Latest Stories from Flo
Can sustainable fashion exist at the Met?
The 2022 Met Ball was a show of sustainable fashion, with guests wearing an array of up-cycled materials, vintage looks, and small-name designers. But with all the stigma burgeoning around the event, has the Met established itself as a tone-deaf distraction from fashion’s biggest sins? In-case you missed it, the 2022 Met Gala took place last week, returning to its annual spot on the first Monday in May since Covid-19...
Opinion – the concept of ‘clean’ beauty is a myth
The ‘clean beauty’ industry has boomed in the past few years, and continues to rise as consumers prioritise ‘non-toxic’ and ‘chemical-free’ formulas. But if our bodies are composed of chemicals, why do we avoid them in our skincare? Nowadays, the words ‘clean’ and ‘beauty’ seem entirely synonymous with one another. TikTok has seen the rise of the ‘clean girl’ trend, whose proprietors are slicking back their hair, combing their brows,...
Opinion – Britney’s pregnancy marks happy end to tragic story
Spears’ pregnancy announcement was welcome news. It also marked the end of her 13-year-long conservatorship, which forbid her from having more children. Sadly, Britney’s story of fertility control is not uncommon. When the ‘Free Britney’ movement emerged with a vengeance in 2019, many were quick to slander members as conspiracy theorists. Britney Spears’ avid fans were convinced the singer was being placed under a legal conservatorship against her will, an arrangement...
Scientists make woman’s skin cells act thirty years younger
A breakthrough in medicine, skin-care, and anti-ageing research could be on the horizon: 53-year-old woman’s skin cells have been altered to look and behave like those of a 23-year-old. Scientists in Cambridge have stunned the medical community by altering the skin cells of a 53-year-old woman to the equivalent of someone almost half her age. Their strategy was developed from the cloning technique used to create Dolly the sheep...
What’s it like to live with synesthesia?
Do you associate certain colours with numbers and letters, or see time as a colourful shape? You might have synesthesia – one of the most weird and wonderful neurological conditions. When I was in my late teens, I asked my mother how she ‘saw a year’. In hindsight, this sounds rather bizarre, but at the time I was convinced I was asking a straightforward question. My mother’s bemused expression answered it...
Tate galleries cut ties with Russian investors
After weeks of public pushback, all Tate galleries are cutting ties with billionaire Russian investors amid the war in Ukraine. Tate Group, the institution which operates Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, and Tate St Ives, has severed ties with Russian investors Viktor Vekselberg and Petr Aven. The two billionaires had invested in the Tate galleries to earn prestigious membership titles for the Tate Foundation, a charitable organisation that aims...
Australia facing some of the most devastating floods in its history
Over the past weeks, freak rain storms have brought devastating floods to Australia. Spreading from Queensland to NSW, and now Sydney, residents have been urged to flee their homes as a civilian death count rises. A record-breaking ‘rain bomb’ has destroyed entire communities across Australia’s Eastern coast. Torrential rainfall has triggered flash flooding powerful enough to wipe out houses and business, displacing thousands across Queensland, New South Wales, and...
How is the fashion industry responding to war in Ukraine?
Responses from big fashion labels like Nike and YNAP highlight the strange co-existence of fashion and war in the modern age of digital media. Many would say the contents of our social media timelines has become the reflection par excellence of the global situation. If this is true, then the past week has been a particularly dumbfounding composition; fashion week runways sliced between European war updates, detailed commentary on the state...
Opinion – ‘Pam & Tommy’ helps and hinders female exploitation
The new biopic – shunned by its titular star Pamela Anderson – has raised the question: at what point should we stop reclaiming someone’s experience for entertainment?
Lingering beneath its comedic overtone, Hulu’s new series ‘Pam & Tommy’ unpicks an ominous 90s mega-scandal: the theft and illegal distribution of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s honeymoon sex tape.
Despite chronicling the gross-exploitation of Anderson that followed, the Baywatch star has revealed the
What really happens when we throw our clothes away?
Chile’s Atacama Desert, one of the world’s largest ‘fashion graveyards’, is a stark reminder of where our clothing really ends up. We’re often told that our rubbish doesn’t just ‘disappear’. From an early age, I remember my mum scolding me for throwing litter on the floor, or wasting my food; ‘The rubbish fairy doesn’t just magic everything away!’. As the climate crisis becomes more global concern than radical political theory, this narrative...
