Fashion / 19/01/2021 Let’s get cynical: celeb skincare from Kylie Jenner to Emma Chamberlain

In recent years, attention to skincare has skyrocketed, with the best products, routines and brands becoming a persistent topic of interest on social media. While most of us have been fixated on serums, moisturisers and scrubs, a new gap in the market has opened; a gap for celebrities to slither in and endorse their own-branded...

Fashion / 19/01/2021 Reflecting on ‘flexing’: Christmas, Covid and influencer culture

For as long as I can remember, I’ve watched influencers share their ‘What I got for Christmas’ videos. I loved seeing the beautiful things these older women had received, and I dreamed that one day I would be able to receive things like that too. Nowadays, I still watch these videos, but this year, especially,...

Fashion / 19/01/2021 The North Face x Gucci: a dreamy collaboration

Remember DofE? Those practical, waterproof, sturdy boots teamed with rustling, generic, boring, hiking clothes? A fashion sin! For years, outdoor apparel happily paralleled the world of high fashion.  Different audiences, different aesthetics and different intentions ensured that the two worlds underwent little collision. The North Face x Gucci’s latest collaboration changes all that, for it...

Fashion / 15/12/2020 Performative authenticity: Influencer sponsorships and consumerist culture

Once celebrated for being authentic reviewers of products, influencers have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years with regard to their reliance on paid promotions. More often than not it seems that influencers are promoting items they have little interest in, and it’s easy to understand why when the influencer marketing industry is set to...

Fashion / 15/12/2020 Instagram’s commercial priorities: what has the app become?

Picture this: it’s 2011. You’ve just downloaded a new app called Instagram. You post a vignette-filtered picture of a sunset and get 7 likes: you are happy. Instagram still is, by and large, a photo and video sharing social network, but a recent update has shown users what Instagram has been slowly integrating for the...

Fashion / 15/12/2020 The Ultimate Independent Gift Guide

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – when retailers throw discounts, sales and exclusives in our faces, enabling us to do our holiday shopping with minimal human interaction. Whilst online shopping is definitely more convenient, especially with the current additional risks of shopping in person, small businesses everywhere are taking steps to try...

Fashion

What self care means to me
Photo: Unsplash
Fashion, Venue

What self care means to me

I’ll begin by saying that the generally accepted associations of the term ‘self-care’ as I have known them are very different from the way I now understand the practice. Conventionally promoted methods of self-care, from bubble baths to retail therapy, are not only incredibly general but are primarily guided by consumerism: a capitalisation of the…

Dr Martens: A love letter
Photo: Unsplash
Fashion

Dr Martens: A love letter

Dear Docs, I was nine when I purchased my first pair of you. Having had a growth spurt pretty young, and being 5’7 with size eight feet, relatives kept explaining to me that I had to dress more ‘femininely’ and wear dainty shoes to minimise my stature. I scoffed at this. I spent the formative…

The curious rise of Dark Academia
Photo: Unsplash
Fashion

The curious rise of Dark Academia

The Dark Academia aesthetic is not a novel one. Despite the recent resurgence of interest surrounding it, it is a trend which has existed on social media for some time. Some digging around the origins of the concept reveals that it initially emerged from a particular branch of literature, the Dark Academia novel, perhaps best…

Ode to the nightie
Photo: Unsplash
Fashion

Ode to the nightie

Pyjamas. Jim-jams. Jammies. Or, if you prefer Cockney Rhyming Slang, Simon Schamas. Whatever term you opt for, the practice of wearing anything to bed at all is a fairly modern phenomenon. It is surmised that designated sleepwear was largely non-existent before the early sixteenth century. Up until then, men and women alike slept starkers –…

The long lost brands of yore
Photo: Unsplash
Fashion

The long lost brands of yore

There is something rather ghostly about sartorial memories; our recollections of cherished items that have long since been passed on or given away assume a sort of uncanniness when remembered. They belonged to a past version of our self; they would no longer fit us could we access them; their exact colour or texture is…


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Latest Comments
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    1
    Favourite song covers
    Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s
  • Avatar Scott B
    2
    Favourite song covers
    Is this author 14 years old with absolutely zero knowledge on music? Has to be. Two out of three songs are irrelevant. Both by shitty bands. Who paid for this?…
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    Should we mourn GCSE poetry?
    Wonderful article! Very insightful and brilliantly communicated. I wasn't aware of this issue before, but this article has really brought it to light for me. Thank you very much!
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The University of East Anglia’s official student newspaper. Concrete is in print and online.

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