Latest news with #Soho
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Stampede in Soho: puppet animals on an epic trek bring wonder and warning to London streets
The animals went into the West End, not quite two by two, from the direction of Soho Square. Monkeys ran ahead, gorillas bounded behind and bringing up the rear were a pair of handsome, ambling giraffes. Down Greek Street they marched, past pubs and cafes, resulting in an actual zebra crossing as the pack moved across Cambridge Circus, passing in front of bemused drivers, and on through lanes of shoppers in Covent Garden. This was central London on late Friday afternoon: streets overrun not by tourists but by The Herds, a staggeringly ambitious public art project. In April, a menagerie of lifesize puppet animals began a 20,000km route from the Congo Basin to the Arctic Circle, signifying the displacement of animals and humans caused by the climate crisis. This weekend they are in London; next week they travel north for the Manchester international festival. I spent an hour following the herd on their journey from Soho to Somerset House, during which the puppets either joined in a series of performances – or watched them along with the rest of us. First up, the animals (made by the South African collective Ukwanda) circled the sundial pillar at Seven Dials during a performance of When I Grow Up from Matilda, the musical hit at the Cambridge theatre opposite. An anthem from one of London's most popular shows, it served as more than just a quick crowd pleaser as it fitted the future-facing project. Watching them brought to mind Greta Thunberg's speech at the UN climate summit in 2019: 'The eyes of all future generations are upon you.' There was humour in seeing the giraffes amid the trees of Covent Garden, with the musical's lyrics about growing 'tall enough to reach the branches'. But during London's sustained heatwave it was disquieting, too, to hear the lines: 'I will spend all day just lying in the sun / And I won't burn cause I'll be all grown up.' Approaching the market, an area traditionally popular with acrobats, magicians and mimes, the puppets rested before a particularly illustrious street performer: Juliet Stevenson, who has a long history of raising climate awareness. Evoking a kind of animal whisperer, Stevenson stroked one of the creatures tenderly while giving a speech, delivered as if amid dystopia, about trees that lost their will, animals 'screaming their pain' and 'a desert forming inside me and outside'. We walked on and, within the crowd, a woman discussed the puppets with her child: how thirsty and dry the animals looked, with their corrugated cardboard bodies. The design, with material fraying and the inner frames exposed in places, makes them seem fragile despite their robustness. Another crowd member waved her family's own homemade turtle, recycled from similar materials. In such close quarters, you could feel the strain on the puppeteers and their skill at bringing the creatures to life, not just through movements but vocal exhalations too. The project smartly mirrors the importance of collective action: three people control each gorilla, another trio handle each giraffe (two from beneath supporting the body and one with a pole operating the head). I've always loved watching the care in the eyes of performers when they are manipulating puppets – here, it was often incredibly moving to witness. The creatures would momentarily pause, survey their surroundings, rise on their back feet and stampede. Throughout the hour, this herd grew as more passersby joined in. 'We are the ones we've been waiting for,' actor Chipo Chung told the crowd in a speech beside the market before the journey snaked around the corner and stopped outside the Royal Opera House where tenor Ryan Vaughan Davies appeared on the balcony to sing from The Magic Flute. The giraffes leaned in to listen. This West End leg of the journey was co-curated by Amir Nizar Zuabi (artistic director of The Herds) and theatre and opera director Joe Hill-Gibbins, who staged a particularly muddy version of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Young Vic in 2017. (That venue's former artistic director, David Lan, is one of the chief producers on The Herds.) Shakespeare's 'forgeries of jealousy' speech, increasingly used to reflect our own climate disruption, was performed by Zubin Varla as Oberon and Hattie Morahan as Titania. (A gorilla rested its paws on Varla; a monkey nuzzled Morahan.) The route ended in the courtyard of Somerset House, with blistering drumming by Andy Gangadeen who was circled by the animals. The creatures were laid to rest in the scorching heat, their fragmented design now disturbingly evoking carcasses. Outdoor art disruptions, like the journey of the puppet pachyderm and giant friend in The Sultan's Elephant by Royal de Luxe in London in 2006, usually leave joy in their wake. After such performances, the spaces feel charged with a sense of wonder at the memory. Leaving The Herds and retracing the animals' route back through to Soho, I felt anguish at their absence but a galvanising urge that brought me back to Matilda's defiant lyrics. Just because we find ourselves in this story, it doesn't mean that everything is written for us. The Herds is in London until 29 June, and across Greater Manchester 3-5 July, as part of Manchester international festival. Its global journey continues until August.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Voices: Farewell, Anna Wintour – the Queen of editors with a nuclear-force superpower
Farewell, Anna Wintour: sphinx-faced, super-enduring doyenne of global fashion. The news that the editor-in-chief of US Vogue has stepped down after 37 years marks the end of an era, but I don't mean her reign over couture and catwalk. What her bow marks is the golden age of magazines, when editors were celebrated as celebs in their own right and whose names were synonymous with their product. Mark Boxer at Tatler, Graydon Carter's Vanity Fair, Nick Logan at The Face, Bill Buford heading Granta, Alan Coren at Punch and Tina Brown presiding over Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and the Daily Beast. But 'Nuclear Wintour' outsaw all of them, while the only famed editor still at his desk and outdoing Wintour by two years and still counting is my first boss, Ian Hislop, Private Eye's Lord Gnome. Magazines shaped my life after my publican parents turned their saloon bar into a comfy sitting room with sofas, log fires and piles of glossies. As my mother put it, 'There's Country Life for the life you want, Hello! to gawp at other people's lives and Private Eye for the truth behind the lives.' Each copy was grey from being thumbed by riveted customers. By 1991, when the cousin of one of our regulars sent me off for an interview with Hislop at the Eye's Soho offices, I was quivering with nerves at the prospect of meeting a demi-god. But even then, I didn't quite grasp how infinitesimally lucky I was to enter magazine journalism at a time of editorial giants, wide readerships, big ad revenue and significant sway. It was an age when editors decided who was a star in the making – or fading. Front covers rather than TikTok anointed and cemented talent, while media bigwigs, rock stars and actors hung out together at the then newly-founded Groucho Club, feeding on each other's influence. The idea of a 'chief content creator' wasn't even a twinkle in a Californian tech bro's eye – he was still at kindergarten. All the lesser hacks relied on editors and their lavish expense accounts to lubricate the fun. Michael VerMeulen, the American editor of British GQ – where I landed my second job – negotiated an expense account of £40,000 on top of his salary and used to sweep his entire staff out for Groucho jollies. Vermeulen with his flamboyant lingo of 'big swinging dicks' (any man he admired) and 'doesn't blow the wind up my skirt' (a lacklustre features pitch) made such great copy that the Guardian sent a journalist to report on what it was like to work in his orbit. I have long cherished the memory of him telling me that when a girlfriend congratulated him on his sexual performance, he instantly replied, 'Don't tell me, tell your friends!' His death, one August bank holiday weekend after an excess of cocaine, was front-page news, and all of Mag Land mourned. Even back then, Anna Wintour rose above it all like a phoenix born of ice, who would never be glimpsed in civilian settings. A good friend went off to work at US Vogue and reported back that the maestra had her own work lavatory, forbidden to all others, so worker bees couldn't bear witness to her doing something as human as going to the loo. (This was apparently even the case at her Met Gala balls, where even Hollywood superstars couldn't share her personal facilities.) During my brief stint at Conde Nast, before I was fired for sleeping with the deputy editor – reader, I married him – rumours of impending visits from Wintour took on the aspect of Elizabeth I descending on an earl's country estate to test his coffers and loyalty. Even that friend who went to the Vogue took on some of her boss's grandiosity. When I bumped into her at an intimate London book launch, I was startled to find she affected not to know me, a phase that happily passed. There was real power in the corridors of glossies back then, and this could distort personalities even more than the charlie so many meeja folk snorted. An actress or model who couldn't land a Vogue cover was denied the super-stamp of being in fashion, and so it was for men who couldn't make a splash on GQ or Esquire's hoardings. Pamela Anderson may have equalled Princess Diana for sheer fame in the 1990s, but Wintour would not yield her the ultimate accolade of a cover: the sex tape that leaked of Anderson and drummer Tommy Lee deemed her trashy beyond redemption. But in 2023, Anderson had a radical image overhaul, ditching the bombshell slap and going makeup-free to Paris Fashion Week, and every event since. It was intellectual, interesting – and it's got her on the list for the last two Met Galas. This year, Anderson went a step further, with a severe bob and sculpted dress that gave her a faint whiff of catwalk Rosa Klebb. She'd have probably worn a straitjacket if it gained her admission to fashion's front row. Because that, in the end, was Anna Wintour's nuclear-force superpower: the quiet devastation of a 'No'. She was not just an editor, she was the ultimate bouncer with Prada gloves.
The Independent
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Farewell, Anna Wintour – the Queen of editors with a nuclear-force superpower
Farewell, Anna Wintour: sphinx-faced, super-enduring doyenne of global fashion. The news that the editor-in-chief of US Vogue has stepped down after 37 years marks the end of an era, but I don't mean her reign over couture and catwalk. What her bow marks is the golden age of magazines, when editors were celebrated as celebs in their own right and whose names were synonymous with their product. Mark Boxer at Tatler, Graydon Carter's Vanity Fair, Nick Logan at The Face, Bill Buford heading Granta, Alan Coren at Punch and Tina Brown presiding over Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and the Daily Beast. But 'Nuclear Wintour' outsaw all of them, while the only famed editor still at his desk and outdoing Wintour by two years and still counting is my first boss, Ian Hislop, Private Eye 's Lord Gnome. Magazines shaped my life after my publican parents turned their saloon bar into a comfy sitting room with sofas, log fires and piles of glossies. As my mother put it, 'There's Country Life for the life you want, Hello! to gawp at other people's lives and Private Eye for the truth behind the lives.' Each copy was grey from being thumbed by riveted customers. By 1991, when the cousin of one of our regulars sent me off for an interview with Hislop at the Eye 's Soho offices, I was quivering with nerves at the prospect of meeting a demi-god. But even then, I didn't quite grasp how infinitesimally lucky I was to enter magazine journalism at a time of editorial giants, wide readerships, big ad revenue and significant sway. It was an age when editors decided who was a star in the making – or fading. Front covers rather than TikTok anointed and cemented talent, while media bigwigs, rock stars and actors hung out together at the then newly-founded Groucho Club, feeding on each other's influence. The idea of a 'chief content creator' wasn't even a twinkle in a Californian tech bro's eye – he was still at kindergarten. All the lesser hacks relied on editors and their lavish expense accounts to lubricate the fun. Michael VerMeulen, the American editor of British GQ – where I landed my second job – negotiated an expense account of £40,000 on top of his salary and used to sweep his entire staff out for Groucho jollies. Vermeulen with his flamboyant lingo of 'big swinging dicks' (any man he admired) and 'doesn't blow the wind up my skirt' (a lacklustre features pitch) made such great copy that the Guardian sent a journalist to report on what it was like to work in his orbit. I have long cherished the memory of him telling me that when a girlfriend congratulated him on his sexual performance, he instantly replied, 'Don't tell me, tell your friends!' His death, one August bank holiday weekend after an excess of cocaine, was front-page news, and all of Mag Land mourned. Even back then, Anna Wintour rose above it all like a phoenix born of ice, who would never be glimpsed in civilian settings. A good friend went off to work at US Vogue and reported back that the maestra had her own work lavatory, forbidden to all others, so worker bees couldn't bear witness to her doing something as human as going to the loo. (This was apparently even the case at her Met Gala balls, where even Hollywood superstars couldn't share her personal facilities.) During my brief stint at Conde Nast, before I was fired for sleeping with the deputy editor – reader, I married him – rumours of impending visits from Wintour took on the aspect of Elizabeth I descending on an earl's country estate to test his coffers and loyalty. Even that friend who went to the Vogue took on some of her boss's grandiosity. When I bumped into her at an intimate London book launch, I was startled to find she affected not to know me, a phase that happily passed. There was real power in the corridors of glossies back then, and this could distort personalities even more than the charlie so many meeja folk snorted. An actress or model who couldn't land a Vogue cover was denied the super-stamp of being in fashion, and so it was for men who couldn't make a splash on GQ or Esquire 's hoardings. Pamela Anderson may have equalled Princess Diana for sheer fame in the 1990s, but Wintour would not yield her the ultimate accolade of a cover: the sex tape that leaked of Anderson and drummer Tommy Lee deemed her trashy beyond redemption. But in 2023, Anderson had a radical image overhaul, ditching the bombshell slap and going makeup-free to Paris Fashion Week, and every event since. It was intellectual, interesting – and it's got her on the list for the last two Met Galas. This year, Anderson went a step further, with a severe bob and sculpted dress that gave her a faint whiff of catwalk Rosa Klebb. She'd have probably worn a straitjacket if it gained her admission to fashion's front row. Because that, in the end, was Anna Wintour's nuclear-force superpower: the quiet devastation of a 'No'. She was not just an editor, she was the ultimate bouncer with Prada gloves.
CNN
a day ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
Rachel Zegler is serenading crowds of people in central London almost every night for free
Strands of music float through every city soundscape, emanating from buskers, passing cars or your neighbor's flat, but not until this summer has the voice of a Hollywood star echoed around Argyll Street in London's Soho district. Near nightly until early September, Rachel Zegler will walk out at just before 9 p.m. onto the balcony above the London Palladium's front doors and deliver, in her crystal-clear voice, a rendition of 'Don't Cry for Argentina' for free to the hundreds of people gathered below. The paying audience inside the theater watch the song on a live video feed. Zegler's six-minute balcony performance has made 'Evita' the production of the moment on London's West End. The reasons behind staging this iconic scene in this way have sparked headlines. It is a clever marketing ploy, some say, drumming up much publicity even before the show's official press night. It is a way to make theater more accessible, others say, a chance to see Zegler, best known for her starring turns in 'West Side Story' and 'Snow White,' for free. In the context of the show, it provides an almost literal interpretation of the moment when Eva (Evita) Perón, the wife of former Argentine president Juan Perón and whose life the musical is based on, addressed a crowd from the Casa Rosada balcony. Several British outlets have highlighted the more controversial aspects of the stunt – what about those who have paid up to £245 ($336) for a ticket to watch the show's most famous song on a screen? 'People are complaining that it's a free show when people have paid, but that's the point of the show,' one onlooker, Nadine, told CNN, referencing Perón's life spent championing the rights of the poor. Much like the themes depicted in the musical, Zegler eschews the paying patrons inside for the 'peasants' outside. But on Wednesday, no one in the crowd outside the Palladium who had either seen the show or had plans to see it minded that the main spectacle happened outside the theater. For Alma Nielsen, visiting from Tucson, Arizona, watching part of Zegler's performance on a screen didn't detract from her experience. It was 'amazing,' she told CNN, adding that seeing the enormous crowds on the video feed only improved the scene. Although it was her children who persuaded her to see 'Evita' in the first place, she had returned without them to stand outside the theater and 'experience everything.' Similarly, Charlotte Pegrum is seeing the show in a few weeks time and liked the idea. Still, 'we're lucky, we're locals, maybe if you're visiting and only have one night, you might not appreciate it,' she said. Others are more skeptical. Adam Rhys-Davies, an actor himself, isn't quite sure what to make of it. 'I don't want the gimmick to be bigger than the show,' he told CNN. Jamie Lloyd, who directed this production of 'Evita,' has come to embody a modern, stripped-back, almost setless type of theater, embracing the use of cameras in his other shows. In his staging of 'Sunset Boulevard,' Tom Francis, who plays Joe Gillis, sings the titular song while walking through the streets surrounding the theater. 'Are you going to get people sitting at home, watching it on a screen, the theatres empty and saying we're watching it live?' Rhys-Davies said. Whatever the reasons behind the staging – Lloyd hasn't commented publicly and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has only noted he hopes it can continue even as the crowds get bigger – it draws a joyful, semi-spontaneous gathering of people in keeping with London's habit of fusing the glamorous and unglamorous together. Glance left while Zegler sings and there is Ikea's new Oxford Street store at the end of the road; glance right and there is a Five Guys with scaffolding outside it. Life continues in a city center, even if a Hollywood star is performing for free, and the crowd is carefully controlled, allowing onlookers to pass by unimpeded, albeit blinking upwards in bemusement. Two tourists visiting London for the first time hang around just because an excited-looking crowd has gathered. For what, they weren't exactly sure. And, just after the crowd had dispersed, another tourist wandered past the Palladium looking for Zegler. 'Has it happened already?' she said.
Forbes
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Dries Van Noten's Spring 2026 Collection Boosts Color On Sales Floor
PARIS, FRANCE - JUNE 26: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY - For Non-Editorial use please seek approval from ... More Fashion House) A model walks the runway during the Dries Van Noten Menswear Spring/Summer 2026 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on June 26, 2025 in Paris, France. (Photo by) Fashion can be a pretty dramatic scene, especially when the industry learns of a beloved designer stepping down from his brand or post. Such was the case when Belgian designer Dries Van Noten announced he was stepping down from his namesake label. Not to fear, he warned, he was leaving in charge 33-year-old Julian Klausner, who had worked as the womenswear designer for the brand since 2018. After a stunning debut for the women's Fall-Winter 2025 collection in March, Klausner debuted his first men's collection for Spring-Summer 2026 this week in Paris, reaffirming the founder's words with another stunning collection. It comes on the heels of the brand's recently opened New York store in Soho, the second US outpost for the label founded in 1986 by its namesake, who was also part of the infamous Antwerp Six designers. While the current merchandise on the selling floor of the new Mercer Street store was the funding designer's last, with two hits so far, Klausner will undoubtedly continue to stock unique designs that resonate across many fashion tribes. PARIS, FRANCE - JUNE 26: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY - For Non-Editorial use please seek approval from ... More Fashion House) Fashion designer Julian Klausner walks the runway during the Dries Van Noten Menswear Spring/Summer 2026 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on June 26, 2025 in Paris, France. (Photo by) Given his background for women's designs, it wasn't a complete surprise that Klausner leaned into the more feminine aspect of fashion that has infiltrated men's fashion of late as tastes change. Men become more emboldened and experimental in their dress. This collection offered plenty of color, textures, and patterns, combined like no other brand can, and infused it with new silhouette propositions for guys. PARIS, FRANCE - JUNE 26: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY - For Non-Editorial use please seek approval from ... More Fashion House) A model walks the runway during the Dries Van Noten Menswear Spring/Summer 2026 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on June 26, 2025 in Paris, France. (Photo by) To a Lou Reed soundtrack, Klausner set the stage for his show that recalled the archetypal Dries Van Noten wardrobe according to show notes and as 'late night blurs into a morning,' where 'a man in love strolls the beach at dawn, after a party. Shirts unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, the silhouette takes on a new silhouette." This is all to say that the collection exuded a certain ease and informality while being deliberate. Key highlights in the outing will translate to selling floor intrigue and ostensibly sales in a staid market that needs excitement to churn buying motivation. They include a new proposition of a car coat in a trapeze shape, silk saris tied over pants, extremely embellished bomber jackets and tanks, cummerbunds as a daily proposition, removed from formality, and bike shorts as a colorful layering staple. Shorts, part of an emerging trend, were also prevalent and in various FRANCE - JUNE 26: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY - For Non-Editorial use please seek approval from ... More Fashion House) A model walks the runway during the Dries Van Noten Menswear Spring/Summer 2026 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on June 26, 2025 in Paris, France. (Photo by) The true mastery of the brand's and Klausner's interpretations is its ability to mix pattern, color, and texture in bold, inventive ways. Thick Jockey stripes in burgundy, turquoise, and pink combos juxtaposed neutral browns and grey family or paired with a bright Kelly green; large florals in pink and green, black and white, or orange and purple had the brand's Orient mood, while colorful beading styles were paired with a simple topper coat. Satins and a bevy of jacquards and rich knitwear form the fabric base. Accessories had sporty feel in duffle bags and flat sneakers. Several cuts, such as tank tops, boat neck styles, fitted bodice wool suiting tanks, and blouson style tops, thanks to waist sashing, added feminine touches to the men's offering. Given the newness, these styles won't be found in many closets, giving many men a reason to shop.
