resurrecting rave; spooky reading; phantom threads
resurrecting rave; spooky reading; phantom threads
off brand: october 26 round up
Hiiii. It’s been a minute. Much has happened, from Donda to Bad Art Friends, but I have a good excuse. As you might have seen… I’m curating an exhibition. It focusses on the famed but sort of forgotten club The Sanctuary, which existed in my hometown of Milton Keynes between 1991 and 2004. I never went there, but as many as a million people did; thousands coming from all over the country to pack into this unlikely warehouse in an industrial estate, dancing all night to house, then hardcore and jungle, then drum & bass…
If you aren’t from the UK, you probably don’t know much about MK. If you are, you probably don’t either. The last great post-war new town, it was built in the 70s on a piece of the Buckinghamshire countryside; an American grid system of roads dropped out of the sky, neat housing estates and offices with Corbusier-inspired paintjobs and the occasional experimental pyramid building (or three). There’s a Baudrillard line I always think of, from America, which is one of my favourite books: “the tragedy of the utopian dream made reality.” This is Milton Keynes: a city with big dreams that would become something of a national joke, a place known for having concrete cows and endless roads and roundabouts. I can clearly remember the first person who expressed excitement in learning where I was from: an Iranian magazine editor, who told me that British people were useless at appreciating the brilliance of what was right in front of them. I think that was the first time I felt like MK was a city I could be proud of. This project is an expression of that, proof that a place derided as cultureless is actually the opposite.
You can read more about the exhibition on Dazed, AnOther, DJ mag, Mixmag, or Resident Advisor and follow along on @sanctuary.mk. Thanks to those publications, to Carhartt WIP for the support, and to everyone else who has reached out. It’s open Dec 4, at MK Gallery.
ALSO: it’s a long one today. if the entire thing doesn’t display please head here to read it in full, i was having some technical issues ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
VISITING
I went to Antwerp! Okay, so it was a minute ago now. But still: the wonderful MoMu fashion museum invited me to see their revamped space, and listen to me: you NEED to go. It’s literally two trains from London. The exhibition E/MOTION: Fashion in Transition was so good – it traces fashion of the late 20th century through moments of change and unrest, from 9/11 to the migrant crisis, exploring how designers and photographers have used collections and image-making to confront and make sense of a changing world. I cannot tell you how healing for my soul it was to see iconic clothing and objects IRL: from Jenny Holzer’s Helmut campaigns to a Cindy Sherman portrait juxtaposed with some of Kim Kardashian’s Skims. Also, a funny thing: I’m in it – on the video of Balenciaga’s SS20 show. So if you go, look out for me ;)
READING
Firstly, may I offer you a really nice, sad essay about loving (and losing) Kurt Cobain. Books wise, I’ve been reading a load of things. The Transgender Issue by the brilliant Shon Faye, which is a mic-drop, no bullshit exploration of the position of trans people today. Pop Song: Adventures in Art and Intimacy by Larissa Pham, whose writing I’ve followed for years, and which is a journey into ideas of desire, abjection, and identity that I’ve been making my way through incredibly slowly because it’s like pushing on a bruise. (Apt, considering that a whole essay in the book is about bruises.)
Also: The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan, the kind of book that was so good I couldn’t deal with just listening to the audiobook and ran out to buy it so I could enthusiastically underline things. This book is about the ways desire is configured in our society, and fundamentally about exploring the ambivalence that exists around the ethics of sex (under neoliberalism) today.
What is consent? How do we navigate power dynamics? Why do we want what – or who – we want? What does it mean for something to be empowering, and how might ‘empowerment’ be a false friend? How can we understand and embody our sexualities outside of the prisms of a society that is inherently racist, ableist, misogynistic? I guess I see desire as this ever-changing, amorphous thing, that we do and can and should make choices about, that presents itself to us in different ways at different times. However we are ‘born’, desire is a learned response. It’s something we uncover through enactment. It’s praxis.
And, because it’s almost Halloween, which is my favourite favourite FAVOURITE time of year… I picked This Young Monster by Charlie Fox off the shelf, which is more up my street than I even thought it possible for a book to be. From Diane Arbus to Larry Clark, Fassbinder to Leigh Bowery… it’s a series of non-traditional essays about all the things that get me going: horror, queerness, the cult and occult. Outsiderness and perversions. J’adore.
LISTENING
PinkPantheress’s new album (Nineteen is an instant favourite), glaive’s new EP with ericdoa (do urself a fav n listen to the most recent Popcast episode), Lana screaming about how much she hates your crypto bro boyfriend, Jai Paul, American Life era Madonna, Salem, Justice, Avril Lavigne, Dance Gavin Dance…….. blah blah blah. Nostalgia vs the new nostalgia of a generation raised online, I guess.
STREAMING
The Bennington pod!! Bennington College, the remote, non traditional university in Vermont, is famed for its notable 80s literary alumni: in particular, Bret Easton Ellis – who wrote Less Than Zero while still studying there – and Donna Tartt. (Others: Tom Sachs, Judith Butler, Sally Mann).
This new pod by Lili Anolik, the Vanity Fair writer who wrote a book about stalking Eve Babitz, unravels the myths of Bennington: from Camille Paglia supposedly sleeping with students (a charge she denies) to Bret showing up with a suitcase full of drugs, and Brix Smith (later of seminal post-punk band The Fall) getting bitten by an overenthusiastic vampire at a Halloween party so badly that she ended up in hospital. If you’ve read her Babitz book, you know that Anolik is the polar opposite of a detached narrator – she loves to insert herself, which grates if you aren’t prepared for her frequent, confessional addresses to the ‘Listeners…’ Fair warning.
Also, lol.
WATCHING
I finally watched Phantom Thread. I have no idea how I avoided it for so long, and also how I didn’t know (spoiler!) that its central conceit is sadomasochistic. It’s not a Fashion Film really, fashion just serves as a handy vehicle for a story about creative genius, the couture studio a metaphor for control and precision (and, if I was gunna go even further, of male domination over the female body and a female labour force. I mean, Daniel Day Lewis’s Reynolds Woodcock literally has ‘cock’ in his name). I know Woodcock is intended as a kind of Charles James Balenciaga mash up, but the fragile, vulnerable side of him, and the bit we glimpse when we realise that fashion is moving on without him, not to mention his bulldog-like sister, made me think more of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. There’s this kind of crazy, intimate speech that Bergé gives for Yves at a lunch in Olivier Meyrou’s documentary (which is on Mubi, and follows YSL at the twilight of his career):
“I’d like to wish you a happy birthday, if you’d like, because for forty years, you’ve done this work which has given you so much joy, but in a way, has destroyed many things in you. It has turned you into a recluse. It has made you renounce so many joys. Creation has a price, and sometimes that price is high…and I hope everybody here has a good holiday.”
That’s the thing about fashion. It will make you happy and it will torture you. And I think maybe it attracts people who on some subconscious level want to suffer. This is an industry of brilliant, beautiful, talented people – many of whom are also misfits and masochists, people who were picked on as children and who pick on others as adults. And designers are some of the most sensitive people on earth. DDL did a good job on that front, by being a total fucking nightmare and also, really, just a big baby who wanted his mommy.
Clearly on a Paul Thomas Anderson bent, I also watched The Master, because I love a) Joaquin Phoenix (who literally wears a 1950s sailor suit in it…) and b) everything about cults, and I thought it was okay but overlong (what was I expecting), and it just made me feel bummed about Philip Seymour Hoffman. What else. I went back to the cinema for the first time since the pandemonium and enjoyed the sweet, freaky freedom of a weekday afternoon screening of Hausu, which is a film I’ve seen many times about a group of schoolgirls who visit a witchy aunt in the Japanese countryside and proceed to die in a series of baroque, hilarious, and gruesome ways, but also about the generational scars of Hiroshima. Watch if you love truly weird horror: make it your Halloween movie!
WEARING
When I was in Antwerp, I had the great pleasure of meeting Ann Demeulemeester. She said something kind to me, and because of this, and because her clothes are some of the most romantic ever made, I told her how much I’d loved this one look in the museum’s collection, from SS96, and that when I saw it I’d thought, ‘That’s the kind of outfit I would get married in.’
Which is a thought that caught me off guard because a) this would make completely inappropriate bridal wear if you have any kind of respect for tradition, which maybe I don’t; and b) that’s not a topic I’ve ever given much time to – the most I’ve thought about marriage is that I’d probably like to fuck off and do it without telling anyone. Surprise! But anyway, this look is just the perfect mixture of sensuality and toughness, and that’s a deeply alluring combination, and one that speaks very much to Ann’s worldview. And I suppose my own. So I looked for the top online, and I found it being sold by none other than a very famous fallen from grace girlboss (guess who) which is really hilarious, and I bought it, naturally. For the archive. Now I just need the pants.
SMELLING
THANK UUUUU everyone who sent fragrance suggestions. Here are my field notes!
First up, because it’s an outlier: Buly’s Annibal. They don’t make this as a perfume though I wish they would – instead I’m using the oil as the world’s bougiest car air freshener with one of the alabasters. It’s the perfect November smell: woodsmoke in the air, cedar, leaves falling. (If you’ve never been to Buly’s Paris store, please please go next time you’re there. It is, and here’s a word I use sparingly: delightful. Buy the scented matches.) Also… Buly just got acquired by LVMH like a week ago, and I’m curious to see how that will pan out.
Onto the fragrances. Big big thank you to Nadeem from Rook who sent me their sample set. Really some of the most unique and vivid scents I’ve smelled: if you are not shy, give them a try. Forest was my favourite: it smells like walks through the woods with my uncle as a child, pine needles, overcast skies, underscored by something warm and musky and familiar.
Thanks are next due to Vyrao, the perfume brand launched this year by Yasmin Sewell, who very kindly also sent me their sample set. Vyrao is about the energy and energising nature of scent (every bottle contains a crystal). I loved I am Verdant (fresh, green, a little bit citrusy or spicy and much lighter than I’d usually go for but vitalising) and Magnetic 70 (moodier, woodier, but not at all intimidating). Plus: killer art direction and possibly the chicest full-size bottles I’ve seen in a long time!
And some others… many of which were your suggestions. Byredo Super Cedar and Sellier, both of which I’d gladly own – Sellier, an extrait de parfum, takes the prize for the longest lasting perfume I think I’ve ever worn. Then there was DS & Durga – I tried lots, Bowmaker and Saint Vetyver were my favourites but I found both a bit toooo wintery and a bit too Grown Up for me. Le Labo Gaiac 10 – the Tokyo exclusive. I did not like this on the first spray. But it died down into something I could get into, like an old attic with a bonfire outside – although really like nothing else I’ve tried before. Celine Nightclubbing – a popular recommendation because I like the smell of cigarettes, and for that reason I’ve tried this in the past and still have a sample, which I revisited. It smells like a smoker wearing my favourite Chanel perfume (Allure Sensuelle), but it’s the kind of fragrance I enjoy in the abstract rather than on my skin.
Thanks for reading. See u next time xx