LONDON
Hier vind je zowel mijn 'little magazine', die geïnspireerd is op mijn mode-icoon Oma en diende als toelatingsproef, als drie van mijn artikelen die ik tijdens mijn Londen avontuur heb geschreven. Mijn 'little magazine' is een collage, iets waar ik in mijn vrije tijd graag aan pruts. Leesbaar is iets anders maar wacht tot je het in het echt ziet!
Koptekst 6
The (b)lack of diversity in the ballet world
Ballet is familiar territory for me. My niece has been dancing in the Royal Swedish Ballet for years. I attended several ballet performances, all different. But they had one thing in common: the dancers were white. That was something that Marianna Tsembenhoi heard many times in her home country, Ukraine. “They said things like, ‘You wouldn’t be able to accomplish your career to your maximum extent because of your skin colour’ or ‘When you're in the corps de ballet [a big group of dancers doing the same thing], you will stand out but in a bad way because you're black.”
But 20-year-old, mixed-race Marianna didn’t let that get in her way: “They kind of gave me the motivation to prove these people wrong and set the target to bring diversity into this art form.” Now, she dances at the Royal Opera in London while doing the Aub Jebsen Young Dancers Programme. Currently, seven — 4 men and 3 women — of the 97 dancers in London are black. The global number of black ballet dancers is only 5.4%. And that small percentage of people come up against other barriers: The colour of points, for example. It is only after 200 years that there are other colours of points than pink. In 2018 the large London-based company Freed produced points in several different shades. The Royal Opera works together with Freed but that can’t be said of other, smaller companies. We can conclude that the Royal Opera London is one of the world’s most progressive companies.
It is in London where Marianna found her role model, Francesca Hayward: “I remember watching a documentary about her, a principal dancer in the Royal Ballet. She was prepping herself for her debut as the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker. And I just remember watching her and thinking she's so beautiful. I want to be just like her!”
Marianna is on her way to becoming a role model herself — though she won’t admit it — not only for black children who love ballet but also for the people who can’t afford this expensive vocation. “I was raised by a single mother, and I'm the third child in the family. She had five different jobs to make sure we could do the things we loved. My teacher was helping financially as well, because, for every variation, you need a different tutu and so on.” Besides the support of her family and teacher, she participated in multiple competitions to secure her future: “The biggest one for me was the Youth America Grand Prix in Paris. I was there for the semi-finals, where I achieved first place. Then I went to New York and ended up in the top 12. This is the moment when I got a scholarship and my London adventure started.”
I ask her if the existence of competitions is the solution to more diversity in the ballet world. She says, “Each company has its school. That’s the place where people of colour should get access to more easily. But only for their talents!” She continues, “I don’t want more diversity because they ‘have to’. The dance sector should keep their standards high and choose dancers white or black because of their performances, not their skin colour.”
As I’m talking to her, I realise how thin the line is between a sector that wants to be more diverse and a sector that ‘needs’ to be more diverse because they feel the social pressure. I wonder if diversity is something you could ever get enough of. Marianna believes that there will be enough diversity in the world if the counting stops: “They always say, ‘There are 35 white people and only 6 black people’ or ‘She is the only white one’. But if the moment comes when the amount of black vs white people doesn’t matter anymore and the answer to the counting is ‘so what?’ then this article wouldn’t need to be written anymore.” But for now, there is still a lot of work to do.
So, what’s next for Marianna? She wouldn’t demonstrate for more diversity, but does it in her way. By doing the thing she loves most: dancing. “I’m now practicing for the performance ‘Giselle’. A difficult ballet piece but I’m very excited!” In a week, these jeans, and sweaters - her go-to outfit - will change into a tutu. And her white sneakers will give way to pink & brown points, pink for Act One and brown for Act Two! Because so what, right?
Gepubliceerd in het studente magazine van de tweedejaars mode studenten.
HALLOWEEN MIGHT BE LONG GONE BUT SKELETONS HAVEN’T LEFT THE CATWALK FOR SS22
If you haven’t seen the outfits on the red carpet of the Ballon D’Or ceremony in Paris late November, then you have probably seen it on social media. The fashion world was captivated by Zendaya wearing a Roberto Cavalli golden skeleton dress from the year 2000. Twenty-one years later, is the skeleton motif making a comeback?
Unlike Phillipe Plein, the fashion industry is going for a more subtle approach for SS22, in their collections. Last season of Raf Simons, he scored with his skeleton bracelets and this spring they’re back. The narrow bracelet with the look of a skeleton hand is placed around the upper or lower arm, which accentuates the oversized clothes of his collection. Now, Matthew M. Williams, creative director of Givenchy, has found that his collection wasn’t complete without some bright skeleton rings. The colourful rings have the logo of Givenchy as a facial feature. And don’t forget Dior’s Kim Jones, who included some skeletons and skulls on Dior bags and brogues on the runway.
But the use of skeletons wasn’t confined to accessories. It was also in the collection of Daniel Roseberry, better known as the designer for Schiaparelli. He went back in time — specifically 1938 — with his design of a white dress with a three-dimensional ribcage. Elsa Schiaparelli created the iconic black skeleton dress in collaboration with Salvador Dali, who inspired her with a note: “I like this idea of ‘bones on the outside’ enormously…” Can we assume that Dali was the genius who first mixed skeletons and fashion?
Purple Hill is a small London-based brand of designer Harry Gamlin, which also uses three-dimensional bones to spice up its clothes. They make jackets and trousers from recycled tapestry and add bones in the form of a skeleton on the back. Harry Gamlin says: “I always had something with skeletons. I don’t know where it started, and I don’t know where it will end.” Purple Hill’s trump card is that the bones are removable using button magnets, making the clothes multifunctional. You can put them on in the morning to go grocery shopping and you can take them off in the evening after a fashion event.
Stylists have come under the Purple Hill influence. Olivia Gabaree — stylist for i.a. The Jonas Brothers — bought a pair of skeleton trousers for the singer Usher. “I think the Purple Hill trousers are fire. I love that they are made to order, so very much detail and customisation go into each piece. I was able to pick from a selection of tapestry which made the design process more personal. And let’s not forget the design, the three-dimensional skeleton is really dope!” So, it is only a matter of time before the world goes into creepy overdrive.
Gepubliceerd in het studente magazine van de tweedejaars mode studenten.
-
I'm not a grandparent.
-
Why?
-
First, you are a child, then a parent and eventually you are a grandparent. That’s how it works, right? But what if your children don’t want or can’t have kids? That’s a choice in life that is out of your hands. Romy Deridder talks about ‘never becoming a grandparent’ and all the feelings (even taboo) that go with it.
My grandmother adopted my father. She always loved kids and when she heard the news that she couldn’t have a child of her own, she didn’t hesitate to find an alternative. When I mentioned to her – during a casual granddaughter-to-grandmother conversation – that I’m not sure if I want children, she was very upset. She asked me: “What about your father? Then he will never be a grandparent?” I had never thought about it that way. That a decision that I would make in my life would also have a big influence on the life of my parents. Remaining childless is a Europe-wide phenomenon, which keeps on increasing. The UK has one of the highest levels of childlessness (not making a distinction between voluntary and non-voluntary childlessness). Besides this trend, women in the UK also delay their childbearing. Official figures show that half of them are still childless at the age of 30. As a result, some parents become grandparents when they are grey-haired.
​
Heidi Bell (pseudonym) is a 73-year-old woman. Because she has three children, she thought that one day she would be a grandmother for sure. But now that her children are 43, 47, and 54-years-old her hopes are getting lower each year. She hates it when people ask her if she has grandchildren already. “I think people need to be made aware of how insensitive it is to think that becoming a grandparent is a given thing. Would they ask a childless couple (who may have been trying unsuccessfully to have a baby) 'No child yet'?” She couldn’t talk to anyone about it. Therefore, she joined a very private grieving no grandchildren group on Facebook. “I am so grateful for the group. I have found out that I am not alone with all these 'not so nice' thoughts. Now, I know that what I think about not being a grandparent is very common, it does help to vent my sadness.” The ‘not so nice’ thoughts refer to blame, although she hates to admit that. “I think it is very selfish of me to blame my children for not settling down, because I know my children don't owe me anything and definitely not a grandchild. They shouldn’t have to think about what their parents want.” Even though Bell gets a lot of support through this Facebook group, child psychologist, Katie Hinds, doesn’t think it’s necessarily the best environment if you are struggling with these feelings. “I think that a lot of Facebook groups try to seek positive affirmation. The group members will give you a reason to feel that way (in this case, grief). It will not give the person the support to think or feel differently about not being a grandparent. Sometimes it can even create a detachment from the general population.”
But the fact that there is a Facebook group filled with people who are struggling about not having grandchildren, means there is a taboo. Something which people don’t talk about. And if you think about it, besides the many grandparenting books, have you ever seen a book about ‘not being a grandparent’?
Eleo Gordon is the writer of one of those grandparenting books. Together with Tony Lacey, she wrote The Really Useful Grandparents' Book in 2008. At that time, Gordon wasn’t a grandmother herself, but Lacey had a granddaughter. Now, we are thirteen years later, and for seven years there was a chance that Gordon could never use the book for herself. “Yes, I wasn’t sure I would become a grandparent. It took my daughter four rounds of IVF before she got pregnant. It was almost miraculous!” During these years of trying, Gordon didn’t really talk about it all. “My husband died before the whole situation came up and my friends never asked me if there was a baby on the way. But if they had asked me, I would probably have just told the truth: ‘They haven’t had any luck’. I would never break down in tears.”
One thing that Bell and Gordon have in common, is that they are both hopeful for the future, but each in their own way. With Bell’s 43-year-old son, she is still hoping to receive the good news, one day. “I visualise them telling me that I am going to be a grandma! My heart soars just thinking about it.” And with the little miracle that happened to the daughter of Gordon, she is hopeful for everybody else who is struggling with not being a grandparent. “If I told my parents that I didn’t want children, I think they would never have spoken to me again! (Laughed) But that was another generation. The world is more understanding than before!”
With Eleo Gordon’s book for grandparents and with her seven years of doubt if she would be a grandparent, she might have been the perfect candidate to write the first ‘Not being a Grandparent’ book. “Oh no, I don’t think I would ever do that… (gets inspired) but a good title would be: ‘I’m not a grandparent. Why?’”