No Nonsense #78: Schiaparelli, Beef, and Nicole Kidman
Hey divas, we’re back with another set of cultural picks for your weekend. A few London-based exhibitions for the girls, some makeup recs, plus a not-to-be-missed Nicole Kidman movie. Read on for the whole lot!
Ione Gamble - Founding Editor in Chief
Noho Studios, 24th-26th of April, 10am-5pm, 67 Great Titchfield Street, London
Bella is one of my fave photographers and has a solo show spanning 20 years of work opening this weekend - she’s shot basically every single girl that’s come define culture for the past couple of decades: Lana del Rey, Charli xcx, Billie Eilish, Gabbriette, Mimi Wade and too many others to list out here! See you there 🩷
Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art
Me and Miss Gina Tonic went to the new Schiaparelli show at the V&A this week and absolutely loved it. So many original Elsa Schiaparelli pieces, gorgeous staging, a perfume room for the fragheads!! Heaven heaven heaven.
Lauren O’Neill - Managing Editor
TV show: Beef
Obviously it's not a groundbreaking opinion to say that Netflix's Beef is good - the last season with Ali Wong and Stephen Yeung was soooo incredible - but I binged Season 2 this weekend and while it definitely wasn't a patch on the first, I was so charmed by lots of stuff about it. Cailee Spaeny plays a great unhinged person, Charles Melton is a perfect himbo, and though I wasn't convinced by Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan as a couple to begin with, as the series got further along and you found out about the elder millennial indie sleaze love affair at the start of their relationship, it fell into place for me. The last two episodes were categorically silly and it didn't really stick the landing, but I had a laugh and I thought the performances were wicked so it's worth it for that.
Makeup: Gentle Colors Monchhichi Soft Cream Blush in Peach/Shade 04
My friend randomly got me this - which I'm assuming is a novelty makeup item, being Monchhichi themed - from Thailand and it fucking slaps. I'm a big cream blush girlie - I like my skin to feel glossy rather than matte - and this one is so fab. The colour gives you a lovely reddy-peach flush, it's really pigmented so you don't need much, and it blends so nicely with fingers or a brush. Also the packaging is so cute it makes me do, like, a guttural scream every time I get it out of my makeup bag. Love her sm.
Misha MN - Contributing Culture Editor
Film: To Die For
Nicole Kidman is my number one leading lady star and she more than proves herself in this early Gus Van Sant horny mockumentary thriller from 1995. Focusing on Kidman as Suzanne Stone, a ruthlessly ambitious wannabe TV news journalist, we find out what happens when a woman (a possibly evil woman) really tries to have it all. As far as Hollywood anti-heroines go, I’d place Kidman as the perfect midway point between Faye Dunaway’s Diana Christensen in 1976’s Network, and Rosamund Pike’s Amy Dunne in 2014’s Gone Girl, marrying both a relentless desire to make good television and an unhinged mariticidal rage that manages to turn her world on it’s head. Kidman is dazzling in a blonde wig and smart matching sets, Elle Woods before Elle would or could, but the supporting cast is also luminescent, boasting a young and weirdly hot Joaquin Phoenix as a punky juvenile delinquent, a perfectly cast Holland Taylor as Suzanne’s WASPy mother, and the incredible Illeana Douglas as a distrusting, ice skating sister-in-law, truly a scene stealer. This film taught me that Matt Dillon and Matt Damon are different people, and that the 2018 Lars Von Trier slow burn horror The House That Jack Built starred Matt Dillon and not Joaquin Phoenix, which I had thought was happening the whole time I was sitting through that tension convention. Absolute star-making turn from Nicole, top marks as always.
Series: The Beauty
As mentioned on the pod this week, Ryan Murphy’s The Beauty is an incredible piece of television, and you should all go watch it. Intrigued by the Instagram clips of Isabella a Rossellini explaining the importance of good costume design to a bemused Ashton Kutcher and after hearing the official endorsement from Ione, I dove in headfirst and I loved it. You’d think it’s just a Substance rip-off, and it’s not not that, but it takes the concept further and imagines what would happen if an evil billionaire got his hands on it and started selling it as a trendy beauty treatment. I think there are some pacing issues, and the episodes are inconsistent in length, but the deeper you go, the better it gets. If you stick around long enough, robot super soldiers turn up. There’s enough old Murphy favourites like Evan Peters and Jeremy Pope (LOVE, I am a total Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood STAN) mixed with new stars (Ben Platt is actually really good here, can see him being a Murphy lead in the future, maybe as a young sexy Stephen Sondheim whilst he writes Sweeney Todd or something, credit me later Ryan) and grande dame divas to make it a classic piece of pulp television, truly a spiritual successor to the heyday of American Horror Story. With all of its allegories about drug addiction, deadly viruses and government corruption and suppression, it does make me wonder if what Ryan really wants to do is make a straightforward, emotional, classic AIDS film without all the gimmicks and serial killers and flesh monsters, but who knows? If AHS 13 is as good as this, I can go to bed happy. Five stars.
Single - “Dead to Me” - Hunx and His Punx
Absolutely love Hunx and go wild every time Seth Bogart (Polyester book contributor!) puts out new music, and this new single is great. It’s got Shangri-La-esque spoken word and girly chorus with melancholic guitars and lyrics, it’s everything that gets me going. With Hunx, the party never stops!
Hatti Rex - Contributing Editor
TikTok creator: The psychologist rewatching Girls
Felt like this was a fitting one given a recent book release. Dr. Vincent Barbieri is using his powers for entertainment as he lends his expert opinion on the characters of Girls. He explains the Hannah and Adam breakup and when their splitting really happened, dissects why Hannah and Marnie’s codependent friendship doesn’t let them grow as people, points out all the reasons Jessa is a perfect avoidant: all sorts. He’s done the same for Fleabag too, hopefully he does more I find it really interesting.
Website: https://rooms.xyz/
If you’re the sort of person who got Pokopia to decorate houses or only plays Sims and Animal Crossing for the building aspect, there’s a free website where you can . Don’t even ask me how long I spent doing mine before forgetting to save, it had Monster Energy cans thrown about the place and everything.
Makeup: POUTline Soft Glide Lip Pencil from essence: I don’t really know what to say other than this bangs for a cheap lip liner and is really soft and smooth, and it’s cruelty free etc. Good to throw in your bag.
XOXO,
The Polyester Team <3
