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© Linda McIntosh
ARCHIVAL FASHION ZINE PROFILING
CONTRARIAN HEROINES OF FASHION,
FILM AND ART.
RUN BY JESSICA ANN RICHARDSON
& GIRL GANG OF CONTRIBUTORS
marchioness > blog
Chelsea Girls (1994)
Urban Life
Sex, drugs, and the lesbian memoir. Chelsea Girls tells the life story of Eileen Myles, from their working-class childhood with an alcoholic father to their drug-fuelled life as a poet. Despite being published nearly thirty years ago, Chelsea Girls remains as fresh and vigorous as it did in 1994.
Sex and Rage (1971; 2017)
Urban Life
Sex and Rage is a novel that appeals to the type of reader who idealizes the lives lived by elites on the US coasts, a fantasy that many women have imagined through the ages. This sort of nostalgia for events that didn’t even happen to you, combined with the luster of yesteryear is where the draw for this book comes into play, a time without the pressures of social media and the hustle of modern life is all too enticing.
Map to the Stars (2014)
Urban Life
Fame, incest, and a desperate desire to hold on to your fading youth feature prominently in this dark satire. Our Screen Queen, Julianne Moore plays Havana Segrand, the fading b-list Hollywood narcissist who cannot accept that her time in the limelight expired long ago. Havana’s demise runs parallel to the derangement of the Hollywood child star Benji Weiss.
Zola (2021)
Urban Life
“You wanna hear a story about how me and this b**ch fell out? It's kind of long, but it's full of suspense.” So begins 'Zola', and the infamous Twitter thread that inspired the film’s chaotic journey to nowhere and back. Debuting at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, the pitch-dark comedy thriller was an instant talking point, sparking debate about social media, female agency and fast friendships.
Luster (2020)
Urban Life
The hype surrounding Raven Leilani’s 'Luster' began last summer and has been steadily boiling ever since, helped by winning accolades from such literary giants as Candice Carty-Williams, Jessie Burton and Zadie Smith who have sung the praises of Leilani’s debut, calling it an audacious and ambitious tale that speaks to the millennial zeitgeist. Often with reputations that precede them, novels can fail to live up to the expectations, and while 'Luster' certainly surprises, it definitely does not disappoint.
100 Boyfriends (2021)
Urban Life
Brontez Purnell’s '100 Boyfriends' is a transgressive, lewd, and devastatingly funny spiral into the imperfect lives of queer men, desperately fighting the hurdles modern-day society hands them. Purnell is a widely acclaimed underground filmmaker, writer, musician, performance artist and musician, who writes with the unrivalled ardour, insight, and horniness of a punk lord. Armed with a lethal deadpan humour, he forces his characters to climb their way out of even the lowest of times.
Animals (2019)
Urban Life
'Animals' directed by Sophie Hyde: surely not another movie treading the well-worn tracks of badly behaved women, whose tenure in hedonism is disrupted, tested, and then corrected by the arrival of the smouldering and well put-together man? Well. Yes…and No. Here, Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome is not prince charming heralding happily ever after, but an introspective fly on the wall of the central character arc. There is no didactic revelation that locates success in the arms of a man behind the slats of a suburban picket fence. Rather, as Laura discovers, success is found when holding on to your own tenacious spirit and heeding wherever it may ask you to go…
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