I moved to London four years ago and in that time, I went on approximately 830 dates, drank more cocktails than my insides care to admit, attended over 1,000 champagne-fuelled industry parties and brunched with my girlfriends religiously every single Saturday. It was fast and fun, for a while, until the flicker faded. That’s the problem with glossy lifestyles: it’s just a sheen slathered on top of a product.

I would romanticise the way I burned the candle relentlessly at both ends. It was glorification of being busy at its finest. Working as a showbiz journalist, I was getting home from celebrity parties at 3am and getting up at 6am for a day in the newsroom. Despite being in a permanent haze of delirium, drunk or hungover, I got good at working through my default state of exhaustion. I used alcohol at shiny work events as a coping mechanism in a competitive, dog-eat-dog industry. I was chasing stories and exclusive scoops from celebrities each night and the pressure was on to deliver to my editor.

I’d also romanticise when men I dated told me they couldn’t commit. I’d naively tell myself maybe they were my Mr Big. For me, relationships in the city were pain, not love. Much like the SATC girls, my dating life was fast. I went from one man to the next in some warped real life version of Tinder. I dated doctors, lawyers, CEOs, scientists, bankers and of course, your everyday city wankers.

In a rare moment of authenticity and clarity in the showbiz cloud, I remember interviewing an A-list actress at a swish restaurant launch party full of posers and background noise. After the interview, I embarrassingly spilled my guts to her about my latest heartbreak and she gave me some of the best relationship advice I’ve ever had:

"Be with someone who makes you feel safe, not sick. The butterflies aren’t actually a good thing. Don’t look for them. The butterflies are often just a worry and anxiety about whether the other person feels the same. They aren’t making you feel sure. They’re making you feel panicked."

She was spot on. I didn’t want the whirlwind romances and the hold-on-to-your-hat type of love that goes out as quickly as it ignites.

life in the slow lane without all the frills is a beautiful way to live. The drinks taste better, the dates are more substantial and the parties actually mean more than a throwaway Tuesday.

Friends of mine seeing my posts on social media would continually tell me how lucky I was, and even though I was always grateful for the opportunities, I didn’t feel #blessed like they said I should. I felt wrung out.

I found myself in a diluted Devil Wears Prada and living on little sleep, too much drink, often working for bullying news editors and always mending some kind of heartbreak from the insane culture of millennial dating. My anxiety was getting worse and no amount of champagne on tap or fancy award shows could make that go away. The truth was, with every day that passed, these things seemed painfully superficial and I didn’t find much joy in them. I didn’t want to rub shoulders with influencers taking hundreds of photos of themselves in different lights and angles. I couldn’t and didn’t want to keep up with any of that. My life was on-paper glamour but really filled with exhaustion, heartache and angst.

As much as I’m a fan of SATC, enjoying the programme and living it out were two very different things. Could I always be on top of work, have a thriving social life and be investing in romantic relationships? As it turned out, no.

Now that I’ve quit that lifestyle and moved back to my home city, Liverpool, I truly couldn’t be happier. I’m a freelance journalist writing stories and articles that I feel passionate about and for me, it's the most fulfilling way to work. I spend more quality time with family and friends, as opposed to cramming as many catch-ups as humanly possible into one weekend in London. My weekends used to be so segmented and scheduled: a quick morning coffee with one friend, lunch with another, the afternoon with a different gang and out that night celebrating someone else's birthday. This style of socialising is encouraged by the fast, busy, fomo-driven culture of London, but in Liverpool, when I hang out with a friend, we’re not on the clock. We’re not frantically trying to debrief our lives over the past month to each other in the time it takes to drink two flat whites. We aren’t striving, we’re simply enjoying the present. It doesn’t feel like a mental tick off the friends-to-catch-up-with list; it feels like we’re doing life together.

I wanted more out of life than just what appears to be 'successful' on Instagram. I wanted to live a life like no one was watching.

The quality of life in Liverpool is sweet, too, without the pressure of high prices, super long restaurant queues and stressful, overpopulated public transport. I’m even saving up to buy my first house, which I never thought possible in London.

I also find that people are less superficial here, less money-driven, and there’s less ego thrown around. People take themselves less seriously. The first question someone asks you in London, after your name, is "What do you do?" This question doesn’t get asked until much further down the line in a conversation in Liverpool. It’s not that people don’t care, it’s just that their priorities are different.

My mental health has massively improved and life in the slow lane without all the frills is a beautiful way to live. I’m not forever chasing my tail. The SATC lifestyle was so busy, distracting and time-consuming, I realised I was missing out on the things I really wanted, like spending time with the people who mean the most to me. Now I’ve made space to allow relationships to blossom and my capacity isn’t overfilling with fickle things that I don’t really care about. I wanted more out of life than just what appears to be 'successful' on Instagram. I wanted to live a life like no one was watching.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

What You Need To Know About Turning Off Google's Location Tracking

How I've Managed Two Years In A Long Distance Relationship

These Are The 13 Most Popular Ikea Products Of All Time

It’s 9.28 on a Monday morning, and I’m wearing full makeup (foundation, primer, blusher, bronzer, highlight, four eyeshadows), five-inch stilettos, and absent-mindedly humming along to the blasting Tinashe. I’m surrounded by other equally well-turned out women, all in black from head to toe. Three years ago, this might have meant I hadn’t quite made it home the night before; today it means I’m gearing up for my first shift in the Selfridges beauty hall on Oxford Street.

Full disclosure: this isn’t my first rodeo. I worked in a cosmetics store for three years as a student, which pretty much set me on this career path, but it also opened my eyes to just how advanced some of the talent in beauty retail is. My colleagues (not me, I was mainly there to ring up £40 lip balms and fold tissue paper) did magazine covers, celebrity clients, international film and TV work on their days off – and then came in to do free 'party-ready' makeovers on mere mortals.

"I think there’s this perception that we’re all trying to make you spend loads, or we’re going to give you all of this crazy makeup or something," said Vera, Bobbi Brown ’s counter manager. "And maybe that used to be true, but for me, I don’t want to just hire retail artists, you know? I want makeup artists." She’s not wrong about that impression. I conducted an informal poll among my female friends, the results of which amounted to a wrinkling of the nose. In defiance, I decide to sit for Sally, a new artist on the counter. She told me she has no formal makeup training; in fact she studied animation and loves to paint. Sure, I’m wearing more products than I would usually (I lost count after 12), but I’m pretty sure I’ve never looked quite so good so early in the day.

By 11am, the counter is filling up. Vera tells me Saturdays are still busiest for them, and she needs 17 staffers on deck to keep up with the demands, which seems bonkers considering the counter is the size of a corner shop. I tell them that lots of women find the space too intimidating or overwhelming to approach, thanks to the blinding lights, pounding music and army of glamorous women. Nene, a student who works part-time on the counter, nods knowingly. "I used to have really bad acne, in fact I still have the scarring now. I can remember feeling so ashamed if I came in somewhere like this." What changed, I ask her. "I guess I did it a little bit at a time. I would come in and maybe just look, and the next time smile at someone who works there, you know, work up gradually."

Andrea, who’s worked in Selfridges for 11 years, chimes in: "We just treat everybody the same here. You can come in with your jogging bottoms on, or very glam, I don’t care. I’ll look you in the eye and get to know you." A former makeup artist for Strictly Come Dancing, Andrea’s queue of customers is perhaps the longest. She looks barely 40, but I later find out she’s in her 60s. She has an unflappable demeanour and a ready smile, affectionately calling the rest of the staff her 'daughters', hugging them close to her chest. "I invite everyone to sit down properly and have some undivided attention."

One thing that sadly hasn’t changed at all since my days behind the till? Some customers just don’t want to play nice. A few times, I saw people literally click their fingers at staff to get their attention. Many even waved products in their face in lieu of, you know, saying, "Please may I have some help?" It’s a truth universally acknowledged that in any front-facing role, you’ll have to deal with some tough customers, but it’s still incredibly sad to see it happen so vividly.

I move over to Trish McEvoy, where manager Holly tells me exactly what she looks for when hiring new starters. "I want diversity," she says. "We’ve got some older women here, younger girls, some of us wear natural makeup, some of us wear a lot more – and it goes without saying that in a store in central London, we always have staff of different races. I want everyone to see someone who looks like them here."

I then watch Becca, a makeup artist, give one of their signature 'half-face' lessons, where she applies one side of makeup and the customer applies the other, so they learn as they go. She spends an hour doing so, and the customer simply walks away without buying anything. I ask her if she minds, and she shrugs. "Not at all – she said she wants to think about it all. I get that. It’s a new look for her – I’d want time to decide, too."

Holly and Becca tell me they’ve tried to alleviate customer anxiety about being aggressively up-sold or not knowing if they can even ask for a makeover by adding clear, online booking via Selfridges – a great service that not very many shoppers actually know about. "Customers can see exactly how long a service will take, and how much it costs, but they are all redeemable against products," adds Becca. We’re interrupted by the arrival of Yoni, a new hire and an established celebrity MUA in his homeland of Israel. He’s ebullient, chatty and seemingly indefatigable as he tells me about working on Israeli X Factor, while blending three highlighting sticks on the back of my hand. Customers clearly adore him – the laughter coming from his corner of the counter is uproarious.

My final stop of the day is Estée Lauder, where manager Denisa greets me. She’s such a patient listener, and has such a gracious manner, I’m sure she must have trained as a therapist. I later find out she has not; retail just does that to you. She proudly shows me all the brand new toys they have on the counter: while-you-wait lipstick and perfume engraving, a lipstick 'trying-on' mirror, a special foundation matching device – tools that would have seemed space-age in my time as a shop girl. As we talk, a woman plops down in front of a mirror, refuses help and begins to redo her makeup. I ask Denisa if she minds. "Not at all," she says. "This is an open space. You can come in your pyjamas, I don’t care!" she laughs. "We’re here to build relationships."

We’re falling out of love with bricks and mortar as the convenience of one-click checkouts rises. At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, I just don’t think the two can compare. I discovered that if you go in-store, you could have a London Fashion Week-level makeup artist apply your makeup for the (redeemable) price of a lipstick and and a lipliner, have a facial massage, get your new lipstick engraved for free, pick up free foundation samples, learn what colours actually do suit you and potentially make an enduring bond with your artist. Human connection is dwindling in this modern world, but the beauty hall feels remarkably personal given its cavernous size (2,767 square metres, to be exact).

The convenience of e-tail certainly has its place, but I’d urge anyone who’s written off the IRL beauty hall to reconsider. I can think of a few people who’d love to see you.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Constance Wu Is The Hair Colour Chameleon We Need Right Now

The Mistakes You're Making With Your Acne Scars — & How To Fix 'Em

How To Find The Right Serum To Transform Your Skin

There was a time when seeing what someone else wore and how they wore it was interesting. Stylish people, going about their day, captured by an eagle-eyed photographer who appreciated their standout look. It was unique, and it was inspirational. But then 'street style' came along. That is, not the style of a person who happens to be on the street, but the orchestrated influencer images we are Insta-inundated with today. And it all became a little bit the same. Girl crossing road in gazelle-like fashion, directional shoes on her feet and sloppy sleeves spilling from her wrists.

"There’s a huge gap between emulating [street style photography pioneer] Bill Cunningham and what’s happening now," says Gio Staiano, a seasoned photographer of the shows, who works with The New York Times and Nowfashion.com, among others. "Bill was chasing people down the street who had style and somehow they mixed things up. Sometimes he did a piece based on colour or the similarities of what people wore; that was interesting."

It was, essentially, authentic: that woman would actually be crossing the road; that man was waiting outside a restaurant for a friend, or was on the phone to someone; that person was going to the supermarket. Instead of the many pre-posed images we see now. Come fashion week, it’s not unfamiliar to see someone be asked to walk down the street again and again to create the shot. Capturing candid moments of real-life dressing was originally what it was all about. The Japanese street style book, Fruits, for example, which at the turn of the millennium captured a decade of Tokyo’s style.

But now that’s all changed. "Social media has had a huge impact. Globalisation leaves for less individualism," observes street style photographer Dvora, who has shot regularly for Vogue.co.uk in the past. It’s an astute observation. How many street style images do you see on your social media feed that depict not only the same genre of outfit (either polished, put-together and pristine, or loud and overly layered) but the same stance, the same everything?

So much so that you can now go on the likes of ASOS to find its favourite 'stealable' outfits from "The Best Street-Style Looks of 2018". You can visit a fashion website and see any number of articles showing you how to copy a particular genre of 'street style' look. Even fashion editorials and brands, for a time, repeatedly used this supposed 'real-life' lens as a template for their own shoots and campaigns. When designer Riccardo Tisci was at Givenchy, he often shot on the streets of New York, and there was a recent trend in catwalk casting for using 'real' people. Full looks (a whole outfit direct from a catwalk collection), once reserved for the pages of fashion editorial, became a mode of 'street style'.

When did street style – supposedly underpinned and defined by a celebration of personal and individual style cultivation – become generic enough that it fit into so many trend boxes, its participants rounded up like sartorial sheep?

"As print circulations have gone down, that is when the change has come in," says Phillip Bodenham, director of the PR agency Spring London. It was circa 2013 that there seemed to be a boom in the phenomenon. In a piece for The New York Times entitled "The Circus of Fashion", fashion critic Suzy Menkes described the peacockery in which fashion experienced a role reversal from catwalk to sidewalk. What was once a closed-off fashion arena for insiders, members of the press and buyers, suddenly opened up. It was in the wake of a digital media revolution and the cult of self. Street style, thanks to the likes of The Sartorialist and Tommy Ton, had taken off and the idea of 'real-life clothes', whether they were or not, reached peak dressing. Everyone knew who Anna Dello Russo was, not necessarily because of what she did but because of what she wore – feathers and ballgowns, out anywhere, at any time of the day.

"It’s hard to differentiate between personal style and style to impress. I get that the [fashion] crowd is dressing for an occasion – and often in fascinating and admirable combinations – but it’s simply not the source of inspiration for my day-to-day style anymore," says Ema Janackova, 25, a freelance events project manager. Meanwhile, Kalisha Quinlan, 20, a PR and communications assistant, prefers to take her inspiration from music, subcultures, film and TV. "A lot of street style is played safe and just reinforces existing trends," she says.

There comes the irony that what started out as great and original outfits, daring or aspirational, has begun to dwindle because it became a profitable opportunity: for self-promotion, for shopping the look, for over-saturation and homogenisation.

"There is a genuine difference between the stylish and the showoffs," wrote Menkes in her piece, noting this to be the issue at the time. The issue now is: are we tired of it?

"I think it’s unavoidable to take some inspiration from Instagram these days," says Quinlan, "but it's so clear what's genuine and what's 'influencer marketing'. I’m always put off if people seem overly sponsored." And it’s not hard to identify which brands or designs are going to be a hit with the street-style set: usually bright and colourful, statement-y with a bell or a whistle that lends itself to transient novelty. All of which seems to go against the landscape in fashion right now, which is one of personality, diversity, individuality, creativity and all the things that 'real' means, or used to mean.

From Gucci’s all-inclusive eclectic dress-up philosophy under the helm of Alessandro Michele to London wunderkind Charles Jeffrey Loverboy and his filter-free collections celebrating his crew of club kids; Christopher Bailey’s final Burberry collection last season which put a spotlight on LGBTQ+ communities; and even, oddly, Balenciaga (whose puffer jackets and ugly trainers have become ubiquitous on the street style scene).

In her review of the latest Balenciaga collection, pre-fall 2018, Vogue Runway fashion critic Sarah Mower made this point: "Well, just a thought, but are the boring tweed pantsuits the most interesting thing in this Balenciaga collection?" She didn’t mean it as a slight, but because "there’s a distinct emotional gravitational pull towards non-messy design going on. Uncomplicated, well-cut stuff that looks good again." It’s true – and Clare Waight Keller at Givenchy has been (successfully) at it too.

Why does it feel right? Because it feels real! It is real! You do wear a pantsuit/trousersuit to work, not a boudoir slip and towering platforms, or sleeves that get stuck in doors and a shirt that ties too many ways.

And in ending her review by saying, "Perhaps it’s time for boring to be interesting again," one can’t help but feel perhaps she just answered this question too: Do we really want to dress like street style stars anymore? Fashion week is but a month away.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

What Love Means To 37 Strangers Around The World

This Polly Pocket Fashion Collaboration Is Pure '90s Nostalgia

Why Dior's New Jewellery Designer Is The One To Watch

The sale of whitening creams containing certain ingredients is illegal in the UK but they are still being sold on the high street – even in shops that have been previously prosecuted for selling them, an investigation has found.

Products that contain mercury, hydroquinone and corticosteroids – which can cause kidney, liver and nerve damage and foetal abnormalities – are banned from being sold over-the-counter, although they are available on prescription from a doctor.

Despite the ban, these creams are being sold in UK shops, largely due to a lack of resources in policing them, according to an investigation by the BBC. The corporation sent undercover journalists to 17 shops (six of which had previously been prosecuted for doing so) across London, Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester to see how many illegal creams they could buy. Thirteen were found to be selling banned products, with the dangerous products still available in four of the six shops that had already been prosecuted.

YouTubers Arlene Dihoulou and Mariam Omotunde, who used skin-lightening products in their teens, front an accompanying short documentary on the topic for BBC Stories. In How I learned to love my skin colour, the pair reveal they had been following in family members' footsteps by using the creams and that they had not realised the products were illegal.

Many women of colour report feeling pressure to be lighter skinned, the pair explain. Mariam, 22, says she first began using bleaching creams during secondary school after her peers told her she would look "so much prettier if [her] chest was the same colour as [her] face", while 22-year-old Arlene says she had wanted to "fit in" and be considered "desirable".

In the film, they are shocked to be told that of the 20 random samples of lightening products put in front of them, purchased from shop shelves, under the counter and online, 50% contained banned substances.

One woman found to be selling the illegal creams when the film was made, in June 2018, was Meg Chucks – even though she was prosecuted and received a fine of £1,400 (plus £1,040 in legal costs) for doing so in October 2017. BBC footage shows Chucks, whose store TM Cosmetics is in Moston, Greater Manchester, selling a cream containing hydroquinone, despite her assurances that it only featured "just normal, natural, very nice" ingredients.

For people who use skin-lightening creams, it can be difficult to stop, as the film explores. "It's like taking drugs. It's not easy to tell someone to stop smoking, stop drinking, stop taking drugs," former user Safi George tells Mariam and Arlene, adding that she "would have lost [her] life" if she hadn't sought help from medical professionals.

Sujata Jolly, a skincare research scientist interviewed in the film, explains that common side-effects of these creams include a burned-looking appearance to the skin and foetal damage in pregnant women, as well as kidney, nerve and liver damage, scarring, skin thinning and a potentially enhanced risk of skin cancer.

Trading Standards, the body responsible for seizing the illegal creams and prosecuting retailers who break the law, admitted "it's a really big problem" and that more could be done to halt the issue. On-the-spot fines and clearer sentencing guidelines could improve the rate of prosecution and the number of product seizures and accusations across the UK, said Trading Standards officer Cenred Elworthy.

He revealed that, at present, "no-one has actually served jail time for selling them", and cited a 40% cut in resources over the last decade as having left the body struggling to get a handle on the issue.

'How I learned to love my skin colour' is available to watch on BBC iPlayer now.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

These Ads About Periods Were Designed To Shock & They're Working

The Home Babies: Ireland's Dark Secret Brought To Light In BBC Podcast

The First Bra That Can Adapt To Your Size Is Being Crowdfunded

As much progress as there is still to be made in the name of body diversity within American fashion (and there's plenty), the runways of New York Fashion Week are no longer off-limits to plus-size models. Retailers are beginning to listen to their customers and expand their size offerings, and more brands entering the market for the first time, seizing an opportunity they'd ignored for far too long. Starting in earnest back in 2004 with Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty, mainstream fashion magazines began casting plus-size models like Ashley Graham in their pages to much fanfare, setting the stage for consumers to harness the power of social media to amplify conversations around brand campaigns that celebrate diverse bodies — and, conversely, to tear those that don't to shreds. At the very least, inclusivity is not being ignored.

Which makes it all the more puzzling to watch Fashion Week after Fashion Week go by in London, Milan, and Paris and see barely any change in the range of bodies sent down the runway, or shown within the social media accounts of most luxury brands. Establishment European fashion has not acknowledged that women who wear above a size four even exist. According to The Fashion Spot's annual diversity report, of the 30 curve models cast in the fall 2018 shows, only three walked in Paris (two for H&M and one for Alexander McQueen), while none walked in either London or Milan. Compare that to New York, where curve models were appeared on 10 runways, with two labels — Christian Siriano and Chromat — casting a combined 19 in their shows.

"We always get very excited after New York that London's going to follow suit," says Anna Shillinglaw, founder of U.K. modelling agency Milk Management, which reps big name plus-size models Robyn Lawley and Denise Bidot along with a host of rising stars. "As an agency, we're extremely disappointed in London."

Models at Chromat's fall/winter 2018 presentation.

Seeing newcomer model Betsy Teske book London-based Alexander McQueen during Paris Fashion Week for both the spring 2018 and fall 2018 seasons was a high point, Shillinglaw says, but back home, it felt like too little, too late: "We were really devastated. We'd done all that work, and it was the same shit, basically."

Shillinglaw grants that it's mostly high-fashion designers that have failed to move with the times. On the commercial and editorial fronts, work is more diverse than ever. A former model herself, Shillinglaw set out to build a curve board with as much diversity and editorial potential as its straight-size counterpart. Where models over a size two were once relegated almost entirely to commercial work, she now books girls on jobs ranging from Vogue Italia spreads to the Savage X Fenty campaign.

The U.K. is also home to many brands that have been leaders in bringing younger, cooler clothes to the plus-size market; brands like ASOS Curve, Elvi, and Simply Be, which Shillinglaw calls some of her best clients and "well ahead of the game." This makes sense considering the average British woman wears a U.K. size 16 (the equivalent of a U.S. 12, and the largest size produced by most fashion brands).

Some critics claim that size diversity isn't as necessary outside of the United State because American women are bigger than Europeans. This is somewhat true — the obesity rate in the U.S. is 38.2 percent, higher than any other country, versus 26.9 percent in the U.K., 15.3 percent in France, and 9.8 percent in Italy — but it still doesn't account for the number of size-zeroes on the runway, particularly since every brand needs to serve a global clientele to succeed in 2018.

"Europe is old, conservative, and very stuck in their ways," says French model Clémentine Desseaux, who says there still isn't enough of a market in her home country to build a viable career as a plus-size model. "They know what works and what’s safe and do not even try to change things up for fear of losing what they have." Frustrated by the lack of work in France, Desseaux moved to the U.S. in 2011 where she signed with Muse Model Management, landed campaigns for brands like American Apparel and Eloquii, launched her blog, Bonjour Clem, and her creative agency, Les Mijotés, and earned the recognition of publications like Vogue and New York magazine.

In 2016, she co-founded the All Woman Project, a nonprofit initiative dedicated to promoting positive, diverse, and unretouched representations of women in the media. Now, she says she gets daily messages from French women who ask her to bring the project back home.

"Growing up, I always had this feeling that we were ten years behind on everything, and that’s certainly the case with size diversity," she says. "France has a lot to learn and to catch up on."

One sign that designers are, at the very least, wising up to the dollars at stake? Karl Lagerfeld, whose disparaging comments about fat women have been well documented over the years, recently teamed up with subscription retailer Stitch Fix on a plus-size collection, which launched in May 2018. While some plus-size bloggers cheered the collaboration, others weren't happy to see a designer with such a poor track record with the plus-size community profit off its spending power. One European plus-size online retailer, Navabi, has also secured more than $34 million in venture capital funding since it launched in 2010, putting it ahead of many of its American competitors.

Models at Christian Siriano's Ashfall/winter 2018 presentation.

According to Don Howard, executive director of apparel industry consultancy Alvanon Inc., which works with brands like Adidas, Levi's, and Burberry, the progress (or lack thereof) on the runway doesn't necessarily convey what's going on behind the scenes.

"There's not one client around the world that doesn't ask us about plus-size," he says. "So I think there's a difference between what might be happening that's not on the runway and what's definitely happening because they know there's a market need." Non-Western cities, which are often left out of discussions around size inclusivity because they aren't considered fashion capitals, are also lagging behind the U.S. in many cases (in South Korea, for instance, it can be challenging to find women's clothing larger than a size 6610 — equivalent to a U.S. size 6 — in stores), but there is movement in the right direction, usually in response to outspoken local women who want to see themselves represented in the media and see their sizes carried in stores.

Perhaps designers around the globe would do well to take a cue from Christian Siriano, who recently revealed that adding plus sizes to his line tripled his business. Starting that movement on the runway was important because fashion is so visual, he said in an interview at the 92Y: "You have to put it in people’s faces… We’re all stubborn, even me. So when it’s on the runway, it’s there." And once it was there, retailers were able to see the potential in the full range of sizes, place orders, and help make sure the pieces actually got produced.

However, the groundswell behind a cultural shift like this is most likely going to come from one place: social media. "It's all opportunity. And the more plus-size people who become vocal and spend money on clothes, they're going to gain more and more attention from brands," says Howard, adding that wherever he goes, be it Australia, Germany, or China, there is some movement, for an obvious reason: "People who are creating great, fresh clothes for inclusive sizing are gaining a lot of traction because there's a market for it."

On the runway, says Shillinglaw, it's up to designers to make a conscious choice to embrace inclusivity, since it's impossible to even consider diverse bodies — even an "in-between" size eight or 10 — if every sample garment made for a show is a size two. Still, she remains hopeful that the change she's seeing on the commercial and editorial fronts will carry over throughout the industry.

"I do feel that, especially in the last couple of months, there's been a big shift in a positive direction," she says. "If a casting director is casting a campaign, and we email from the curve board and say, 'Do you mind if we sent you a curve package?' A year ago, people would get really angry with us, and be like, 'No, we didn't request that. Send us what we want.' And now they're like, 'Yeah, we'd love to see some of your curve girls.' And then they get requested and then they book the job… the briefs we're getting from casting directors and brands are more inclusive, and I definitely don't think it's a fad. I think it's something that's here to stay."

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

What Love Means To 37 Strangers Around The World

This Polly Pocket Fashion Collaboration Is Pure '90s Nostalgia

Why Dior's New Jewellery Designer Is The One To Watch

Marawa Ibrahim is an internationally known gymnast and hula-hooper. She's also a woman, and was once a girl who went through puberty. Like many of us who dealt with first periods, growing boobs, acne, smelly armpits, and all the other joys of puberty, she has some pretty awkward and sometimes cringe-inducing stories. And she's written them all down in a book.

But this isn't just a fun trip down memory lane. Ibrahim's The Girl Guide is a treasure map for getting through puberty unscathed. Or, at least, to help girls understand why all these awkward and embarrassing things keep happening to them. It's Ibrahim's way of paying it forward and making life a little easier for the next generation (who she thinks are already pretty awesome).

Below, Ibrahim speaks to us about why a puberty guide is so essential, the hilarious reactions she's gotten from kids (and parents) who've read the book, and why even grown women might get something out of The Girl Guide.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Can you tell me why you wanted to write a book about puberty?

"Because I wanted one when I was a kid. You know when you’re a kid and you’re like, ‘I wish things were like this’? Now I’m enabled as an adult to make it. I always felt like there was a huge gap in knowledge. I know it’s changed a lot — the internet has changed a lot of things — but I don’t think it’s improved necessarily. I think it’s in some ways dragged things even further out of proportion. I think girls are getting a lot of misinformation. They’re getting fed a lot of images that don’t make anything clearer. And I think in terms of women understanding their bodies, there’s still no information there. You can see porn in 0.5 seconds, but you can’t access information about what a period is, really."

Unless you really know what you’re looking for.

"In which case, if you know what you’re looking for then you don’t need it. That’s why I was really interested when we were doing the research for the chapters. For each of the chapters, I would pretend I’m a 10 year old girl and I wanted to search something on the internet. So I’d type in something like, ‘sore boobs.’ And it was just crazy. I would go down these rabbit holes and think, Oh my god. If I was 10 and this is what I saw, every single time I would end up thinking I’m dying. The misinformation is crazy."

One of the girls was definitely finding out about tampons for the first time, and you could just see the horror in her face. She said, ‘What do you mean it goes up there? How big is it?'

So your target audience is a 10-year-old girl?

When I pitched the book, I said 10 to 14. And the publishers were like no, it’s 8 to 12. And then I was doing all this research on the average age girls are getting their periods now and in the UK there’s a huge percentage of girls who are 8 or 9. I mean, I couldn’t even tie my shoes up properly [when I was that age]. I can’t imagine what it would be like. I was 12 and most of my friends were around that age. But it’s definitely getting younger, which is a lot of responsibility. So that’s why it was important to me that the information was easy to digest.

My sister is 9 and she just started having to wear bras and deodorant because her body is changing. My mum and I have had a few puberty conversations with her, and she was so mortified. So I can see the appeal of having a book like this that you can just hand to your kid and they can go flip through it in their room.

"Yeah! I’ve gotten feedback from mums and dads that’s like, ‘You saved my life.’ Most of them say that their daughter sat down, read the whole thing, and then asked them three questions that they’d never expect she’d ask, and that was it. It was chill. The book kind of breaks the ice. It's saying: Here's the information, it’s all there."

"I’ve done a few readings at schools, and there was one school where the teacher said the girls were never going to ask their questions if the boys were around. But I said the boys should come too, because everyone needs to hear this. I just started talking. I read one of the embarrassing stories out of it. And then it went wild. They asked questions I’d never expect.

"One of the girls was definitely finding out about tampons for the first time, and you could just see the horror in her face. She said, ‘What do you mean it goes up there? How big is it?’ And the teacher was floored. But as soon as you tell someone a horror story, like a period story, then everyone wants to tell you their story right away."

That’s so cute.

"Yeah, it’s super cute. Especially when it’s a group, whether it’s a mother-daughter thing or girls who are in school together, you can see that the embarrassment is gone, and they can actually just laugh about it or bond over it and support each other. And I think that’s what’s missing [in conversations about puberty].

"One person told me a story that was so awful. I’d written a piece about the breaking your hymen, virginity thing. And I wrote about how I broke mine doing this crazy split in gymnastics and it took me two years to work out what that sharp pain and little bit of blood was. A woman in the comments wrote about how she got her period and her mum marched her to the bathroom, handed her a tampon, opened the door, and said, ‘It hurt a lot for me the first time, too.’ And then shut the door. She just sat there on the bathroom floor, jabbing herself with the tampon, and broke her hymen in the process. I feel we can break that silence in this next generation, with these insanely woke eight year olds."

It’s true. I feel like these conversations weren’t typical when I was going through puberty.

"Even mums have been reading the book and coming up to me to say, ‘The chapter on thrush [yeast infections] makes so much sense. I didn’t realise. Of course I kept getting it because I was doing X, Y, Z.’ Even though the book is for girls 8 to 12, I find that it's pretty ageless. A lot of my friends have bought it and they said they were buying it for their niece and then the next day they'd text me and say, 'Oh, my, god. I started reading it and I learned all this stuff. I had no idea.'"

Were there any chapters that were hard for you to write?

"Two chapters that were hard to write were about the kid-to-little-lady moment, where you might start to be more independent and you go off for a bit and there's a group of guys who look at you and you’re like, ‘What was that about?’ Or comments that people say to you. For me it was when I was at the supermarket and this guy touched my bum and my mum was there and I didn’t say anything. So I say in the book that I didn’t say anything, but at the same time I say that you should if you can, but I didn’t. I really struggled with whether I should lie and say that I did say something. I thought what was most important was that it’s a true story. And again, people don’t talk about it."

Hopefully, in the next generation, having something like this to look to will help break those taboos.

"Oh absolutely, I’m excited. I think the kids coming up are going to kill it. They’re super cool."

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

18 Steamy Erotic Stories Written By Women — & Why They’re Important

What Does Your "Sex Number" Even Mean In 2018?

How To Really, Truly Get Over A Breakup

In her upcoming book, Captive: A Mother’s Crusade to Save Her Daughter from a Terrifying Cult, Dynasty actress Catherine Oxenberg gets candid about the emotional experience of losing her daughter to the cult NXIVM. In 2011, Oxenberg introduced daughter India to the organisation when she took her to a workshop in an effort to bond. However, the then 19-year-old was slowly consumed by the organisation, finding her way into the inner circle that treated the women as "slaves," restricting their eating and branding them with leader Kieth Raniere’s initials. The seven-year ordeal has been emotional and tortuous, but Oxenberg revealed to People that she finally has her daughter back.

“India is spending time with her friends and family,” she explained, revealing that the two reunited after the organisation suspended operations in June. “She is moving forward with her life and will share her story when she is ready. At this time, she has asked for privacy.”

In an interview with Dateline Monday night, Oxenberg admitted that she was filled with guilt since she's the one who brought her daughter to NXIVM in the first place. She echoed the same sentiment in an interview with Megyn Kelly Tuesday morning.

"I brought her in. And that’s why I feel responsible for getting her out," Oxenberg explained on Dateline. "At first I felt horrendous guilt that I had participated in bringing my daughter into an organisation that was this deviant and dangerous. And then I started to educate myself. And I spoke to numerous experts. And they said, ‘Would you stop blaming yourself? These cults are well-oiled machines. And India never stood a chance.’"

Now, both women are healing. The legal battles with members Raniere and Smallville actress Allison Mack are still ongoing.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

This House Of Cards actress Just Got Secretly Married

The Complete Guide To Being Insecure's Issa

These Celebrities Absolutely Slayed At Halloween

Tuesday, over 45 different agencies associated with the entertainment industry signed an open letter that outlined a plan to advance trans representation in Hollywood. Per Variety , which printed the letter in full, the organisations GLAAD and 5050by2020, a company that hopes to get gender representation to 50/50 by the year 2020, wrote the letter. The letter was signed by agencies ICM, WME, UTA, and CAA as well as a number of production companies. SAG-AFTRA, the actor's union, also signed, as did the Casting Society of America.

"Women, people of colour, people with disabilities, and diverse faith groups have made it clear they want more authentic stories about their lives in films and on TV. Trans people feel the same way," the letter reads.

Regarding the letter, Transparent creator Jill Soloway told Variety that they hope the letter will lay out an official code — with this letter in place, filmmakers can look to something to guide them in their inclusive casting.

"We’re creating a moment where a producer or a studio might think to cast a cis person in a role as a trans person and say, ‘I read that letter and it’s actually not okay anymore … the moral code has changed around this,'" they explained.

Speaking with Variety for their Transgender Actors Roundtable, Nashville actress Jen Richards illustrated why every casting choice has implications and consequences: "Every time a casting director chooses a cis person to play a trans part, they’re reinforcing one of two notions. If they cast a cis woman, they’re ultimately saying a trans man is a kind of woman. If they cast a cis man, they are saying a trans woman is a kind of man. And those are dangerous consequences that we’re talking about. It reinforces the notion that we’re duplicitous, that we’re a threat."

Read the full letter over at Variety.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Azealia Banks Is Reportedly Camped Out In Elon Musk's House Waiting For Grimes

Aretha Franklin Is Reportedly "Gravely Ill"

Casey Affleck Grapples With His #MeToo Moment In New Interview

While Jennifer Aniston is out here teaching America that it is possible to be a fully-formed woman with no children, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are having another public face-off. According to documents made available to NBC News, Pitt has not been paying a "meaningful" amount of child support. Jolie's attorney, Samantha Bley DeJean, filed a two-page brief in Los Angeles Superior Court stating: "As of present, [Pitt] has paid no meaningful child support since separation."

The documents did not clarify what "meaningful" is referring to, but it does note that Pitt has allegedly not made these "meaningful" payments in months. "Given the informal arrangements around the payment of the children's expenses have not been regularly sustained by [Pitt] for over a year and a half, [Jolie] intends to file an RFO for the establishment of a retroactive child support order," it states. However, a source close to Pitt tells Refinery29 that "Brad fulfils his commitments."

Since announcing their divorce in September of 2016, the couple has had a shockingly hostile separation. The two are in a custody battle, only revealing how intense the battle has become through court filings like this, or in vague interviews like Jolie to Vanity Fair in September of 2017 when she said, "We’re all just healing from the events that led to the filing. [The children are] not healing from divorce. They’re healing from some...from life, from things in life."

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Mad Men Creator's New Series Is Basically Keeping Up With The Romanoffs

Three Must-Watch Shows About Female Crime & Punishment In The UK

Ruby Rose Is The Latest Victim Of Toxic Comic Book Fandoms

So you're going on holiday, and that means it's time to close out of Tinder, Bumble, OkCupid, Hinge, and all your other dating apps, right? Not necessarily. While using dating apps on holiday might seem silly, since you'll only be wherever you're traveling for a short time, it can actually be an amazing way to meet new friends. Or, to have some really hot casual sex, if that's what you're into.

Online dating coach Julie Spira has one client who often gets free tickets to concerts through work. So, when she's traveling, she'll update her dating apps to say that she's going to see so-and-so play and has an extra ticket, if anyone wants to claim it. "Every single time she meets an incredible person and has an incredible time," Spira says. They'll go out for coffee or go out for dinner before the show. Sometimes, it turns romantic, but even when it doesn't she meets a new friend.

So don't assume that you need to quit your dating apps while you're away. They might actually be the one thing that makes your time away an adventure. Ahead, Spira and Robyn Exton, co-founder of queer dating app HER, give their tips for making the most of your apps while you're traveling.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

What Is Sex Magic? (It's A Lot Less About Sex Than You Probably Think)

How Talking To My Dad About Sex Changed My Life

18 Steamy Erotic Stories Written By Women — & Why They’re Important

Beyoncé’s Vogue September 2018 cover was unprecedented and historic — perhaps not journalistically or visually, but certainly for what it represented for fashion publishing as a whole. “When I first started, 21 years ago, I was told that it was hard for me to get onto covers of magazines because black people did not sell,” Beyonce told writer Clover Hope. “Clearly that has been proven a myth. Not only is an African-American on the cover of the most important month for Vogue, this is the first ever Vogue cover shot by an African-American photographer.”

The myth that black women don’t sell magazines is one the fashion industry has maintained for decades. Last November, former British Vogue editor-in-chief Alexandra Shulman told The Guardian the reason only eight black women covered the magazine during her 25-year tenure was “people have to recognise the person who you're putting on the cover." According to The Guardian, “if she put a black face on the cover who was not instantly recognisable,” Shulman says the magazine “would sell fewer copies. It’s as simple as that.” But is that actually the case?

It’d seem British Vogue’ s newly-minted editor-in-chief, Edward Enninful, would disagree with Shulman's sentiment. Since taking over the 102-year magazine in November, he’s proven to be a champion for diversity, having featured Oprah Winfrey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, as well as models Adwoa Aboah, Adut Akech, and Selena Forrest on covers. He solidified his mission when he cast Rihanna as his first September cover star. Like Beyoncé’s shoot, Rihanna’s is also historic, as it’s the first time a black woman has covered the magazine’s September issue.

Black women and September magazine covers go together. Look at beauty. pic.twitter.com/isupKFsfb6

— Wanna (@WannasWorld) August 7, 2018

In 2015, when eight black women covered September issues, Charles Whitaker, a professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University told The Guardian: “You want recognisable people with whom the audience identifies, people who are trending right now, and who are touchstones for some cultural moment.” And it seems like the industry might (finally) be realising that moment is now. September 2018 may see a record number of black women fronting fashion magazines. Because, in addition to Beyoncé and Rihanna, there’s Tiffany Haddish on Glamour, Zendaya on Marie Claire, Lupita Nyong’o on Porter, Tracee Ellis Ross on Elle Canada, Slick Woods on British Elle, Adwoa Aboah and Naomi Campbell on Love, Issa Rae on Ebony, and Lauren Harrier on The Sunday Times. Now, that can't be a coincidence (especially if black women can’t sell magazines).

The black girl takeover of fashion's September issues is beyond anything I've seen as a journalist. pic.twitter.com/XevVEnyoqR

— Janet Mock (@janetmock) August 18, 2015

Brandwatch, a social-media monitoring company, found that Rihanna’s Vogue June 2018 cover generated more attention the Internet than the magazine's September 2017 cover shoot with Jennifer Lawrence (and that was with all the conspiracy theories floating around). That could be the result of a number of factors, or it could speak to media companies’ realisation that “black women are voracious consumers of video and other digital content, and are leaders even in more traditional media categories,” Cheryl Grace, senior vice president, US strategic community alliances and consumer engagement for Nielsen told Fortune in 2017. According to Grace, “black women have strong life-affirming values that spill over into everything they do. The celebration of their power and beauty is reflected in what they buy, watch and listen to, and people outside their communities find it inspiring.” Earlier this year, Nielson reported black women in the US spend $54 million (£43 million) for ‘ethnic’ hair and beauty aids and feminine hygiene products, as well $152 million (£122 million) on women’s fragrances — products often advertised in women’s mainstream magazines. In short: #BlackGirlMagic is real, and when championed, it translates to money spent.

Like Beyoncé wrote in her Vogue cover story: “If people in powerful positions continue to hire and cast only people who look like them, sound like them, come from the same neighborhoods they grew up in, they will never have a greater understanding of experiences different from their own. They will hire the same models, curate the same art, cast the same actors over and over again, and we will all lose.” And while there is still much to be said about creating true inclusion in the fashion industry, these magazine covers off a promising start.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Why You Should Think Twice About Buying That Supreme Newspaper

Omarosa Says Melania Trump Is Using Her Fashion To Speak Out, But Is She?

Madonna & The Catholic Church: A Love-Hate Style History

Travis Scott's new album is a family affair. The rapper released Astroworld on 3rd August, and fans were quick to pick up on the ample references to girlfriend Kylie Jenner and daughter Stormi Webster within it. Now, Scott's new music video for "Stop Trying To Be God" features a special appearance by Scott's lady as well.

The video is definitely a trip: It features loads of Biblical references and insane imagery, including one scene in which Scott's face is melted off after he is set on fire. However, the thing fans will probably pay the most attention to is who nurses Scott back to life after being set aflame. Jenner, a glowing vision, pops up around the 1:23 mark. She's a modern-day Virgin Mary, which makes Scott... Joseph? Jesus? The God everyone should stop playing?

It's unclear. It's also unclear if Jenner actually showed up on set for the music video in the first place. The ghostly, golden vision could have easily been CGIed in — I mean, the flames surrounding them weren't real either, right? Representation for Jenner did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

While Stormi was not involved in the music video, Scott did share an image to his Instagram that reveals the baby is still Astroworld 's number one fan.

"Come home my baby ready to rock and roll," wrote Scott on Instagram, over a photo of Stormi sporting an Astroworld tee.

Come home my baby ready to rock and roll. !!!!

A post shared by flame (@travisscott) on Aug 6, 2018 at 5:24pm PDT

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Stephen Colbert Cannot Handle Nicki Minaj's NSFW Rap About Him

Ariana Grande & James Corden Just Proved We NEED A Titanic Musical

Album Review: Nicki Minaj Is Out To Prove She's Rap Royalty On Queen

Welcome to Money Diaries, where we're tackling what might be the last taboo facing modern working women: money. We're asking a cross-section of women how they spend their hard-earned money during a seven-day period – and we're tracking every last penny.

This week...

"I left university with a vague idea that I wanted to work in communications but ended up getting a job in policy/law. It was a decent job but on a deeply boring subject matter. So after 14 months I left and ended up exploring various roles – I joined a political party and volunteered on campaigns, worked as a tour guide, worked in public affairs, and took on a part-time unpaid comms role along with other work. Until recently, I was balancing two low-paid jobs in campaigns and charity work, but just before Christmas I finally found a full-time, permanent communications role! Breaking the 20k mark was such a massive moment for me.

I think I'm quite good with money. Living on a precarious income for the last couple of years has meant I've been tempted to spend more freely this year, now that I have the reassurance of a regular salary. The time I'm least responsible with money is usually when I go to the pub 'just for one' after work... It's never just one."

Industry: Charity
Age: 26
Location: Belfast
Salary: £20,149
Paycheque amount: £1,305.44 (I recently increased my pension contributions to 5%, which my employer matches with 8%, which has taken a bigger chunk out of my monthly amount)
Number of housemates: 1

Monthly Expenses

Housing costs: My share of the rent is £287.50 – yep, Belfast rent is pretty affordable by UK standards!
Loan payments: £13 student loan paid directly from my salary before my monthly total.
Utilities: I pay my flatmate £16 for the internet. We use top-up cards for gas and electric so this varies a lot by month, but on average throughout the year I end up paying roughly £20/month on gas and £10/month on electricity.
Transportation: £55. I buy a monthly bus card which gives me unlimited bus travel in the Belfast area. The bus system isn't the best, but I do use it a lot so this works out as really good value.
Phone bill: £53.97 – I'm aware this is ridiculously high. My old phone broke just a month before I was due an upgrade so I did no research and didn't really negotiate. This amount includes £6 damage insurance.
Savings? I have about £6,000 in savings which I use as a bit of a loan system for myself when I need to. I have most of it in a cash ISA and the rest in two other accounts which I use to save for specific things. I tend to put roughly £200 into savings each month, but often end up taking some back out. At the moment I'm saving for a trip with my mum in September for her 60th birthday.
Other: Spotify: £9.99. Alliance for Choice donation (Northern Ireland's campaigning group to decriminalise abortion): £10. Amnesty International: £1 – I started this tiny donation when I was a broke student and I feel too guilty to cancel it, but also have never got round to increasing it. Gym: £33.50 – I use my local leisure centre, which is also a social enterprise. It gives me unlimited access to any centre around the city and to all classes. With the summer weather I've been running outside more than using the gym, but I want to keep my contract as I know I'll use it more when it gets to winter. Trade union membership: £14.67. Contact lenses prescription: £12.50

Want more Money Diaries? Join our Money Diaries Facebook group for extra content and discussion.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

A Week In Los Angeles, CA, On A Joint $1,500,000 Income

Money Diaries: A Vet In Shropshire On £27k

What Does Seeing Asians As “Crazy Rich” Achieve?

I’ll be honest, until this month I assumed 'digital nomad' wasn’t a thing real people said. It felt like a marketing term invented exclusively to irritate the over-40s. A vague, pretendy concept made up by influencers to disguise the fact their job is being paid to go on holiday and shill bikinis to teenagers.

'Working vacations', meanwhile, I believed were real, but I couldn’t understand why anyone would want one. My main measure of success for any holiday has always been how little mobile data I spunk on refreshing my emails, and how far from any kind of mental exertion I can possibly get while being alert enough to shovel calamari into my mouth. When friends talked about filing features or diffusing work disasters on their phone from a poolside sun lounger, I only felt sorry for them. A working holiday, surely, was just a bad holiday?

Then I had a go myself. And quickly realised the point of a remote working vacation isn’t about letting work encroach on your holiday time, but rather the opposite: plugging extra holiday experiences in around your deadlines, and feeling inspired by the change of surroundings.

As apparently the only person left on Instagram who hadn’t been to Lisbon, I’d been clamouring to visit the Portuguese capital for ages. But my boyfriend had already been twice and my friends were all booked up or skint from weddings – so when I was invited to stay at a new 'co-working and co-living space' in the city, it presented the perfect compromise. I would go on my own, and try remote working. I would explore the cobbled streets and prettily tiled tavernas with my laptop tucked under my arm, and write whenever the mood struck me. I would be filled with equal parts inspiration and custard tarts. And if I got no work done at all, well, that would only prove my cynicism right.

Outsite is one of a new breed of companies (see also: Remote Year; Terminal 3) hoping to revolutionise the way we work and travel. Offering hip accommodation for remote workers and company retreats, there are 11 Outsite locations in picturesque destinations across the US, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica and Bali, plus three new sites opening soon in Barcelona, the Swiss Alps and Mexico. All promise a quiet, productive environment but with community activities and a house WhatsApp group to foster fun, networking and those all-important creative vibes.

More like a luxe halls of residence than a traditional hotel, Outsite Lisbon is a gorgeous Portuguese townhouse with a vast co-working space on the ground floor and four residential floors above it. My room leads off a shared lounge area, with a shared kitchen down the hall. I have visions of being kept awake by banterous brainstorms into the early hours, but the atmosphere is completely serene. Beyond my balcony, life on the lively Rua de São Paulo clangs by, but inside it’s all calming white walls, lush pot plants and the distant tip-tap of other workers on their laptops. A perfect place to work. In theory.

In practice, it takes half my trip to stop feeling guilty when I’m not working and overwhelmed by FOMO when I am. As a freelancer I’m pretty well practised at the main elements of a solo holiday: eating alone, walking around alone, sitting in coffee shops for obnoxious lengths of time, alone – but being in a brand new city affords a million distractions. Everything I see takes on the lustre of the foreign and unknown. Look, a beautiful church! A funny pigeon! A branch of Zara in a rustic old bank! If I don’t Instagram those centuries-old tiles, did they even happen?

Once I relax into it, though, being away from home also makes it easier to block out the everydayness that normally stops me getting stuff done. No washing to hang out, no friends to see, no post office errands to run. You remember how much of the average working day is spent on stuff that isn’t working. Strip away all the extraneous chat and pointless meetings, and three hours of solid work could be enough for a whole day.

Of course, it helps that Lisbon is full of good outlets for digital nomadding. Places like Cafe Tati, a dreamily rustic but freelancer-friendly café tucked away behind the heaving Mercado da Ribeira. I’d like to pretend I stumbled across it rather than typing 'COOL COFFEE SHOPS WIFI LISBON' into Google with one hand while I went through passport control, but either way it was a win. Twinkly music, Wi-Fi as strong as the (80 cents!) espresso and just a smattering of sexy punters, alight with the glow of their Macbook Pros. I sit, I sip, I actually do some work. I wrote this whole paragraph, in fact.

There are downsides to all this #blessed remote working – neck strain from lugging a laptop around; having to tinker with your Google settings all the time because everything keeps coming up in Portuguese – but in always-on, digitally primed cities like this one, they’re decreasing every year. European breaks even have the advantage of no extra data roaming charges in EU member states (though who knows how much longer we’ll have that luxury).

I thought the weather would make it harder to work, but actually there’s something about the loose muscles and long evenings in a warm climate that makes it easier to feel creative and spontaneous. On my second night in Lisbon I take myself out in search of midnight snacks and end up in the Time Out market with my notebook and a huge slab of chocolate torte, working on both until 2am. The trick to productivity, for my lazy brain at least, has always been to bribe myself like a wayward toddler, and apparently holidays are no exception.

Of course, living the nomadic dream when you only have yourself to indulge is one thing; it’s a whole different deal when you have other people in tow. But still not impossible. Or so promises Jo Rourke, a content strategist and entrepreneur who just spent a month working remotely from a villa in Lanzarote, with her husband and, impressively, their three children aged five and under. "It certainly isn’t for everyone, but for those who can, a working holiday is an amazing way to see new places and experience different things," she tells me.

Jo’s best advice? Plan it carefully. "Running your own business gives you a lot of freedom, but it also means that if the wheels come off when you’re away, you better be able to fix them remotely," she says. Jo recommends trying an email automation service like Boomerang for Gmail – so your inbox can be firing off replies while you’re sinking Aperol Spritzes – and sorting out templates for your most common communications in advance, to save time. She even launched The Magic Words, a members' club for freelancer email templates, during her remote working break. Digital nomad advanced level: unlocked.

And me? After three days I’ve managed a decent amount of working, but not so much the elusive 'co-' element. So finding another Outsite guest, Omar, typing away at a communal table, I force myself to try a little 'creative collaboration'.

"What are you working on?" I ask, hopeful for screenplays, TED talks, concertos. He looks from me to his screen to me again, frowning, and eventually shrugs. "It’s too boring to explain."

I fare better in the kitchen with Joanna, a mermaid-haired vegan, who is living here for a month. She’s working on a series of 'animated spiritual meditation videos' with her mother, a psychic medium. Okay, sure. Joanna invites me to drinks organised by Lisbon Digital Nomads – with 3,385 members at last count, it’s the second biggest digital nomad group in the world, or so cofounder Rosanna Lopes proudly tells me. She organises weekly meet-ups to give remote workers and travelling freelancers the chance to exchange ideas and make connections, or perhaps just speak to a human in full sentences for the first time in several days. And there’s plenty of demand; currently rated third in the world by NomadList, Lisbon is fast becoming a co-working capital. Second Home opened a plant-filled office here last year, and the ludicrously hip LX Factory quarter is home to massive business and tech hub Coworklisboa.

But while the large, buzzy crowd of twenty- and thirtysomethings I find standing round drinking beer in a leafy square would suggest that digital nomads are far from imaginary, everyone is also keen to assure me they’re not really one. "I’m a fake digital nomad," at least five people tell me in conspiratorial whispers. Maybe nobody actually thinks they’re a digital nomad? Perhaps there is one man, somewhere, with a goatee and a Fjallraven Kanken backpack, who called himself a 'digital nomad' one time and it just stuck.

Still, the digital faux-mads are doing a pretty good impression. I meet Chris, a chiselled-jawed photographer from Toronto, who is also scoping out the co-working scene in Colombia and Thailand. I meet Jesse, from Michigan, here for a coding internship. She’s had an idea for a social media food app that I’m pretty sure could make her the Zuckerberg of brunch. I meet Brian, an eco-activist and inventor, and get embroiled in a debate about single-use plastic. For what was supposed to be a solitary holiday, it’s turned into one of the most sociable I’ve ever had.

Later, as I extract myself from a group who have stumbled back to Outsite clutching pint glasses of sangria and are off to continue the party on the fourth floor, I have a small epiphany: being a digital nomad might just be the acceptable face of youth hostelling for the hustle generation. It’s like a gap year, but with invoices. A way to see the world without putting your career on hold. And it might not be for everyone, but it’s certainly nice work if you can get it.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Twitter Has Temporarily Suspended Alex Jones

A Week In Los Angeles, CA, On A Joint $1,500,000 Income

Money Diaries: A Vet In Shropshire On £27k

Celebrities followed by Ivanka Trump on Instagram are calling on her to speak out against the effects of her father's family separation policy by reposting an identical powerful post that begins "Dear Ivanka".

The stars include Alexa Chung and Poppy Delevingne, and US celebrities and public figures including Amy Schumer, Sophia Amoruso and Audrey Gelman, founder of women's co-working space The Wing. All have regrammed the identical emotive message as part of a campaign against child separation at the US-Mexico border, which also urges Trump to call for the resignation of Kirstjen Nielsen, the US secretary of homeland security.

The post, which begins "Dear Ivanka", refers to an interview she gave last Thursday, during which she described the policy as "a low point for me". Trump also admitted she was "vehemently against family separation" but added that immigration is "incredibly complex as a topic".

Celebrities have since been flooding Trump's account with "Dear Ivanka" posts, seizing on her comments and refocusing public attention on the controversial policy. "You follow me on social media," the post continues.

"You said family separation was a ‘low point’ for you. The low point is for the separated families. You spoke in past tense. This crisis is ongoing. As of now, 572 children have not been reunited. A child has died after separation."

I interrupt this broadcast to bring you... RG @sophiaamoruso

A post shared by Alexa (@alexachung) on Aug 7, 2018 at 2:57am PDT

"Approximately 400 parents have been deported without their children. There have been multiple claims of sexual and physical abuse in detention. There have been psychotropic drugs administered to children in detention without parental consent.

"These abuses have occurred on your father's watch and under the leadership of Secretary Nielsen." It then calls on her to act: "End these racist, inhumane and unconscionable abuses now! We demand you call for the resignation of Secretary Nielsen!"

The initiative was organised by film director Paola Mendoza, actor Sarah Sophie Flicker and journalist Alyssa Klein, none of whom Trump follows on Instagram, who are campaigning for an end to the reunification crisis. The trio reportedly reached out to everyone followed by the president's daughter on Instagram and only a handful have posted the message so far.

Dear @ivankatrump, You don’t follow me on Instagram but I feel compelled to tell you something. You said family separation was a "low point" for you. The low point is for the separated families. You spoke in past tense. This crisis is ongoing. As of now 572 children have not been reunited. A child has died after separation. Approximately 400 parents have been deported without their children. There have been multiple claims of sexual and physical abuse in detention. There have been psychotropic drugs administered to children in detention without parental consent. These abuses have occurred on your father’s watch and under the leadership of Secretary Nielsen. End these racist, inhumane and unconscionable abuses now! WE DEMAND YOU CALL FOR THE RESIGNATION OF SECRETARY NIELSEN! Go to link in bio to call for the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. #FamiliesBelongTogether #DearIvanka

A post shared by Paola Mendoza (@paolamendoza) on Aug 6, 2018 at 3:16pm PDT

The campaign mirrors celebrities' attempts to get Trump's attention via Instagram last year over the Dream Act for young immigrants, when the likes of Sophia Bush, Cara Delevingne, Olivia Wilde and Alexa Chung posted a similar "Dear Ivanka" post.

Dear Ivanka, It’s possible to be thankful and thoughtful. On a day meant for family and gratitude, think of all families. We implore you. #IStandWithDreamers #ALLfamilies #ThankfulAndThoughtful #Resisterhood #Thanksgiving

A post shared by Sophia Bush (@sophiabush) on Nov 23, 2017 at 2:13pm PST

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

I Want Children, But I'm Not Having Them For Environmental Reasons

These Ads About Periods Were Designed To Shock & They're Working

The Home Babies: Ireland's Dark Secret Brought To Light In BBC Podcast

A post shared by Isabella (@createdbybella) on Apr 11, 2018 at 3:15pm PDT

From rose quartz to amethyst, it's fair to say we've become pretty obsessed with gemstones and crystals lately. Some experts claim that they can help you find love, move past bad habits and even attract money, but it looks like they're also making their way into beauty circles, this time influencing hair trends.

We know what you're thinking: another one? This summer alone, we've seen shadow hair (strategically placing a darker-toned dye in the mid-lengths of hair to create a natural-looking shadow effect), midlights (combining light and dark tones for an overall seamless, sun-kissed finish) and oil slick hair (colouring multiple locks of hair with all manner of different shades, from pink to blue and green, in order to lend hair an oil slick effect). But gemlights is the new look on our radar and it's seriously cool.

A post shared by Artist | Salon Owner (@vanity__glam) on Aug 11, 2017 at 10:28pm PDT

Perfect for blondes who have grown tired of their usual balayage, the brand new hair colouring technique involves dyeing hair with shades inspired by gemstones and crystals like rose quartz (subtle pink), amethyst (lavender), angelite (sky blue) and green aventurine. The trick to nailing it is to dye just a pinch of hair strands at a time, to lend lengths a more blended, seamless effect, and to avoid any chunky wodges of colour.

A post shared by MissyEspelien (@missyespelien) on Jun 3, 2017 at 2:49pm PDT

So how do you wear it? A quick scroll through Instagram shows that gemlighted hair looks beautiful woven into a bun, boho twist or a loose braid as the colours intertwine, lending hair a multidimensional effect, but it's just as picture-perfect worn straight or fashioned into a beachy wave.

A post shared by Kristen Bias (@hb_hairsalon) on Jun 6, 2017 at 1:38pm PDT

For top-notch colour, we'd suggest paying an experienced colourist a visit, but if you're not willing to commit, there are heaps of temporary colours to try, like L'Oréal's Colourista Hair Makeup, which serves up cobalt blue, subtle pink and lilac, to name but a few hues. #Gemroots – concentrating the colour to the roots only – is also hot on Instagram if getting a whole head of gemlights doesn't take your fancy.

And remember, if you've bleached your hair to make the colours pop a little brighter, it's worth opting for an Olaplex or INNOluxe hair treatment to repair any broken bonds and to give your hair a healthy gloss effect.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Perfume Used To Be A Man's World — But These Women Are Turning The Tide

The Best Refillable Beauty Products That Save You Money (& Help The Planet)

"Glass Hair" Is The Latest Celebrity Trend To Try

There are many overt references to Donald Trump in Blackkklansman, Spike Lee's film about two cops, one Black and one Jewish, infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan in early 1970s Colorado.

In one scene, protagonist Ron Stallworth (John David Washington, of House Denzel) debates the plausibility of a white supremacist ever winning higher office. "America would never elect someone like David Duke," he says. Fast-forward towards the end of the film, in which a group of Klan members, led by Duke (then the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, who would run a failed campaign for President in 1988, and served in the Louisiana State House of Representatives from 1989 to 1992 — played here by Topher Grace) chanting a mantra of "America First."

Those winky, foreshadowing moments have creeped into so many (too many!) movies and TV shows since the November 2016 election. But a movie that casts Harry Belafonte as the survivor of a lynching, shows a cross burning, and weaves in real footage of white supremacists parading through Charlottesville, Virginia, doesn't need cheap Trump callbacks to stand as a disturbing reflection of the times we live in. If anything, those soundbites are the weakest links in what is one of Lee's strongest and most entertaining films.

That this will be based on true events is clear from the beginning, when we're warned in bold letters that "dis joint is based on some fucked up, fo real shit." It's an apt description for the wild story of how Ron and his partner, lapsed Jew Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), managed to go undercover inside the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan in 1970.

As the first Black cop in Colorado Springs, Ron has seen his fair share of casual racism. Deemed the Jackie Robinson of the department by his boss, he'll keeps his head down and tries to be the best at his job. No one will do him any favors.

With that in mind, Ron creates his own dream undercover assignment by calling up ( BlacKKKlansman is one of several films by Black creators to play with "white voice" this year) the local Klan leaders and expressing interest in joining the organization. Enthused at the idea of a new recruit, they set a face-to-face meeting to deliver informational material. Knowing full well he cannot show up to a Klan rally, Ron enlists Flip to pose as him. Thus, the dual Ron Stallworth is born, one who talks like Ron and looks like Flip.

For this to work, the two have to learn from each other. Lee juxtaposes the Black and Jewish experience in a fascinating and revealing way. Both are hated by the Klan, but while Flip has had the luxury of avoiding grappling with his Jewish identity until his otherness was explicitly brought up (a Klansman insists he take a lie detector test to prove he's not Jewish), Ron has never been able to pass — until now. This explains why Ron can't quite understand how Flip can treat this as any other job. Isn't he Jewish himself? How can he listen to the offensive slurs and stereotypes and not take it personally?

Ultimately though, Driver gives one of the most introspective and intimate portrayals of what it means to be a Jewish and American, including the struggle to pledge allegiance to both of those identities simultaneously, an issue that's all the more timely given the recent resurgence of anti-Semitism in this country.

Ron's undercover work extends into his personal life, and his relationship with Colorado State Black Student Union president Patrice Dumas ( Laura Harrier), whom he meets while on assignment to monitor a rally where Black Panther leader Kwame Ture has come to speak. A Black Power activist, she'd be horrified to learn about his day job. In fact, on the night they meet, she and her group get pulled over by some of Ron's white colleagues, who sexually harass her and threaten violence, one of the film's many parallels to current tensions. Still, their relationship is a welcome relief from the troubling events unfolding around them. Lee balances out the constant stream of abuse spit out by the Klan with joyous scenes celebrating Black identity, like one in which Ron and Patrice share a dance in a bar after her difficult encounter with the police.

That duality between white supremacists and Black activists prevails throughout the film. Lee cuts between meetings of the two groups, highlighting the former's vile intolerance and the latter's words of empowerment and pride. The way each side treats the women in their midst is also at odds: Patrice is shown to be independent and intelligent, in full control of her actions and her beliefs. The racists, on the other hand, use white women as props: victims to be protected from the uncontrollable lusts of Black and Jewish men; breeding machines who can ensure the genetic future of the white race; but mostly, they pick up the beer cans, and carry out the group's dirty work.

Washington excels at playing the straight man on the verge of a nervous breakdown, toggling between simmering rage and hilarious incredulity during his many phone calls with Duke, who lists the many ways he can tell the difference between a white man and a Black man by the way they enunciate. There's no desire to humanise Klan-members here. With the exception of Grace as Duke (a role the former That 70s Show star takes on with glee — the Topher Gracessance is real), they are all shown to be bumbling idiots wielding dangerous rhetoric (and often weapons), and made all the more terrifying as a result. They are both the antagonists and the comic relief. Lee uses humour to diffuse deeply upsetting situations, a technique that also serves to hammer home the idea that sometimes the only thing protecting Flip and Ron from violent harm is a well-placed barb.

The end result is a film that deftly melds wit and social commentary, compounded by a horrifying end crescendo that's impossible to look away from, and stays with you long after you've left the theatre.

Blackklansman is released in UK cinemas on 24th August 2018

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

The Steamiest, Sexiest Movies Of All Time

These Movies Will Hurt Your Brain (In A Good Way)

Steve Carrell & Timothée Chalamet's Father-Son Bond Sounds Brutally Realistic

Recently, the idea of being self-made has been called into question. A sudden interest in the concept, which is rarely used to challenge powerful men, made a conversation with Stella McCartney feel all the more auspicious.

After launching her eponymous fashion label in October 2001 under a 50/50 venture with luxury conglomerate Kering, the daughter of Beatles member Paul McCartney saw immediate success with her eco-friendly ready-to-wear, men's, and accessories lines. Despite doubters along the way, she's remained the industry's gold standard for how to run a high-fashion brand while abstaining from textiles that have traditionally defined luxury. A lifelong vegetarian, McCartney does not use fur, leather, or PVC in her collections. But as legacy fashion houses and e-tailers slowly adapt to the model she's put forth, the time feels ripe to ask if it's working. And with rival designers only considering the idea on a cause-by-case basis, how do we know?

In March, McCartney made headlines when news broke that she was ending her relationship with Kering. When asked to elaborate on her recent divestment from the company that owns Gucci, Saint Laurent, and Balenciaga, among others, she remained tight-lipped.

"Clearly, I’m not one to go at things conventionally and I think somebody has to mix it up a bit," she tells Refinery29, phoning from London. "I’m excited about the opportunities ahead. Who knows what’ll happen. But in order to not know what will happen, that was the choice I had to make. Otherwise, things would stay the same forever — which was great — but I’ve got to shake it up a bit." By clearly, one could assume she's referencing an instinctual irreverence that's served her well since she started her business 17 years ago: McCartney, too, may be her own version of "self-made," but she's also wilfully self-taught and, in her words, “refuses to compromise.”

McCartney credits her initial interest in conscious living to her upbringing. She was raised on an organic farm in East Sussex, England, where she says she "understood the elements": nature, seasons, animals. "It’s just how I’ve always looked at the Earth,” she explains. “I didn’t have the conventions or baggage that most other generations have had. My parents broke that rule of 'You have to eat meat. You’re gonna die if you don’t eat meat.'" Her vegetarian parents were outspoken animals rights activists; in the ‘80s and ‘90s, her mother Linda co-authored cookbooks with meatless recipes and developed her own line of vegetarian frozen meals. In 1999, PETA’s first Linda McCartney Memorial Award was presented by Paul McCartney to Pamela Anderson.

Following her childhood, McCartney moved to London to study at Central Saint Martins. After interning in haute couture at Christian Lacroix, and a stint at her father's tailor, Edward Sexton, on Savile Row, the fashion design student presented her graduate collection on model pals Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, and Yasmin Le Bon. They walked to “Stella May Day,” a B-side ballad written by her father. Her runway shows have since evolved beyond college — and name recognition (whether that be her own or those of her supermodel connections) — and she has, one accomplishment after another, proven herself a serious contemporary designer. Think: less what you’d expect from the daughter of one of the world’s most beloved and richest rock icons, and more something from someone “self-made.”

How the word "faux" attached to anything, be it leather or fur, could entice older generations of consumers who can actually afford $1,500 handbags is a mystery. But McCartney has prioritised what other luxury brands treat as an afterthought. Her question to the industry is as frank as it's always been: Why not just conduct oneself in a way that’s less harmful to the environment? "Then you don’t have to donate money to a cause — you can just be a part of solving the problem," she explains. "I’m always thinking, Oh, I should give X amount of money per month to X charity, but I know that what I’m doing has a bigger amount of contributing factors than a random check."

But as apolitical as Stella McCartney the brand is — in 17 years of business, she hasn’t made a single political statement via T-shirt (or used the F(eminist) word) — McCartney the person takes a humorous, maybe privileged, approach to making her voice heard. "I’ve steered away from too much political messaging (at least without a tinge of humour) in the collections because I don’t want to tell people off or make people feel bad about themselves and their choices," she says. Most recently, McCartney wrote a letter to Parliament backing the Labor Party's call to ban fur in the country. "We should have a bit of fun with it. I want to label things — like fur-free-fur or skin-free-skin — but I prefer not to ram it down people’s throats. It doesn’t really entice people; I think it has the opposite effect. Our choice is to tell our story and if people are interested then they know about it."

She continues: "I firmly believe that my job and what I’ve studied my whole life is to be a fashion designer — not some sort of environmentalist or political campaigner. If people come to this house and don’t have a clue of what the product is made out of and just want the product, well, that’s okay. I want people to come here because they desire the designs. At the end of the day, that’s when I’m doing my job successfully and in a stealth manner. That’s the most important thing. People don’t come here because I tell them to be vegetarian or to not kill animals or harm the planet. That’s not what you do in fashion. Maybe younger customers now do require that, but that’s only just happening."

Since the founding of her brand, McCartney’s commitment to sustainability has been anything but a secret, well-documented through a timeline imbued with action, not words, and her role in Kering's partnership with the Centre for Sustainable Fashion (a research centre based at the London College of Fashion). It’s one of many initiatives that speak to Kering’s stated belief that sustainable fashion is luxury fashion. "We’re trapped between old and more established houses that don’t genuinely have sustainability at their core (and might be doing it for marketing reasons or because they just have to be seen to do so to a certain extent) and younger, newer brands for which it’s just a way of life or how they conduct themselves in business full-stop — regardless of what their message is," she says.

According to its most recent filing, the brand's U.K. profits and worldwide licensing revenue saw a 42.5% increase from the previous year to approximately $9 million. But that doesn't take into account wholesale figures or profits from international markets. And, despite separating from Kering, McCartney remains committed to publishing the annual EP&L report, or environmental profit and loss account, which tracks the impact of the business and supply chain on the environment. Most recently, the company reported a loss of about 8.1 million euros, with 62% of that loss a result of sourcing expensive raw materials. McCartney was the first luxury brand to do so.

"It was just a different view and approach; I came into the world with a very different interpretation of the 'rules,'” she notes. “For me, there weren’t any; I just thought the way people saw things was so conventional; that people had to eat the same food yet they weren’t aware of the damage or the cruelty. I thought, Wow, isn’t it crazy that this is how we’ve shaped ourselves as humans on this planet? I didn’t agree with that."

It’s no surprise that McCartney was made to question things. Though she may not have grown up with any strict dietary concerns, she's certainly making new ones for customers who are keen on shopping as consciously as they eat. "Why do we have to use all of those chemicals to treat leather? Why do we have to cut down all those rainforests to eat meat? We don’t actually have to, do we? We’re living in 2018 — surely the technology and compassion can work to our advantage. Because the end goal is to have more time on this planet, isn’t it?" She adds: "It fascinates me that everyone doesn’t look at the world in that way, that people are still ridiculing vegans and are so uncomfortable with people who look at things differently. For me, it’s the way the world should be."

Her fall 2018 collection last February saw McCartney at her best. Yet again, she disguised sustainability as practical and contemporary womens- and menswear. In terms of outward-facing trends, she culled more ideas from her repertoire — like sneakers paired with ankle-length dresses and relaxed, pinstripe suiting — and introduced fresh ones, too, like trompe l’oeil effects that clashed happily with lingerie-style cover-ups. Maybe some of the layering was a bit cumbersome, but it’s all part of the bigger picture: style doesn’t always have to be so serious, but fashion — especially how it’s made — should be.

McCartney’s empire sees sustainability built from the ground up. Today, the company boasts 51 stores, from L.A. to Tokyo. Last month, she opened her largest flagship store in London on Old Bond Street, replacing her Bruton Street location that opened in 2002. It’s an asylum of architecture and endless sustainability: handmade papier-mâché, recycled from the office’s paper waste, line the walls; most of the furniture is made of recycled materials, including reclaimed timber as sculptural plinths, foam, and vintage hand selected furniture; mannequins are made from a bioplastic material composed of 72% sugarcane derivative (which enables for significant reduction of Co2 emissions) — all this and more reflect the brand’s philosophy to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Even her bestselling bag, the Falabella, is still made from vegetarian leather and recycled plastic bottles.

"I had people who I actually employed who told me, 'I don’t think you’re gonna have an accessories business unless you use leather,' and things like that; questioning the ability to do something different in the industry,” she recalls. “It’s a fragile industry, so it’s not like I don’t have to work hard every single day to have a successful business, regardless of how I approach it. Both in design and everything — it’s a massive puzzle. Regardless of whether or not I have a sustainable house, that doesn’t mean I’m exempt from the problems every other fashion house has, too."

So, back to that idea of being self-made. It’s not for nothing that McCartney’s determination to expand and promote a sustainable brand in the face of skeptics and naysayers has gotten her so far. To thrive in an industry that doesn’t set anyone up for success, let alone supports the idea that fashion should be conscious, is as political as McCartney is going to get — and shouldn’t that count for something?

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Why You Should Think Twice About Buying That Supreme Newspaper

This Polly Pocket Fashion Collaboration Is Pure '90s Nostalgia

Why Dior's New Jewellery Designer Is The One To Watch

It's no secret that the chronically underfunded NHS is in the midst of a mental health crisis, with demand far outstripping supply. Vulnerable people in need are facing waits of up to four months for talking therapies, being forced to travel long distances for treatment or even turned away altogether, because of a lack of funding.

Mental health services still aren't receiving the money they need, despite ministers promising 'parity of esteem' between mental and physical health five years ago. So it's no wonder that a Twitter thread exploring the true extent of the crisis is gaining traction online, with people sharing their tales of receiving insufficient support for their mental health issues.

It all started on Tuesday when journalist Emily Reynolds shared her experience of trying to get urgent help at A&E for her mental health. After a six-hour wait, she said she left with nothing more than a printout entitled "Are you feeling the strain?" to show for it.

everyone should read the stories in the replies to this tweet

— Emily Reynolds (@rey_z) August 7, 2018

The tweet, which has garnered almost 2,000 retweets and more than 11,500 likes at the time of writing, kickstarted a tsunami of people sharing their own stories of receiving inadequate mental health support.

Fellow journalist Hannah Jane Parkinson, who has written powerfully of her own experiences with mental health for the Guardian, said she was once effectively turned away from a GP practice despite being suicidal.

I liked when I went into my GP practice as a last resort, crying hysterically, like "Please I need to see someone, I'm like, suicidal and might basically head to a train station now", and the receptionist said he would "pass the message on". Legend.

— Hannah Jane Parkinson (@ladyhaja) August 7, 2018

Novelist and musician Benjamin G. Wilson recalled his dissatisfaction at being offered "art therapy" at a time when he was having suicidal thoughts.

A full two years between me saying 'I don't know if I'm going to kill myself' and them offering me group finger painting as a remedy.

Then I moved house and no one's bothered to check in since.

— Benjamin G. Wilson (@BenWritesFilth) August 7, 2018

'Art therapy', then they showed me the poster paints.

I was like 'I am a knitwear designer and author, all I fucking do is art, and it's not helping.'

They said 'It might help you get in touch with your feelings'.

Me, weeping: Do I seem to need more contact with them?

— Benjamin G. Wilson (@BenWritesFilth) August 7, 2018

It was the interview where I told them 'maybe a lot of the problem is that I've been at imminent risk of homelessness for most of my adult life, and I can't always afford food'.

That, it turns out, was 'catastrophising'. I got a CBT print out with clip art cats. I'm cured now.

— Benjamin G. Wilson (@BenWritesFilth) August 7, 2018

One young woman recalled seeking help for an eating disorder at A&E and being told to "join the gym", "think positively" and "try not to kill [herself]". Some said they were advised to get a pet to help them deal with their mental health issues; one woman recalled being told to get a goldfish after her second suicide attempt (because she was allergic to fur).

Others recalled being "prescribed" works of literature. One woman said she was recommended the Edward Albee play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf'? while Reynolds herself revealed she was recommended Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, which chronicles his experiences at Auschwitz during World War II.

Many people reported being told by professionals that they didn't "look like" they had mental health issues. One young woman said a psychiatrist told her she was "too pretty" to have depression and anxiety, and suggested she take some self-confidence books out of the library.

Tales of mental health professionals' unsympathetic and sometimes clueless responses also emerged. One woman who had lost four stone in a few months because she "hated [herself]" and had contemplated suicide multiple times was told, "Life’s how you view it, it’s like a glass half empty or a glass half full," and sent away.

Another woman was made to wait 24 hours after being admitted to A&E for a suicide attempt, only to be seen by a psychiatrist for 30 minutes and sent away with a list of telephone numbers to call in a mental health crisis and no referral to a psychiatric unit, despite her assurances that she was still at risk.

In response to Reynolds' original tweet, many people also criticised modern approaches to mental health issues for placing the onus on individual sufferers and failing to acknowledge the relationship between mental health and external pressures, like the housing crisis and the rising cost of living.

Read the thread in full for a deeper insight into the UK's mental health crisis.

If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, please get help. Call Mind on 0300 123 3393 or text 86463.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

I Want Children, But I'm Not Having Them For Environmental Reasons

These Ads About Periods Were Designed To Shock & They're Working

The Home Babies: Ireland's Dark Secret Brought To Light In BBC Podcast

My partner and I are first time homebuyers. Our new home is great but it needs some... curb appeal. Having never hired a contractor before, I scheduled four of them back-to-back to get estimates for a big project we had been saving for. As the first contractor finished up his notes in his truck and the second contractor pulled up, my neighbour came out of his house. "I don't mean to be noisy, but if you're getting estimates, you should have a guy around so they don't take advantage and charge you more. Do you have a brother or husband or father who could come by just for the day?" My partner is a woman and I'm an only child; my dad works, and probably wouldn't appreciate a mid-day call to be around so I'm not overcharged.

To his credit, our neighbour was trying to be supportive. But ever since then, I began to wonder: Why does a woman need a man, literally any man, around in order to avoid being taken advantage of when it comes to money?

It's partly tradition: Women have spent more time as dependents than they have as individuals. It wasn't until 1974 that our mom's could finally get a credit card or a loan alone (as in, without their dad or husband's signature). Back then, women literally needed men to validate us since we were seen as a liabilities, even when the money was our own. Women today are still inundated with messages that we’re bad with money, that we’re irresponsible and suckers who splurge. Why?

Data shows that spending problems affect men and women at about the same rate yet, we keep telling women they're bad with money. And when someone reiterates something over and over, you begin to believe it. It's a self fulfilling prophecy: A recent study found that telling women they're bad with money decreases our cognitive function. And the personal finance industry certainly isn't helping.

"Telling women they're bad with money is a great way to hide the obvious: Women earn less than men at all points during their career," said journalist Helaine Olen. Her book Pound Foolish changed how I think about the personal finance industry.

As Olen explains, "personal finance was sold to many people as a way around wealth inequality. A way to blame people. So it wasn’t that your salary was falling behind, it was that you weren’t saving enough to keep up.” Talking to Helaine made me realise that we are trying to solve for big, institutional problems with our very small, personal paycheques. With the blame for shrinking paycheques being put on us, we turn to personal finance for help.

Personal finance was sold to many people as a way around wealth inequality.

"Everybody gets bad personal finance advice, it is not just women. The difference is that women blame themselves for it. We live longer, we earn less, we have more responsibilities with that money, yet it is impossible — almost impossible — to save that money because you are starting with less. So instead of really addressing all of this it is easier to say 'Oh women! They just go shopping all the time!'"

That could explain why we have so much guilt and confusion around money. It’s not that women are incapable of making great financial choices, it’s that the disconnect that causes the kind of frustration that keep many women from engaging in their financial lives all together.

For most of history, women did not have control over their money. It's only within the last very decades that we've begun to take ownership of our paycheques and bank accounts. Now that we have that agency, we can start to rewrite the narrative. But where do we start?

Check out the video above for my full interview with Olen and my conversation with Refinery29's Money Diaries mastermind, Lindsey Stanberry. For more thought provoking conversations, subscribe to Strong Opinions Loosely Held.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

A Week In Los Angeles, CA, On A Joint $1,500,000 Income

Money Diaries: A Vet In Shropshire On £27k

What Does Seeing Asians As “Crazy Rich” Achieve?