Do you remember a time when women on television could be exhilaratingly rude about what other women looked like without everyone else being Deeply Disappointed? On Wednesday I had a flashback to this distant state of affairs as I saw …
The Met Gala is a Ballardian nightmare
For weeks now, a timer on the Vogue website has been ticking off the seconds, the anticipation within the fashion world bursting at the seams. But finally: the 2024 Met Gala is here.
There is, however, something different about this …
How Britain killed off its musical tribes
When the Teddy boys burst onto the scene at the start of the drab Fifties, they established the template for all subcultures to follow. There have always been ultra-loyal music fans of individual artists, but this was something else: a …
The curse of the metrosexual
It’s been 20 years since anthropologists announced the discovery of a new and exciting species of human, emerging from the mists of the urban jungle. This creature was best observed in its natural habitat of New York City: drinking a …
Coco Chanel’s inferiority complex
Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel destroyed the restrictive, oppressive tenets of Victorian dress with a zeal that was personal. The “exterminating angel of nineteenth century style” released the Modern Woman, an individual designed in her own mould. It was her lifestyle, as …
How to make Britain cool again
“Britpop’s Back. But What Happened to Cool Britannia?” asks a recent headline in the New York Times. Quite a lot, it seems. Pessimistic about our prospects, and uninspired by our King’s agenda, Britain is in search of a new story. …
America is trapped in high school
When I entered public high school at the age of 16 following a half-decade of home-schooling, what I saw there blew my mind. The year was 1998, and the student body of Raleigh’s Needham Broughton High School encompassed everyone from …
Why is fashion selling children?
It’s always difficult to decide what to buy the toddler in your life for Christmas. A handbag shaped like a teddy dressed in BDSM gear, perhaps? Or a dog collar and lead? In a new ad campaign for the fashion …
Why is Edward Enninful editing Vogue?
Why are the models so thin? Why are the clothes so expensive? And what is the point of fashion? These were questions I had to answer pretty much every day for the decade I worked as a fashion journalist, and …