Dirty Girls: The cult 90s documentary that made being

21 Jun

It’s been 30 years since Michael Lucid, then a senior at Crossroads School in Santa Monica, filmed a group of his 13-year-old schoolmates known as the “dirty girls” on VHS. The grainy footage, which captures a group of friends “notorious for their crass behaviour and allegedly bad hygiene,” is a time capsule of 1990s riot grrrl culture, the underground feminist movement rooted in punk rock, DIY zines and feminist activism. Filmed in 1996, the footage was released in 2000 as an 18-minute documentary and later went viral in 2013 when Lucid uploaded it to YouTube, where it now has 5.7 million views and over 19,000 comments. Shot halfway through the decade that saw the birth of Photoshop, the dirty girls’ rebellion...

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24 Feb

What is chaos magic? A guide to the radical

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Beauty, Featured

What is chaos magic? A guide to the radical

Chaos magic, a radical and near impossible practice to completely define, has started to gain more traction amongst modern-day magicians and occultists. Emerging in the UK in the 1970s alongside the punk movement, chaos magic took a radical approach to the occult, reimagining typical magical doctrine and practice. Unlike other occult orders, chaos magicians weren’t concerned with ornate robes or hierarchical structure, but with magic and ritual in its purest form. Chaos magic believes the cosmos is in constant flux. Any order of reality – cognitive, perceptual, epistemological or moral – is subject to chaos. As a result, chaos magicians have created their own idiosyncratic magical systems and frequently borrow from an eclectic mixture of post-modernist and post-structuralist thought, as well...

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29 Dec

The unconventional history of the queer fat liberation movement

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Beauty, Featured

The unconventional history of the queer fat liberation movement

“Don’t assume… I don’t like my body,” begins a manifesto shared at a 1989 Fat Women’s conference in London. Generally known as the “Fat Dykes Statement”, it contained an inventory of 29 assumptions, from serious points (“Don’t assume… I feel your body is healthier than mine”) alongside more playful ones, which emphasise the ludicrousy of assuming anything a couple of person based on their body shape (“Don’t assume… I need a Weight loss program Coke”). Should you think fat liberation began in 2011 with Tumblr feminism and fat fashion blogs, you’ve never had the pleasure of interacting with Carlie Pendleton’s work. The scholar focuses on the history of fat activism in modern Britain, with particular attention to the queer histories of...

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27 Mar

The unconventional Surrealist who challenged gender norms with make-up

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The unconventional Surrealist who challenged gender norms with make-up

Looking back on the extraordinary self-portraits of Surrealist Claude Cahun and her unusual relationship with make-up, we unpick what she will be able to teach us about beauty today It would appear to be our obsession with beauty has never been greater, but seeking to the past tells a special story. Making Up The Past is a column great women from history and the way they used cosmetics to shape their identities, from ancient queens to modern artists.For many of human history, cosmetics have been a rarefied luxury. Even when the social mores that shape our understanding of beauty have continually shifted, make-up has at all times served as a method of...

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