victoria from 5 to 7 | fashion, film, lit, more

I have officially been to the opera for the first time. Having gone nearly 23 years without ever having been to an opera, the offer of low-rate nosebleed seats at the English National Opera was too good an opportunity to pass up. Having never been to the opera before, I had my qualms: would I enjoy it? would I understand it? would I even be able to hear the words properly? I'm not musical in any sense of the word, so what if I didn't understand the features of the score? Wasn't the opera just for snobs anyway?  So I decided to buy tickets for A Midsummer Night's Dream, a story I already love and know well. I figured, having studied the text at university and having seen the play live at Drum Castle one summer, I had the strongest chance of getting to grips with opera through it. And so, cheap tickets bought, off to the opera. Promo image for A Midsummer Night's Dream at the English National Opera As we took our seats in the nosebleeds and the show ope...

In case you hadn't heard, I've recently made the big move to London to undertake a Masters degree (which has been a great excuse to move to London in the first place, which is far more fun than studying at home would have been). Since moving, I've met a lot of people: some friends, some acquaintances, some enemies. Consistent amongst those friends, despite their disparate study interests and hobbies, is that they all want me to take them to art galleries and "teach them how to art". They do not, actually, want me to teach them how to engage with art, but what the factually accurate history of art is in relation to a particular canon of artistic objects.  Anyone who has had the opportunity to study the arts in a critical context, however, knows that the historical significance of art is only part of the education, and that a far more significant component of enjoying art is a subjective approach based on personal experience, likes, and dislikes. Learning to sa...

With the passing of recent fashion weeks, there's been a definitive upsurge in nudity on the runways and, with it, an increased volume of news sources "writing" about fashion as though they have a clue what fashion is . These articles, however, do clarify how the function of fashion as a genuine artform is obscured from us and converted into a pornographic display of bodies (as fashion's function is to present the female body in an attractive light to a male audience).  For example, the New York Daily News, writing on 'The naked runway: the most outrageous non-clothing fashion designs' , wins the medal for most thinly veiled excuse to exhibit pictures of half-naked runway models in history. In an attempt to make this "newsworthy", one of the captions, in absolute shock and horror, explains that 'at Lingerie London, racy designs ruled the catwalk'. At Lingerie London  models wore lingerie. Sexy lingerie. Who'd have thought.  For a...

So it's been a long time since I last posted anything. Turns out working full-time, volunteering weekly, picking up extra jobs on the side, and moving your entire life to London, whilst also trying to conquer your reading lists for your Masters doesn't leave much free time to a) go out and do nice things so that b) you can sit down and write about them for a blog. As mentioned, I've upped and moved my life to London to study for my Masters. I've also gotten a new job, picked up a second job (money is more important than my stress apparently), got a bunch of flatmates to handle, and am still trying to conquer my reading lists for the semester. Amongst such turbulent activity I've had to regress to consuming the culture of 11 year olds to cope....or....well....culture I actually consumed as an 11 year old.  Aly & AJ in vintage Aly & AJ t-shirts show that returning to your past can be fun, not just cringe - from Refinery29 In case you hadn't h...

Personal Shopper is the latest collaborative effort from Kristen Stewart and director Olivier Assayas, following on from Clouds of Sils Maria in 2014, and it's confounding, infuriating, and exciting audiences both commercial and critical. Though I don't claim to understand this film any more than the next person - I still don't know if I actually liked it - I do think a significant thematic development is the relationship between the material and the immaterial throughout the film - that is, the stuff that Stewart's character, Maureen, a personal shopper and medium living in Paris, shops for versus the spiritual affirmation she seeks from her recently deceased medium twin brother. that Chanel dress though A significant portion of Maureen's daily life is spent at her job as a personal shopper for her boss, Kyra, whose penchant for designer fashion sends Maureen anywhere and everywhere, within and outside of the country, for the latest stylish wares. These se...

With the progression of the digital age, the definition of "celebrity" is stretching, warping and changing more than ever - who is a celebrity? Oscar winners, reality TV stars and social media influencers are now all lumped under the fame umbrella, so has it lost its meaning? Often we lament the loss of true Hollywood glitz and glamour, the timelessness of Marilyn Monroe or Bette Davis, but the real systems and structures of Golden Age Hollywood - namely, the star system - have never really left us. In fact, the star system has only really morphed, bleeding into everything we, as consumers of digital content, encounter daily. And I think the best way to make this clear is through the hit (it has a whole 4/10 on IMDB) 2003 movie S Club Seeing Double which is really all about the star system and the construction of "celebrity". It sounds ludicrous, but just follow for a moment.  This is from Singin' in the Rain  (1952) but you get the idea The Hollywood...