At Indra Gallery, waiting for Claudia Wang ’s SS26/AW26 LFW presentation to begin, the atmosphere already feels faintly surreal. Three stacks of silk pillows sit deliberately against the concrete-grey flooring — soft interruptions in an otherwise austere gallery space. Their presence feels intentional rather than decorative, as though the audience has stepped into a staged dream rather than a traditional runway venue. The crowd — largely young, distinctly Gen Z — moves with u

Recent Royal College of Art  graduate Lavin Karakoc made her first mark on London Fashion Week this February with her debut AW26 show at the Hellenic Centre . Shepherded into what could easily have doubled as a local meat raffle or a Sadie Hawkins dance circa 1958, I joined the long queue of patrons and found myself transported into a realm of cinematic elegance teetering knowingly on the edge of Parisienne cliché. The Hellenic Centre becomes the unlikely home of a young de

Thank God for the internet — from where else would I derive beauty in my life? Certainly I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my pirated Chinese harem TV dramas. However, aside from the internet, the only remaining ever spring of beauty is fashion — and, having just run the gamut of London Fashion Week yet again, I am pleased to report beauty does still remain in our city. Of the many shows attended, some of which will or have appeared in this magazine, Mithridate's AW26 runway dem

At the RA, Rose Wylie reframes figuration through scale and text. Tanya Mascarenhas unpacks the 90-work exhibition. Rose Wylie’s  exhibition The Picture Comes First   at the Royal Academy of Arts  brings together an electric mix of 90 artworks. While Marina Abramović’s 2023 exhibition was widely framed as a historic first, the RA’s Main Galleries were first given over to a solo female artist in 1985, when Elizabeth Frink exhibited there. Wylie’s exhibition marks a differen

After fielding thirsty DMs and (tragically) paying retail, theatre critic Reda Belhadfa takes her seat at the Trafalgar Theatre for Cole Escola 's Oh, Mary!  — a madcap Mary Todd Lincoln biopic that’s equal parts camp, cabaret, and a mid-Atlantic meltdown worthy of the First Lady herself. Solicitous and perverted messages notwithstanding, going by my DMs, this has been the most hotly anticipated play for me to review. Now, normally, I would request (see: beg, additionally: s

What can “home” mean in contemporary art once the domestic space stops being a stable site of comfort? Curated by Arina Baburskova , My Home Is…  at Roha Gallery , Lyu Chirkova stages the familiar vocabulary of toys, furniture, and household surfaces as materially and psychologically unstable in an attempt to answer the question of what "home" really means. Installation view courtesy of Arina Baburskova There is a particular tension running through Lyu Chirkova 's My Home I

Valentine’s Day, a cinema full of spinsters, and a two-hour lesson in meandering, self-important, tone-deaf excess: critic Reda Belhadfa reviews Wuthering Heights  and wonders if St Valentine’s stoning might be preferable to Emerald Fennell ’s latest. Courtesy of Warner Bros/YouTube I am not entirely certain that we aren’t in purgatory. Certainly, with headlines of late, one might be forgiven for believing we are being divinely punished for our sins. And, after having sat th

" Don’t believe the hype, here’s another side of the story, ” says artist and writer Philippa Found on Valentine's Day. Across London, her oversized confessions - “ half-way between shock and super-relatable ” - about love, regret and longing interrupt the holiday's usual romance narrative to remind passersbys that love is rarely neat. Photography courtesy of The Books It's Valentine's Day. I'm slightly hungover, having drunk a little too much red at a gallery dinner last ni

As a Brit, it’s a rare pleasure to go to an art fair abroad and not come back feeling slightly embarrassed. Vol 12 . of Feria Material , however, is one such instance: despite exhibiting over 70 galleries this year, London's six booths absolutely held their own, and with unusual discipline to boot. Victoria Comstock-Kershaw reports from Mexico City. BROOKE BENINGTON Super sexy and super dichotomous: the booth props up Juno Calypso ’s sensual, boudoire-esque photography next

Critic Reda Belhadfa is not in the habit of giving easy wins. Here, she reflects on why Josh Gordon's Go Feral Like the Big Dogs at the Union Theatre earned one anyway for its unsparing portrait of work, loneliness, and moral compromise in contemporary London. Have mercy on me, people of Rome! Gladiatorial blood sport that theatre review may well be, every once in a while we have to mercifully tuck in our thumbs and give a positive review. Yes, there shall be no blood toda

Can celebrity and communist praxis co-exist, or is specious to to use fame as a function of class struggle? Ruby Mitchell takes a look the rhinestoned agitprop of Elleanna Chapman at Good Eye Project's group show at the Saatchi . Elleanna Chapman, Comrade Beyonce, 2025 There’s a persistent lie in contemporary art that political commitment should be visually restrained, morally severe, and suspicious of pleasure. Elleanna Chapman ’s practice exists in direct opposition t