicken in the pot, breast side up. Using tongs, press lightly to make sure the skin comes into even contact with the bottom of the pot. This is your chance to brown the legs and render that excess fat! It’s rarely offered in whole-chicken recipes, so take advantage. (If using parts, just sear the chicken skin side down.) 3. Cook, without moving it, until the chicken is nice and browned, 5–8 minutes. Seriously, no peeking! Nothing exciting will happen before 5 minutes, I promise you. 4. Add the lemon slices and shallot, manoeuvring the chicken however you need so that the lemon slices come into contact with the bottom of the pot. Let everything sizzle in the chicken fat until lightly caramelised, about 2 minutes. 5. Add the dates, herbs and 250 ml water. Sprinkle the top of the chicken with the chilli and place the lid on. Transfer to the oven and roast until the dates are plump, the lemon slices are jammy, and the chicken is almost but not totally cooked through, 20–25 minutes. (The chicken will look mostly cooked through, and a little anaemic from having been covered with the lid.) 6. Remove the lid and drizzle the chicken with the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil. Continue to cook until the liquid has reduced by half, and the top of the chicken is an illustrious, glistening golden brown, another 20–30 minutes (depending on whether you’re using parts, or a whole bird). 7. Let the chicken rest in the pot for 10 minutes, then transfer to a cutting board and carve. Serve alongside the shallot, lemon slices and dates, with some more thyme and flaky salt sprinkled over. DO AHEAD: This chicken can be cooked a few hours ahead, then kept in the casserole dish at room temperature. If you wish to reheat it before serving, pop it back into the oven without the lid on for 10–15 minutes or so. Roasted Pumpkin with Yoghurt and Spiced Buttered Pistachio
For those on the East Coast in the States, pumpkin season is a real 'thing'. At first, it’s very exciting because it also means that it’s Warm Sweater Season and everyone is feeling extremely cosy, thrilled to be outside without sweating profusely. But soon you realise WSS lasts for approximately 84 years, and one month into it you might feel like dying if you have to eat one more roasted butternut. The first time I made this it was peak WSS, and I still found myself shamelessly eating it with my hands, dragging each caramelised wedge through the lemony yoghurt and buttery pistachios, swiping leftovers with my fingers, licking them clean like some sort of animal. Yes, it truly was that good.
Serves 4–6
Ingredients
1 pumpkin (winter squash), such as Red Kuri, jap or kent (kabocha) or acorn, sliced into 4cm wedges 3 tbsp olive oil Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 90g unsalted butter 30g raw pistachio nuts, finely chopped 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1/2 tsp ground turmeric Pinch of ground cinnamon Pinch of chilli flakes (optional) Flaky sea salt 250g full-fat Greek-style yoghurt 2 tbsp lemon juice
NOTE: Most pumpkin varieties work here, but my favourites are the larger, thick-skinned varieties because you can eat the skin (and the seeds). If using something like a butternut or honey nut, cut it into 2.5cm slices rather than wedges.
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 215°C (425°F). 2. Remove the seeds from the pumpkin if you want. (I leave them in, as I enjoy their crunchy texture as they roast, but whatever you like!) Toss the pumpkin on a baking tray with the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and roast until the pumpkin is totally tender and golden brown with caramelised bits, 40–50 minutes. 3. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small pot over medium heat. Cook, swirling occasionally, until the butter has browned and started to foam, 3–5 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the pistachio nuts, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon and chilli flakes, if using. Season with flaky salt and set aside. 4. Combine the yoghurt and lemon juice in a small bowl and season with salt. Spoon the yoghurt sauce onto the bottom of a large serving platter or bowl. Arrange the pumpkin wedges nestled into each other and spoon the buttered pistachio nuts over everything. Top with flaky salt and a grind of black pepper or a pinch of chilli flakes, if you like.
DO AHEAD: Pumpkin can be roasted several hours ahead, wrapped loosely, and stored at room temperature. It doesn’t need to be reheated before serving, but you can if you like. Nothing Fancy: Unfussy Food for Having People Over by Alison Roman is out now, published by Hardie Grant.
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Though we’re no longer surprised by news of our most cherished books becoming TV shows, the pressure and expectation when it happens is always just as prevalent. Tell us that you’re adapting one of our beloved childhood favourites and the stakes get even higher. Yes, it makes so much sense to put Philip Pullman’s fantasy epic His Dark Materials on screen, but we fans have been burned before. Forgive us for treading carefully this time around.
In 2007, we had The Golden Compass. Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman and Dakota Blue Richards starred in the film, which was based on Northern Lights (the first book in the Dark Materials trilogy) but fell short of delivering the magic of the novels. You can only do so much in a couple of hours, of course. So when the BBC announced its eight-episode TV series, we hoped that more ground would be covered this time. And friends, the show does not disappoint.
Dafne Keen stars as Lyra Belacqua, a young orphan living at Jordan College in Oxford under the watchful eyes of academics. Her uncle, Lord Asriel (James McAvoy) stops by from time to time. When we meet him he’s just come back from another expedition to the north, where he’s been investigating Dust. We’re not told explicitly what Dust is, but we do know that it makes the scholars of Jordan College very nervous – nervous enough for The Master to poison Lord Asriel’s whisky before he has a chance to share his findings with the rest of the university. Spying from a window, however, Lyra spots the poison being added to her uncle’s drink and is able to intercept when he goes to take a sip.
Lyra lives in a world parallel to our own. It looks and sounds very similar except here human souls take a physical form as animals, known as ‘daemons’. Later on we’ll learn that the connection between the two is the root of much of the story’s conflict.
Here in Lyra’s world, everyone is under the rule of The Magisterium, the theological powerhouse that governs the country. Lord Asriel is accused of heresy when he presents his scientific discoveries about Dust – and a shocking ability to detect other worlds connected to this one – to the scholars of Jordan College. Lyra overhears and is fascinated by the whole thing. She begs her uncle to take her with him when he heads off back to the north (he knows he can’t stick around much longer before The Magisterium gets wind of his discovery and tries to stop or kill him) but he declines.
Beyond the college walls is the Gyptian community, nomads who live on riverboats and are primarily traders. After a ceremony to mark Tony Costa’s transition from child to man (this happens when your daemon settles in one form; in childhood, daemons can transform into any animal they need or want to), his younger brother Billy goes missing. Word spreads and it’s eventually worked out that he’s been taken by the Gobblers, once assumed to be a scary myth told to children but now clearly a reality.
It’s not long before Lyra’s best friend and Jordan College kitchen hand, Roger, is taken too – just as Lyra is introduced to the mysterious, beautiful and unnerving Ms Coulter (Ruth Wilson), a respected and seemingly feared woman who holds a lot of power among the scholars in Oxford (and much further afield). She’s dangerous but we don’t know why. She’s also in town to offer Lyra a job as her assistant and accompany her to London. It feels strange and untoward but on the promise that London is her best bet for finding Roger, Lyra agrees and boards an airship with her new guardian, thus starting an important journey that she doesn’t quite realise she’s on.
“She has a part to play in all of this, a major one,” the College Master tells one of the scholars before sending Lyra on her way with Ms Coulter. “The irony is that she has to do it all without realising what she’s doing.”
And so in one episode we’re thrust into a universe on the cusp of conflict, with the fate of more than we realise resting in the hands of a young girl. The beauty of this adaptation is not only the length – with an hour per episode, there’s much more space to delve into the complexities of Pullman’s writing – but what’s on screen. The imagery is gorgeous, the characters are just as rich as readers will remember, and the sense of anticipation that drives the narrative for viewers who may not have read the books is wildly compelling. In a nutshell it’s a well-crafted coming-of-age story intertwined with politics and good old-fashioned adventure. But Pullman fans will already know that His Dark Materials is so complicatedly more than that. On first look, this TV adaptation seems poised – finally – to convey that accurately.
His Dark Materials starts on BBC One on Sunday 3rd November at 8pm
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When I first went vegan about three and a half years ago, my access to snacks suddenly, rapidly diminished. The choices on offer were limited to pulped and reconstituted ‘fruit’ snacks or anything I could spot from my mental roster of accidentally vegan snacks (most chocolate bourbons yes, all digestives no). But that didn’t last long. By then, the snacking landscape was already in the midst of a monumental shift, one that has now reached fever pitch. No longer are ‘healthy’ snacks (of which many are vegan) the preserve of specialist health food shops. Now, they line supermarket shelves, with some stores dedicating entire areas to these new snack choices. Most of these products will proudly proclaim themselves free from everything we were taught to feel guilty about in the highly processed, hyper-coloured snack foods of our youth, or loaded with what we assume we lack: high in protein, plant-based, high fibre and free from the eight major allergens.
Where once I had to carefully plan every aspect of my eating for the day, snacks included, I can now walk in anywhere and buy something to satisfy a sweet or salty craving. But I’ve found the branding of so many of these snacks as healthy or ‘good for you’ and – more sinister – ‘guilt free’ jarring, especially as more and more varieties make their way onto the market. Legume substitutes and lower sodium powder flavourings, fruit, nuts and chia seeds reformed into bars, balls, crisps, puffs and even fake jerkies all pride themselves on being the better choice, whether it’s by virtue of being good for you, or for the planet. “We are not like the bad snacks of your childhood,” these labels seem to say. “We’re on your team and we know you want to make good choices, so why not buy me! It can’t hurt, right?”
These snacks pair their claims about how good they are for you with the idea that they are consequently guilt-free and can be consumed in bulk, which is really the same marketing as “once you pop you can’t stop” but with supposed added benefits. This, plus the saturation of individualised food items in every supermarket, can encourage the kind of binge behaviour that directly contradicts any kind of healthy relationship with food. It is the next step in the ‘snackification‘ of the world, a modern phenomenon showing how our diets have radically shifted in recent years. These days, there is a trend of supplementing – or even replacing – meals with a steady stream of snacks. According to The Grocer magazine, 60% of adults in the UK say they skip at least one meal a day in favour of snacking, with 30% of young women doing it daily. And this form of eating has now been made ‘health conscious’. As Robert Rona, director of new markets, products and services at The Triangle Nutrition LTD told Feast magazine: “The flexibility and convenience of the health-conscious snackification movement means consumers can eat what they want when they want – without worrying about calorie intake or nutritional levels.”
60% of adults in the UK say they skip at least one meal a day in favour of snacking, with 30% of young women doing it daily. And this form of eating has now been made ‘health conscious’.
Irrespective of what they’re made of, a lot of these products rely on something called the ‘health halo‘ effect – where consumers overestimate the healthfulness of a single item based on one claim – in order to keep us buying in. In a culture where we’ve been taught to be wary of additives and hyper-processed food, anything that sets itself up in opposition must therefore be good. If it’s free from dairy AND high in protein, it’s got that good-for-you glow, irrespective of what else may be in it. Emer Delaney, a spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association and registered dietitian tells me that advertisers will often deliberately be misleading, especially in instances of health claims. “Advertising can be very powerful and misleading, and the food industry hasn’t always been as transparent as it could be: they would love people to think they are healthier options and quite often they’re not.” She goes on to say that these healthy snacks are expensive and can actually be high in calories. “If for example they’re ‘low fat’, loads of the fat has been replaced with sugar. I think people are very confused these days. They’re looking for quick fixes, they want to be healthy, they think they are being healthy, but actually they’re not always.”
Beyond whether or not what we consume can really be deemed ‘good for you’, how we eat can also impact our physical wellbeing. In the case of snacking, it is set in opposition to meals, which are generally seen as hot, savoury and consumed with others. Snacks, on the other hand, are invariably cold, quick, sweet and solitary affairs, snuck in stolen moments. They are marketed as, and intended to be consumed, ‘on the go’. They fit into our days as a replacement for breakfast to make allowances for a long commute; a quick bite during an overnight shift; or to tide you through the working day when you don’t leave your desk, as more than one in three British workers do.
This inability to slow down in order to nourish ourselves can have serious health consequences, argues food writer and historian Bee Wilson. In her book The Way We Eat Now, Wilson writes about the 1969 medical researchers who followed Japanese men that moved to the US, knowing as they did that the average Japanese man suffered less from heart disease than US men. The assumption was that the US diet (of burgers, pizza and soda) would pose more of a risk to heart health than the traditional Japanese diet (fish, vegetables, tofu, green tea, seaweed). But it turned out that the culture in which they ate had an effect; there was a fivefold difference in coronary heart disease between those men who became most Westernised and those who didn’t. “Eating Japanese food was not by itself enough to give these men low levels of heart disease. To get the full benefit, they also needed to slow down and eat meals in a Japanese way, recreating the culture of their homeland in the sun of California.”
There are short-term consequences for our health too, as Emer tells me: “If you are eating on the run, you don’t necessarily have enough time to chew your food properly … and you can swallow a lot of air and that can cause indigestion and bloating, and make you feel really uncomfortable. And there’s also the social aspect of things… How many families actually sit down in the weekday to eat as a family? We’re losing that as well.”
The shift of priorities towards snacking either to supplement or replace meals is pinned on the consumer, as is whether ‘healthy’ choices are made. But what it actually comes down to is the way we now work, and are expected to work. The celebration of snackification, healthy or not, obscures the fact that we are now sustaining ourselves in bitesize, individual moments instead of shared, bigger meals. When breakfast melds into the commute, lunch is overtaken by work, the gym or non-work life admin, and dinner is an exhausted afterthought, it’s no wonder we constantly feel the impulse to nibble on things, and then, if we can afford to do so, try to make the ‘good’ choice.
The celebration of snackification, healthy or not, obscures the fact that we are now sustaining ourselves in bitesize, individual moments instead of shared, bigger meals.
Many people no longer have set mealtimes when we can safely assume that because we’re eating lunch, most other people are too. Shared eating time is being scheduled out of existence, as we’re expected (and we expect ourselves) to work longer hours and never tune out of work. In objective terms we actually have far more free time on average than workers did 100 years ago: nearly 1,000 hours more a year, according to The Way We Eat Now. But it’s about the way society dictates that time should be carved up. We may have more free time but it doesn’t fall at mealtimes, when we need it; if it does, because we can eat snacks whenever we want, dedicating time to preparing and then eating a meal is less of a priority.
A more diverse range of options for all foods, especially if they can be affordable and readily available, is no bad thing. But we should be wary of claims that something is good for us – it demonises other types of food, which are all that many people can afford, and glosses over how the work economy more than anything shapes our eating habits. It would be far healthier, for everyone, if we all had the time and space to eat proper meals, away from our desks, maybe even in the company of others.
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Jade is a financial dominatrix. New to the term? It basically means that she demands money from ‘slaves’, devoted worshippers who don’t want anything in return for their cash. Though it’s straightforward enough on the surface to explain, there are complexities and surprising difficulties that come with being paid by strangers to do very little, which are unpacked in Radio 1 and 1Xtra’s’s six-part podcast, Random Men Pay My Bills.
Host Riyadh Khalaf is given access to Goddess Jade’s world. She lives alone in London and since getting into the findom (financial domination) business, she’s made more than £250,000 in the last six years. Probably one of the most surprising things for listeners who may never have heard of findom before, is that all it takes is asking. With little more than a tweet requesting money to pay for a champagne lunch at a fancy Mayfair restaurant, Jade can have the money in her account in a matter of hours.
Jade tells Riyadh that she started out as a cam girl at university, which helped to pay for her degree in behavioural neuroscience. She originally wanted to do clinical psychology professionally but soon found her way in the findom sphere. Now earning approximately £60,000 a year, it’s easy to see why she hasn’t looked back.
Of course, this way of life comes with a price. The podcast is acutely conscious not to glamorise a lifestyle that can actually be pretty dangerous. There’s the fact that Jade’s family doesn’t know what she does for a living because she is worried about the concerns they’d have about her lifestyle. Her sister is the only one who knows about the financial domination set-up but there remains a difficult tension between the two of them whenever the subject of her work is broached. Then there’s the practically risky side of things, having to give so much of herself online, being so reliant on both social media and strangers to survive and, as you’ll discover in episode three, sometimes having to meet these strangers in person for a physical cash exchange.
Jade and Riyadh touch on the topic of whether financial domination aligns itself with sex work, which Jade disagrees with, although findom is often understood to be part of the BDSM family. Reliant on the fact that her subjects get pleasure from satisfying Jade (albeit financially), it’s clear that the lines are a little blurred and wider understanding is lacking. Jade thinks she’s happy with her lifestyle but as the episodes unfold listeners gain an insight into the less pleasant circumstances that led her to it and have shaped her perspective on operating in such a way. With few friends and unable to share a big part of her life with her family, the upsetting downsides to Jade’s experience of findom are as evident as the monetary upside. As Random Men Pay My Bills uncovers, there’s always so much more nuance – good and bad – to a lifestyle like this which, on the surface, seems little more than easy money from people willing to offer it.
