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The Importance of Being Beautiful

The Importance of Being Beautiful

Mary Neale-Smith

The word beauty comes from the Old French beaute, originating from the Latin bellus meaning pretty or handsome. The Latin word was associated with women or children, and when used to describe men, it implied insult or irony.

In Webster’s (1828) Dictionary of the English Language, beauty was defined as ‘whatever pleases the eye of the beholder’. So today, as mainstream beauty has to conform to capitalism and the patriarchy, the beholder is male. Men are the judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to defining beauty.

The definition and concept of beauty has transformed throughout the centuries. In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf (1991) writes about how women have transitioned away from being economically and politically reliant on men. But, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The obligation became ingrained in our society that women ought to be beautiful. This counterforce arose as women were no longer bound to the narrative of domesticity and chastity. One waste of time had to be replaced by another.

We believe ‘beauty’ is something that can be achieved. It is not about chance or luck. We ignore the role of genetics and natural variation. Instead, we have been persuaded that beauty is a product of a woman’s hard work, investment, and perseverance. So it is imposed on us all, expected of all women, regardless of their profession, relationship status, or desire to be judged on a more meaningful characteristic.

The irony is that the idealised standard of beauty right now is being “natural”. To look like you haven’t had to try. The cosmetics giant Glossier can market products as ‘glow-enhancing’ and then made a fortune in charging extortionate prices for essentially sheered out products. By 2024 the skincare industry in the UK is predicted to be worth $24 billion, reflecting women’s investment into countless regimes and routines to achieve the goal.

All the hard work and expense in trying to achieve the perfect ideal of beauty has been rebranded. The old-fashioned message splashed across magazines telling women to spend time and money to look better for their husbands has been seamlessly transitioned into telling them to do it for themselves. The magical phrase ‘self-care’ has turned the hours and pounds spent on your appearance into something progressive.

What is difficult about this discussion is that it is not the desire to be beautiful that is wrong. Navigating these waters is hard when it can appear to be unfeminist to criticise any decisions women make around their bodies. The problem is that beauty has become a requirement, and the beauty standard centers around narcissism and feeds off our insecurities.

When we look in the mirror, we might see things we like, but more often than not, we focus on the parts that we don’t. These parts are often natural and how they ought to be, but we get manipulated into believing they need to be worked on. That they need improving.

Instead of raising meaningful and important questions about these beauty standards and their origins, we are trying to expand them. We believe that beauty is such an important attribute that we all need to feel beautiful. It’s placed on an untouchable pedestal.

As a result, the ideal of beauty has evolved in some positive ways. It has become more inclusive and diverse – the body positivity movement works to enable people of all shapes and sizes to be included in what is beautiful. But, the underlying assumption: beauty is, and should be, of fundamental importance to us all. Why can’t it matter less?

The beauty ideal turns us into hamsters on a wheel. Although we are continuously running, we never get anywhere because perfection cannot be reached. And we keep running because participating and trying to achieve the beauty ideal delivers a sense of power.

But this power is a facade. Often the only type of power women are pushed to pursue. It is a power rooted in the male gaze and male opinions. Yet, it is not a power over men but a power to attract them. With beauty comes power, perhaps it’s a privilege, but the privilege is not without consequences.

The historical progression of professions reliant on beauty show just how the beauty ideal and the power associated with it have changed over time. Previously, when beauty mattered less, it was used by a class of working women in jobs like dancers, models, and sex workers, which were low paid and unrespected. The new reality is being beautiful is valued above all else. Some women have managed to make money out of it. Porn, modelling and being a social media influencer are some of the few industries where women earn more on average than men.

But using your beauty to make money doesn’t feel like stepping off the wheel. In fact, believing you are benefiting from the beauty ideal feeds it more. As Margaret Atwood observes, “even pretending you aren’t catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy”.

The beauty ideal will not change while we conform to it, but not conforming is often too great a sacrifice. Being sold the promise that beauty can and should be attained also makes many people very wealthy – so it’s not going anyway. For the time being, it seems we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

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Culture

Music and Society

Music and Society

Ed Merson

 

When I was 17, my school put on a talk for the whole year. It was about the history of music. I was excited. I loved music. I used to sit outside at parties, not bothering to dance to the shit music played out of some UE Boom, listening to my own music.

The talk was by a man called Mike Hurst. He made it clear he was cool. Former singer of the Springfields, who he said had headlined instead of the Beatles. Everyone ‘ah’ed. He started to talk about the origin of music. Through Egyptians, Early Modern England. I ignored all of this. I wanted Cat Stevens.

I grew up on my parents’ music. CDs in the car, like everyone else my age. I thought I had the most individual music taste, trawling through to find the most obscure 70s musician, and when ‘Mike Hurst’ started playing a song by Howlin Wolf I was proud I knew the song. I whispered to the person next me, ‘Do you know that song?’. He said no and I reveled in my knowledge. From this point onwards I listened to the talk, counting how many songs I knew of.

But that wasn’t the point. I had missed the point of the talk, just like I didn’t understand my parent’s music. I re-watched his talk recently online. He gave one remark at the end which has almost stopped me from playing my parent’s music. My parent’s music was theirs. They experienced it, and they followed it as instructions. The music was a unifying symbol which brought social issues to their minds. They felt they could fight against the society which was holding them back.

Now I look at myself. Privately educated. Durham University. Funded by my parents. Where is my fight? Well, I could just say that I haven’t been given a challenge yet. Or that there isn’t anything to fight against. But I would be lying to myself to legitimize the life which I’m leading. I would be insular, selfish, or weak. There are so many problems which are given little to no public stage. Music created a consistent narrative which couldn’t be avoided.

There is no change in our lives. Though we have no limitations, we have no purpose, and our desire to . Instead of listening to music and adapting it as a basis of action, we read the BBC, or scroll through Instagram and TickTock. Though our parents used the medium to fight against social norms, we have no problem with conforming to the paths which society gives us. School, then university and then a job.

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Culture

Bragging rights: NFTs and a new world of art

Bragging Rights: NFTs and a New World of Art

Thea Belton

 

Picture this. You walk into the Louvre and head straight to the Mona Lisa. You join the throng of people craning to see the world-famous Da Vinci painting. They have travelled hundreds of miles, just as you have, to catch a glimpse of the 77×53 cm image that has been described as the “best known, most visited, the most written about” piece of art in the world. But you possess something that everyone else here does not. While anyone can claim to have held a moment in front of that notoriously enigmatic expression, only you possess the bragging rights to ownership of it.

Well, not quite. But as close as you can get to owning the painting that has the highest known insurance valuation in history at $100 million. This is because you have purchased an NFT (non-fungible token) of Da Vinci’s masterpiece, and you can show off your digital copy of it (better, of course, than the thousands of google images you can get) at the dinner table with your friends.

This is all hypothetical of course. The Louvre has not started selling NFTs of the Mona Lisa. But we’re not far off. Russia’s State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg announced in July 2021 that it will auction off tokenized versions of five famed artworks from its collection: Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna Litta (1490); Giorgione’s Judith (1504); Vincent van Gogh’s Lilac Bush (1889); Wassily Kandinsky’s Composition VI (1913); and Claude Monet’s Corner of the Garden at Montgeron (c. 1876).

The sale is set to take place at the end of next month on the Binance marketplace. The idea is to “provide a new level of accessibility to the Hermitage’s collections” and “emphasize the importance of digitalization as a new stage in the realm of collecting artworks,” according to the museum’s announcement.

For those of you who don’t know, NFTs are a way of buying a digital good that represents a real-world object, usually art, in the form of a unique digital token living on a blockchain. Essentially, you can purchase some clip art of a rock for the price of a house if it is sold to you by the right artist. They were started to support struggling artists but have quickly become an exclusive stock-purchasing industry that is generating billions of dollars. You might question their rising popularity, considering that an original painting is noticeably different from a copy, whereas a digital piece of art will always be the same as the original. They essentially give you the flex of owning a piece of digital art and access to the exclusive NFT communities that are forming.

They are becoming both a new world of trading and a future of fine art collecting. In both cases, they are hospitable to the uber wealthy, and are the latest way to climb the social and financial ladder further into the heart of capitalism.

Take 18-year-old artist FEWOCiOUS, who has made millions auctioning off NFTs. The teen has jumped into the industry with full force, building a community through his sale of NFTs and placing himself at the centre of the intersection between craft and commerce. Yet the intersection is blurring the lines between money and art to the extreme.

NFTs are not just a new way of buying art. They’re becoming a currency in themselves. In New York, the auction platform Origin Protocol, which sold the viral video “Charlie bit my finger” as an NFT, is hosting events with entry requirements of NFT tokens via an online auction platform.

Grimes recently sold 10 pieces at auction, amassing a staggering $6 million. Her one-of-a-kind video, “Death of the Old” was sold at $389,000. Meanwhile, 700 copies of her pieces “Earth” and “Mars”, were sold at $7,500 each. Meanwhile, Balmain has launched its 3rd NFT project – trainers you can purchase that also give you access to exclusive VIP experiences. Gucci auctioned a video NFT at Christie’s in May for $20,000.

The roaring twenties are well under way. At the annual conference of NFT corporations in New York, crowds queued to get into Hammerstein Ballroom. The party was hosted by OpenSea, who facilitated over $10 billion in NFT trading volume in 2021 so far. Essentially, artists, buyers and dealers have found a way to immerse themselves even deeper into the exclusive world of investments and keep the good times rolling for those rich enough to partake.

Speaking this week to Freddie de Rougemont, Old Masters Specialist at Christie’s, a grimace at the mention of NFT’s said it all.

“It’s the same as the idea of online bidding at an auction,” he said ruefully. “It takes all the theatre out of it.”

I know what he means. There’s nothing quite like that wind-knocked-out-of-you feeling when you see a famous piece of art in real life for the first time. The goosebumps you feel when you begin to understand the meaning behind an artist’s entire life’s work are like no other. The hair-raising and invigorating moment when art creates beauty out of trauma, and you are moved by the genius produced from personal and historical pain.

Yet the art market has also always been dominated by a level of hype, a need to get the right people generating excitement about certain pieces, that often takes away from the art itself. I witnessed it in Christie’s, standing next to a dealer audibly excited by the beauty of an 18th century print. Less than a minute after he had moved away, a gentleman had rushed up to the print and taken a snap of its going price.

Working at Frieze Masters art fair this year was like this experience on crack. What was, I soon realised, the fashion week of art hosted in Regent’s Park, opened my eyes to the anxiety of the rich to bid on the most sought-after pieces. In their expensive tailored suits, fur hoods and bejewelled hands, jacked up on morning Marlboro’s and Vicodin, they work themselves into a frenzy over the Frieze catalogue, before rushing in to be schmoozed by gallery attendants.

Meanwhile, the lowly Frieze staff spend their lunch break fawning over the Basquiat that gleams from the centre of the room. I barely gave myself a moment to eat, so enraptured was I by my proximity to Auerbach, Freud and Moore. Yet I was also sucked into this slightly deranged bidding mentality. With only an hour to tour the fair, I found myself looking for the big names on the cards before I’d even bothered to look at the art next to it.

The world is too fast paced for money to be made from a slow and balanced approach to viewing art. Nowadays, bids for $1million + are made from the comfort of bed and bragging rights to virtual masterpieces can be bought at the click of a finger.

While it is a new form of people’s relationship with art, it stems from the age-old characteristic of the art world, that lingers in the hallways of Christie’s and spills out in bizarre escapades in Regent’s Park. It is the need to compete with others, to prove that one is better, and to show off one’s wealth, style and taste. It is the preoccupation of the wealthy and sucks the life out of the Auerbach that so captivated a 14-year-old me on a school trip to London.

When it comes to NFTs, the exclusive aspect to their business model is wholeheartedly denied by brands such as Balmain. Yet the current hype around NFTs promotes an access-only mentality to so many products, events and experiences that are unaffordable to most. According to investment banking firm Morgan Stanley, metaverse gaming and NFTs could constitute 10 per cent of the luxury goods market by 2030. Will this expand the world of NFTs to the rest of us, and will we want it? Only time will tell.

https://time.com/6115274/nft-conference-parties-culture/

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/hermitage-museum-auctioning-nfts-1992830

https://www.voguebusiness.com/fashion/exclusive-why-balmain-is-betting-big-on-nfts

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/1/22308075/grimes-nft-6-million-sales-nifty-gateway-warnymph

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Culture

Navigating 2022: When and What to Leave Behind

Navigating 2022: When and What to Leave Behind

Sia Jyoti

 

Despite it boiling down to a change in numbers, the event of a new year tends to accumulate emotion unlike ever before. I like to think of myself as a realist, unfazed by mere ‘special days’. Yet I too find myself, every year in and every year out, overwhelmed by the New Year blues of January the 1st.

During day-to-day life, Mondays take shape as benchmarks of productivity. What you failed to achieve on the weekend and what will taunt you for the coming week are all things you tackle — on a Monday. Yet every so often, that occasional late Sunday night will lead to a missed 9 a.m. or a failed gym attendance. When this happens, you’ll maybe groan, whine a little to your housemates or to your parents on the phone to paint the illusion of how much you ‘really care’. Self discipline and criticism is tough in these instances and we find ourselves trusting the unknowns of Tuesday, Wednesday – maybe even Thursday. What is it then about the relentless agony of achieving something — anything, on the first day of the year? Spanning from the taking on of a Tolstoy novel to the sole establishment of a year-long goal, why are we so desperate for change?

In the coming of a new year, romanticisation is flipped on its back and every event from the former year takes shape as possibly the worst judgement of your life. That late assignment? A sign that you’ll never really be competent enough. That average first date? Your one chance at love that you blew with your fear of commitment. The things we nostalgically reflect on the night before suddenly take shape as all that we avoided. At a younger age when one’s emotional intelligence hasn’t quite developed, I would owe it all this regret to athe mixture of alcohol, fireworks, and New Year’s Eve kisses. In retrospect, I find the blues to be deeper than a result of sensory overload and immaturity.

On the first day of a new year, the human love for patterns, continuity and comfort clashes with an intrusive urge to change. The daunting prospect of localising in on the areas of mediocrity which require improvement manifest into our beloved resolutions. Eating better, exercising more, and always, without an actual plan, magically ‘stressing less’. The majority of resolutions we publicly announce will fail due to the external validation of your friends’ proud reactions. The others may partially succeed, but only until March when the normality of 2022 also settles in. What then? How does one navigate the pressure of a new year?

I find the problem is inherent within my choice of the word navigate. Why all of a sudden do I find myself lost in my own life? About decisions I have consciously made and patterns I so carefully built? The word resolution can be defined as a pledge or a commitment. It can also be referred to as “the conversion of something abstract into another form” (Oxford Dictionary). For example, the resolution of an image that may have been pixelated earlier. Whilst one meaning almost begs a certain stubbornness, the latter suggests clarity. Perhaps in our struggle for change we dismissed our need for closure. Both metaphorically, of the emotions we thought to have processed in one drunken night, and of the events that don’t seem as far away as you would like them to.

In my attempt to avoid the let down of failed resolutions, I will start my Mondays now with reflection. Instead of investing in an overcomplicated bullet journal, maybe I’ll try and invest in myself. Two years now we’ve lived in a pandemic where change occupied a constant state. The beginning of 2022 most certainly does not require a continuation of that stress. To allow myself to grow in a way and “make better judgments” required by resolution, I first must sign up to do some reflection. I know you’ve been told that it is all in the past — that your unsolved anger and miscommunication can be left in the former year. Regardless, it doesn’t take a genius to know that if flared pants could make it back into society, your saviour complex most certainly will. For now, I’ll pledge to write in my journal. That way, I’ll attempt a resolution designed for resolving.

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Culture

Do We Really Outgrow Childhood Classics? Or Perhaps a Better Question is “Should We?”

Do We Really Outgrow Our Childhood Classics? Or Perhaps a Better Question is, Should We?

Oluchi Emenike

 

Maya Angelou wrote “I am convinced that most people do not grow up … we mostly grow old. We carry an accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias”.

There is so much truth to this statement. For the most part we never do leave our childhood classics behind. If anything, the pandemic has allowed us to reconnect with forgotten books, films and television shows. Whether it was re-reading the Harry Potter books, re-discovering The Chronicles of Narnia or re-watching Avatar the Last Airbender there is so much joy to be gained from revisiting past favourites.

Some of our fondest memories are connected to childhood classics, they are an entryway to the imagination. They generate important questions, educate, and challenge our perception of the world around us. They expose the multi-dimensional nature of the human experience. They reveal the vast spectrum of human emotions; we laugh, we scream, we cry, we experience loss at a young age through childhood classics.

His Dark Artifices by Phillip Pullman remains one of my favourite book series for all the reasons stated above. It introduced such profound concepts and emotions which I barely understood but nevertheless accepted. As a child it doesn’t make sense when two friends can never see each other again. You fail to understand why people grow apart and how relationships previously thought to be indestructible can be severed by a knife. Or when a character has finally found her parents why she must ultimately lose them at the end of the novel. For a child, friendships and relationships are supposed to last forever. So, when the media you consume violates this principle it is incredibly confusing but at the same time crucial. Only now can I properly qualify the themes explored in His Dark Artifices because my understanding of the human psyche has been enriched by personal experience. The loss of friendship and self-sacrifice makes greater sense because we have accumulated these experiences which are a natural consequence of the human condition. Revisiting childhood classics leads to a full circle moment, the realisation that things once unknown are now known.

It makes sense that we derive comfort from revisiting old favourites, these stories are so deeply entrenched in our collective consciousness. Though aimed at children they are created by adults, so naturally treasured by adults, and tell us so much about the adult condition through the eyes of a child. This convergence encourages us to reassess the pressure and intensity of the adult world with child-like enthusiasm. We seek to invoke our world with themes we identify in these classics, freedom from self-consciousness and rejection of normality. So, we continue to rely on these stories.

But there is such a thing as overreliance on the past. In the process of preserving the meaning associated with childhood interests, we risk stifling personal development. We fail to accept that we are so intrinsically different from the people we once were when we first encountered these stories. We struggle to let go of our old identity and release ourselves from the burden of the past. This obviously does not mean that we should reject these old favourites but reminds us that it is okay to outgrow ourselves.

So, I think that the answer to the above question is both yes and no. Childhood classics are foundational to our development. They informed our metamorphosis into the individuals we are now, often shaping us in ways that we cannot see. Yet, it is also natural to outgrow things. It is easy to resist this growth because we are conditioned to believe that the things we love as children have no place in the adult world. But this is not true, we can allow ourselves to grow while still holding on to the essence and value of childhood stories.

There is so much value in growing out of things, it requires an impressive degree of strength of character to realise that the books, films, interests and sometimes even people that used to consume our lives – no longer fit. It signals change, akin to stepping through an unknown door completely blind without the comfort and security of what we knew before. It is daunting, scary, intimidating and so many other things all at once. But most importantly it is essential.

As we grow, we should not needlessly reject our childhood impulses, we should not forget what these stories meant to us and who they represent. Yet, this should not prevent us from embracing change. So that ‘someday we’ll be old enough to start reading fairy tales again’ – C.S. Lewis.

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Culture

Has photography lost its focus?

Has Photography Lost its Focus?

Bea Twentyman

 

The advent of accessible photography has coincided with the implicit mainstreaming of social media. This of course, is not really a coincidence at all, as both have materialised through the rise of technology which has allowed for the mass intake of visuals on a daily basis, be that through adverts, Instagram posts, or photos we take on our phones. This has led, I would argue, to a general desensitisation to photography.

You open Instagram. You see a friend’s post. You like it. You scroll and repeat. And then, on Monday your weekly average screen time flashes up . You start the inevitable process of telling everyone you’re on a social media detox in sheer horror. By Tuesday you’ve caved. I think what instils the panic is that if you compared those hours on your phone to what you can actually remember looking at in that time, you’d probably come up laughably short. It’s not to say social media can’t be interesting and funny and informative, it’s just the sheer volume and accumulation that means for the most part, it isn’t adding a great deal to our lives.

With the rise of social media has come a shift in the focus of photography. In a world of selfies and influencers and facetune, we look more at ourselves than at the world around us. This obsession with appearance has cultivated a self-image society, where photos are used as a form of false presentation rather than a way of capturing real moments. The oversaturation of images means we don’t look at photos in the same way anymore. What once was a rare glimpse or capturing of a special or particularly beautiful moment is now a subconscious form of self-posturing.

I’ve possibly given social media a bad rap and it’s certainly not the crux of the issue because without cameras on phones none of this would be possible anyway. That everyone can take photos instantly has rendered photography more accessible but is also problematic in its own way. The notion that anyone can take a photo is reminiscent of the old adage that anyone can make art. You may be thinking, well, both those statements are true, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Of course, anyone can take a photo, in the same way that anyone can do a painting. What doesn’t necessarily follow is that this photo or painting will be any good . Suggesting everyone can take photographs is what has led to it being considered a so-called ‘soft’ subject. That is to say, it degrades the highly skilled and difficult discipline and training required to refine photography skills.

It’s not all bad though, because there’s clear evidence that we still want to appreciate good photography. Take any David Attenborough series for example. Its breath-taking visuals always spark a conversation and indeed provoke necessary discourse about environmental issues. Social media allows photography to have a pervasive socio-political impact in a way that wasn’t really possible a few decades ago. The return of film cameras reflects a maintained desire to have physical photographs rather than just those digitally stored on a nebulous cloud.

Whilst traditional photography is certainly a casualty of the mobile phone, it’s also impossible to conceive of it ever fully disappearing. In our post-pandemic world, I hope we hold onto the escape and solace found in nature during that uncertain time and take the opportunity to adopt a new skill on the way.

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Culture

Is Gender Neutral Fashion Here to Stay?

Is Gender Neutral Fashion Here to Stay?

Sophie Harding

 

The way we dress is one of the biggest expressions of our identity. In an ever more overwhelming world, fashion helps us to explore our own personal style and taste; it is an authentic expression of identity. The flexibility and creativity of fashion allow it to be the ideal medium for non-binary expression, and as it has become more widely accepted that gender is a spectrum rather than a group of rigid categories, gender neutral style has become more and more prevalent in mainstream fashion.

In both the streetwear and runway fashion industries, designers and influencers have begun to embrace androgyny in their designs and ignore the constraints of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ garments. This would lead us to believe outdated notion of gendered clothing is on a decline, but it is worth questioning the authenticity of the fashion industry and commitment it has to this cause. Is the popularity of gender-neutral design simply part of another trend cycle, destined to disappear alongside shoulder pads and jeggings, or will the presence and influence of non-binary catering brands and designers mean that it is here to stay?

Streetwear brands such as Aimé Leon Dore, Wildfang and Barragán all embrace androgyny in their collections, not only enabling their clothing to be more inclusive, but elevating the very composition of their collections. The collusion of blazers with masculine silhouettes and feminine finishes, or ambiguity of garments that do not attempt to be either ‘male’ or ‘female’ creates clothing collections that exudes absolute creativity, not constrained to the binary labels that have been perpetuated by department store brands and other mainstream fashion.

Meanwhile, mainstream binary streetwear brands such as Supreme, Stussy, and Palace that traditionally make clothing for men have been reimagined by non-binary and female streetwear enthusiasts and influencers, who take classic masculine streetwear silhouettes and repurpose them alongside feminine colour pallets and accessories, surpassing the rigid constraints of the concept of ‘menswear’ and ‘womenswear’.

On the runway and red-carpet, high-end fashion designers showcase inspired couture that celebrates androgyny. Fashion houses are embracing gender non-conforming styles. Louis Vuitton’s 2021 summer collection aimed to ‘discover and abolish the last [gender] frontiers’ by adding unique twists to staple business and streetwear silhouettes. Marc Jacobs polysexual ‘Heaven’ collection honours iconic queer figures, inspired by the ‘D.I.Y spirit that connects subcultures around the world and recontextualises them for a new generation’. The list of luxury fashion houses embracing androgyny in their collections currently could go on and on.

Clearly, gender neutral design has a firm foothold on current mainstream fashion. Yet this does not reassure us that it will become a permanent feature within mainstream trends. The ‘unisex’ movement has taken the forefront of mainstream fashion in the past, and its time there was fleeting. In 1969, Paris runways saw designers such as Pierre Cardin and Paco Rabanne create ‘space age’ looks that refused to comply with historical gender associations. Alongside this runway breakthrough, second wave feminism saw women reclaiming their autonomy through their clothing, unwilling to indulge in ‘women’s’ clothing that perpetuated the gender norms that oppressed them. As a result, department stores began to create special sections for ‘unisex’ fashion, and it seemed that gender neutral style had finally hit the mainstream. Within a year, most of these sections had closed, and along with them the prevalence of androgyny on the runway. ‘Unisex’ design had little longevity in the mainstream market.

Alternatively, for subcultures throughout history, gender-neutral and non-conforming fashion has always been prevalent as a method of subversion and resistance. Elizabeth Smith Millers inventing bloomers in the height of the first wave feminist movement, goths in the 80s who repurposed ‘feminine’ makeup to create harsh and dramatic looks, David Bowie and his cover of “The Man who Sold the World”, wearing a dress and defining the androgynous movement in the 60s- these all encompass the way subculture has embraced androgyny to challenge societal norms.

By subverting the gender norms applied to clothing, non-binary individuals subvert the very ideas of gender that they do not conform to. It begins to dismantle the physical misconceptions of how a ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ should look and questions the very notion of applying genders to pieces of clothing. Subcultures have always used style as a bricolage in which the reassembling of traditional formats of clothing is utilised as a form of resistance. For many nonbinary people, gender neutral style subverts the norms placed upon them, and challenges the cisgender lens that dominates culture. It is worth questioning whether the ingenuity and creativity of gender-neutral design is more powerful in the context of these subcultures, and perhaps this would explain how it has never managed to break the mainstream market.

With gender-neutral fashion gaining popularity on the runway and in streetwear, will the fashion industry truly be able to start dismantling the binary worldview that it helped to create, or is this just the latest trend, a brief spark destined to fizzle out just like the androgynous trend that took place in the 60s? If this is the case, will it remain up to subcultures and non-binary groups to continue to challenge the outdated and invented notion of gendered clothing?

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Culture

Student Cooking Done Better

Student Cooking Done Better

George Jessop is a Liberal Arts Student at Leeds who works part-time as a chef at El Gato Negro, a tapas restaurant and bar in Leeds which has won multiple awards. George’s love of cooking expands beyond his job, and he writes accessible recipes for students, so they can enjoy good food on a budget.

 

George’s Chicken Ramen

 

A lot of students know the economic value of buying a whole chicken from Aldi, roasting it, then having it in the fridge. If you want to mix it up from chicken stews, sandwiches and pasta, this recipe is one of the tastiest ways to give those chickens a good send-off. As this is a bit of a lengthy process, I normally space the cooking over a few days.

 

As indicated below, this recipe works if you’re feeding a crowd or if you’re meal prepping – with chicken meat in the fridge and stock in the freezer you can throw it together for yourself in about 15 minutes.

 

Serves 5-6 people

 

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken

2 onions

2 carrots 

1 bulb of garlic

Sea salt

Black pepper

3 tbsp butter

2 thumb sized pieces of ginger

6 eggs

6-9 nests of medium egg noodles (hunger dependant)

Soy sauce

Vegetable oil

Sriracha

 

Roasting the chicken:

 

1. Check your chicken’s packet for oven heat and timings, just remember to preheat the oven.

2. None of the veg needs to be peeled, so half two onions, a few carrots (lengthways) and a bulb of garlic (vertically). With this, make a tray for your chicken in your roasting tin, so the bird doesn’t touch the tray.

3. Rub the chicken generously all over with butter, season well all over (including the cavity) with sea salt and black pepper, stuff the cavity with a lemon, and cook according to packet instructions.

 

Making the stock:

 

4. Either the next day, or once cooled, strip all the meat off the bones, set aside, and put the bones into a large pot. Add in your roasted veg, all of the roasting juices, a thumb sized piece of ginger thinly sliced (or grated), and optionally a few bay leaves if you have some. Fill up with cold water to cover everything by about an inch.

5. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 45 minutes. Strain through a sieve into another large pot, check salt levels and reseason if needed.

6. If cooking as a part of a meal prep, place freezer bags in a cereal bowl, ladle your chicken stock into portions, about 2 ladles per portion should do. Store in the freezer until ready to use.

7. If you’re cooking for a crowd, leave your stock simmering on a low heat.

 

If you’re cooking for a group:

 

1. Have your stock simmering on low. Put a full kettle on and get a large saucepan on high. Fill it with boiling water and season (with table salt) it to a bit less than sea-saltiness.

2. Put in an egg per-person and set a timer for 6 minutes. When two minutes have passed, add your egg noodles nests, about 1-1½ nests per person (be generous with the noodles).

3. Meanwhile, prepare your garnish: slice (at a 45° angle for perfection) your chillies and spring onion, slice your red onion into strips, coarsely grate or chop your ginger into matchsticks, pick your coriander, open the sweetcorn tin, cut your lime into wedges. Make sure the sink is empty.

4. When the time is up, drain your noodles and eggs into a colander, and immediately run both under cold running water, tapping the eggs gently to stop the cooking.

5. Get the same saucepan (or a wok/frying pan if you don’t mind the washing up) on a high heat with about 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil*.

6. Meanwhile, begin peeling your eggs (you might want a friend to help at this point) – using running water and gently rolling them on a surface helps.

7. When the oil is smoking, add in your cooked chicken, get it sizzling, add soy sauce to taste and your sliced/grated ginger.

8. Serving this for a group, it’s easiest to have noodles and eggs in bowls, then have your stock, chicken, garnish and eggs in the middle of the table. Just before serving, add 3 tablespoons of siracha to your stock and bring to a rapid boil for a few seconds so it’s as warm as possible when serving.

 

 

Cooking as a meal prep, ready in about 15 minutes:

 

1. Put a full kettle on and get two saucepans on a high heat.

2. In one, start reheating your frozen stock.

3. In another saucepan get some salted boiling water going. Put your egg in and start a timer for 6 minutes. After 2 minutes, add your noodles.

4. Prep garnish while they cook: slice (at a 45° angle for perfection) your chillies and spring onion, chop your red onion into strips, coarsely grate or chop your ginger into matchsticks, pick your coriander, open the sweetcorn tin, cut your lime into wedges.

5. When the time is up, drain both your egg and your noodles into a colander and immediately run both under cold running water. Give your egg a gentle tap to allow cold water to seep and stop the cooking.

6. Get your saucepan back on a high heat with some vegetable* oil in.

7. Carefully peel your egg (gently roll it and use running water to help).

8. When the oil is smoking, add in your cooked chicken. Add 2 teaspoons of soy sauce, and ½ of your ginger.

9. Cook for 1-2 minutes, until your ginger starts to take a slight colour.

 

10.  Assemble your ramen: start with a ½ tablespoon of sriracha in a bowl, then ladle in your stock and mix. Add your noodles, then top with the chicken, the rest of your garnish, then get your egg in the middle and slice it open.

 
Categories
Culture

Is Travelling Overrated?

Is Travelling Overrated?

Naomi Sargent

 

Picture this: you’re sitting in your room, it’s a dreary Thursday evening – the rain is spitting, the sun has set (meaning you’ve only seen sunlight for approximately three hours), you’re struggling to complete a lecture. You give yourself a phone break. While scrolling you’re bombarded by Instagram baddies’ thirst-traps on jet skis, sunset sea pictures and TikToks of holiday compilations and recommendations of the best places you MUST visit. You’re suddenly hit by a craving for the crisp feeling of having showered after a day at the beach – with that atmosphere of the fresh feeling on your skin and clean hair and the smell of sun cream. To add fuel to the fire, the difficulties and stresses of vaccines, PCRs and amber lists surrounding holidaying these past two years accentuate your longing for lounging by the sea.

However, are the arguably most important aspects of travelling and its valuable experiences overlooked in favour of sunbathing and cocktails? It is undeniable that travelling offers many positives. It can teach us vital lessons by providing a gateway into other cultures; allowing us to encounter different foods, architecture, and customs. All of which introduce us to other ways of living, helping us to open our minds and become more accepting and knowledgeable. However, only if we immerse ourselves in these activities can they be truly embraced. They have to be sought out – whether through a tour, stepping out of our comfort zone to try new foods and escapades, or simply strolling around and actively taking in the foreign environment. All of which are all too easy not to do when lounging in the sun, eating in an English-tourist catered restaurant, or partying with cheap drinks.

However, it may not be fair to critique those who choose to welcome the relaxation a holiday can bring. Travelling can provide much needed rest – which is the thing many of us are truly craving when longing for a holiday. It has been linked to reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression by alleviating stress. Travelling also supplies a detached area away from the pressures of work or the draining feeling of being constantly surrounded by people we know. This allows us to temporarily disengage from these without feeling guilt or procrastination and subsequently gives us time to unwind in ways we actually want to. I, for one, love the feeling of reading in the sun – knowing that it is a book of my own choice and being without the pressure of having a deadline I have to finish it in time for.

Furthermore, whether you are on baecation, a lads trip, with the rents or alone travelling allows you to strengthen the bonds with those you are with (including yourself) by giving you the time to focus on them and create lasting memories.

Oscar Wilde wrote ‘travel improves the mind’, in line with this being abroad incontestably offers you many opportunities to do so by creating a secluded environment where there are bountiful chances to experience and learn. However, when looking at the benefits holidays have to offer surely these are also available at home. We have occasions to learn about different cultures and customs through our own education and conversing with others. Moreover, we should feel free to allow ourselves to give ourselves a break and time to destress from the everyday without feeling the need to justify ourselves to others with the excuse of a holiday.

So, in a sense the answer to whether travel is overrated is indefinite. While travel offers easy to access experiences and consequently precious life lessons, we shouldn’t fixate on the need to be abroad in order to do these things. The Dalai Lama said ‘once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before’, and while I agree with this sentiment encouraging

Categories
Reviews

The Ugly Fruit Group: An Open Letter

The Ugly Fruit Group: An Open Letter

An open letter to the students of Durham University,

If you were asked to list the biggest challenges faced both globally or, perhaps more relatable to you, in the North East, what would you say?

I imagine you’d reel off a list of justified causes, all worthy of our concern and attention, and hopefully somewhere on that list would lie food waste and the reality of those without access to nutritious, affordable food (food insecurity). Why these challenges in particular you might wonder? Whilst around three million people in the UK are thought to be malnourished* eighteen million tonnes of food goes to Landfill each year.

10% of children in the UK live in food insecurity, yet nearly half of fruit and veg is thrown away on aesthetics alone. The North East has the second highest poverty rate in the country, yet household waste in the area remains over 1 million metric tonnes. So I suppose this begs the question:

How can it be that there is so much food waste in times of such dire food insecurity?

Perfectly good food is being thoughtlessly discarded, whilst poverty levels in the UK are rising. The fact that both of these problems are endemic is infuriating. So, when I saw a post on Overheard at Durham from a little team called The Ugly Fruit Group, stating that they were looking for volunteers to help tackle these intertwined and ever-worsening problems in the local area, I knew I wanted to be involved.

At the Ugly Fruit Group, we do our best to help tackle both food insecurity and food waste in Durham and the surrounding areas. We receive donations of ‘ugly’ fresh fruit and vegetables that otherwise would not be sold from supermarkets and distribute the freshest to local food banks. This is particularly important as food bank parcels provide almost 50% less than the recommended amount of Vitamins A, C, D and E. Such vitamin deficiencies have a significant impact on energy levels and wellbeing. The lethargy and ongoing health issues caused can make it harder for individuals to break free from food insecurity and partake in social causes.

Whatever can’t be donated but is still edible is used to make long-life sustainable snacks which are sold to raise money to help us continue the project. So far, we have saved over 300kg of fruit and veg, donated 120 packages to local foodbanks, and provided 1080 fruit and veg supplements. It’s been an interesting but rewarding journey. Covid-19 has repetitively thrown a spanner in the works, but despite the challenges, the team has grown arms and legs with us currently having over 46 volunteering members. We have a regular stall over at the Scoop store in the Riverwalk and have managed to sustain multiple donations a week to three food banks that we’re partnered with. Though the problems of food insecurity and food waste often feel like a tidal wave, we are doing our best at having a positive impact on the local area. Though I am extremely proud of the work we do, it is frustrating that we are still needed at all.

There are two main components to our action: to fight against food insecurity and to fight against food waste. The first, more macro-level approach, is by demanding policy change.

But what if I told you that there are easy ways to implement change and that you can do them at home yourself? Both food waste and food insecurity are issues that most students care about in some way, shape, or form. But, hear me out, sometimes this caring is misplaced – and saying you care means a lot less if your actions don’t align with your words. Caring is the first step on a long journey of change, and it is important to recognise how many of these different issues within society are all directly linked to each other. In order to enact change, we need to remember to keep our outlook open and inclusive; if we don’t, we risk isolating the very groups of people we are trying to help. Whilst it is important to make practical swaps and campaign for policy change, as you likely see advocated across social media, it is also important to remember that this is not some far away issue, and to keep people at the centre of our actions.

There is a tendency for these issues to be reduced to dinner table debates. The controversialist of the room, who loves to say they’re ‘just playing devil’s advocate’, blames food insecurity on the individuals. Why should the government help them? They should get a job, they say.

People struggling with these real issues deserve more than a jump to their defence conceptually. We need practical change, and we need it now.

Are you one of the people that genuinely wants to help, but perhaps unintentionally missed the mark? You’re not alone and we want to help. Here’s a small list of ideas on how you can start to help tackle food insecurity in Durham:

Align your actions with your words. Hopefully by now you have realised that this issue is deep rooted but often doing the right thing can start from a simple second thought to that all-too-normalised action. Not going to eat those last two slices of pizza tonight? You’ve eaten most of it, they could just go in the bin…but how about keeping them to take to the library for lunch tomorrow! Your berries got a little squashed in the bottom of the shopping bag? You could throw them away…but wouldn’t they taste incredible in a smoothie! When you notice people around you doing things that you know will directly contribute to food waste, let them know. You don’t have to get angry at them. Instead, inspire that second thought.

Be mindful of how you (and others) talk. Unlearning bias can be a difficult job, but it is one we need to do. If you’ve never faced food insecurity, or seen anyone experience it, well-intended words can sometimes miss the mark. Try not to talk about it as a problem that is far away – you don’t necessarily know that the people listening haven’t faced something similar themselves. By now you are hopefully aware that this is an issue which has in fact been right beside you throughout your entire time in Durham. If someone opens up to you, try not to condescend, and remember that their lived experience isn’t something up for debate. Let’s try to stop the stigma surrounding food insecurity.

Be a conscious consumer. If you have time to sign up to be a volunteer or have the funds to donate, brilliant! But realistically not everybody does, and the act of supporting does not have to be a time intensive process. Come visit our TUFG stalls, and if you like the look of things make a purchase or two. You could switch to buying your dried groceries from Scoop. They donate their profits to local charities, with the donations split corresponding to the amount of votes each charity receives from the customers. Last term, they supported Fareshare, who help tackle hunger and food insecurity in the local area. Similarly, if your college doesn’t already have a food bank donation setup, consider chatting with the staff about starting one.

Avoid large supermarkets where possible because they’re the biggest contributors to food waste. If there are a few items you do still need from these stores, try starting your shop in the reduced aisle to find some perfectly edible hidden treasures before they are thrown out. For the rest, consider switching to the Fruiterers in the market or Robinsons on North Road for your fruit and vegetables. If you eat meat, have a look around for a local butcher. Shop small and local, and don’t underestimate the benefits of a meal plan.

WAYZGOOSE (n.)

Pronunciation: ‘ˈweɪzɡuːs

An annual festivity held in summer by the members of a printing establishment.
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