Monday 9th June 2025

Culture

Common threads: Historical fashion and its lessons for our time

When we think of historical fashion, images of towering wigs, tight-laced corsets, heavy brocades and voluminous skirts often spring to mind – ornate, impractical, and rooted firmly in the unenlightened...

Food, fashion, and escapism in a cost of living crisis

Food costs have been front and centre in newsreels as of recent months, whether...

Oxford Fashion Gala’s ‘Metamorphosis’ reflects the beauty of change

The Oxford Fashion Gala was back and bigger than ever, with a larger venue,...

Tailoring expectations: Couture culture shocks

Academia has a historic relationship with fashion, both officially and unofficially. The former manifests...

The Black Sheep: On Princess Diana’s statement sweaters

Though she is often remembered for her most daring and glamorous looks, especially the infamous Revenge Dress, I find the Princess of Wales’ casual looks featuring statement sweaters even more iconic. Some have described them as ‘grandma sweaters’ or ‘campy’, but it is clear that they remain influential and appreciated in fashion.

Pythagoras’ Nightmare: Reincarnation, Coldplay and the Music of the Spheres

Don’t get me wrong. The album is upbeat, cheerful, maddeningly optimistic and, at least intermittently, catchy for most of us mortals. But something tells me it’s not quite the empyreal sound Pythagoras would have had in mind.

Exclusive report! The fashion trends to rock 2022

When Madi, Iustina and I introduced ourselves on the now-rebooted Cherwell fashion Instagram (@cherwellfashion – give us a cheeky follow), we each answered the...

I’m a student… get me out of here!

It is a thought that fills me with me with apprehension. A feeling so confusing that even my stomach does not understand whether to...

Discovery or Rediscovery?

"There is a euphoric wonder spun when artists like Billie Eillish and Dua Lipa emerge with albums so assured and confident that they immediately dominate over experienced, veteran creatives, or when debut works with less than universal acclaim are celebrated by the niche who wish to state, ‘I liked them before they became cool’. The artistic debut has always acted as a magnet, in the sense that critics seem to take pleasure from attempting to be the first to celebrate new voices in the field."

New Year’s Resolutions: On the art of failing

"You might have made some mental goals before midnight, or contributed some flimsy ambitions to a conversation about self-love, or maybe even written a list in your notes app (that vast, interminable junkyard), but the chances are you have, or will, fall behind. I will be the first to say that I lasted an embarrassing three days on a goal to exercise daily."

Dirk Bogarde’s Psychosexual Nightmare

"But when I talk of Bogarde ‘telling the story of himself’ through his performances, I’m not just talking about a few quirked eyebrows and suggestive comments. What shines through in so many of his films is compelling bitterness. Within the Wildean wit and affable flamboyance was a cold, grudge-bearing streak: he had a number of fellow actors and directors  whom he inexplicably viciously turned against, including John Mills and Richard Attenborough. On film work, he stated flippantly but firmly in a letter to film critic Dilys Powell, "I detest the job and most of the time I detest the people.""

Blacking Down

Blackfishing is a word that though more or less unknown little more than five years ago, has now become part of everyday speech. While...

Back To School: Sex (Re)Education

The well-established mix of humour and honesty that Sex Education brings to these themes is a refreshing approach, and enables an exploration of a huge variety of sensitive issues regarding sexuality, as well as more light-hearted everyday adolescent dramas.

Rewriting the detective story for the modern age

A hero, vested with the authority of the law, doggedly pursues every lead that comes their way. With methodical tenacity, they unravel a web of lies to uncover the moral transgression at the centre of the plot. Truth is established, the guilty are punished, and order is restored. Details vary, but a basic structure persists: the detective drama formula has long been a mainstay of television.

Review: West Side Story (2021)

CW: sexual assault. For musical theatre purists and sceptics alike, Steven Spielberg’s reboot of West Side Story remains a hard sell. According to the naysayers,...

Review: Songs of the Silenced // Musketeer Productions

In the maelstrom of reinterpretations of misunderstood Homeric women and Greek tragedy revivals, the show’s lyrics stand out for consistently centring the core themes and questions asked by the ancient texts themselves.

Let’s talk about friendship

Netflix’s popular and influential show Sex Education has received great acclaim for its honest portrayal of sexual interactions between secondary school teens. However, its...

The cacophony of crisis

COP26 has brought forth a multitude of images which embody the climate crisis: koalas clinging to rescue workers in Australian forest fires, polar bears...

Escape to the culture-side

There is a certain magic in the escapism that art offers, in our ability as humans to completely fall into worlds and emotions that...

Review: Horoscope by Beth Simcock

Beth Simcock’s bright and colourful large-scale work The Zodiac lights up the exhibition space at Oxford’s Modern Art Gallery. A recent Ruskin graduate and one of...

Review: “Kid A Mnesia” by Radiohead

Kid A and its sister album Amnesiac helped introduce electronic instruments to alternative rock, and were a risky sonic departure from Radiohead’s guitar-based and immensely successful OK Computer....

A Review of Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s everything grows extravagantly

"Clocking in at just under thirty minutes, this cycle was so absorbing that I nearly forgot the other songs with which the concert began."

John Evelyn: MT21 Week 5

As Steve Jobs once said, ‘you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards’. Never have more inspirational words been...

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