Battle For Glasgow 2026: How Students Built One Of Scotland’s Largest Esports Events
When it comes to esports, and gaming in general, there is often a narrative that struggles to break through the stereotypes associated with competitive online gaming. Some have a view that esports remains confined to dark rooms, players disconnected from social groups, and niche online spaces. But student-led events like ‘Battle for Glasgow’ are working hard to challenge that perception. What began as separate university societies and rival student teams across Glasgow is quickly becoming something much larger: a live production built on community, creativity, and collaboration. Once you begin to look past the competition, you see an incredible collective effort of a student-led volunteer group, from players performing under pressure, production teams working behind the scenes to make the event as best as possible, commentators driving in-game narratives, and student communities gathering around a shared experience. Battle for Glasgow highlights what students are capable of building when they are given a stage to showcase their passion and ambition.
The Art of Dressing a Museum: Flora McFarlane’s Return to the Garden at the Burrell Collection
There are fashion shows, and then there are moments where fashion, place, and people seem to dissolve into one another entirely. What unfolded at the The Burrell Collection felt less like a traditional runway presentation and more like the beginning of a cultural conversation, one rooted deeply in Glasgow, in craftsmanship, and in the enduring spirit of Glasgow School of Art.
The room itself was alive long before the first model emerged. The audience was packed with GSA alumni, photographers, makers, collaborators, and friends, a creative ecosystem gathering around one of its own. It was the first runway show the Burrell has ever hosted, and there could not have been a more fitting debut. Beneath the museum’s soaring glass ceilings, with natural light flooding the space, the entire experience felt immersive and cinematic, as though the garments belonged not simply on bodies, but within the architecture itself.
At the centre of it all was Flora, whose collection carried the confidence of a designer already building a world far beyond graduation. Only two years out of university, she has continued to evolve the ideas first explored in her fourth-year collection at GSA, an achievement that feels increasingly rare in a fashion landscape obsessed with immediacy over development. That continuity gave the show emotional weight. This was not a disconnected new chapter, but a refinement of a language she has already begun to master.
Fashion is Art, and Art Belongs to the People (Met 2026)
The first Monday in May is a date fashion lovers around the world know well. This is the beauty and importance of fashion: like art, music, cinema, and poetry, fashion allows people to escape reality and become someone new.
The theme of the 2026 Met Gala, Fashion Is Art, was exciting for many reasons, most importantly because fashion has long been looked down upon within the art world. The Met Gala itself is a fundraiser for the Costume Institute at the museum, which originally struggled for recognition because fashion was not considered “real art” in the same way as painting or sculpture. This year’s theme finally acknowledged, on a large scale, that fashion is art, and its recognition as such feels incredibly significant.
The theme also offered huge creative potential. People wanted extravagance, garments that would never appear on a typical red carpet. Instead, what we received were underwhelming gowns and casual blue jeans. As expected, many of the men arrived in predictable black tuxedos, with only a few standing out: Luke Evans in Palomo Spain, Jordan Roth in Robert Wun, and Sam Smith in Christian Cowan.
Cyberfeminism Now: Hopecore, Cyborgs, and the Platformed Self
There is something distinctly cyberfeminist about hopecore; the strange, dissonant meme format pairing low-resolution animals with WordArt affirmations and early, internet aesthetics. Its visual language recalls the surreal gloss of 1990s desktop environments, evoking a moment when the internet still felt unstable, open, and full of possibility. Yet hopecore is not utopian. It emerges from what Polyester mag describes as a “fragmented soup of life,” in which online culture mirrors a broader social drift toward disarray, and where existentialism and nihilism increasingly underpin everyday experience (Quin, 2026.).
This Music May Contain Hope Raye Album Review
In Praise of the Unlikely Heroine: The Other Bennett sister review
There’s something quietly radical about The Other Bennet Sister. In a TV landscape obsessed with spectacle, this is proper, old-school Sunday night viewing – the kind we don’t really get anymore. Ten episodes, each a neat half-hour, it’s a format that feels almost nostalgic, but also perfectly judged: enough time to luxuriate in character, without ever dragging. It’s also the sort of programme you could happily watch with your mum, your aunties, or your friends. It’s comforting and chatty, but with enough bite to spark conversation afterwards.
Arrested Development: Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere and the Boyish Men of the internet
Louis Theroux dives into the lost boys' colony of men’s influencers exposing what instant gratification and a rage economy has left for our young people.
Written by Cameron Cade; edited by Charlotte Lewis
I am always impressed by Louis Theroux as a documentarian. His unjudgemental approach to some truly reprehensible people, leaving them unguarded is fundamental to basically every documentary he does. That skill has never seemed more important than when he deals with the lost boys colony of The Manosphere.
Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere is the iconic English documentarians newest documentary as he falls down the rabbit hole of the “Manosphere”, a collection of right wing influencers who target young men’s insecurities surrounding fitness, dating and finances.
Stitching Sustainability into Community: House of MO Repair Café in Dundee
In an era where fashion is often driven by speed and constant consumption, a quieter, more thoughtful movement is emerging in Dundee; one that centres on care, craftsmanship, and longevity. At the heart of this shift is House of MO, an independent fashion studio led by designer Omolola Olasoju. Through a combination of design practice and community engagement, the studio is fostering a renewed appreciation for clothing as something to be maintained rather than discarded.
Female Founded Glasgow Fashion Brand Kiwi & Co Donates 10% of Profit to Woman's Aid
Glasgow founded independent fashion brand Kiwi & Co has had a beautiful connection with its female customers since it’s humble beginnings in female founder Melissa Lanigan’s living room in 2020, established with the goal to bring colour and joy to people’s lives during the uncertainty of the covid pandemic.
Since then, the brand has completely exploded, now supplying their cool girl styles on retail giant ASOS as well as having huge influencers hooked on the brand – notably Shakira Khan (the people’s princess of Love Island season 12), who can frequently be seen sporting Kiwi’s iconic knits on socials, as well as being featured on hit BBC show Traitors.
The brand not only helps everyday women find their confidence through its bold, beautiful colours and styles, but it’s now vowing to give back 10% of all knitwear profits until Mother’s Day on Sunday the 15th of March to the incredibly important charity Women’s Aid. Women’s Aid is built on the vitally important ethos of protecting women in dangerous domestic situations.
Why is Gen Z Is Bringing Print Back?
With some consumers turning away from their phones and following a “digital detox,” print media seems to be not only benefitting from the change but elevating its presence from informative media to a luxury product. In an era where our consumption of news and art is controlled by algorithms, it feels like readers are slowly turning back to print.
In what Rolling Stone called a “cultural recalibration,” the revival of print media is, according to online sources, consumers responding to an overstimulating digital world. Social media is still an active creative outlet, but it largely depends on what ‘side’ of the algorithm you find yourself on. The constant shift of topics and issues shared online can become an overwhelming aspect of having any kind of online presence whatsoever.
Too Close for Comfort: Heated Rivalry and Parasocial Culture
“Parasocial” was named Cambridge University Press & Assessment’s Word of the Year in 2025. It’s a term whose relevance seeps through the cracks of the internet. According to Cambridge, it means “involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know.” If you have your finger on the pulse of social media, this definition likely feels familiar. Within fandom spaces especially, parasocial relationships are increasingly prevalent. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with feeling connected to a piece of media, its characters, or even the actors who portray them — but sometimes an invisible line is crossed. With the rise of the hit TV show Heated Rivalry, those blurred lines have become more visible. Can we consume media and love it without becoming too involved? Of course. But when does admiration become too much?
Glasgow Charity Fashion Show “Synergy” review
February 21st 2026 marks the day of the highly anticipated Glasgow Charity Fashion Show. After months of hard work from a dedicated team of committee members, awareness campaigns led by student volunteers, and fundraising events, Glasgow's largest student-led fashion event finally took centre stage at the iconic Old Fruit Market venue in Glasgow. The event captured the dedication, creativity, and compassion of Glasgow's creative scene, becoming more than just a fashion show but a night of community.
Same Fabric, New Expression: The Modernisation of Tartan
Tradition and reinvention are, for me, two words that truly underpin the identity of modernised tartan. With roots in Scottish history and clan symbolism, the patterned plaid represents a visual language of belonging and legacy. In recent decades, tartan has been reimagined by designers like Vivienne Westwood, heritage brands such as Burberry, and pop culture icons—from bands like Sex Pistols to Clueless, directed by Amy Heckerling. Together, they reshaped tartan from a ceremonial textile into a modern wardrobe staple. Few patterns hold such an ever-changing yet enduring legacy.
From the clan-scattered Scottish Highlands to the prestigious postcodes of London, the journey of tartan demonstrates its cultural power—showing that what a fabric stands for can be completely reinvented depending on who gets to tell its story.
That theme of reinvention is alive today in the work of Kelikume Fashion, where recent tartan pieces treat the pattern less like a rulebook and more like a form of creative self-expression. The brand’s founder, Keli, describes what modernising tartan means to her:
A Storm Without the Weather: Wuthering Heights (2026) Review
Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights is, at its core, a very basic retelling of a novel that is anything but. Stripped of its narrative complexity, its generational cruelty, and its social and racial unease, the film flattens Brontë’s vicious, unsettling masterpiece into something that feels closer to fan fiction than faithful reinterpretation.
The most immediate loss is structural. Brontë’s novel is defined by its framing devices; by mediation, distance, and unreliable narration. Removing Nelly Dean as narrator is not a neutral choice; it fundamentally alters the moral texture of the story. Without Nelly’s judgement, complicity, and exhaustion, the film loses its sense of consequence. What remains is a direct, romanticised telling that smooths over the novel’s cruelty rather than interrogating it.
Margot Robbie is, as ever, a phenomenal actress, but chemistry is not something that can be willed into existence. Her Catherine and Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff never quite ignite. I still cried, so clearly something emotional landed, but it felt more like grief for the source material than belief in their relationship. Elordi can do an accent, technically, but the performance has the faint air of a director hearing it once and saying, “Yeah, that’ll do.” He is undeniably gorgeous, but he never convinces as Heathcliff. Frankly, he’d make an excellent Darcy.
When the Muppets Met Sabrina Carpenter: A hopeful revival
A familiar format returns and shows that straightforward is, sometimes, better
For a medium that is built on suspension of disbelief, puppetry has always felt incredibly earnest. There's something very simple and engaging about getting a felt creature attached to you by the buttocks to say something silly or raunchy.
Jim Henson's Muppets were the pinnacle of this medium and the testament to the “reality” of these creatures. You can barely throw an anthropomorphic rock without hearing stories about acclaimed actors forgetting that the Muppets were actually controlled by a bunch of hippie puppeteers and were not, in fact, other actors.
Cut to the modern day, where The Muppets have been sitting in a Disney warehouse somewhere being forgotten while having 1 or 2 characters dragged out for the occasional Game Awards segment. Until now…
Antagonzine’s Best Albums of 2025
Across all mediums, 2025 has been a pretty remarkable year. It felt like everywhere you looked, a shift was occurring, at times nostalgic and often brand-spanking new. The music of 2025 was simply the most explicit example. Pop mainstays like Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift used 2025 as an opportunity to ride the line between the familiar and the new with their most recent releases. Lily Allen returned with the critically acclaimed West End Girl. Bad Bunny and Rosalía incorporated some national pride and pulled folk music traditions from their countries into albums that garnered mainstream success.
It’s been a wild year for music, so we gathered some of the writers at Antagonzine to give their wildly different thoughts on which album was the Best Album of 2025…
Why Everyone Feels Like They’re Behind Right Now
Recently, it feels as though everyone is late to their own lives. Late to stability, late to clarity, late to the version of adulthood they grew up expecting. Time itself hasn’t changed, but our relationship to it has. There’s a quiet pressure in the background — not dramatic, just a small tug that says you should have things figured out by now, even if you’re not sure what “figured out” is supposed to look like.
Inside the Glasgow Charity Fashion Show Theme Reveal
A lot can happen when a team of passionate, creative students joins forces for a great cause, and even the dreich Glasgow rain couldn’t keep guests away from the iconic Barras Market, where the Barras Art and Design (BAaD) venue played host to one of the city’s most exciting student-led cultural moments: The Glasgow Charity Fashion Show (GCFS) theme reveal.
This yearly event draws in crowds of students, creatives, designers, and supporters under the glass roof of BAaD to celebrate another year of fashion and charity. Guests were drawn into the space by live DJ sets, meaningful connections, and, bias acknowledged, the best tequila, courtesy of event sponsor CILLÍ: TEQUILA PICANTE.
There is something underrated about student-led, volunteer-run events going off without a hitch, but the team behind GCFS approaches their work seriously and with purpose. There is a real sense of pride at these events; they do themselves and the creative scene in Glasgow proud. The event was set up to encourage communication and connection, with long tables running the length of the hall, encouraging students to connect with designers, photographers with stylists, an event that truly valued community and charity over ego or status.
Behind The Runway: The Collective Vision Behind ‘Roots & Rebirth’ and Aberdeen’s Fashion Revival
As models paraded down the runway on Halloween night, clad in bold hues, vibrant patterns, and unique craftsmanship, October 31st marked a fashion revival for Aberdeen with the unveiling of a collection titled Roots & Rebirth. The night signalled the emergence of a dynamic, daring, and creative fashion chapter for the often creatively overlooked granite city. Nigerian-born designer Joy Kelikume Oziomaaka, the visionary behind the London Fashion Week success Kelikume Fashion and Styling, aims to bring the concept of a Fashion Week to Scotland and open opportunities for young people pursuing careers in the fashion industry—preventing them from taking their talents elsewhere.
The brand was founded by Kelly (as she is affectionately known) two years ago after working for 15 years at Chevron. Her pivot from the energy sector to fashion stemmed from a personal love for the industry, describing fashion as “the only language I enjoy speaking.”
It’s Not Me it’s You: Lily Allen’s ‘West End Girl’ Album Review
Mainstream British artist, Lily Allen has been thrust into the media limelight with her divorce from sci-fi series Stranger Things actor David Harbour, of which she shines a harsh light on in her second album “West End Girl”. Allen, married to Harbour for four years, wrote and recorded the entire album in ten days, delivering a real-time account of the breakdown of their relationship.
Describing herself as a “modern wife” in ‘Relapse’, Allen gives a first-hand detailing of the toll her marriage took on her, and the guilt she felt trying to be a role model for her daughters amid her weary choice to agree to an open relationship. ‘Relapse’ is an album-defining track and an honest account of Allen’s unsteady relationship with alcohol, having been sober since 2019.