Fur Coat, No Knickers: Has Manchester Hospitality Traded Community for Clout?
Somewhere along Peter Street, a server sets a steak ablaze with a blowtorch while three neighbouring tables reach for their phones. Between plush velvet booths, synthetic cherry blossoms and lighting calibrated to a perpetual golden hour, central Manchester’s hospitality scene has become something of a live stage production. It is atmospheric theatre, carefully engineered to make an evening look extraordinary on screen, even as the rain lashes against the windows on Deansgate. But behind the theatrical glow lies a much less glamorous economic reality.
The ‘Girls’ Are Back: Do We Really Need to Revisit Our Twenties?
We seem to be experiencing a collective inability to leave the 2010s alone. Tumblr aesthetics have returned, indie sleaze has been resurrected, and television executives have discovered that almost anything can be brought back, provided audiences remember loving it the first time. Now, ten years after Girls concluded its six-season run, Lena Dunham is bringing Hannah Horvath, Marnie Michaels, Jessa Johansson and Shoshanna Shapiro back to HBO for a five-episode revival, with production scheduled to begin in 2027. But the cultural landscape they are returning to has changed considerably. As Gen Z discovers the series while its original audience prepares to revisit their twenties from the other side of thirty, a question emerges: are we nostalgic for Girls itself, or a time when being a mess did not require an explanation?
When Girls premiered in 2012, it was heralded as a portrait of millennial womanhood. Dunham, then in her twenties herself, created a series that rejected the polished fantasies of female independence popularised by shows before it. Her protagonists were not in designer wardrobes or navigating their romantic lives with the benefit of hindsight. Hannah was an aspiring writer whose confidence routinely exceeded her talent, Marnie was perpetually dissatisfied with herself and everyone around her, Jessa confused recklessness with freedom, and Shoshanna was so preoccupied with missing out that she seemed to experience adulthood as a deadline she had already failed to meet. They were selfish, insecure and frequently unbearable. Their friendships were as competitive as they were affectionate, their relationships often disastrous, and their conversations an exercise in watching people talk without listening. Hannah’s relationship with Adam Sackler, played by Adam Driver, was similarly compelling because it refused to turn romantic dysfunction into a reassuring story about finding the right person. Their attraction was not evidence of compatibility, and their repeated failures to understand a convenient declaration of love rarely resolved one another.
Antagony Aunties: If You Can’t Spend a Night Apart, Is It Love or Attachment Issues?
“My boyfriend and I have been together for five months, and apart from the odd time we've had to be apart for work or other commitments, we've spent pretty much every day and night together since our first date. We love each other loads, but lately, we've noticed that the spark feels a bit different. Most days are amazing, but every now and then, we have a day or two where things feel a bit off. Then we'll have an amazing day together and everything feels perfect again. It's been a bit of a cycle recently. We've started wondering if we've moved too quickly. We both feel ready for the next stage of our relationship, but neither of us is ready for something as big as an engagement. At the same time, spending more time apart feels like we're going backwards, rather than just giving each other some space. Personally, I think we've neglected our friendships, responsibilities and independence a little. Maybe the stress of everything else is affecting our moods, and because we're constantly together, we're starting to associate those feelings with each other. My boyfriend isn't fully convinced. He thinks that if two people are really meant to be together, they should be happy spending all their time together. I can see his point, but I also wonder if having a bit more space might actually make our relationship stronger. We're spending a day and night apart to see how it feels, but I'm curious what other people think. Have you ever loved someone but felt like you were spending too much time together? Can taking a step back actually bring the spark back, or does it mean something deeper is wrong? Is needing space normal, even when you're in love, or should being with the right person just feel effortless? Would love to hear your experiences because I honestly don't know if we're overthinking it or if this is a sign something isn't right.”
Who Gets to Be Messy on the Internet? Kelly Clarkson vs. a $15,000 Bird
Kelly Clarkson, a Brooklyn Curiosity Shop & a $15,000 bird named “Molly” sounds like the beginning of an incomprehensible joke. Instead, it has become the internet's latest drama around customer service, celebrity privilege, and the (perhaps unintended) consequences of taking a grievance public. I mean, really, Clarkson's ongoing dispute with the Brooklyn boutique, Art of Play, has all the markings of any absurd viral moment of the past few years. It has everything — Twitter rants, internet dogpiling and a Pretty Woman reference. But the crazy price tag and the competing accounts of what really happened leave a less amusing inference: who has permission to be messy on the internet, and who has to live with the consequences?
The spat started with Clarkson tweeting about her trip into Brooklyn to visit Art of Play, a self-described “modern wonder emporium embracing the power of curiosity”. Amongst its collection of curiosities lived “Molly”, a mechanical singing bird with a (reported) $15,000 price tag. Clarkson alleged that she had been made to feel as though she couldn't afford the piece, drawing a comparison to the iconic Julia Roberts shopping scene from Pretty Woman. Naturally, Art of Play disputed Clarkson's account & challenged the high-profile callout, dubbed by Art of Play as an “attack”, maintaining that Molly was a display piece rather than an item available to purchase, and that an alternative bird had been offered.
Mia Moohan Is Always Planning Her Next Escape
From fan pages and a law degree to full-time freelancing, Scottish creator Mia Moohan is building a career around social media, spontaneous adventures and a seemingly endless list of places to see.
For Mia Moohan, a holiday is rarely just a holiday. It is an excuse to eat something new, get lost somewhere unfamiliar and meet people whose lives look nothing like her own. Ideally, it is somewhere she has been talking about visiting for years, somewhere slightly off the beaten track, and somewhere she can convince everyone around her to come along for the ride.
“I literally live to go away,” she tells me. “I just love going to new places.”
Based in Glasgow, Mia has built a career around social media marketing and content creation, balancing client work with her own growing interest in travel and lifestyle content. Her itinerary videos offer an alternative to the familiar travel circuit, drawing attention to destinations that might not immediately spring to mind when planning a trip. Most recently, she has been exploring the Balkans, a region she had wanted to visit for years before finally convincing her boyfriend that it was time to make it happen.
Antagony Aunties: Help! My Boyfriend Wants a Threesome. My Friends Are Horrified. I’m Somewhere in Between
My boyfriend and I have been together for five years. I’m 25 and he’s 27, and we actually met when I was at university. We’ve recently moved in together, and, honestly, things have always been really good between us. Our sex life has never been something I’ve felt the need to complain about. Recently, though, he’s started talking about having a threesome with another woman. The thing is, I’m actually bisexual, so it’s not the idea of being with a woman that bothers me. I’ve even mentioned to a few of my friends that I wouldn’t necessarily be completely against trying it. Their reactions were very different — they think the whole thing is disgusting, especially because he wants it to be another woman — and now I’m starting to question whether I’m even considering it because I want to, or because I’m worried about what everyone else will think. I also have no idea what the “right” way to do a threesome actually is. Is it weird to do it with someone you don’t know? Part of me thinks I’d feel much more comfortable and enjoy it more if it was someone I already knew, but then that almost seems like it could make things even more awkward afterwards. What if I see them again? What if our friendship changes? And what if I get jealous?
Stella McCartney wants to save the ocean. So why does her fashion show look like this?
Stella McCartney's Spring/Summer 2027 show arrived with an environmental message: “sea life, not seafood.” There were dolphins, sharks, waves, ocean imagery, even a David Attenborough voiceover! Along with a collection free of wool.
An incredibly strong message that, on paper, sounds exactly like what sustainable fashion should be doing. But I can't stop thinking about the setting, and how completely wrong it is. Because this is Paris Fashion Week, an international event built around flying people into one city, creating enormous spectacles, generating thousands of pieces of content, convincing people they need something new, making a mess, and leaving.
The uncomfortable question Fashion Week needs to ask itself is: how sustainable can it actually be when the spectacle itself is part of the problem?
No Such Thing as “Cool”: Inside Manchester’s T4T Club Night
To navigate public space as a trans person in Britain today is to carry an invisible, exhausting weight: a constant mental scan of street corners, casual misgendering at bar counters, and the oppressive static of an increasingly hostile news cycle. But cross the threshold of Islington Mill on a T4T night, and that heavy armour clatters to the floor.
Inside, the air tastes of heat, warm beer, and pure, unpretentious nostalgia. Under soft, non-strobing lights, camera lenses glint with small consent badges, and the floor shakes to an unapologetic 2000s pop anthem. There is no pretence here, no vigilant glances over shoulders, and no need to defend your right to exist. In a world that endlessly debates trans lives, this room responds with pure noise: a living sanctuary where having an uninhibited good time is the whole point.
Ashley Collar is challenging what we think an academic is supposed to look like
Say the word academia and a particular image tends to cling: muted colours, sensible clothes, serious expressions, and an accent that sounds as though it has wandered straight off the set of Downton Abbey. Intelligence, particularly within academic spaces, has long been presented as something that should look a certain way. For Ashley Collar, that expectation is one she has spent much of her career questioning.
Online, she is better known as The Blonde Academic, a name that feels almost deliberately at odds with the traditional image of academia. Her world is pink, hyper-feminine and unapologetically playful, populated by fashion, beauty and the often-unspoken realities of working within higher education. Yet beneath the gloss is a serious interrogation of who gets to look intelligent, who gets to belong, and what an academic is supposed to be.
It is through this collision of femininity and academia that Collar has found her audience: people who, like her, have looked at the traditional image of intellectual life and wondered whether there was a place for them within it.
“Yeah, I’m speaking this language, listen to what I’m talking about”: Etta-May on modernising Gaelic and better opportunities for young islanders.
Etta-May Olley (@ettamaigh on TikTok and Instagram) is bringing the Gaelic language into mainstream content with her own social media videos, as well as special brand deals with some of Scotland’s well-known brands.
Etta-May grew up on the Isle of Harris in the Western Isles – where the population is just under 2,000. With miles of untouched landscape and rolling hills, the Isles are known to be a great place of inspiration for artists and creatives.
As with any remote location, opportunities can be limiting. And while some find better opportunities away, Etta-May described it as a “pull” that keeps the connection to the island so strong.
She recently shared a video to her 6.7k followers on TikTok and 9.7k followers on Instagram about how she felt disappointed that she can’t make the islands her home while also progressing in her career.
From Derry to New York: Róise Nic an Bheatha’s Celtic Cinema
Irish-born Róise Nic an Bheatha is dedicated to bringing world-class filmmaking back to Scotland and Ireland, highlighting the power of celtic languages and culture on the big screen. Now, she’s set off to New York City to make connections and bring Scottish and Irish stories back to the screen. Director and filmmaker Róise was recently awarded $66,000 through the prestigious Fulbright BAFTA Scholarship, giving her the encouragement to go to New York City and study filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts. The 29-year-old is originally from Derry in Northern Ireland but moved to Edinburgh with her family when she was younger, where she learnt Scottish Gaelic. Before going into film, Róise completed her studies at Glasgow University and then worked at the national centre for Gaelic language, Sabhal Mor Ostaig on the Isle of Skye. One of her highest acclaimed films, Le Chéile, went on to be showcased at film festivals across Ireland and Scotland and is known as the world’s first narrative film featuring both Irish and Scottish Gaelic – exploring how language and place can bring people together in unlikely circumstances.
Who Put Waitrose Beans on the Fashion Week Menu?
At London Fashion Week, it is apparently no longer enough to ask someone who they are wearing. We need to know what they are eating, too. Across the endless stream of street-style interviews and Fashion Week Reels, the same question keeps appearing: what is your favourite British food? The answers are remarkably consistent. A fry-up. Beans on toast. A Sunday roast. Fish and chips. Pie, occasionally, if someone wants to demonstrate a little more regional knowledge.
The question itself is harmless enough. So are the answers. There is nothing particularly radical about somebody liking a full English breakfast, and there is no reason that someone who works in fashion should not enjoy beans on toast. The oddity is in what these foods have come to represent. Asked outside a fashion show, surrounded by clothes that most people will never be able to afford, a fry-up becomes more than breakfast. It becomes a way of communicating Britishness, normality and relatability. The £2,000 coat might be inaccessible, but look, they like beans on toast.
Joan Didion’s South and West: Notes on Looking
Antagony Aunties: I’m starting to wonder if I’m a bad friend for needing some space.
Dilemma — “My best friend and I have been close since school, but lately our friendship has started to feel completely one sided. She’s going through a lot, and I’ve always been the friend she comes to when she needs to vent. I listen, I give advice, I cancel plans to see her and I genuinely want her to feel better. But recently, I’ve realised that almost every conversation we have is about her problems. She also went through a really messy break up last year and still talks about her ex constantly. I’ve tried to be supportive, but whenever I gently suggest that she might need to start moving on, she gets defensive. Now I’ve started seeing someone.
“Get Naked Infront of the Mirror”: Nyasha Saree on dressing a midsize body, finding confidence and building Tsitsi Studios
There is something wonderfully confrontational about getting dressed when you refuse to dress for the body you are supposedly meant to have.
For Nyasha Saree, fashion has never been about making herself smaller, quieter or more palatable. If anything, her approach is the opposite. Zebra print becomes a neutral. Colour is never something to be apologetic about. A skirt can be loud, a heel can be ridiculous, and an outfit does not need to fit neatly into one aesthetic, or one version of womanhood, to work.
Hey, Afua!: Making a Culture Out of Your City
Antagonizine usually likes to keep things Northern. We love the strange little pockets of creativity happening across Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield and everywhere in between. But every now and then, someone comes along with such a ridiculously bubbly personality that we simply cannot resist. And, well, who doesn't love a free, or at least cheap, cute and cultural thing to do in their city?
Meet Afua Owusu-Ansah, the woman behind @heyafua, a London-based platform dedicated to finding the best free events, exhibitions, workshops, community spaces and cultural happenings across the capital. If you've ever thought London was too expensive to actually enjoy, Afua would like a word.
The Cat in the Hat Has Come to Glasgow, and TikTok Is Terrified
There is apparently a man in a Cat in the Hat costume terrorising Britain. He has been spotted outside houses, wandering around housing schemes and lurking beneath streetlights. Parents are warning their children, siblings are filming response videos and, somehow, even grannies have got involved. Now, according to TikTok, he has made his way to Glasgow.
Except, of course, he isn't real.
The latest Cat in the Hat panic is an AI-generated internet hoax, with images and videos placing the character into recognisable streets and residential areas. What makes it so effective is how quickly the story has become localised. It isn't simply the Cat in the Hat is scary; it is the Cat in the Hat is in Glasgow. Then he is in another town. Then another. Suddenly everyone knows someone who has supposedly seen him.
It feels remarkably similar to the killer clown panic of 2016. Back then, sinister-looking clowns were supposedly appearing outside schools, in parks and around residential areas. Some sightings were real, some were pranks and plenty were rumours, but the internet transformed them into a nationwide phenomenon. The Cat in the Hat is essentially the AI-era version: a recognisable character, a slightly sinister image, a supposed sighting and an audience ready to make it bigger.
Kate King, eVal, a Random Swede and the Pleasure of an Ordinary Life
There is something strangely difficult to explain about Kate King. On paper, there is very little about her that should make her an internet phenomenon. She is 27 years old, lives in Aylesbury with her parents, spends a considerable amount of time with people older than herself, has worked relatively little, has never had the conventional dating life that tends to form the backbone of contemporary social media and has built much of her online presence around things as thrilling as the weekly food shop. She is not particularly interested in performing the version of 27 that the internet has taught us to expect. There are no endless nights out, career announcements, couples holidays, gym transformations or carefully constructed declarations of having “figured it all out.” There is Costa. There is bowls. There is radio. There is her mum, Val. There is Mick. There are grocery hauls and meal plans and an extraordinary amount of conversation about what is happening next. And somehow, millions of people have found this completely captivating.
Curating Yourself to Death
Curation used to describe a specific, slow, accountable act: a person selecting and arranging objects, deciding what belongs next to what, and being professionally responsible for the argument that arrangement made. It required expertise and restraint, because the whole discipline rested on knowing what to leave out.
Somewhere in the last decade, the word got detached from that discipline and reattached to an Instagram grid, a Depop shop, a For You page algorithmically arranged for you rather than by you. Everyone curates now. Almost nobody is exercising judgement.
The shift isn’t cosmetic. A museum curator’s selections are legible, arguable and attributable; you can disagree with a hang and say why. A TikTok feed’s curation is opaque by design, optimised for retention rather than argument, and arranges you as much as you arrange it. Calling both of these curation flattens a real distinction between a discipline with standards and a recommendation engine with a retention target.
Music, Fashion, Film: How Charli xcx Continues to Rock the Music Industry’s Moulds
When I first heard Charli xcx was making a rock-inspired album, I was admittedly sceptical. However, as singles ‘SS26’, ‘Wink Wink’, and ‘Camera’ dropped, I found myself appreciating her new musical direction. Released on July 24th 2026, Music, Fashion, Film received generally positive critical reception, but has consistently been compared to xcx’s latest album, Brat. Whilst this allows for interesting discussion, I believe the discourse should more thoroughly consider xcx’s emergence as a multimedia female artist.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved both Brat and Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat, xcx’s collaborative album with artists such as Addison Rae, Lorde, and Billie Eilish. However, the creative collaboration on MFF feels integral to the album’s purpose. Shot by Scottish photographer Aidan Zamiri, the album cover depicts John Cale, Marc Jacobs, and Martin Scorsese, three respective embodiments of music, fashion, and film. Cale, who recently collaborated with xcx on ‘House’, is 84 years old but continues to make records and tour around the UK and Europe. Last year, I saw him at the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow for his POPtical Illusion tour: despite his age, he performed with the same vigour as in the days of The Velvet Underground.